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I've argued elsewhere that in order to address the extinction threats now bearing down upon us, humankind must form a global government constitutionally bound to honor a scientific understanding of reality, and employ science and technology on merit to balance human welfare and environmental sustainability.

In the last few days Abu Dhabi has announced $15bn for hydrogen research and Europe has announced a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. These may seem like hopeful signs, and I don't want to seem ungrateful, but don't be fooled.

Such signs tempt one to hope that other regions will match or even surpass the EU effort - and that hydrogen research in Abu Dhabi makes links with, and encourages like-minded efforts around the world. Despite our best and most reasonable hopes however, Abu Dhabi will seek to protect oil revenues and the commercial value of any research. Similarly, and by the same logic, Europe's reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will provide a competitive advantage, and therefore an incentive to other regions to continue to pollute.

Science doesn't merely provide the tools, but provides us with the rules for their use - the right thing for the right reasons. A sustainable energy basis for human civilization cannot be provided by nation states acting in their capitalist interest - for it is too large an undertaking to be written off, but can be provided by a global government constitutionally bound to honor a scientific understanding of reality, employing science and technology on merit.

Renewable energy is perfect for the production of hydrogen. Liquefied hydrogen has 2.5 times the calorific value of petroleum - and when burnt (oxidized) turns back into (H2O) water. Using renewable energy to produce hydrogen, and then burning hydrogen in a conventional power plant the necessary base load can be generated. Just providing mains electricity from this source will massively reduce greenhouse gas emissions - thereby addressing climate change, leaving further scope to replace mains gas and transportation fuel as capacity comes on-line, as necessary, and/or as fossil fuels are depleted.

In short then, but for the system of nation states and capitalism, humankind might live well into the foreseeable future, rather than, quite predictably nuking each other into non-existence in 40 or 50 years when the lights go out. These false, divisive and unjust ideas must be put aside and humankind cooperate in discovering and applying the answers provided by science, but I see no hopeful signs of ideological revision.

Rather than being cheered by these laudable efforts therefore, I am disheartened, for they obscure the real problem - mans backward approach to scientific truth. It's time to accept an evolutionary conception of ourselves, and that we are a single species occupying a single planetary environment - and on that basis do what's necessary to survive, for very soon it will be too late.

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@iconoclast,

I think there is a lot more to accomplish than fuel and energy and pollution issues if there really were a central governing body in the world. The horrible asymmetries of wealth and poverty in this world speak louder to me, and I feel like a centralized constitution would still marginalize Africa.

That said, the people who have most at stake in the energy industry are those with the most money. If Exxon-Mobil and BP and Shell, etc, aren't pouring billions of dollars into renewable energy research, then they're morons. They know better than anyone what the world's oil supply is like, and how vulnerable it is to war and unrest. So they probably want to be the one that floats out on top if there is an energy crisis. I'd hope that the oil and automotive industries get incentivized to do this research, because they have a lot more resources at hand than do universities for this kind of undertaking.

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@Aedes,

Do we really want oil companies to come out ahead? Their reputation isn't exactly the best (recall Standard Oil). Perhaps the move away from fossil fuels is an opprotunity to cut out these giant corporations.

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@iconoclast,

It's not about the oil companies per se -- it's about who has the financial power, infrastructure, and sheer need to make it happen. Only the oil companies have all of the above. If the end result is they're doing good for the world, then we'll live with their past sins.

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@Aedes,

My concern is not past sins, but future sins. Despite their ideal position for developing better technology, their track record shows that they will use this much to their advantage, with little regard for anything other than profit and power.

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@iconoclast,

Perhaps, but if not them it will be whoever else mass markets the new technology.

Past sins are not, however, necessarily tied to future sins. If so, then we'd have to look pretty closely at Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Messerschmidt, Mitsubishi, and Chase Bank for their own various sins during WWII.

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@Aedes,

So, technological progress requires that someone or group exploit the rest of the world? And if so, how is this progress?

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@iconoclast,

Well, let's set aside the words progress and exploit here. Let's use the most practical possible language.

We need a new technology that is more abundant, less expensive, and less polluting. This technology, even if it's developed in a sort of pure research domain like at a university, will need massive amounts of funding, infrastructure, and global reach for it to be deployed in a way that displaces petroleum-based technology. This is outside the hands of anyone other than governments and major corporations. Whether it's progress or not is something we can only hope. People who get exploited in this kind of endeavor are usually the poor people of the world who provide cheap natural resources for pennies an hour and with no labor protection -- but do we know that that will be the case when we don't even know what technology we're talking about? Exxon-Mobil and Shell and BP and Hess and all the rest have done and continue to do a tremendous amount of harm, especially in Africa; but this comes out of their sheer opportunism and indifference. Even if they are still indifferent opportunists in the future, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be bowling people over in practice.

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@Aedes,

$15 billion for hydrogen research was the best Abu Dhabi could do, and 20% was the best Europe could realistically aspire to. Even then, within the bounds of a capitalist rationale it's going to be very difficult to achieve. This is the point of accepting science and forming a global government to apply technology on the basis of merit - otherwise, allowing capitalism to dictate the application of technology it won't happen.
Aedes, you talk about the horrible asymetries of wealth, but how can these be addressed without first establishing a sustainable non-polluting energy basis? If 5 billion new consumers add thier unsustainabvle demands to ours the world will go up in a ball of flames from climate change. As the rest of your arguments follow in the course of this misunderstanding i'll just say this: we need no new technologies. we have the technologies availablke to achieve a sustainabale and pollution free energy basis and they've been available for since 1890 when Professor Paul La Cour used wind generated electricity to electrolze a solution of sodium hydroxide to produce a hydrogen/oxygen gas he used to heat and light the high school at Askov in Denmark where he worked.
The technology has not been applied because we do not value truth, but value our fond illusions: religion, nation, capitalism, and allow our behaviours to be bound by these ideas. Because they are NOT TRUE to reality, the energy crisis and climate occur as externalities of action in the course of these ideas. Forget big corporations and little governments - the future is global,collective and valid - anyhow, goto go, regards, iconoclast.

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@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

Aedes, you talk about the horrible asymetries of wealth, but how can these be addressed without first establishing a sustainable non-polluting energy basis?

Because energy availability is nearly irrelevant to this. Deal with the asymmetries in infant, child, and maternal mortality, child nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation first. The strongest predictor of population growth is child mortality. Reduce child mortality and population growth slows. This has been shown again and again without fail. The people I'm referring to are so poor that their energy demands are negligible anyway compared with the energy demands per capita in developed countries. And their little energy demands, incidentally, are met in many cases by cutting down trees and burning the wood, which is not only polluting but it leads to desertification, less arable land, and pulmonary diseases from smoke exposure (remember that pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children in developing countries according to the WHO).

Quote:

If 5 billion new consumers add thier unsustainabvle demands to ours the world will go up in a ball of flames from climate change.

Except that the bulk of those new 5 billion people will be born into extreme poverty and their demands will pale in comparison to people in developed nations. The US has 4% of the world's population and consumes 25% of its annual natural resource production. The population of all Africa is around 2.5x that of the US and overall uses far fewer resources, not just per capita but overall.

You're right that the world's resources can't sustain 5 billion new people who live like Americans. But for other reasons the world can't sustain 5 billion people who live like Somalis and Sudanese and Angolans. Part of the reason is that as resource demands increase there will be more of an attempt by developed countries to get resources from poor countries. Guess what, this is already happening in central and western Africa, which have among the largest undeveloped oil reserves in the world. Juxtapose a huge, impoverished population with rich, foreign corporations, and you get Nigeria. The new Chad-Cameroon pipeline goes through some of the poorest areas on earth, and it's only because of World Bank threats that the oil industry has been impelled to devote most of their revenues to develop those areas (which is the capacity in which I've been involved in this, on a consulting team for malaria control in these areas). But our resources are going to be more and more at the mercy of stability in desperately impoverished places, at the mercy of diseases like HIV, malaria, and TB that impair the productivity of indigenous workers, and the increased global commerce will expose us to a number of microbiologic imports (recall that we've already imported HIV, West Nile encephalitis, Ebola, and monkeypox from Africa -- fortunately the latter two have not developed a foothold here).

Quote:

As the rest of your arguments follow in the course of this misunderstanding...

Well, considering my career is global health and tropical medicine, I've spent a lot of time in developing countries, and I've personally talked with everyone from consultants for the WHO and UN, Exxon-Mobil and Marathon executives, and Jeffrey Sachs himself about this issue, I object vehemently to your accusation of misunderstanding.

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@Aedes,

Why would a global governing body be any less coruptably influenced by wealth and power than any other government? I do agree though, that many problems are global and need to be resolved on a global scale, requireing some sort of globally inclusive cooperation.

Capitalism and economics ensures that "they" sell us what we are willing to buy, to those who pay the most for it. They will respond when we desire health, equity, and sustainability over rampant irrational consumersm. Our own selfishness, greed, and willingness to accept the plight of the undeveloped world is facilitating harmfull and unsustainable practices.

I really think raising the quality of life for the lowest people is in everyones best interests. I think exploiting and isolating the impoverished world instead of making it a new market is a mistake. Education, health, ecinomic equity/oppertunity, and green infrustructure is what everyone should have.

I would have thought that the oil companies would have shifted over twenty years ago so that by now they could be exporting green power to China, but the short trem profit sometimes negates the best long term plan. So I agree with Iconoclast that humans (or our world as we know it) could pass a tipping point and slip into extinction like the dinasours.

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@iconoclast,

I don't think we're going to pollute ourselves into extinction globally, but the effects of pollution are going to be felt very heterogeneously -- heavily in some places, lightly in others. In a way our technologic progress, ultimately, may prove to be a negative evolutionary selector. Given that the poorest, least developed places on earth have the most quickly growing populations, the bulk of the global genome is not in technologically advanced areas already. If low fertility rates, high pollution, and high dependence on resources further marginalizes the developed world, we may eventually see a regression to a simpler, less developed state.

This may be my bias, since I'm an infectious disease specialist, but I think that inevitably there will be catastrophic epidemics and pandemics that hammer away at the global population. This may not affect the gross population overall, but it may hit different places differently. The population decrement in developing countries will rebound much faster than in developed countries, and the disparity between the rich and poor regions will accelerate. Remember that one major theory about the downfall of Rome was an outbreak of bubonic plague in the 4th century. To be sure the downfall of Rome was multifactorial, but this big demographic hit may have pushed it past the point of no return.

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@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

The technology has not been applied because we do not value truth, but value our fond illusions: religion, nation, capitalism, and allow our behaviours to be bound by these ideas. Because they are NOT TRUE to reality, the energy crisis and climate occur as externalities of action in the course of these ideas. Forget big corporations and little governments - the future is global,collective and valid - anyhow, goto go, regards, iconoclast.

Iconoclast, I really do get what you are saying. The solution to dirty fuel has been under our nose for a long time. When I see this beautiful planet suffering from human actions and don't see any way to stop it I feel very pesemistic. Sometimes though, I think if you want to change the world you have to change the way people think, and that is what you are doing.

"the future is global, collective and valid" Indeed, and brave thinkers can find a way to transcend the tyranical systems that plague us. Eloquent interlocuters can wake us from our dillusions and stir us to action. Scientists can discover. The powerfull can aid the weak. The wealthy can fund real progress. So take hope then, and keep up the good fight. The greatest changes can come about by the smallest influences;).

Iconoclast: I may be off topic, but I was wondering if you had any ideas on how this global government would work. I also think that is the right direction, but I can't envision the cheks and balances that would keep it from being totalitarian and harmfull.

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@ogden,

Aedes,

I apologize for any offence caused by the scandalous accusation that you misunderstood, but I think you did misunderstand my philosophical approach to these issues. I don't doubt for a moment your expertise - (your work sounds very impressive, interesting and worthy) and no doubt you could correct me on endless matters of fact, but I'm trying to address the philosophical context.

The simplest example I can adduce is that of 'nation.' People think of nation as a reality, and it enters into political decision making as if it were a reality, but in fact it's a man-made idea, a line drawn on a map. This has consequences - not dissimilar to economic externalities, where action rational to the ideology often has insane consequences on the ground. Therefore, I have argued that we need to look at things in terms of the valid understanding of reality provided by science. Where I say you misunderstood, it's that your arguments did not acknowledge this premise.

You say: 'Deal with the asymmetries in infant, child, and maternal mortality, child nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation first.' You know the developed nations missed their M.D.G's by a country mile, though right? That's because the fanciful dynamics of our societies cause, and prevent us from addressing these externalities.
So we adopt a scientific basis of analysis, and thereby considering these problems as threats to human existence - in order of immanence they are the energy crisis, climate change, overpopulation and environmental degradation.

The asymmetries you're concerned with are important, both morally and in relation to tackling overpopulation, but are not primary concerns. Unless we act first and with great dispatch to establish a sustainable energy basis we can hardly hope to provide an adequate response to these needs.

Given a sustainable energy basis however, travel and construction need have no energy cost - tv, computer, light - to a lesser extent heating and cooking need have no environmental impact. Given such a basis the development of Africa, Asia, South America can be done sustainably - rather than as a smash and grab, face hidden by a UK/US/UN charity bandana. And let's face it - if Africa, Asia and South America do follow our path of development the whole planet will go up in a ball of flames. And you say - well let's just start down that road. Why? The moral imperative?
iconoclast.

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@iconoclast,

Ogden, You ask: Why would a global governing body be any less coruptably influenced by wealth and power than any other government?

I propose a global government constitutionally bound to scientifically valid knowledge. It's the scientific basis of analysis that prevents corruption. Any selfish, biased or corrupt policy would necessarily need to distort or falsify the scientific facts, and any such falsification could be demonstrated.

You say: 'Capitalism and economics ensures that "they" sell us what we are willing to buy, to those who pay the most for it. They will respond when we desire health, equity, and sustainability over rampant irrational consumersm.'

I couldn't disagree more. There are very serious problems with the idea of consumer sovereignty - and further problems with the idea of post-material values. While clearly there's some correlation between what we want to buy and what is sold, to suggest that the former defines the latter is going too far. And clearly the idea that middle-middle class consumerism is going to save the world - just as soon as they have every conceivable consumer good at their disposal - they'll turn their minds to higher matters. Please! Religion requires a lesser leap of faith.

The figures show that capitalism concentrates rather than distributes wealth. Just as the richest 20% of nation-states consume something like 83% of the world's resources while the bottom 20% get just 1.3% between them - in the U.K. the richest 1% own 23% of the wealth, the richest 10% own more than half while the richest 50% own 94% of the wealth. In the U.S., the figures are remarkably similar. The richest 1% own 38.1%, the richest 10% own 59.4% while the richest 50% own over 95% of the wealth. So in this consumer democracy of yours, half the people get 5% of a vote.

That's almost the definition of corruption, wouldn't you say?

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@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

The simplest example I can adduce is that of 'nation.' People think of nation as a reality, and it enters into political decision making as if it were a reality, but in fact it's a man-made idea, a line drawn on a map. This has consequences - not dissimilar to economic externalities, where action rational to the ideology often has insane consequences on the ground. Therefore, I have argued that we need to look at things in terms of the valid understanding of reality provided by science. Where I say you misunderstood, it's that your arguments did not acknowledge this premise.

Well, I do acknowledge that idea, but it's not as simple of course as the artifice of national borders. In Africa the national boundaries were drawn by outsiders, with almost no local correlate. But the problem is not so much where the boundaries are drawn per se. The problem is that the concept of the "nation state" came to pass in modern Europe and America with considerable bloodshed, and it was later imposed on colonial holdings that in themselves didn't have the underlying sense of togetherness that potentiates a nation-state. That sense did exist in revolutionary America, and in Italy in 1866 and in Germany in 1871, and it certainly existed in the opening days of the first world war. But it sure didn't exist in many parts of Africa at the time the continent was divided.

Quote:

You say: 'Deal with the asymmetries in infant, child, and maternal mortality, child nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation first.' You know the developed nations missed their M.D.G's by a country mile, though right?

Yes, and it's a catastrophe.

Quote:

That's because the fanciful dynamics of our societies cause, and prevent us from addressing these externalities.

It's because of insufficient commitment and unrealistic goals, more than anything else.

Quote:

So we adopt a scientific basis of analysis, and thereby considering these problems as threats to human existence - in order of immanence they are the energy crisis, climate change, overpopulation and environmental degradation.

I don't agree with that order, and I think it misses some more fundamental primary factors, but I completely agree that these are all symptoms of a common underlying disease.

Quote:

Unless we act first and with great dispatch to establish a sustainable energy basis we can hardly hope to provide an adequate response to these needs.

Again, I think the demographic catastrophe we're witnessing in Africa is burgeoning much more quickly than is the energy crisis. Africa from Chad all the way down to Angola, including offshore areas from the Gulf of Guinea all the way down the west coast, contains probably a century of unexplored oil (according to a retired Exxon-Mobil exec I know). So our short term solution (i.e. the solution that buys us time) is dependent upon stability there.

Quote:

Given a sustainable energy basis however, travel and construction need have no energy cost - tv, computer, light - to a lesser extent heating and cooking need have no environmental impact. Given such a basis the development of Africa, Asia, South America can be done sustainably - rather than as a smash and grab, face hidden by a UK/US/UN charity bandana.

Sustainable energy is the least of the endogenous problems in Africa. Most places have so little demand for energy, due to their lack of development in other sectors, that they won't really benefit from it. It's hard to talk about sustainable energy for Africa yet (important though it is overall) when we can't even institute basic hygiene, sanitation, and literacy. But these aren't mutually exclusive interventions -- things must happen in parallel.

Quote:

And let's face it - if Africa, Asia and South America do follow our path of development the whole planet will go up in a ball of flames. And you say - well let's just start down that road. Why? The moral imperative?

Much of Asia and South America is already going down that road. Most of Africa is not. I think we do have a huge moral debt to the poor places in the world, because more than anything else it's been our policies that have exploited them (and continue to exploit them). I mean how can we morally justify farm subsidies in the US that have caused Ghanaian rice farmers and Malian cotton growers to lose their businesses (just because they can't compete against our product even in their own villages). It's another example of how wealth just flows out of the developing world and into the developed world.

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@Aedes,

Quote iconoclast in several posts:

"extinction threats now bearing down upon us"
"humankind must form a global government"
"environmental sustainability"
"reduction in greenhouse gas emissions"
"will massively reduce greenhouse gas emissions - thereby addressing climate change"
"quite predictably nuking each other into non-existence in 40 or 50 years when the lights go out"
"very soon it will be too late"
"the world will go up in a ball of flames from climate change"
"...but value our fond illusions: religion..."
"energy crisis"
"the future is global,collective"
"tackling overpopulation"
"the whole planet will go up in a ball of flames"
"I propose a global government constitutionally bound to scientifically valid knowledge"

Hi, Iconoclast,

Really appreciate your deep concern for our planet which we all share and enjoy.

However, I see you swallowed the new "global warming religion" hook, line and sinker. And many of us had, before we researched the science behind "climate changes" and "global warming and global cooling". Including how the periodically brighter- and dimmer burning SUN is heating and cooling all inner and outer planets, periodically.

The most onerous scheme perpetrated by a "quasi global government" is the attack on CO2, a harmless trace gas and crucial plant food. Without CO2, life on planet earth would be extinct. Worse, the incessant focus on CO2 as a "pollutant" (NOT) has liberated virtually unchecked pollution of real toxins, such as "noxes" and "soxes". Besides, the greenhouse gas hypothesis violates the fundamentals of physics.

As can be viewed in plain sight, the global warming preachers tell you to do what they say, not what they do. And oh, how sweet it is when they also own carbon offset companies to make windfalls from their guilty believers.

As far as the Malthusian obsession of tackling overpopulation is concerned, a concept in the mind NOT reality makes. A case in point: The holocaust, one of many hatreds against the creator, who is but love.

As far as science is concerned, science can be suppressed by canceling funding of opposing science to political policy.

So, all I say is do your research in depth and learn also the opposing sciences which nullify the prominent political agenda before unleashing a psychological Armageddon upon the innocent, who are the lovers of truth.

P.S. Please allow the above to be an encouragement of deeper studies rather than a flat denial of real observed scientific and empirical facts.

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@ThouAreThat,

ThouArtThat, Your comments seem to draw upon a strange concoction of conspiracy theory and religion. It's a new one on me. Fascinating, but you can't expect me to take your suggestions/criticisms seriously. It's just not reasonable to suppose that all the world's scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to create a market in carbon. The only place you're nearly right is where you say 'As far as science is concerned, science can be suppressed by canceling funding of opposing science to political policy.' but again, you misunderstand. In general, it's not a deliberate policy - but a consequence of the desire for profit that science and technology are applied or withheld - irrespective of the scientific merits. I've thought about this a great deal and am deeply conscientious in my deliberations and might i advise that you stop trying to attribute blame (or sin) to people's actions and try to understand why they act thusly. all the best, iconoclast.

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@iconoclast,

Irrespective of the scientific merits or lack thereof of global warming, atmospheric pollution leading to human disease is a major problem, and so are all the political and economic implications of petroleum. To address one of these is to address all of these (unless your alternative is dirtier than petroleum), so I think that there is plenty of merit in alternative fuels and emissions control even without global warming as justification.

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@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

ThouArtThat, Your comments seem to draw upon a strange concoction of conspiracy theory and religion. It's a new one on me. Fascinating, but you can't expect me to take your suggestions/criticisms seriously. It's just not reasonable to suppose that all the world's scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to create a market in carbon. The only place you're nearly right is where you say 'As far as science is concerned, science can be suppressed by canceling funding of opposing science to political policy.' but again, you misunderstand. In general, it's not a deliberate policy - but a consequence of the desire for profit that science and technology are applied or withheld - irrespective of the scientific merits. I've thought about this a great deal and am deeply conscientious in my deliberations and might i advise that you stop trying to attribute blame (or sin) to people's actions and try to understand why they act thusly. all the best, iconoclast.

Hi, iconoclast, thank you so much for your reply. As far as
"...strange concoction of conspiracy theory and religion"
is concerned, I would like to draw your valued attention to the content of this link:
Global Warming as Religion and not Science

Explanation:
[(AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming = man-made global warming)=(Guilt and sin)] VERSUS [(global warming and global cooling, a cosmic event as time-charted through empirical scientific observation)=(we are free of guilt and sin)]

All the world's scientists? No no, only a handful, but NEARLY all the worlds policymakers AND media. There IS a difference. Here is what Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic has to say:
FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Freedom, not climate, is at risk

As far as suggestions/criticisms is concerned, I pray please follow your heart.

"to create a market in carbon"
CO2 versus carbon. Please see the difference in the content of this link:
Climate Debate: Carbon Dioxide is not 'Carbon'

"In general, it's not a deliberate policy"
Here is a snippet from
2008 International Conference on Climate Change * New York City * March 2-4, 2008

And here are many more links at your perusal:
Other Side of the Global Warming Debate

Last but not least, here is an anti-AGW resource with hundreds (or thousands?) of links for your evaluation.
Popular Technology -> The Anti "Man-Made" Global Warming Resource

Personally, I found it frustrating to research the matter for years now, but I was forced to do it of my own volition by way of a different connected research. Initially I had no knowledge of the thrust of the seeding which began at least a generation or more ago. At first, information was scarce to come by. Lately, however, a literal avalanche has been building up of serious science refuting AGW. At the same time the shrill mass media has now taken on an AGW frenzy of dangerous proportions, not in defence for the planet, but against our freedoms.

Be well iconoclast, ThouAreThat

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