[✔️] October 16, 2022 - Global Warming News - daily selection
Richard Pauli
Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Sun Oct 16 09:43:49 EDT 2022
/*October 16, 2022*/
/[ Today’s Indicator number is 15 ] /
*In the U.S., that’s the number of natural disasters so far this year
that have caused at least $1 billion in damage.* Hurricane Ian, the most
recent disaster to fall under this category, is estimated to have caused
between $53 billion and $74 billion in damages.
- -
“The year-to-date average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 56.8
degrees F — 1.7 degrees above average — ranking in the warmest third of
the YTD record. California and Florida saw their third- and
fourth-warmest January-through-September periods on record,
respectively,” the NOAA stated on its website.
Across the West, nearly 1,000 heat records were broken in early
September, the NOAA said, a month that will go down as the fifth-warmest
on record. In all, the last seven years have been the warmest on record,
according to data from NASA, the NOAA and Berkeley Earth...
https://news.yahoo.com/climate-change-is-causing-more-billion-dollar-weather-disasters-191142055.html
/[ LIsten to some Brian Eno ]/
*On ‘ForeverAndEverNoMore,’ Brian Eno Sings for the End of the World*
The musician and producer’s new songs meditate on folly and
annihilation, playing like a far more fatalistic sequel to “Another Day
on Earth” from 2005.
By Jon Pareles
Oct. 13, 2022
When you’re expecting extinction, it makes sense to record the threnody
in advance. That’s what Brian Eno has done on “ForeverAndEverNoMore”: a
mournful, contemplative album that stares down humanity’s
self-immolation in what he calls “the climate emergency.”
“These billion years will end/They end in me,” he intones in “Garden of
Stars,” as electronic tones go whizzing by and distortion flickers and
crests around him like a cosmic radiation storm. It’s a song that
marvels at the mathematical improbability of human life — “How then
could it be that we appear at all?/In all this rock and fire, in all
this gas and dust,” he sings — while envisioning its cessation...
- -
*Brian Eno - Icarus or Blériot*
2,897 views Oct 14, 2022 Music video by Brian Eno performing Icarus or
Blériot. A UMC recording; © 2022 Opal Music Ltd., under exclusive
licence to Universal Music Operations Limited
- -
On “ForeverAndEverNoMore,” Eno has traded percussiveness for sustain.
Long drones underlie most of the tracks, echoing ancient traditions of
mystical music; most of the instrumental sounds seem to arrive from
great echoey distances. Eno sings slow, chantlike phrases, and his
lyrics favor open vowels rather than crisp consonants. His productions —
with the guitarist Leo Abrahams often credited as “post-producer” — open
up vast perceived spaces in every track, as if he’s already staring into
the void.
The songs deliver indictments of human folly with measured calm. Slow,
deep breathing sets the rhythm of “We Let It In,” as Eno sings, “We open
to the blinding sky” to the soothing notes of a major chord; his
daughter Darla Eno quietly repeats the words “deep sun.” In its
reverberating solidity, the song makes global warming sound encompassing
and inevitable...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/arts/music/brian-eno-foreverandevernomore-review.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
/[ clips from The Conversation ]/
*To address climate change, lifestyles must change – but the
government’s reluctance to help is holding us back*
Published: October 13, 2022
Christina Demski - Reader in Environmental Psychology, University of Bath
Stuart Capstick Senior Research Fellow in Psychology, Cardiff University
Without changes to people’s behaviour and lifestyles, it will be
impossible for the UK to reach net zero emissions by 2050. But the
government is failing to put in place the conditions that would enable
this to happen – or even recognise its relevance in cutting emissions
and meeting climate targets. Its laissez-faire approach of simply “going
with the grain of consumer choice”, according to a recent report, has no
chance of bringing about the urgent changes needed...
- -
People will be more inclined to make changes if they feel policies are
applied fairly. The report is blunt in its assessment of what this
means, noting that “higher-income households which typically have a
larger carbon footprint must take correspondingly larger steps to reduce
their emissions”...
- -
This goodwill and enthusiasm must be supported. That means governments
providing clear signals to the rest of society, like setting a date for
a ban on gas boilers or subsidising energy efficiency improvements in
people’s homes. We also need a national conversation on how to reach net
zero. A coherent public engagement strategy would not only inform people
of the changes that are required but involve them in the process. For
example, citizens’ assemblies, representative groups of people brought
together to deliberate on issues, can create a shared vision of the future.
Simply waiting for people to make low-carbon choices in a world that
doesn’t support those choices, and where people feel no stake in the
changes taking place, is unfair and irresponsible.
https://theconversation.com/to-address-climate-change-lifestyles-must-change-but-the-governments-reluctance-to-help-is-holding-us-back-190300
/[ LeverNews.com is an independent news outlet - audio ]/
*Billionaires’ Doomsday Prep (w/ Douglas Rushkoff)*
On this week’s Lever Live on Tuesday 10/11, David Sirota is joined by
media theorist Douglas Rushkoff to discuss his new book, "Survival of
the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. " Douglas’ book
exposes the very real machinations of the ultra-wealthy as they prepare
for a “world-ending” event. Unfortunately for us — they’re only planning
on saving themselves. Join us on Lever Live as David and Douglas take
questions about the End Times from the audience LIVE on-air.
https://www.callin.com/episode/billionaires-doomsday-prep-w-douglas-rushkoff-EyrPjcDduO
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/[ Text is non-fiction - but with a tinge of amusing hubris ]/
*Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires
Hardcover – September 6, 2022*
by Douglas Rushkoff (Author)
Named One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by Kirkus and Literary Hub
The tech elite have a plan to survive the apocalypse: they want to leave
us all behind.
Five mysterious billionaires summoned theorist Douglas Rushkoff to a
desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive the “Event”:
the societal catastrophe they know is coming. Rushkoff came to
understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a
Silicon Valley–style certainty that they and their cohort can break the
laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their
own making―as long as they have enough money and the right technology.
In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff traces the origins of The Mindset
in science and technology through its current expression in missions to
Mars, island bunkers, AI futurism, and the metaverse. In a dozen urgent,
electrifying chapters, he confronts tech utopianism, the datafication of
all human interaction, and the exploitation of that data by
corporations. Through fascinating characters―master programmers who want
to remake the world from scratch as if redesigning a video game and
bankers who return from Burning Man convinced that incentivized
capitalism is the solution to environmental disasters―Rushkoff explains
why those with the most power to change our current trajectory have no
interest in doing so. And he shows how recent forms of anti-mainstream
rebellion―QAnon, for example, or meme stocks―reinforce the same
destructive order.
This mind-blowing work of social analysis shows us how to transcend the
landscape The Mindset created―a world alive with algorithms and
intelligences actively rewarding our most selfish tendencies―and
rediscover community, mutual aid, and human interdependency. In a
thundering conclusion, Survival of the Richest argues that the only way
to survive the coming catastrophe is to ensure it doesn’t happen in the
first place.
https://www.amazon.com/Survival-Richest-Escape-Fantasies-Billionaires/dp/0393881067
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/[ Clips from this essay posted a few years ago. Audio available ]/
*Survival of the Richest*
The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind
(This piece is now the basis of a new book, Survival of the Richest:
Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires.)
Douglas Rushkoff
Jul 5, 2018
Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a
keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment
bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a
talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some
insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”
I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end
up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest
technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential
investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely
interested in learning about these technologies or their potential
impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them.
But money talks, so I took the gig...
- -
Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New
Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his
brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will
it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage
house explained that he had nearly completed building his own
underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over
my security force after the event?”
*
**For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the
future.*
The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse,
social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack
that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew
armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry
mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What
would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires
considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only
they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in
return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards
and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.
That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were
concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology...
- -
There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology
might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human
utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration
of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that
is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and
complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years,
now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data,
concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”
- -
There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology
might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human
utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration
of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that
is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and
complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years,
now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data,
concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”
It’s a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by
finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along
for the ride. Will it be Musk, Bezos, Thiel…Zuckerberg? These
billionaires are the presumptive winners of the digital economy — the
same survival-of-the-fittest business landscape that’s fueling most of
this speculation to begin with.
- -
The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices
or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our
venture capital but arrive at passively.
This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities.
Technology development became less a story of collective flourishing
than personal survival. Worse, as I learned, to call attention to any of
this was to unintentionally cast oneself as an enemy of the market or an
anti-technology curmudgeon.
So instead of considering the practical ethics of impoverishing and
exploiting the many in the name of the few, most academics, journalists,
and science-fiction writers instead considered much more abstract and
fanciful conundrums: Is it fair for a stock trader to use smart drugs?
Should children get implants for foreign languages? Do we want
autonomous vehicles to prioritize the lives of pedestrians over those of
its passengers? Should the first Mars colonies be run as democracies?
Does changing my DNA undermine my identity? Should robots have rights?
Asking these sorts of questions, while philosophically entertaining, is
a poor substitute for wrestling with the real moral quandaries
associated with unbridled technological development in the name of
corporate capitalism. Digital platforms have turned an already
exploitative and extractive marketplace (think Walmart) into an even
more dehumanizing successor (think Amazon). Most of us became aware of
these downsides in the form of automated jobs, the gig economy, and the
demise of local retail...
- -
If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and
environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in
turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic
fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business
plans. The cycle feeds itself.
The more committed we are to this view of the world, the more we come to
see human beings as the problem and technology as the solution. The very
essence of what it means to be human is treated less as a feature than
bug. No matter their embedded biases, technologies are declared neutral.
Any bad behaviors they induce in us are just a reflection of our own
corrupted core. It’s as if some innate human savagery is to blame for
our troubles. Just as the inefficiency of a local taxi market can be
“solved” with an app that bankrupts human drivers, the vexing
inconsistencies of the human psyche can be corrected with a digital or
genetic upgrade.
Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human
future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps
better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor.
Like members of a gnostic cult, we long to enter the next transcendent
phase of our development, shedding our bodies and leaving them behind,
along with our sins and troubles...
- -
*The very essence of what it means to be human is treated less as a
feature than bug.*
The mental gymnastics required for such a profound role reversal between
humans and machines all depend on the underlying assumption that humans
suck. Let’s either change them or get away from them, forever.
Thus, we get tech billionaires launching electric cars into space — as
if this symbolizes something more than one billionaire’s capacity for
corporate promotion. And if a few people do reach escape velocity and
somehow survive in a bubble on Mars — despite our inability to maintain
such a bubble even here on Earth in either of two multibillion-dollar
Biosphere trials — the result will be less a continuation of the human
diaspora than a lifeboat for the elite..
- -
When the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over
their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet
would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be
engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own
family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the
rest of their business practices, supply chain management,
sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there
will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological
wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more
collective interests right now.
They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They
were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are
too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they
can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all
scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can
employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on
the rocket to Mars.
Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own
humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use
technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the
individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us
to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.
Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team
sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.
Douglas Rushkoff - Author of Survival of the Richest, Team Human,
Program or Be Programmed, and host of the Team Human podcast
http://teamhuman.fm
https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1
- -
/[ More references in publication Reason and Meaning - Philosophical
reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life ]/
*Survival of the Richest*
August 27, 2018
- -
Reflections – I don’t doubt that many wealthy and powerful people would
willingly leave the rest of us behind, or enslave or kill us all—a theme
endorsed by Ted Kaczynski in The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society
and Its Future. But notice that these tendencies toward evil existed
before advanced technology or transhumanist philosophy—history is
replete with examples of cruelty and genocide.
So the question is whether we can create a better world without
radically transforming human beings. I doubt it. As I’ve said many times
our apelike brains—characterized by territoriality, aggression,
dominance hierarchies, irrationality, superstition, and cognitive
biases—combined with 21st-century technology is a lethal combination.
And that’s why, in order to survive the many existential risks now
confronting us and to have descendants who flourish, we should embrace
transhumanism.
So while there are obvious risks associated with the power that science
and technology afford, they are our best hope as we approach many of
these “events.” If we don’t want our planet to circle our sun lifeless
for the next few billion years, if we believe that conscious life is
really worthwhile, then we must work quickly to transform both our moral
and intellectual natures. Otherwise at most only a few will survive.
https://reasonandmeaning.com/2018/08/27/survival-of-the-richest/
- -
/[ video conversation 30 min ]/
*Douglas Rushkoff: Survival of the Richest & "TEAM HUMAN"*
Jul 22, 2018 Subscribe to The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow for more:
https://www.patreon.com/thezerohour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0uevrkgy4
/[ Munich RE insurance drops investments in fossil fuels - a very
responsible act ]/
*New Oil & Gas investment / underwriting guidelines*
2022/10/06
As an environmentally conscientious business, Munich Re aims to play its
part in meeting the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. The Group
has therefore set itself ambitious decarbonisation targets for its
investments, its (re)insurance transactions and its own business operations.
Against this backdrop, as of 1 April 2023 Munich Re will no longer
invest in or insure contracts/projects exclusively covering the
planning, financing, construction or operation of
new oil and gas fields, where as at 31 December 2022 no prior production
has taken place or
new midstream infrastructure related to oil, which have not yet been
under construction or operation as at 31 December 2022 and
new oil fired power plants, which have not yet been under construction
or operation as at 31 December 2022
This applies to direct illiquid investments, our primary, facultative
and direct (re)insurance business. The same applies where such risks are
contained or bundled in one cover together with other risks (e.g.,
existing oil or gas fields), when the cover is mainly designed to
protect one or more of such new risks.
Furthermore, in its own listed equities & corporates portfolio, as of 1
April 2023, Munich Re will cease to conduct new direct investments in
pure-play Oil & Gas companies. As of 1 January 2025, Munich Re will
require a credible commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by
2050 including corresponding short- and mid-term milestones from listed
integrated O&G companies with the highest relative and absolute emissions.
https://www.munichre.com/en/company/media-relations/statements/2022/new-oil-and-gas-investment-underwriting-guidelines.html
/
/
/
/
/[ more from Munich RE ]/
*Munich Re is a pioneer in analysing the impacts of anthropogenic global
warming and natural climatic variability on losses caused by
weather-related natural disasters.* For the past four decades, we have
researched risks, loss prevention measures and new risk transfer
solutions. In addition, we examine long-term data on meteorology and
losses to better understand changes in risk.
*Climate crisis alters the risk landscape*
The consensus among scientists is that the emissions of anthropogenic
greenhouse gases since industrialisation began are the main cause of
rising temperatures in our planet’s atmosphere and oceans. Global
warming has various consequences.
Sea ice and glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising, currently at an
annual average of some 3 mm.
Higher temperatures – and the correspondingly higher energy content in
the atmosphere – change the probability distributions of individual
meteorological parameters and weather patterns. This is especially
significant from a risk perspective.
If weather extremes occur more frequently and/or become more intense,
then there will be more losses – unless measures are implemented to
minimise losses. Construction engineering measures come to mind, as do
changes in land use.
It is very probable that climate change has played a role in severe
hailstorms in North America and Europe, wildfires in California and
heatwaves in many places.
Referred to as hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones in different parts of
the world, more and more tropical cyclones have brought extreme
precipitation in recent years. There are also signs that particularly
severe storms account for a rising percentage of all storms.
Individual loss events cannot be attributed directly to climate change.
Nevertheless, the analysis of long-term trends on the basis of
meteorological data – in combination with underwriting and
socio-economic data – provides key indications of the changing risk from
dangerous storms.
https://www.munichre.com/en/risks/climate-change-a-challenge-for-humanity.html
/[ video trailer of movie ]/
* ... screen THE COST OF SILENCE,* nominated for Best Documentary at
Sundance, followed by a conversation with the director and special
guests on film and the technology and impact campaign the team is
launching to empower a just transition away from toxic fossil fuels.
Hosted by: New York City Climate Week
NYC CLIMATE WEEK – SPECIAL FILM EVENT: Thursday, September 22nd - A
special screening of The Cost of Silence – followed by a panel
discussion on a groundbreaking Climate Impact Campaign launching with
the film.
Film Website and Trailer: https://www.costofsilencefilm.com/about-the-film
/[ Return to the Arctic - Just Have a Think video -- 13 mins-- from Sept ]/
*Arctic System Collapse? Devastating new research.*
251,524 views Sep 18, 2022 The arctic region is a key driver of global
climate patterns. In the summer of 2022, three peer reviewed research
papers were published, all of which showed the systems that have kept
the arctic stable for thousands of years are now collapsing far more
quickly than previous analysis and modelling had suggested. A fourth
paper, published at the same time, shows us what the consequences are
likely to be. This video assesses all four.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqRdu2riNlg
/[The news archive - looking back]/
/*October 16, 1988*/
October 16, 1988: Discussing the role of global warming in the 1988
presidential election, Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman observes:
"Last summer, one of the hottest and driest on record, the nation
was roused by alarms about the 'greenhouse effect'--the gradual
warming of the globe that threatens to turn coastal cities into
underwater ruins and corn fields into salt flats.
"The problem is that for the last century or so industrial societies
have been releasing substances into the air that capture heat and
erode the Earth`s shield against the sun. The villains? Carbon
dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, methane from natural and
man-made sources and aerosol propellants.
"But as soon as the heat dissipated, so did interest in the issue.
In the campaign, the greenhouse effect has gone almost unmentioned...
"Both candidates pretend the solutions will be painless and free.
Both pass over the obvious remedies in favor of the politically
appealing ones.
"The nations of the world have taken one step by agreeing on a
treaty to reduce the use of aerosol propellants. But any serious
attempt to slow the warming of the Earth requires at least three
additional measures: discouraging the use of fossil fuels like coal,
oil and gas; big improvements in energy efficiency; and greater
reliance on nuclear power."
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-10-16/news/8802080029_1_greenhouse-effect-global-warming-environmentalism
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