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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>April 29, 2021</b></font></i></p>
<br>
[NYTimes says]<br>
<b>Biden Seeks Shift in How the Nation Serves Its People</b><br>
The president’s costly proposals amount to a risky gamble that a
country polarized along ideological and cultural lines is ready for
a more activist government.<br>
- -<br>
The president, who has struggled to respond to a surge of migrants
at the southwestern border since taking office, highlighted his
proposed overhaul of the immigration system, discussed his goals to
stem climate change and urged legislation to expand voting rights...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-speech-to-congress.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-speech-to-congress.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[The Phoenix is a mythical bird reborn by fire]<br>
<b>It's OK to have climate anxiety</b><br>
I do. Here's how I'm coping: by helping to create a world of climate
justice.<br>
Eric Holthaus<br>
Today is a big day for me. For the very first time in my life, I set
up an appointment with my doctor to start on anti-anxiety
medication.<br>
<br>
This step comes four years after I first started seeing a therapist
for climate-related anxiety. Since then, I’ve written about my
journey a lot, but never thought it would get to this point. After
years of trying to manage on my own, I realized during the pandemic
that I need more help.<br>
<br>
I’m currently towards the end of my fourth anxiety episode of the
past 12 months. Each of them have lasted for weeks, where I’ve been
unable to write, unable to interact with friends, unable to function
normally. For the past two months, I’ve only opened emails that
looked urgent, I didn’t have the energy to read anything that felt
like it was going to increase the chaos in my head, either good or
bad. (If you haven’t heard from me and needed to, I apologize so
much).<br>
- -<br>
Climate anxiety without climate justice is a gateway to ecofascism.
If you’re a white person who is scared about climate change – which
is a completely normal thing given how much our leaders have failed
us – just imagine how scared you’d be if people wanted you dead
because of your skin color...<br>
- -<br>
While its definitely true that climate change will affect every
single one of us, it will affect us all differently. Those who have
already been marginalized by centuries of oppression will be hurt
the worst.<br>
Our job, as the climate anxious, is to repair that oppression,
repair that marginalization, to make sure you’re not offloading your
anxiety onto someone else in ways that are causing more harm...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://thephoenix.substack.com/p/its-ok-to-have-climate-anxiety">https://thephoenix.substack.com/p/its-ok-to-have-climate-anxiety</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Nothing is stopping us]<br>
<b>The Sky’s the Limit: Solar and wind energy potential is 100 times
as much as global energy demand</b><br>
Energy transition - 23 April 2021<br>
Solar and wind potential is far higher than that of fossil fuels and
can meet global energy demand many times over, unlocking huge
benefits for society.<br>
Poor countries are the greatest beneficiaries. They have the largest
ratio of solar and wind potential to energy demand and stand to
unlock huge domestic benefits.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://carbontracker.org/reports/the-skys-the-limit-solar-wind/">https://carbontracker.org/reports/the-skys-the-limit-solar-wind/</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
[New Yorker]<br>
<b>Renewable Energy Is Suddenly Startlingly Cheap</b><br>
Now the biggest barrier to change is the will of our politicians to
take serious climate action.<br>
By Bill McKibben<br>
April 28, 202<br>
- -<br>
We haven’t yet fully grasped this potential because it’s happened so
fast. In 2015, zero per cent of solar’s technical potential was
economically viable—the small number of solar panels that existed at
that time had to be heavily subsidized. But prices for solar energy
have collapsed so fast over the past three years that sixty per cent
of that potential is already economically viable. And, because costs
continue to slide with every quarter, solar energy will be cheaper
than fossil fuels almost everywhere on the planet by the decade’s
end...<br>
- -<br>
Change is hard. The job of politicians is to make it easier for
those affected, so that what must happen can happen—and within the
time we’ve been allotted by physics. But that hard job is infinitely
easier now that renewable energy is suddenly so cheap. The falling
price puts the wind at our backs, as it were. It’s the greatest gift
we could have been given as a civilization, and we dare not waste
it.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/renewable-energy-is-suddenly-startlingly-cheap">https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/renewable-energy-is-suddenly-startlingly-cheap</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[What to do about the future - video]<b><br>
</b><b>Fight or Adapt to Climate Change?</b><br>
Apr 15, 2021<br>
ClimateAdam<br>
Do we need adaptation or mitigation when it comes to combatting
climate change? The truth is that we need both. But also that the
'we' that need adaptation aren't always the same 'we' that need
mitigation...<br>
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://patreon.com/climateadam">http://patreon.com/climateadam</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3cB-4LaZsM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3cB-4LaZsM</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[AGU video discussion applies to California wildfires]<br>
<b>Webinar: Creating effective defensible space</b><br>
Apr 15, 2021<br>
AGU<br>
The second installment in the Community Wildfire Webinar Series,
which aims to provide science-backed and community-focused
information on the local fire landscape, best practices for wildfire
preparedness, and resources available to residents of Carmel Valley
and the surrounding communities.<br>
<br>
California law requires a minimum of 100 feet of defensible space
around all structures in areas subject to wildfires; however, state
guidelines acknowledge that depending upon such factors as
topography and vegetation a greater distance may be needed to
protect structures and lives from wildfire, and encourage
"community-wide" defensible space. This webinar is designed to give
you information on how to create effective defensible space to help
protect your life and home, while complying with regulatory
requirements.<br>
Previously recorded on Wednesday, 14 April 2021<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPOhbTme7c">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPOhbTme7c</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[knowledge vs wisdom - and very critical of universities]<br>
<b>Universities (Knowledge Factories) have Betrayed Reason and
Humanity by Lacking All Wisdom: 1 of 2</b><br>
<b>How Universities Lack All Wisdom to Tackle Real-World Emergencies
Like Abrupt Climate Change: 2 of 2</b><br>
Apr 28, 2021<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
I have often wondered how humanity, in our present day and age, can
be facing total and utter catastrophe from abrupt climate system
change, and still have the vast multitudes of citizens, governments,
and nations not even want to recognize the grave dangers that we
face. These are not long term risks, in fact we face the imminent
complete loss of Arctic Sea Ice, enormous outbursts of methane gas,
mass extinctions of our plants and animals, and global food
shortages leading to deadly widespread famine within a decade. How
is this possible? How can society be so stupid? Why am I cursed to
recognize the imminent and complete collapse of our society?<br>
<br>
Having been within the university system and academia for many
years, I have been constantly puzzled as to why there is no sense of
societal danger and risk of near term collapse. The Ivory Towers of
Academia have been completely oblivious to the existential crisis,
and has done absolutely nothing to educate the public to these
risks. The university is essentially a knowledge-factory to push
forward the boundaries of knowledge in a vast array of independently
siloed fields, while it has completely lacked the wisdom to
recognize let alone address the real world problems that are right
in front of our face. As a result, with zero wisdom from our
esteemed institutes of learning, our society is teetering on the
brink of complete and utter collapse from abrupt climate system
change.<br>
<br>
The best paper that I have read on this failure of our university
system to address real world and imminent global problems was
published two weeks ago and is called “How Universities Have
Betrayed Reason and Humanity - And What’s to Be Done About It” by
Nicolas Maxwell.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-orLuh7lj0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-orLuh7lj0</a> part 1<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YieLPg7L38E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YieLPg7L38E</a> part 2<br>
<p>- -</p>
[Hypothesis and Theory]<br>
12 April 2021 | <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2021.631631">https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2021.631631</a><br>
<b>How Universities Have Betrayed Reason and Humanity—And What's to
Be Done About It</b><br>
Nicholas Maxwell<br>
Science and Technology Studies, University College London, London,
United Kingdom<br>
In 1984 the author published From Knowledge to Wisdom, a book that
argues that a revolution in academia is urgently needed, so that
problems of living, including global problems, are put at the heart
of the enterprise, and the basic aim becomes to seek and promote
wisdom, and not just acquire knowledge. Every discipline and aspect
of academia needs to change, and the whole way in which academia is
related to the rest of the social world. Universities devoted to the
pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how betray reason and,
as a result, betray humanity. As a result of becoming more
intellectually rigorous, academic inquiry becomes of far greater
benefit to humanity. If the revolution argued for all those years
ago had been taken up and put into academic practice, we might now
live in a much more hopeful world than the one that confronts us.
Humanity might have begun to learn how to solve global problems; the
Amazon rain forests might not face destruction; we might not be
faced with mass extinction of species; Brexit might not have been
voted for in the UK in 2016, and Trump might not have been elected
President in the USA. An account is given of work published by the
author during the years 1972–2021 that expounds and develops the
argument. The conclusion is that we urgently need to create a
high-profile campaign devoted to transforming universities in the
way required so that humanity may learn how to make social progress
toward a better, wiser, more civilized, enlightened world.<br>
<br>
<b>The Betrayal</b><br>
Decades ago, in the George Orwell year of 1984, I published a book
called From Knowledge to Wisdom1. In the book I argued that, in
order to solve the grave global problems that threaten our future,
we need to bring about a revolution in universities, affecting to a
greater or lesser extent every discipline and every aspect of the
University. Instead of giving priority to solving problems of
knowledge, universities need to give priority to problems of
living—to the problems we encounter in our lives, from the personal
to the global. 1 The basic task of the University needs to be to put
forward and critically assess possible solutions to our problems of
living, possible actions, policies, political programmes, ways of
living, philosophies of life. A basic task needs to be intelligently
conducted public education about what our problems are and what we
need to do about them. The University needs to devote itself to
helping people achieve what is genuinely of value in life. The
pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how is, of course,
vital, but it needs to be conducted as a secondary matter, not the
primary pursuit of the University.<br>
<br>
From Knowledge to Wisdom was widely and favorably reviewed at the
time. It received a glowing review in Nature by Christopher
Longuet-Higgins,2 and another by Mary Midgley in the University
Quarterly (Midgley, 1986). The book went into paperback twice. And
then went out of print and was forgotten.<br>
<br>
If what I argued for, in 1984, had been taken up and put into
academic practice in ensuing years, we might now live in a very
different world from the one we find ourselves in. We might have
come to grips with global warming long ago, and might not now face
the appalling climate crisis that menaces our future. Much more
might have been done to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The Amazon
rain forests might not face destruction. We might not be faced with
mass extinction of species. The oceans might not be full of plastic.
The internet might not have been allowed to corrupt democracy and
public life. Brexit might not have been voted for in the UK in 2016,
and Trump might not have been elected President in the USA. Many
more nations might have dealt with the coronavirus pandemic swiftly
and competently, thus preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths. It
is my personal view that we would now live in a much saner and more
hopeful world.<br>
<br>
What gives me such confidence that my 1984 book would have had such
an astonishing impact if taken up and put into practice? It is this.
If what I argued for had been put into practice, all those years
ago, universities would have been actively and energetically engaged
in helping people resolve conflicts and problems of living in
increasingly cooperatively rational ways. All those who now seek
knowledge in the social sciences and humanities would have acted
very differently; they would have gone out into the community to do
what they could to spread social awareness about what our problems
are, and what we need to do about them. Peoples' Councils would have
been formed, up and down the land, all around the world, devoted to
working out what needs to be done to resolve local and global
problems—what governments need to do to enable populations to
resolve such problems, and what needs to be done to get governments
so to act. Rapid population growth, destruction of natural habitats,
loss of wild life and mass extinction of species, war and the threat
of war, the menace of nuclear weapons, vast inequalities of wealth
and power around the world, pollution of earth, air and sea, threats
to democracy from social media, and perhaps most serious of all,
global warming: what to do to resolve these global problems would
have received sustained public discussion and attention3.<br>
<br>
If, during the past 30 years or so, our institutions of learning,
our schools and universities, had been actively and energetically
engaged in promoting public learning about such problems as these,
and what to do about them—actively and energetically engaged in
promoting public action to help resolve these problems—we have every
reason to suppose that this would have had an impact—although how
big an impact may be open to question. Many people, many
communities, would have learnt about what our problems are, what
needs to be done to solve them, and would have acted to help bring
solutions about.<br>
<br>
But universities have done none of this. They have, as I have said,
devoted themselves to the pursuit of specialized knowledge and
technological know-how. ..<br>
- -<br>
Here, very briefly, is what needs to be done to correct the three
blunders of the Enlightenment.<br>
<br>
(1) The scientific community today takes standard empiricism for
granted, the view that the basic aim of science is truth, the basic
method being the impartial assessment of laws and theories with
respect to evidence. But this view, inherited from Newton and the
Enlightenment, is untenable. Physics only ever accepts unified
theories even though infinitely many empirically more successful
disunified rivals always exist. The aim of physics (and so of
natural science) is not truth per se, but rather truth presupposed
to be unified. There are problematic metaphysical assumptions
inherent in the aims of science, and problematic value and political
assumptions as well. If science is to proceed in such a way as to
maximize its chances of success, it needs to adopt and implement a
new conception of the progress-achieving methods of
science—aim-oriented empiricism—which represent the problematic
assumptions implicit in the aims of science in the form of a
hierarchy of assumptions, these assumptions becoming increasingly
insubstantial as one goes up the hierarchy, and so increasingly
likely to be true, and increasingly such that their truth is
required for science to be possible at all. In this way, a
relatively stable framework of assumptions and associated methods is
created, high up in the hierarchy, within which much more
substantial assumptions, and associated methods, low down in the
hierarchy, and very likely to be false, can be critically assessed,
and improved, in the light of which lead to the most empirically
successful research programmes. As science advances and improves
knowledge, it improves its aims and methods, its knowledge about how
to improve knowledge.<br>
<br>
(2) It is not just in science that basic aims are problematic; this
is the case in life too. Indeed, most of our global problems have
arisen because we have pursued aims that seemed, initially, good and
unproblematic, but subsequently turned out to have highly
undesirable, unforeseen consequences (such as global warming).
Aim-oriented empiricism is not just vital for science; when
generalized, it becomes vital for personal and social life too. We
need to generalize aim-oriented empiricism to form a conception of
rationality—aim-oriented rationality—designed to facilitate the
improvement of problematic aims whatever we may be doing. According
to aim-oriented rationality, whenever aims are problematic, as they
often are, we need to represent them in the form of a hierarchy,
aims becoming increasingly unspecific and unproblematic as we go up
the hierarchy, so that we create a framework of unproblematic aims
and methods within which much more specific and problematic aims and
methods, low down in the hierarchy, can be improved as we act, as we
live.<br>
<br>
(3) The proper task of social inquiry and the humanities is to help
humanity resolve conflicts and problems of living, including global
problems, in increasingly cooperatively rational ways. It is also
the task of social inquiry to help humanity build aim-oriented
rationality into the fabric of social life, into all our other
institutions and social endeavors besides science, so that we can
make use of progress-achieving methods, that enable us to improve
problematic aims as we act, that are derived from the
progress-achieving methods of science. The hope is that, as a
result, we can begin to make social progress toward a civilized,
enlightened world with something of the success that science
achieves in making progress toward greater knowledge.<br>
<br>
As a result of correcting the three blunders built into academia
today that we have inherited from the Enlightenment,
knowledge-inquiry is transformed into wisdom-inquiry. Almost every
discipline and aspect of academia is transformed. The social
sciences become social methodologies, actively engaged in helping
people resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly
cooperatively rational ways, and providing the methodological means
to do that. Natural science is transformed into natural philosophy,
a synthesis of science and metaphysics, science and philosophy.
Social inquiry becomes intellectually more fundamental than natural
science. The relationship between academia and society is
transformed; social inquiry and the humanities do not just study
society; they interact with society, promote learning and
appropriate action in the social world. Academia becomes a kind of
people's civil service, doing openly for the public what actual
civil services are supposed to do in secret for governments.<br>
<br>
Humanity is in deep trouble, in part because our institutions of
learning, our universities, have long been seriously defective
intellectually, and thus dysfunctional. Most academics today
appreciate just how serious is the plight that we are in, and there
is the beginning of an awareness that universities are not doing all
that they might do to help put a stop to climate change and the
degradation of the natural world. This special issue of Frontiers is
an indication of the growing awareness among academics that
universities need to change. I hope my academic colleagues will
burst free of the irrational constraints of knowledge-inquiry, and
do all they can to inspire the public to put pressure on governments
to act now to put a stop to impending disaster.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2021.631631/full">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2021.631631/full</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
April 29, 1999 </b></font><br>
<p>The ExxonMobil-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute names
former Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY) its first "Distinguished Fellow." Two
years later, in a Washington Times op-ed, Kemp asserts that the
scientific evidence pointing to human-caused climate change is
inconclusive.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://cei.org/news-releases/jack-kemp-named-distinguished-fellow-competitive-enterprise-institute">http://cei.org/news-releases/jack-kemp-named-distinguished-fellow-competitive-enterprise-institute</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/warming-diplomacyat-what-cost">http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/warming-diplomacyat-what-cost</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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