This month’s open thread on climate science topics.
Reader Interactions
5 Responses to "Unforced variations: July 2024"
Comment Policy:Please note that if your comment repeats a point you have already made, or is abusive, or is the nth comment you have posted in a very short amount of time, please reflect on the whether you are using your time online to maximum efficiency. Thanks.
Russell Seitz says
Until today, the Grenadines were credited with the Caribbean’s finest sailing, as they lie far enough South of the Hurricane belt to merit a stiff discount on both home and boat insurance, I spent the day sending satellite and NOAA sea state updates to friends in Bequia, Mustique and Mayreau which face decimation ashore and catastrophic coral damage to the Tobago Keys by ten+ meter waves and 100+ knot winds in the hours to come
Wei Wu Wei says
MDR Main Development Region
https://nitter.poast.org/pic/orig/media%2FGOMmOfnWEAAYqry.png
JCM says
The wisdom and practices of indigenous groups provide a blueprint for sustainable living within the nature of reality. The obvious connection to the land and ecosystems offers valuable lessons in resilience, adaptation, and stewardship. Recognizing and integrating this knowledge into broader environmental and climate policies is essential for achieving sustainable and equitable futures.
The undeniable truth is that an average child in the hills of Bhutan does indeed possess a deeper wisdom about the nature of reality than the average urban Western academic today. i’m sorry.
Indigenous peoples’ approaches to land management, resource use, and biodiversity conservation are often based on ages of accumulated knowledge. These practices contrast sharply with recent industrial and extractive models that have led to environmental deterioration. Recognizing and respecting indigenous knowledge is critical not only for justice but also for the development of sustainable ecological practices, including climate mitigation and adaptation.
This is far superior to the textbook stories taught by the dominant contemporary Urban university lecturers, journalists, and science fiction writers today. i’m sorry.
Not to be confused with a primitive hunter gatherer stereotype, the indigenous relationship between pastoralism and climate is particularly significant. Pastoralist knowledge of animal husbandry, coupled with intricate social structures, enables them to sustain their livelihoods in balance with their environment. This has never been and never will be achieved with soybean plantation, biocides, and Timber. Never.
The narrative that dismisses indigenous as primitive hunter-gatherer societies and inherently inferior is both misleading and harmful. It fails to appreciate the complexity, resilience, and sustainability of these lifestyles. Indigenous groups continue to demonstrate the value of traditional knowledge in fostering ecological balance all around the world. Follow the 5th generation Yak herder before your modern climate idols; i’m serious.
Embracing a more inclusive and respectful view of these diverse ways of life is essential for building a sustainable future, and rectifying the damaging injustices inadvertently perpetuated by the participants on these pages. Engaging deeply in academia often reveals the fallacy of suggesting that a PhD comprehends reality more profoundly than someone rooted in the land. This reveals the essence of phony environmentalism.
Happy Canada day.
Killian says
Richard Creager says
26 Jun 2024 at 7:16 AM
Killian: “Regenerative Governance. There is no other way.”
That is plainly true, …into positions of authority.
I was a bit confused by this bc you say the premise is true, but then say, “into positions of authority.” Problem is, there are no positions of authority in Regenerative Governance, so you clearly are taking Regenerative Governance, capitalized, as regenerative governance, general concept of a society that is sustainable.
Regen Gov is a specific model. The term “regenerative governance”, capitalized or lowercase, was coined by me ten years or more ago. Others have started using the term, but their work does not reflect the Regen Sys model in any way, and all uses thus far have been well short of regenerative.
but how do you justify even a shred of optimism.
Obviously, as time slips away and action crawls like a disinterested toddler, our situation worsens exponentially, so optimism is at a very low ebb. I have always known the chances of us pulling our collective head out was slim. Just look at the decade of immature taunts and gaslighting from the most active users of this site. (Recent example: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822711) No matter how prescient or accurate one’s observations are, if they don’t stay within the bounds allowed by the egos of those who have been prescient about nothing and offered zero unique, yet accurate, analysis, they are ridiculed by the omnicidal bullies on this site.
If not here, then where? If people who are self-professedly active in the climate science and/or mitigation/adaptation realms can do no better than that linked above, what should we expect of less-educated, less-interested people? No, we get Trumpesque responses from those that decry Trump. It’s absurd.
No, I am not optimistic, but I am knowledgeable and have spent my time learning about regenerative systems and creating solutions, not dragging down those who do. Is it still possible to reverse things? Yes. Regardless how improbable, it is still possible. The caveat, which is blatantly obvious, is the passing of irreversible bifurcations. We are, in all likelihood, in the midst of a major bifurcation now that began to be measurable around 2016 (based on multiple studies noting an uptick at the time of the 2016 El Nino), not 2023.
The trajectory of the world we live in bears significant inertia. Regenerative Governance that is not a veneer requires organizations with cultures that consistently draw enlightened individuals of capacity, with selfless orientation,… Where do you see that?
That inertia is irrelevant in the sense that every large social change faces the same inertia and the changes cannot and will not come from within the system nor necessarily in fighting the system. I believe it will only be successful if there is the quiet creation of a parallel system that fills in the needs the current system does not, cannot, and does not want, to meet and, increasingly, those it cannot meet as the system fails.
The very creation of a parallel system necessarily requires increasing numbers to opt out of the old and into the new, thus accelerating yet ameliorating the collapse of the old, thereby being in place before the collapse of the old occurs.
That is, of course, the ideal, but it is already forming unconsciously.
How could those cultures be created, sustained and reinforced? Serious question, if you have resources/links. And promulgated on a society-wide basis on a timeline relevant to the incipient climate-based disaster? More hopefully, the ideas you envision may grow from the rubble of the remains as humans find a better way.
Ecovillages, the Global Ecovillage Network, intentional communities, Transition Towns, La Via Campesina, Ecosystem Restoration Communities, the bio-region movement, Indigenous organizations, et al., are all working toward some version of “sustainable” future. All that is needed is to stitch these entities, and all communities, together. Regenerative Governance is the means to that end. It’s really quite a simple shift. As I have posted here many times already, there are already simpler examples of Regen Gov in place…. and there always have been. It’s the default of most of humanity prior to the dawn of hierarchical, patriarchal societies. Regen Gov, of necessity, is more complex in that it must have more scales. Indigenous societies exist on two scales: The local community and the wider society. The Kua of Africa, e.g., assigned each “band” or “tribe” or, as Helga Vierich termed them, IIRC, camping parties an area of their territory to live in and take care of each year. They would gather once a year in a whole-society meet-n-greet where such decisions were made. The rest of the year, fully autonomous. I am not suggesting we become GGH’s (Gatherer, Gardener, Hunters) because there is not the space to do so, I present only the issue of scales. Modern society needs up to five: Walkable communities, areas/cities, regions, bio-regions, and inter-bio-regions.
Regenerative communities, as I have determined from my own experiences, research, conversations with anthropologists and conversations with Indigenous persons have the following characteristics and more:
* Egalitarian
* Commons-based
* Scale-based decision-making
* Networks of small communities
* Intimate knowledge of their environment
* Needs-based decision-making.
Etc.
Walk out your door, start with one other person, do stuff. You’re now a regenerative community. Draw others in, encourage other communities around you to do the same, form networks and an area/city/regional council. Form regional networks (if a large bio-region), form a bio-region-level council.
There you go.
The simplcity of this confuses people.
Paul Pukite (@whut) says
Dimensionality reduction of chaos by feedbacks and periodic forcing is a source of natural climate change, by P. Salmon
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-024-07191-5
Bottom line is that a forcing will tend to reduce chaos by creating a pattern to follow. This has implications for climate prediction.