Is Creativity Dead - in Antarctica?

Comment to "Is creativity dead?" 

to nyt article:  "https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/opinion/social-media-algorithm-creativity.html"  

Look, !'m 201 years old and spent a lot of time growing up in Antarctica. If you want to see sameness, you can't beat 19th century Antarctica. 

 Listen to me, because I can barely remember it.

A six month night means you get to know the stars really well. The aurora australis bathed us in beauty while katabatic winds basically freeze dried everything. Even more than the Arctic, reality is stripped to essentials in a barren, continent sized desert. We were isolated from the cultural and political turmoil that took place in the 19th century. Narratives and structures like "religions" and "politics" were unimaginable in the dry frozen dark. We developed language that mimiced the sounds of the fulmars, whales, penguins, and seals that we were barely distinguished from. That meant a lot of our communication was singing.  We were humbled to be part of the animal kingdom. 

In my 40s, our world ended when some sailors blew in from Ushaia and kidnapped us. We had no idea of the world beyond the  Southern Ocean. I can't believe how often the sun rises and sets! We had never seen clothes that were not made of skins, land plants, and especially, wood.  Wood is a miracle. 

You youngsters are so easily distracted. You'll find it different after flood, fires and droughts reshape your culture to something closer to how I used to live. 

Comment on NYT: "A Big Climate Goal Is Getting Further Out Of Reach"

We're pretty obviously galloping madly in the "More Carbon" direction. The feedback loop of more heat means:

 - more release of methane from permafrost

 - less efficient uptake of CO2 from forests

 - Wildfires put their own carbon load in the atmosphere, which lasts after the cooling effect of the ash has precipitated. 

 - Extinction events for the biosphere due to moving growth zones and the reduction or cessation of the AMOC mean those creatures who survive will have a harder time of it.

- Positive feedback loops work faster and more reliably than economic growth.

There are a few straightforward solutions that are totally politically impossible. Stop drilling and processing now. Stop military action, which is a wanton carbon emitter at all stages of production and deployment. Plow those resources into sustainable tech, relocation off the coasts, housing for the upcoming waves of climate refugees. Whatever it costs - and money is largely fictional - it will be a tiny fraction of the cost of continuing. 

Regarding:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/climate/climate-action-tracker-temperatures-emissions.html?smid=url-share]

Comment on NYT article "How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points?"

Climate is a court that judges us every day, and issues sentences. In the past, that court would process its work at a slow-ish pace over centuries. These tipping points - and there are surely more that will become apparent once the mechanisms of the climate are put more out of balance - mean that the judgements will come to pass faster.


The imbalance will put us in situations that have never happened in human history : hurricanes that swing around the central Atlantic and don't peter out right away. Stretches of hot weather that destroy human infrastructure and of course the natural world. And the inability of the one natural mechanism for CO2 remediation, photosynthesis, to stop working at a scale that it needs to.


Greenland doesn't have to melt completely. The Himalayan glaciers don't have to completely disappear for irreparable harm to happen to otherwise dependable foundations of society: the right to clean air, potable water, stable land, sustainable food. Carbon pollution is subsidized, its harm externalized.

Comment on NYT "Climate Doom Is Out. ‘Apocalyptic Optimism’ Is In."

In re: climactic optimism:  as seen in the  NYTimes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/arts/television/climate-change-apocalypse-optimism.html

Take a look a the book "I Want a Better Catastrophe" by Andrew Boyd. If you think we are not going to surpass +1.5°C , well, the sine qua non of that, i.e. ACTUALLY surpassing +1.5°C in the last 12 months, each of which has been the hottest of that particular month ever, has already happened. 

Also: the oceans are radically warmer. Really, every climate metric you examine is going the wrong way. 

The solutions are stunningly simple, of course. Shut down all oil production now, and stop all petroleum powered vehicles when their tanks empty. Stop war - the destruction and prep for it, and logistics for it are a major source of atmospheric carbon. Getting rid of petroleum traffic will go a long way toward dropping consumption, and the waste of all sorts that that produces. Stop eating meat. You don't need to eat meat. Get food that doesn't need refrigeration or air travel. 

There's really no tech fix that can replace these wasteful, carboniferous practices in a timeline fast enough to avoid the even worse consequences than the economic downfall these actions will produce.

The 14th Amendment

 As they say, I am not a Supreme Court Justice, but states in fact do not elect presidents in a presidential election. They elect state-based electors, which cast their votes for president. There are no federal administrators of elections: these powers are indeed reserved to the states. 

The 14th Amendment is not about the election process, it's about who can hold office. For example, it's pretty clear that legislators violating their oaths on Jan 6th forfeited their right to serve in Congress or any other federal office. They need not be indicted or tried for insurrection, their participation is as straightforward a disqualification as the age and nativity qualifications. A number of them should be booted right now.

That said, nothing about the 14th Amendment constrains who can be on the ballot; it merely disqualifies any insurrectionist from being seated, absurd as that sounds. You can vote for anyone - whether they are qualified or not.  The timeline is irrelevant, so if there are FURTHER insurrection attempts between now and Jan 2025, those restrictions still apply to other insurrectionists running for federal offices. That's right, I'm accounting for yet another insurrection in the hot summer of '24. 

So the question remains: which authority enforces these restrictions? It probably should be whomever is administering the oath. Should Trump actually select a Vice President who was not an insurrectionist, then by the order of succession, that person would become president. If not, so on through the presidential line of succession.

Aerosols to the rescue?

[comment to ars technica https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/former-head-of-nasas-climate-group-issues-dire-warning-on-warming/ ]

We're now getting the kind of disaster that wipes out entire cities as a time. Just a few right now, but that's clearly going to accelerate, and not even be in places already acknowledged as vulnerable (that is, poor people and the global south). Temperatures that stay high evaporate more water, and there's going to be more water available anyway. 

We're used to storms destroying places, but having time to rebuild, sometimes even rebuild with the future in mind (e.g., not rebuilding in a flood plain), but whole new secondary effects are now getting enabled with the temperature rise: things like permafrost melting, fire tornados, and soon, large areas with wet bulb temperatures for extended periods of time that humans can't live in, any more than they can live under water. 

Oh, and it's not just humans, navel gazers, it's all the other plants and animals. 

Photosynthesis becomes less efficient at high temperatures, making the only at scale natural carbon sink less reliable. Aerosols may be increasing albedo, or lowering it, depending on the aerosol. Apparently, there's a lot of microplastic already in the air. Also: any geo-engineering without pumping up the carbon volume is kind of a pipe dream at this point.

Why anyone thinks any semblance of resilience and adaptability will be possible after around 2030 is a mystery to me. P.S.: hot wars are just about the most carboniferous activity people can participate in.

Geriatric candidates on the run!

 More NYT commentary, this time on the handwringing over Biden's age, which for some reason is never handwringing about Trump's already obvious mental decline.

Jhh Lowengard | Kingston, NY
In the past, former presidents and legislators stayed on the scene after leaving office, either by running for a different office or just being one of the smoky voices in the smoke filled room. You can actually see this in the non-governing power of Trump. Part of that power is that the GOP literally has no platform except what Trump says. What he seeks, on the record, is more time to grift, and possibly pardon himself and people who still are loyal to him, and to vengefully persecute his opponents.

Comparing Trump's mental acuity to Biden's is the real comparison, and in the race to get to the end of a sentence, Trump is clearly the loser.

But there's a non-zero possibility that neither of these oldsters will make it to election day 2024. This is what both parties should prepare for. The primaries are set up to emphasize differences between candidates, but the process of running should also clarify how there is continuity of political purpose between leaders and their possible successors.

There's even a possibility that climate disaster issues could finally step in to move aside issues driving politics today to issues like "how can we rebuild", "Where can we move", "How can we help others who have to relocate". Remember: 2023, the hottest year in recorded history, will likely be one of the coolest of the foreseeable future .