Kim Stanley Robinson On Governments' Importance In Upfront Organizing For Climate

[ancianita]

Last edited Sun Dec 27, 2020, 07:36 PM - Edit history (1)

I'll be posting climate issues on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because we need to be constructively intelligent in defending the Biden administration when it returns good governance next year to the #1 national security problem of Climate. Start 2:45

Notes:

Climate change will force post-capitalism.

We want to avoid tipping points from which there will be no return — ocean rise from Antarctic melt, and the 6th Great Extinction, and 2.0 Centigrade average global temperature

At the current speed of burn of 500 gigatons of fossil fuel, we have until 2040 at which point the 1.5 - 2.0 C average global temperature will make life on Earth more dangerous
The quicker we slow that down, the longer we have to mitigate and eliminate CO2 that’s already ruining every ecosystem,
Add to that the 2,500 gigatons of coal, oil and natural gas still buried.

Buried fossil fuels are still on the books of corporations as “assets”
and already claimed by nation states as "natural resources.” worth 1.6 quadrillion US dollars
The neoliberal order will want to “do its fiduciary and political duty” and burn that fuel, and pocket a mere trillion for themselves.

Algorithmic Axiom #1 Prime Directive — More Is Better = the main corporate criteria for how quarterly profit and shareholder value are the measures of how well or ill we’re doing on the planet. It's brought us to a Big Turn in energy use, however.
— the president of the World Bank said “we need to put a price on carbon”
admitting that the pricing system of carbon is too low and the market system has failed, because the cost of carbon is greater than its pricing;
— the down press of polluting energy results in bankruptcy because
— the true cost — externalities that we now see -- are kicked toward future generations
— we are in an intergenerational ponzi scheme.

Predatory dumping on the future assumes that the future will be richer than the present which is WRONG.

Discounting the future is our greatest global error:
— low discounting values the future, and the future needs our help;
— high discounting of the future is what our economy now does, as if it doesn’t matter;
We are at The Turn of a political decision — which is economic — not a scientific, technical decision, which is:

IT IS WRONG TO BELIEVE THE FUTURE WILL PAY ITS WAY OUT OF OUR ENERGY MISTAKES TODAY.

Health, extinction, ocean acidification are things we cannot buy our way out of.

Inequality is 1% owning 42% of wealth — a global oligarchy that everyone sees,
5% of the comfortable, 95% of the precariat.

Privatizing risk and health goes on.
Consumption kills the poorest of the planet, deforestation and de-oxygenation result.

The system is killing people and the biosphere — not by accident, but by design.

THE NEW PATH:
SOLVING CLIMATE & ECOSYSTEMS CHANGES CAPITALISM AND EVERYTHING ELSE.

How to save the world:

— our human impact = population X appetite X technology

— stabilize population — give women their equal rights, education, etc., which results in population replacement to 1.8 children per woman, and stabilizes the environment;
— clean tech is improving; we must swap out from dirty fuel tech to a clean tech by paying ourselves for doing it; saying “it’s too expensive” to clean our energy is THE upfront saving of the future at a bargain;
— feeling fears is easier than feeling hopes;
— imagining a better future is harder than imagining the end of the world.

The Lever that changes the situation:
— the 'free hand’ market, with no liquidity controls on finance, sees itself as “efficient”;
but it is not resilient or robust. Why? Big 5 Banks in the US are leveraged out such that
they only hold 3 - 5% in assets (CIFI = “too big to fail” which assumes human harm);
when corporations are over-leveraged, they depend on people;
so bundled debt is how they save, but overextend, themselves;
thus proving that people are the ultimate asset AND can bring down the banking
system — ON PURPOSE.


— governments of nation states that can make money fungible
— people can force this, (yes, we can) — force strategic non-compliance as “free speech" forgiveness of debt, then
refuse to go down with the big fossil and banks,
— the answer is NOT to restructure debt,
— the answer is to NATIONALIZE banks — “the people will bail you out but now we own
you."
— at that point, the government takes over as a national credit union, and all profit goes into the treasury
— Thomas Piketty claims that human wealth will be horizontal and Keynesian
— which creates a government surplus and thus controls everything else.

In other words,
people would control government,
government would control finance,
finance would work for The People as the system is needed to work: free health care, education, college, 100% employment, private corps themselves would then have to pay a living wage

AI and tech will not take over the human future — that’s a bad dystopian story.

Post capitalism will still have capital and function according to what is good -- what is good for the land or the greatest good for the greatest number,
the necessities are socialized as public utilities, and
there can still be companies making a profit for those who want to pay “the true cost” of extra things.


"Shall not perish from this Earth” by Lincoln is a utopian science fiction we want to make real.

[WheelWalker]

1. Kicked and recommended

[OxQQme]

2. Ditto!

Serendipity.
I'm currently in a KSR reading binge.
Amazing story teller.
"The Years of Salt and Rice"---
"The Ministry for the Future"---
Into the middle of "Red Mars" now.

I followed your youtube link and found many more interviews with him.

[ancianita]

7. Hi, O!

I saw those videos, and am so glad they're available.

I don't know about you, but I think we could use more of KSR around here.

[Pluvious]

3. KSR is one of our great thinkers nt.

[ancianita]

4. Way ahead of our time. And we need future thinking people like him badly right now.

[byronius]

5. He lives in my town; I've had dinner wth him a couple of times.

He's the sharpest tool in the shed. Let me tell you. This man is Smart.

Plus he's a great writer.

[ancianita]

6. So pleased to find this out about you.

Back in the day I'd learned about terraforming from his Mars trilogy, but I'd no idea that he's been as left wing as I all these years. I should have read more of his work by now but am getting right on that.

Imo, any human who sparks hope and imagination in the rest of us is a great thinker.
I envy your experience with him.