Taylor wrote:Mann brings up the influence of Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” during Mann’s time in college. The reason I bring this up is that the profits have famously been wrong. This sets the debate back, it allows for the appearance of legitimate criticism of current events. Mann “Oscillates” between the wizards and profits. I am interested to learn how his “curiosity” is satisfied.

It does really set a legitimate cause back when an expert makes a prediction of apocalypse occurring on a date certain. It was arrogant of Ehrlich to think he could predict the explosion of the population bomb. Although he and his publisher probably knew that otherwise sales wouldn't be great. So, when the predicted end of times doesn't happen, everyone goes, "Ehhh," and continues on without worry.

Personal anecdote: I am a Diesel and gasoline engine mechanic in the marine industry, There are no liberal boat owners. They own things that are the epitome of self centered thinking. This is an industry that provides nothing to the environment, typically these vessels are mobile hazmat sites. The owners show little respect for the water they claim to love. I am a strange dichotomy, on one hand I can tell a guy(boat owners are typically dudes) give me 25 grand and I can restore their catastrophically failed propulsion system or give me 35 grand and I can improve there system to a more fuel efficient one. Rarely are improvements chosen. The idea is, the owners understand the difference between having to pay for restoration and volunteering to pay for improvements. Like doctors of medicine, I am not the bearer good news. It’s a delicate position, because it is purely about money. I resent the industry that provides my paycheck though I must be good at what I’m doing, because I’m making a decent living, I like being in the faces of these guys and taking their money. These customers don’t walk away from me, they need me. They need me to justify or affirm their lifestyle.

My industry is a daily reminder of the uphill battle the Vogtians struggle with. There is innovation in this industry but that innovation is very expensive. It is limited to the wealthy who can afford expensive toys and adaption to a changing climate. They have the money to lobby state and federal agencies to reduce regulatory rules, that require lower emissions, and the regulation of fisheries. They push for more open access to fish for specific game that is at critically low stock. These competing industries, sport fishing and commercial fishing like most others prefer to “regulate” themselves.

Anyway, I am going to attempt to create my own take on the “Wizards and Profits” that brings something different to the table.

You have a frontline view of the power of interests, even when the interest is only recreation. The gun lobby I think is largely also about the right of people to recreate as they choose. The self-defense justification for 2nd Amendment fundamentalism isn't the real main thing, IMO.

I suppose we have to accept the bad with the good when it comes to interest groups. The solar industry, for example, could become powerful enough to lobby against other forms of renewable energy. We see how the corn biofuel lobby has prevented challenges to its market, despite clear evidence that corn ethanol's benefits don't justify the pressure the industry puts on food prices.

Anyway, looking forward to your "own take" on all the wizards and prophets out there.

Robert Tulip wrote:Wizard and Prophet: Prologue
Mann explains that the clash here is about spiritual values, contrasting a vision of the world as finite against a faith in inexhaustible possibilities. The world ocean has so much area, energy and resources that it offers prospect for an order of magnitude increase in the size of the world economy, while protecting planetary biodiversity into the bargain. That seems an unreal possibility, having our cake and eating it too, yet I have not seen any argument that suggests why it might be wrong, other than sheer incredulity.

Vogt sees the village as the essential basis of human community, while Borlaug imagines an urban metropolis fed by industrial agriculture. The challenge may be to find some way to integrate these contrasting visions, somehow retaining the need for local identity while also tapping the efficiencies of the emerging megalopolis that will be needed this century on the world oceans.

Conceding the land to other creatures is indeed the only way to prevent more species loss (at least on the land, if not in the oceans), but the objection to your vision might come from more than sheer incredulity. There are cultural and political barriers, about which I could speculate, as well as, probably, technical ones, which I shouldn't. I suppose some far-off scenario might include the move off the land, after who knows what calamities have befallen humankind. But to go from here to there, right now, isn't going to seem like an actual path that can be pursued, and the fact that you haven't seen a refutation of your idea might be simply that there has been no reason for authorities to think it needs to be done.

Having our cake and eating it too, is of course the wish I constantly see whenever faith is placed in wizard-like thinking. There is that blithe attitude that science and technology will neutralize any ill effects of our blob-like spread.

Chapter One pits the War of World Salvation as between the Dangerous and the Blinkered.

The Dangerous are the wizards who hope to ride the tiger of technological progress to sustain industrial civilization, while the Blinkered are the pious sciencalyptic prophets who call for a simpler and more equal life for all, but seem to regard homo sapien as a plague upon nature.

Do we protect the land or equip its occupants? Was the Green Revolution fighting arson with gasoline, as Vogt argued? Which is worse, to be a tree hugger nature fetishist or a techno-optimist apologist for hubris and folly?

What do we make of Vogt’s rejection of ringing debate, in favour of trying to get Borlaug shut down?

Are we just another species on the S bend of evolution? Like zebra mussels in the Hudson, is our population growing at epidemic rate, presaging an inevitable crash?

Nice capsule of the two sides, showing why we may have an intractable problem on our hands. There is much emotion at play, I might say more so on the prophet side. The wizards, as befits technologists, try to see the situation in starkly quantifiable terms and believe we must not be swayed by emotion, even the emotion of fear. Prophets act like people in love, in love with the rest of nature, who can't bear to see bonds broken between us and the web of living things. Warnings from myth ring in our ears, about humans who thought they could be masters of nature. We reject the Genesis command to have dominion, in favor of the simple message in the second Genesis creation account: God beheld his creation and saw that it was good. Maybe that is pure romanticism, and was right from the start of our rise as a species.

There was a moment in last night's presidential debate (the last) where I thought climate engineering might finally come up. The moderator noted expert opinion that even if UN emissions goals are met, we'll face severe consequences. "In view of that prediction," the moderator asked, "as president would you authorize an emergency fund to"-- and instead of citing a radical technical solution he went on, "relocate millions of people from cities in coastal areas?" Each of the candidates, not surprisingly, brushed off the dire prediction with rhetoric about succeeding in the battle by rejoining the Paris agreement, declaring an emergency, and so on. But I think the moderator's question points to the type of drastic action we're most likely to take, and in fact are in the process of taking. It's a reactive approach that probably has no greater chance of working than does climate engineering. It involves familiar logistics, though, instead of great unknowns. It raises less fear.

Robert Tulip wrote:

DWill wrote: If 10 million more homes in the U.S. that are situated favorably switch to rooftop solar, how much carbon emission would be prevented, after accounting for the emissions produced to make the solar panels?

This is a good question to illustrate the scale of activity needed for climate stabilisation.

https://news.energysage.com/health-envi ... ar-energy/ says “In New York, the average home uses 6,864 kWh of electricity annually. Choosing a clean source of electricity like solar panels can eliminate the same amount of carbon emissions that would result from burning about 5,000 pounds of coal each year.”

Going with those numbers, and converting to metric (5000 lb = 2267 kg), the emissions from 5000 pounds of coal is 2267 x 2.86 = 6.5 tonnes of CO2. Multiplying that by ten million households switching to solar gives a saving of 65 million tonnes of CO2. That is less than 0.2% of world emissions, which are now about 40 billion tonnes of CO2/y.

Leaving aside the emissions from producing the panels, this illustrates the order of magnitude, ie that switching to solar and wind on a global scale (say 200 times this US figure), would displace fossil energy worth about 40% of emissions.

There are a few big problems here, firstly the one you mentioned of the need to also add the embedded emissions in the renewable manufacturing process. But the real problems are even bigger: we don’t know how much this new renewable energy will just add to the coal or how much it will 'eliminate', but the recent trend is for renewables to be additional.

Thanks for working out the problem. Even such seemingly large-scale efforts might be mere drops in the bucket--if that. As you say, if renewables simply take the place of fossil power that would have otherwise come online, there is no net decrease in emissions, and probably even some increase yearly. There are about a million necessary but not sufficient actions on any agenda to blunt the effects of climate change. Carbon removal is even one of those, but it is a lot higher on ladder of effectiveness. That seems to be your main claim, and you've made it convincingly. CR speaks of a wizardly solution to the crisis, just as Borlaug's heroic creation of rust-resistant strains of wheat spoke of the same in terms of world hunger. However, from the view of 2019, few people I think see Vogt's prophet view as mistaken. Surely it was, and is, necessary to restore the earth's soil through control of erosion and care of soil, efforts requiring not high-tech but millions of individual inputs, similar to the role individuals need to play in creating more sustainable economies.

There exists on the prophet side a moralistic, religious feeling that we must repent of our ways in order to save the planet, to not sin as we have been sinning. I recognize that feeling in myself, but don't want to repudiate it. Carbon removal, if presented as our opportunity to roar along without needing to face consequences, will continue to find opposition on that basis alone. I think it necessary to add that The Wizard and the Prophet is not about climate change alone, but the whole menu of resource pressures created by expanding populations and greater consumption per each human being. Wizards can lay claim only to solutions that lessen problems for humans, making life better for more of us. That is a high aim, but evidence indicates that it can be achieved only at the further expense of the rest of life. Wizardry doesn't extend to manipulating ecosystems for their benefit. Vogt and Leopold were right in believing that ecosystems needed protection, not management. We're smart, but not that smart.

DWill wrote:I've wanted to read this book since hearing about it a couple months ago. In talking about the fate of our species with Robert, it seemed that he was on the side of humans continuing to beat the odds against continuing to expand our economies and populations, through technical/industrial innovation. I, on the other hand, most often spoke about the dim prospects of humans becoming ever more dominant as a species. That, I thought (and still tend to think) just won't work; we'll collide with natural limits and completely degrade the planet in the process. Robert is set up to take the wizard's side, played by Norman Borlaug in Mann's book, and I'm representing the prophet, played by William Vogt. Unless, that is, either of us change our minds!

Time permitting, I may pick up a copy and contribute what I can to this discussion. I’m at least familiar with Robert’s thoughts on the subject. I have disagreed with him in the past on some of the particulars, which I guess puts me on the “prophet” side.

It seems to me the wizard-prophet dichotomy may have its roots in an age-old philosophical question: what is (hu)man’s place in nature? Stephen Jay Gould discusses this question in an essay he wrote in the 1980s called “Our Natural Place.”

Gould identifies two basic philosophies that try to put man in his place, so to speak. The zoocentric idea that sees humans as “nothing more” than animals. And the anthropocentric one that sees humans as the pinnacle of evolution. (For the sake of brevity, I’m sort of presenting the extremes of both sides, knowing that most people will fall somewhere between.) But it sounds like the prophet’s position may be rooted in zoocentrism and the wizard’s position in anthropocentrism? Maybe?

I’m more zoocentric than anthropocentric and probably more prophet than wizard. Through my study of evolution, I understand that human beings are very much part of the natural world, and that all life is intrinsically connected. And, yet, humans are also more than “just animals.” We’re special in the sense, as Sagan once said, as a way the universe can know itself. But with sentience and our position at the very top of the food chain comes a very grave responsibility to NOT muck the planet up for the rest of God’s creatures. In sheer numbers we are doing just that. We occupy an ever-expanding niche, displacing other life in the process. At the same time, I don’t believe we have any control over population growth unless we go to a one-world totalitarian government. Our numbers will rise until some catastrophic event, war, famine, etc. Until then, I can’t help but wonder if a world of 10 billion people will be a catastrophe of a different kind. But it’s it’s an important discussion nonetheless. As Gould says, “we live in an essential and unresolvable tension between our unity with nature and our dangerous uniqueness. Systems that attempt to place and make sense of us by focusing exclusively either on the uniqueness or the unity are doomed to failure. But we must not stop asking and questing because the answers are complex and ambiguous.”

Sorry if this is way out in left field. I think I just like quoting Gould.

No, you're right in the ballpark, and I hope you do chip in, regardless of whether you get the time to read the book. What I'd add to your excellent take on the philosophical poles via Gould, is that the things we humans want are, by and large, good things in themselves. Sure, there's some consumerism that we might criticize, but otherwise, nice, comfortable homes and convenient machines; the ability to travel to distant places to see family or just to widen horizons; better medical treatments to enjoy health into old age--these are worthy things to want. But do they, in aggregate, place an impossible burden on the planet's resources or dangerously raise the temperature of the planet? Can we really say no to these things, or will we say yes and trust the wizards to solve the dilemma?

Climate change: ‘We’ve created a civilisation hell bent on destroying itself – I’m terrified’, writes Earth scientist

This is a challenging article on climate politics. The author, James Dyke, lectures in Global Systems, and presents a generally logical perspective on the planetary peril, opening with a comment from a senior IPCC scientist that current trends will cause large scale death, meaning “untold devastation awaits us if radical action is not taken.”

The line I found most interesting was that “We may be critically constrained in our abilities to change and rework the technosphere, but we should be free to envisage alternative futures. So far our response to the challenge of climate change exposes a fundamental failure of our collective imagination.”

This framing of climate solutions as a problem of imagination is essential. My sense is that Dyke sets out the challenge well, with his explanation that the technosphere has become a planetary system that is out of control, making collective action to cut emissions impossible.

However, I want to challenge his argument that “we know that in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to rapidly reduce emissions now.” This is certainly the conventional wisdom within climate science, but Dyke has correctly explained that emission reduction on the scale required is simply impossible, due to the inertia within global politics. It is a contradiction for something to be both necessary and impossible. That means we have to find alternatives.

Geoengineering by increasing albedo is no answer either, since as Dyke explains it fails to address the problem of ocean acidity. But does that mean catastrophe is inevitable? No.

Dyke says nothing about the potential for carbon removal at large scale. I know this seems equally impossible as emission reduction at first glance, but perhaps more detailed analysis will show carbon removal is actually possible, making it a necessary focus for restoring planetary stability, seeing climate change as the real primary security problem for the planet.

Looking at the numbers, the world now emits about 15 gigatonnes of carbon per year, and the most optimistic scenarios would scale that increase back by just a few gigatons. For reference, a gigaton of water is a cubic kilometre. But the underlying real problem is that global warming is caused by past emissions, now totalling about 635 gigatons of carbon.

The extra 15 GT we add per year is marginal to the scale of the warming driver, just about 2% of the problem. To actually fix global warming, the world has to mainly focus on the elephant in the room, the committed heat from past emissions.

My view is that it is possible for the capitalist system to invest in new technology with potential to remove carbon from the air at much larger scale than current emissions. That means that if we work out how to convert say 100 GT of carbon to useful products every year – food, feed, fish, forests, fabric, fuel, fertilizer – then it actually would be okay to keep emitting more carbon, since the world would be on a trajectory back to climate stability, climate repair and climate restoration.

We need the imagination to envisage a world where we remove more carbon from the air than we add, converting carbon into profitable commodities to make carbon mining the main new industry of this century. My view is that the only way this is possible is to harness the immense area, energy and resources of the world ocean, to shift the existing economy toward a sustainable direction, addressing climate change through peaceful cooperation rather than through confrontation.

Robert Tulip wrote: However, I want to challenge his argument that “we know that in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to rapidly reduce emissions now.” This is certainly the conventional wisdom within climate science, but Dyke has correctly explained that emission reduction on the scale required is simply impossible, due to the inertia within global politics. It is a contradiction for something to be both necessary and impossible. That means we have to find alternatives.

When our insatiable demand for hydrocarbons finally depletes this reserve of stored solar energy, then we will in fact have "succeeded" in cutting our emissions. The chaos this will cause for 10 billion or more people is unimaginable (speaking of imagination), unless on the way to ending the fossil fuel era we have replaced that energy source with others. There is no path forward without having an answer to that problem in mind.

But must we say goodbye to hydrocarbons, or can we continue to benefit from that useful molecule? That is the question to answer when proposing that biofuels of various types take over. The claim that such production would be carbon neutral now gives biofuels credibility as a candidate, but the claim has been challenged. Of course, other objections can be raised against biofuels, such as their taking land out of food production.

Nuclear must be a bigger part of the energy future, despite its horrible associations for prophets. The threat nuclear plants pose isn't as great as that posed by warming, simple as that. And somehow, we need to be able to entertain both wizard- and prophet-scale solutions: centralized power for industrial production along with decentralized power for heating and cooling homes.

Geoengineering by increasing albedo is no answer either, since as Dyke explains it fails to address the problem of ocean acidity. But does that mean catastrophe is inevitable? No.

Dyke says nothing about the potential for carbon removal at large scale. I know this seems equally impossible as emission reduction at first glance, but perhaps more detailed analysis will show carbon removal is actually possible, making it a necessary focus for restoring planetary stability, seeing climate change as the real primary security problem for the planet.

A Swiss company has demonstrated mechanical removal of carbon, which would be acceptable to citizens if it could be deployed widely enough to make a difference. Unfortunately, the technology isn't powerful enough to be a practical solution. One problem with other "imaginable" solutions is that many would have the same drawback to people as nuclear power has--they fear them. We fear them enough to prefer taking chances on what we see as the less immediate threat of warming. Psychologically, we can pretend not to see that we are risking the planet through the overall working of our economy, while we balk at doing anything intentional as too risky.

My view is that it is possible for the capitalist system to invest in new technology with potential to remove carbon from the air at much larger scale than current emissions. That means that if we work out how to convert say 100 GT of carbon to useful products every year – food, feed, fish, forests, fabric, fuel, fertilizer – then it actually would be okay to keep emitting more carbon, since the world would be on a trajectory back to climate stability, climate repair and climate restoration.

We need the imagination to envisage a world where we remove more carbon from the air than we add, converting carbon into profitable commodities to make carbon mining the main new industry of this century. My view is that the only way this is possible is to harness the immense area, energy and resources of the world ocean, to shift the existing economy toward a sustainable direction, addressing climate change through peaceful cooperation rather than through confrontation.

By this point, has any product actually been extracted from atmospheric carbon? I don't ask to express skepticism to your idea, but only to specify that we need to know what that stuff is, in order to know what industries could be built upon it. I did some research into one use you suggested, using the carbon as biochar (I hadn't even heard of biochar before then). If atmospheric carbon contains contaminants, I would think its usefulness in soil restoration would be in doubt. It wouldn't be charcoal, anyway, which is what gives biochar its effect.

The largest question of all might be the effectiveness of proposing visionary solutions, as discouraging as it sounds to say that. Is there is any precedent for the world acting in such foresightful ways, taking such leaps all at once? The devil known has the upper hand. Maybe the treaty to mend the ozone hole can be used as a model, but the level of complexity in that effort was nothing compared to what climate repair requires.

Late edit: I'm reading along, enjoying Mann's survey of the wizard/prophet conflict through history. In the chapter that discusses "peak oil" (6), Mann goes through the succession of pronouncements of oil's demise, which began right at the start of the industry. He finds credible an MIT economist's verdict that the world's oil supply will "never" run out. Seems incredible, doesn't it? Even the oil industry itself was spooked by the predictions of the end of oil. That was a reason that the first big producers of solar panels were oil companies! I suppose the figures on proven reserves that indicate oil/gas lasting less than a century more are always reviseable, as new extraction and exploration techniques are tried. How do we decide if infinite oil is good news or bad? I wonder by the way if the same inexhaustibility could apply to coal. I suspect that it doesn't. Britain, for example, has probably almost run out of its once-abundant coal. It produces very little of it today. Part of this could be that getting to coal reserves is too expensive, dangerous, and destructive, compared to oil drilling.

Damn. Double post.