United Nations Says World May Hit 1.5 Degrees Warming Threshold Within 5 Years

Climate change is having a profound effect in Greenland, where over the last several decades summers have become longer and the rate that glaciers and the Greenland ice cap are retreating has accelerated.

In 2015, world leaders meeting in Paris to discuss climate change agreed to try to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

On Thursday, a report from the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, showed that the planet could exceed that watermark in the next five years.

"This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – the enormous challenge ahead in meeting the Paris Agreement on Climate Change target," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement. The U.S. announced last year it would pull out of the agreement.

The report — which comes just weeks after a Siberian town hit a record temperature of 100 degrees — also notes that the last five years have been the warmest on record.

Kim Cobb, a climate scientist and professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says that 1.5 degrees of warming is "a line that was drawn in the sand" by the U.N. and world leaders because of the disastrous consequences that come with higher temperatures.

Beyond that marker, she says, "we're embracing a fairly large pile of risk, some of which we don’t understand very well. So bumping up against that threshold is really alarming."

Cobb also notes that for her and other scientists, there are clear parallels between the hesitant, uneven U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its sluggish response to climate change.

"Climate scientists have been watching this train wreck happen for several decades now," she says. "And this pandemic train wreck is very similar."

She says it's misguided to think that the country's pandemic strategy will sacrifice public health for long-term economic gain.

"What you are really doing is baking in long-term economic damage, and that is exactly what’s happening with climate change," she argues. "We are basically piling on a huge tab, growing by the year ... that will have long term and sustained damage to our economy."

On the climate risks we don't understand yet

"Well, we know that continued warming will bring some certainties to us. Rising seas, drier regions like Australia, California getting drier, more wildfire-prone, and some of those wetter areas being more susceptible to extreme precipitation, none of which is welcome. But some of the most scary kind of impacts longer-term have to do with potential accelerations in the kind of climate impacts that we could be bringing to our doorstep. Things that are kind of the surprises we might see, including real acceleration in a system that we would be unprepared for."

On whether this suggests the Paris agreement failed

"Well, obviously, we are letting 1.5 degrees Celsius slip through our fingers, despite the fact that as part of the 1.5 degrees target, there was an entire report that provides a roadmap for the nations of the world to bring that into reality. Fantastic detail. And also outlining what’s at risk if we set a new target for 2 degrees, let’s say, the next kind of round number, if you will, beyond 1.5. And that is what is most alarming is from a scientific perspective. We have the data, we have the knowledge, and, yes, we have not acted upon it."

On the steps to slow climate change

"Well, we still have time. And I think that’s the most important thing for people to understand about this, these kinds of scary reports that come out. And unfortunately, it’s just one scary report after another. We still have time. And what we have to do is get to net zero emissions by 2050. And we still have a couple decades to figure that out. But we have to get going on that pathway because it is quite a tall order. We need to grow the carbon sinks on our planet, stop deforesting the tropics and start moving in earnest to a low carbon energy infrastructure."

On parallels between the pandemic and climate change

"Unfortunately, the parallels for me are very stark. Climate scientists have been watching this train wreck happen for several decades now. And this pandemic train wreck is very similar. You’re sacrificing what you think is public health and well-being for short-term economic gain. But what you are really doing is baking in long-term economic damage. And that is exactly what’s happening with climate change. People are looking down the road at their next election or, you know, their next quarterly report. And we are basically piling on a huge tab – growing by the year – called climate change impacts that will have long term and sustained damage to our economy. The pandemic, of course, will have its own impacts economically for quite some time. And there’s no real escaping that. But with climate change, if we move purposefully in a data-driven fashion, we can actually have progress while growing our economy. And there are many different policy instruments to reach for to let that happen."

https://www.wbur.org/npr/889796162/global-temperatures-warming

Pragmatic Rationalism Explained Again

“One cannot fully grasp the political world unless one understands it as a confidence game, or the stratification system unless one sees it as a costume party. . . . . Finally, there is a peculiar human value in the sociologist’s responsibility for evaluating his findings, as far as he is psychologically able, without regard to his own prejudices likes or dislikes, hopes or fears. . . . . To be motivated by human needs rather than by grandiose political programs, to commit oneself selectively and economically rather than to consecrate oneself to a totalitarian faith, to be skeptical and compassionate at the same time, to seek to understand without bias, all these are existential possibilities of the sociological enterprise that can hardly be overrated in many situations in the contemporary world. In this way, sociology can attain to the dignity of political relevance, not because it has a particular political ideology to offer, but just because it has not.” -- Sociologist Peter Berger in his 1963 masterpiece, Invitation to Sociology, commenting on the poison that ideology typically is for most people most of the time, which modern cognitive and social science has now shown to be basically true

“Time as cyclical, especially when married to the idea of fate and destiny, is inherently conservative, protective of the established social order, established political authority, and dominant traditions. .... In addition, with time as cyclical, the debate between advocates of democracy, such as Aristotle, and those who advocated aristocratic rule, such as Plato, is stable. Nothing new will alter that debate as human nature is fixed and our natures either suit us for democracy, as some have it, or for aristocracy as others have it.” -- Psychologist George Marcus commenting in chapter 3 of his 2013 academic text book, Political Psychology: Neuroscience, Genetics and Politics, on the difficulty of mindset change and hinting at why pragmatic rationalism is such a difficult concept to explain

Context

Over the last 8-10 years I have tried multiple times to explain my political ideology, pragmatic rationalism (PR). PR is built around four core moral values and those four morals are grounded in knowledge from modern cognitive and social science. The morals are not based on any political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology or mindset that I am aware of. They are based on the science of human beings and their minds as they are understood today as individuals and as social creatures.

I revise PR ideology or concept as various criticisms and suggestions arise and as I learn more from relevant science as it progresses. The last major revision was adding core moral value 4, reasonable compromise as a bulwark against authoritarianism. I did that about a year ago. The PR concept has been mostly stable since then.

At first, I thought that the PR concept was brain dead simple and easy to explain and be understood. I figured that most people would easily get it. Now, I believe it is hyper-complex and almost impossibly hard to grasp because the concept is counter intuitive to most non-scientists and maybe even most scientists. I grossly underestimated how hard it is for the human mind to simply be open to and grasp what I now believe is a deeply counter intuitive concept related to politics. I sometimes refer to PR as an anti-biasing and/or an anti-ideology ideology. I naively thought that 'simple' labeling would clearly convey the essence of what I was talking about. It doesn't.

This OP flows from flack and distrust I got from an OP about a week ago about the Common Sense Party and my own clearly esoteric and largely inscrutable brand of politics. It is so inscrutable that apparently most leftists think its far right and most rightists seem to think its far left. In fact, it is far neither.

Pragmatic rationalism: Version ~ #6

PR is built on four core moral principles that (1) seem to be the most anti-biasing beliefs that most people can at least aspire to adhere to based on science, and (2) most people already believe they agree with at least in theory. Value #4 seems to be increasingly rejected by American conservatives and populists as tribalism, polarization and distrust ramps up on the right. That poison seems to be rising on the left, but isn't yet nearly as pronounced.

The morals are (i) fidelity to trying seeing fact and true truths with less partisan bias, (ii) fidelity to applying less biased or partisan conscious reason to the facts and truths, (iii) service to the public interest based on factors including the facts, truths and sound reason, and (iv) willingness to reasonably compromise according to political, economic and environmental circumstances point to.

Service to the public interest means governance based on identifying a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices, while (1) being reasonably transparent and responsive to public opinion, (2) protecting and growing the American economy, (3) fostering individual economic and personal growth opportunity, (4) defending personal freedoms and the American standard of living, (5) protecting national security and the environment, (6) increasing transparency, competition and efficiency in commerce when possible, and (7) fostering global peace, stability and prosperity whenever reasonably possible, all of which is constrained by (i) honest, reality-based fiscal sustainability that limits the scope and size of government and regulation to no more than what is needed and (ii) genuine respect for the U.S. constitution and the rule of law with a particular concern for limiting unwarranted legal complexity and ambiguity to limit opportunities to subvert the constitution and the law.

Some comments

• Service to the public interest and many of the concepts it includes are essentially contested. There is thus no authoritative definition or agreement on definitions or when and how they may apply in various circumstances. That is an unavoidable aspect of politics and why reasonable compromise is necessary in a democracy. In a dictatorship, plutocracy or other non-democratic form of government, definitions and compromise are at the whim of the person or people in power. 

• The first enumerated factor in the mindset is reasonable transparency and responsiveness to public opinion. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates either transparency or respect for public opinion to a place of central importance. 

• The goal, "a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices", is my attempt to bake core moral values 1 (respect for facts and true truths) and 2 (respect for less biased conscious reasoning) right into the concept of service to the public interest. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates facts and less biased reasoning to a place of central importance.

• PR is predicated on persuasion, not coercion or brute force. People can accept it reject it as they choose. People can envision all sorts of horrors from PR. But since we've had all sorts of horrors from everything else that I am aware of, there's no basis in reality to level an argument that PR is somehow worse. The core moral values are selected because based on science, they will tend be anti-authoritarian, anti-kelptocratic, anti-liar and anti-incompetent.

The Supreme Court Upholds a Treaty with an American Indian Tribe

In an amazing 5-4 decision (Gorsuch + 4 dems vs the other 4 republicans), the court held that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation was still a reservation after Oklahoma became a state. The state of Oklahoma is in shock. The sky is falling for people in Oklahoma who wanted to blow off yet another treaty with native Americans. The lands included in the decision cover a huge swath of land, almost half of the entire state of Oklahoma, including much of Oklahoma’s second-biggest city Tulsa. The New York Times writes:

“The case was steeped in the United States government’s long history of brutal removals and broken treaties with Indigenous tribes, and grappled with whether lands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had remained a reservation after Oklahoma became a state. 

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Westerner who has sided with tribes in previous cases and joined the court’s more liberal members, said that Congress had granted the Creek a reservation, and that the United States needed to abide by its promises. 

‘Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law,’ Justice Gorsuch wrote. ‘Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.’”

This is an amazing decision. The US government has been breaking Indian treaties for a long time, probably well over a century. The ‘sky is falling’ dissent by Roberts claimed that there would be great confusion in the Oklahoma’s criminal justice system. He also claimed that the decision has ‘profoundly destabilized’ state power in eastern Oklahoma. It is very likely that some past convictions (~200?) will be thrown out or need to be relitigated. But, that is the price to pay when the US violates its own written treaties.

The land at issue constitutes a huge swath of eastern Oklahoma. The NYT also commented that Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole Nations are working on an agreement to present to Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice to deal with the issues this decision raised. This is one of the most important decisions regarding American Indian rights and lands in decades, if not the last century. 

One of the objections that Oklahoma raised was one of ‘inconvenience’ to the state. Gorsuch swept that argument aside.

Geez, who would have thunk that the US was legally bound to adhere to its legally binding agreements? Maybe there is some faint hope for the rule of law after all. Maybe.

A 4:15 interview broadcast today on NPR about the decision is here: 

The Supreme Court Protects the President

"There has existed for many decades a spirit and determination on the part of the makers of penal codes and the courts to measure the criminality of acts not only by their objective but their subjective qualities as well and to assess punishment according to the true responsibility of the offender. There is now a growing social tendency, a humane and laudable tendency, toward the enactment of laws providing for individualization of the punishment to be meted out to the offender, having reference not alone to the objective and subjective nature and quality of his act, but also to the true nature of the individual, to his age, his past record and the possibility of his re­demption to social and moral worth." -- Federal judge Edward R. Meek (ND-TX), Should the Punishment Fit the Crime or the Criminal?, American Bar Association Journal Vol. 8, No. 4, pages 212-214, 1922

The Supreme Court just announced a ruling that allows New York state prosecutors to get access to the president's private and business financial records, including his tax returns. But in a defense of the president, the court also denied House democratic demands to see the same financial records, at least until after the election. Inexplicably, the decisions were 7-2, and all four liberal justices voted to protect the president from congressional scrutiny

The court reasoned that there are “significant separation of powers concerns implicated by congressional subpoenas for the President’s information.” Based on that bogus concern, the court sent the case back to the lower court for further consideration of whether congress has the power to seek a president's financial records. In essence, this move delays a final decision until after the election. Because of that, the court is directly interfering in the election by hiding information that would damage the president. In my opinion, the court is working for the president's re-election.

The operating assumption is based on a small leap of logic. Specifically, the president has fought so hard to keep all of his financial records secret, he therefore has something illegal to hide. This logic is the same that the president has used to criticize people he attacks. During the 2016 election, the president argued this regarding Hillary and some of her aides in relation to emailgate: “The mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment? .... She lied to Congress under oath, and her staff has taken the Fifth Amendment and got immunity deals. .... It's worse than Watergate; it's a bigger deal than Watergate.”

Abuse of power?

Some commentators are saying the decision to protect the president from congressional scrutiny for now is reasonable. The logic is that such power could be used by future hostile congresses against future presidents.

Does that logic make any sense whatever? So what if congress can scrutinize a president's financial records? Why isn't that a good thing? Is the court saying that since all presidents are crooks and liars, they all need to be protected from a hostile, politically-motivated congress? Why shouldn't the American people have the right to know what kid of person their president really is, especially one who is a chronic liar?

Over and over and over, there is a heavy bias in law enforcement and the courts to protect white collar criminals and liars. This pro-white collar criminal bias has existed for decades, but now the level of damage it can do is potentially catastrophic. The supreme court, including the four existing democratic justices are blind to this deadly threat. If those four democrats are not blind, but had to cut a deal to let the president off, it must have been one hell of a deal.

It looks to me that the "spirit and determination on the part of the makers of penal codes" is using this tradition to protect white collar crooks and liars, presumably because most of them are whites in the same class as the judges and often the same race. This looks a lot like a form of systemic reverse racism in favor of while collar crooks and liars due to their potential for redeemed social and moral worth.

Moral worth is not a concept that applies to our president. Neither is social worth. 

Regarding the SCOTUS decision on employee-paid birth control…

Personally, I think the SCOTUS made the right decision yesterday, July 8th.  Their ruling:

Employers who are morally against paying for birth control should not be obliged to do so, as previously mandated under the Affordable Care Act.

However, and philosophically related, I do think that bakers should NOT be allowed to discriminate against the LGBTQ community by refusing to sell their wedding cake products or other goods to them.  If they are IN THE BUSINESS of a product, they are obliged to sell it to whomever wishes to purchase it, regardless of sexual orientation.

These two scenarios are different (enough) to me.  One involves terminating what some people consider “life.”  The other is pure discrimination against a faction of the populace with whom they philosophically disagree, and use their product as a sort of “weapon.”

Argue with me. :)

And thanks for posting and recommending.

On the Anti-Science Bias

Context

Variations of this discussion have been posed here before, but in my opinion, the topic of flawed reasoning and anti-science bias has become critically important and urgent in view of the pandemic and the upcoming election.

Anti-science bias

In an article posted by Live Science, Humans are hardwired to dismiss (coronavirus) facts that don't fit their worldview, philosopher Adrian Bardon writes on comments by Anthony Fauci, expressing an ‘inconceiveable’ anti-science bias among Americans. Fauci sees ‘science as truth’ and thus cannot understand why many people reject knowledge. Bardon writes:

“It is Fauci's profession of amazement that amazes me. As well-versed as he is in the science of the coronavirus, he's overlooking the well-established science of
‘anti-science bias,’ or science denial. Americans increasingly exist in highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own information universes. Within segments of the political blogosphere, global warming is dismissed as either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, the science of vaccine safety, fluoridated drinking water and genetically modified foods is distorted or ignored.”  

Motivated reasoning

In the 1950's, the prominent psychologist Leon Festinger commented on the human condition, asserting: “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”

Festinger’s observation was prompted in part by how a cult responded after their predicted day of apocalypse. That day, December 21, 1954, came and went without the end of the Earth, or the saving of the cult members by aliens. The cult truly believed that would be the day the Earth ended. In preparation, some quit their jobs and prepared to go with the aliens in their space ship. 

They rationalized the failed apocalypse and turned it into a success. Instead of admitting that they were wrong, the cult responded by saying that the aliens told them their belief had shed light and saved the world. Festinger commented: “The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction.” 

That shows the awesome power of the human mind to defend strongly held beliefs. That kind of thinking is called motivated reasoning. The label makes sense.

An article in Mother Jones, The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science, commented on motivated reasoning:

“Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call “affect”). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we’re aware of it. That shouldn’t be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It’s a ‘basic human survival skill’, explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

We’re not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn’t take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that’s highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.”

When people consciously think about something, they are thinking emotionally, logically, intuitively, morally and in biased ways all at the same time.[1] When we think we are reasoning about inconvenient truths, we are usually rationalizing a defense of prior beliefs, even if they are false beliefs. When someone hears about a new discovery that contradicts a strongly held belief, their mind usually instantly mounts a negative, defensive subconscious response. That response guides memories and associations in the conscious mind that are consistent with supporting the prior belief. That mental process tends to lead people to build an argument and challenge or reject the new knowledge.

Footnote:
1. Psychologist Johnathan Haidt commented on motivated reasoning and related biases, e.g., confirmation bias (acceptance of evidence we want to believe) and disconformation bias (skepticism of evidence we want to disbelieve):

“The reasoning process is more like a lawyer defending a client than a judge or scientist seeking truth. Kuhn (1991) found that most people have difficulty understanding what evidence is, and when pressed to give evidence in support of their theories they generally give anecdotes or illustrative examples instead. Furthermore, people show a strong tendency to search for anecdotes and other “evidence” exclusively on their preferred side of an issue, a pattern that has been called the “myside bias” (Baron, 1995; Perkins, Farady, & Bushey, 1991). Once people find supporting evidence, even a single piece of bad evidence, they often stop the search, since they have a “makes-sense epistemology” (Perkins, Allen, & Hafner, 1983) in which the goal of thinking is not to reach the most accurate conclusion; it is to find the first conclusion that hangs together well and that fits with one’s important prior beliefs.”