Four Lectures on Climate Change: Kevin Anderson, Andrew Simms, Gwynne Dyer, and Daniel Nocera

via chycho

We have treated the world as a garbage dump. The damage we have done has been devastating and the repercussions unimaginable.

From the disappearing bees to plastic waste vortex’s in the oceans, from the commodification of water to increasing CO2 emissions for cheap gasoline, from deforestation (pdf) to the melting ice caps, from fracking to the oil sands, our politics, our economics, and our way of life are devastating ecosystems across the globe.

The simple fact is that even though it is our technological evolution that is bringing about an economic metamorphosis that we see manifesting itself as a global financial crisis, it will be the environmental revolution forcing our civilization to implement the concept of sustainability that will finally transform our society. In essence, we need to seriously rethink our current economic system.

There are positive changes taking place on the political front, and then some, but we are losing the battle:


Below you will find four lectures that provide further insight into our current predicament:

  1. In the first video Kevin Anderson presents some data;
  2. In the second video Andrew Simms discusses the absurdity of growth as it relates to our current economic system;
  3. In the third video Gwynne Dyer outlines what the consequences might be if we fail to address this issue;
  4. In the fourth video Daniel Nocera talks about the basic mathematics that we must consider to solve our energy crisis.

Kevin Anderson: ‘Rhetoric to Reality’

Andrew Simms: Climate Change and the GDP-led Growth Model

Related: Video of “The impossible Hamster (and economic growth)

Gwynne Dyer: The Geopolitics of Climate Change

Related: Video of “Arctic Methane: Why The Sea Ice Matters

Daniel Nocera: Sustainocene: Harvard Leads a New Epoch for Humankind

Related: More math, full video lecture of “The Most IMPORTANT Video You’ll Ever See

  • charlieprimero

    Excellent. Tax the crap out of them. My government checks depend on it.

    • Andrew


      • Jin The Ninja

        like all right libertarians.

      • charlieprimero

        It’s not irrelevant. Keeping the slaves in a constant state of fear is very important. They will not tolerate high tax rates unless they fear climate catastrophe. We must keep that meme in front of their eyes.

        • Andrew

          Your aversion to taxation is irrelevant to the veracity of scientific claims regarding climate change. Totally irrelevant.

          • charlieprimero

            Dude. I’m not averse to taxation. Twisting science totally depends on our ability to pay the salaries of “scientists” to produce the models we want. No pay, no play. It’s fundamental.

          • Andrew

            True. Climate change deniers are paid to twist science by big oil, who get subsidies from the government.

          • Camron Wiltshire

            Andrew…. Let me ask you one question and let’s see how you do. Is there any evidence that pre industrial concentrations of CO2 in the time of modern man have ever risen above the supposed threat level of 350ppm? If so what would be the implications of that fact given that all of the alarmism is predicated on the necessity of modern levels of CO2 being catastrophically enhanced beyond the manufactured normal range extrapolated from manipulated proxy data? I’m curious to hear your response.

          • Andrew

            Well you won’t. The damned computer just ate it and I’m not writing it again.

          • Camron Wiltshire

            The computer ate your homework eh… Hmm.. Well how about just answering whether or not you believe that 350ppm actually represents an unheralded shift in CO2 concentration in modern history and if so why?

          • Andrew

            No, I do not. But I do think 400ppm (where we are now) or above for an extended period is dangerous. And I think deforestation and ocean acidification plays a bigger part than the scientific consensus seems to.

          • Camron Wiltshire

            Why do you believe that 400ppm is beyond the pale and by what mechanism would it create “global warming” exactly in your opinion? Please provide your sources. As for deforestation and ocean acidification please also provide the basis of your thinking. Thank you for being a good sport.

          • Andrew

            It’s not 400 ppm specifically, and I’d be slightly surprised if it was exactly 350 ppm. It’s that my personal observations back up the alarmists’ general claims that our civilization is producing enough pollution to change the climate and that the climate is indeed changing. Where I live, the pollution is visible in the air almost every day. The wind blows it away, and a day or two later there’s already enough to creat a tan haze above the horizon. That’s a lot of pollution. Nobody can tell me that has no effect on the environment or human health, and here is not the only place it’s happening. And I grew up here, so over the past 40 years I’ve noticed warmer and shorter winters, more and later heat waves in the autumn, and new weeds and other flora migrating into the area, which in turn have changed the kinds of alleric reactions I get and the times of the year I get them. So yes, the climate is changing. I know it for a fact, because I’ve seen it and felt it personally.

            Is 350 ppm the tipping point, or 349 ppm, or 351 ppm? I don’t know, and I’m not sure the scientists know either, but I do accept that CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas and that plants absorb more of it than they produce. If the Brazilians and Indonesians weren’t clearcutting their rainforests, and the Chinese and Indians had emission standards on par with the USA’s, and everyone wasn’t pumping so much pollution into the oceans and killing the plankton (which also absorb CO2), then perhaps atmospheric CO2 emissions wouldn’t be much of a problem. I respect skeptics who argue about the exact numbers and ways to fix the problem, but I have little respect for deniers who claim the climate isn’t changing or that we aren’t playing any part in that change. It could be simple ignorance on their part, but from my perspective those are obvious lies.

          • JaceD

            Because “”scientists”” only have one source of funding

        • Bluebird_of_Fastidiousness

          Yeah, cause half the US gov budget is spent on preventing climate change, and Congress always bails out distressed climate scientists who fund their campaigns.

          They save the real fear for the stuff they really want. If they want your money, then they will take it, using the thugs they’ve hired with your money. I don’t doubt they’ll cease on any opportunity to fuck people over, but any excuse will do. Sometimes, the excuses are even legitimate, but how things are framed… well that’s the art of Psyop.

  • Christopher

    disinfo all right.

  • Blacklory

    Just ignore this we are great for the planet. Plant more natural gas.

  • Ted Heistman

    Well, if the World Bank is behid it it must be legit right left wingers?

    • Andrew

      Left wingers support the World Bank? That’s news to me. I must not be one then.

      • Ted Heistman

        They do when it comes to Climate Change. People have a hard time sorting through more than one knee jerk issue at a time. Screws up binary thinking. You know like Rich White men=Evil because they represent the Plutocratic Oligarchy. So then obviously a black President or a female Supreme court justice must represent the oppressed, because…they just do. Otherwise life couldn’t be reduced to black and white. too complicated!
        So yeah the World Bank enslaves the Third World with Debt, but only evil greedy industrialists and their minions deny climate change. So the World Bank can’t be evil!
        BZZZZZZZTTT!!! short cicuit! May day! mayday !

        • Andrew

          True. Many evil greedy industrialists and their minions (like the World Bank) are waking up to the reality of climate change and the damage it is doing to their interests too. After all, you can’t enslave dead people, especially if you’re one of them.

          • Ted Heistman

            Actually, besides poluting the atmosphere, Industrialization creates wealth, which is why the World Bank supports anything that supresses development in the Third World. Seems very consistent to me.

          • Andrew

            Wealth is of little use or comfort when you or your children are dying of cancer.

        • Camron Wiltshire

          Thank you Ted, you’ve summed this technique of control up very well here.