Is the heat over yet?
Praise be, the temperature dropped slightly yesterday and was almost pleasant today. Hopefully this will hold until that weird hot week we always get at the end of September…
We’ve had our A/C on pretty much constantly this week, and I am loving the fact that it has separate temperature and humidity settings. Makes for an extremly pleasant living space.
Here are this week’s links
- Paul Graham, interesting as ever: Is it worth being wise?
- Some book recommendations from Sebastian Marshall: The Books That Permanently Changed Me
- Hmmmm. Are Emerging Markets Turning Into the S&P 500?
- I don’t understand why people don’t get this. Is it just money and apathy? After two years of school strikes, the world is still in a state of climate crisis denial
- Pretty incredible (he’s very charismatic too): The greatest gaming performance ever?
- I loved this video: Dustin Hoffman’s Mental Accounting
- I wrote a similar blog post a couple of years ago: the world doesn’t care why you aren’t ready for retirement. I’m sure you had a good reason. Situational Gravity
- Not seeing much grounds for optimism: Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice in less than 30 years
- I like Tim Ferriss, but I haven’t followed his advice yet, despite owning all his books… How Tim Ferriss Helped Me Retire in My 30’s, Lose 17 Pounds, & Cook Like a Pro
Short and sweet this week. Anything good in there? Had to be #6 for me 🙂
This week’s books
I managed to read some books this week! Yay me.
- How to be F*cking Awesome, by Dan Meredith. This was a short, densely packed, very readable little book full of advice mainly aimed at entrepreneurs and freelances. As you can tell by the title, fairly irreverent tone but lots of good tips. I’ll be rereading this one.
- Who Gets What? by WM. Penn. This is an interesting little book by the author of The Expat’s Guide to Growing Old in Japan. It consists of four short fictional stories that are designed to illustrate various aspects of the inheritance laws here in Japan. I found it fairly readable and learned a few things.
- Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan, by Junichi Saga. This is from Sebastian Marshall’s list of books above, and I haven’t finished it yet but it is excellent so far.
Re no. 4, anyone (and I mean ANYONE) who is not familiar with the facts and arguments made by Bjorn Lomborg should not be listened to regarding climate change. One doesn’t have to agree with him, but one must be familiar with the facts (which noone has disputed) and proposals in his work (the book False Alarm will suffice) in order to be considered a credible commentator. Not doing so would be like commentating on, for example, national defence policy with zero knowledge of military history or military technology.
One may be utterly aghast that much of the world seems to be oblivious to an obvious existential threat – that most of the world has literally gone mad (or is blind, or is evil) – but there is another possible explanation: that the threat is not that great (either in probability or magnitude) and that, in fact, most of the world is behaving calmly because it is being comparatively (to the doomsayers) rational.
He seems to have found a very profitable niche providing cover to fossil fuel interests 😉
I will simply reiterate my original points:
– when one thinks one is knowledgeable, selfless and sane and it seems that the ‘rest of the world’ – or at least most of it, is ignorant, selfish, or insane, and this doesn’t change over time (which is what your original comment was lamenting) then sensible, rational people are open to the suggestion that they may be wrong (or motivated by things they weren’t aware of.)
Having acknowledged this possibility, they (re)commit to examining the facts, avoiding ad hominem.
We could go back-and-forth forever about people ‘making a nice living’ from the whole debate on both sides, and I’m sure that any of those doing so would be genuinely stunned by the insinuation that they are motivated by anything other than altruism, whether they be warning of catastrophe or warning against the foolishness and damage caused by overreaction, but, again, that gets us nowhere.
Ultimately, the question on a personal level is whether one has actually looked at the arguments in question and examined them. By this is not meant, has one been prejudiced to dismiss them by questions regarding the motivation of their instigator?Nor does it mean a superficial scanning and instant nod of approval at the counterarguments made by those already aligned with our
predispositions (regardless of their qualifications.) It means real thinking and that, as has been noted many times, is very hard work.
If you are truly familiar with Lomborgs data, arguments, and proposals, then make.a specific point. If not, I offer his work as a possible explanation for your dumbfoundment at why the vast majority of the rest of earth’s population is not thinking the way you are.
(To be clear, it is an offer made in the spirit of empathy and friendship.)
I think the tragedy of the commons and incentives are just as plausible an explanation. Sadly there is not much in terms of political and financial incentives to do the right thing long-term (although insurance companies and the US military are starting to get worried).
I see Lomborg proposes removing all subsidies from fossil fuels and investing in renewable energy. Now that I can get wholeheartedly behind!
Yes, rather unusual for someone, “providing cover to fossil fuel interests.”
Always a good idea to take a look at what people are actually saying, rather than what others day they are saying or imply that they must be thinking.
I added Lomborg’s book to my list and looking forward to it. When I’ve looked at environmental data on various gov’t entity sites…well, the data and the reactions don’t tie out. So I’m looking forward to getting into this book as the summaries I see online make the book sound well thought out. It looks like he’s applied the Hans Rosling “factfulness” approach. Thanks for alerting me to this author.
The environmental articles were a depressing read. There are some glimmers of hope though. I was reading recently that renewables now make up 40% of the UK’s energy mix and Chinese carbon dioxide emissions are set to peak next year (ten years earlier than expected). Still it’s all probably too little too late…
As for emerging markets. I have a fixed allocation which is slightly more than the international market cap. I do this because EM stocks have relatively cheap valuations which often point to higher future returns. I can’t say it’s been a very successful strategy so far!
“The environmental articles were a depressing read.”
Because bad news ‘sells’ (gets clicks.)
And, having clicked on the article, I see the following at the bottom:
“72 days to save the Earth …
… we’re all in. Are you? On November 4, a day after the presidential election, the US will formally withdraw from the Paris agreement on constraining global heating. It’s urgent that we tell the world what this means, and the Guardian is pulling out all the stops to do so. Will you help us by supporting our journalism?
Millions are flocking to the Guardian every day. Financial support from our readers is crucial …….”
Yes, they are asking for money.
You would have thought them with MILLIONS flocking to them EVERY DAY, they
would have enough. And, if they don’t, are they going to stop asking in 72 days time? After all, it will be too late, won’t it? They said they are “all in.” Or are they going to ask for more money so that they can document the end of humanity? (For whom to read?)
And yes, they really do need to tell the world what “global heating ” is.
It wouldn’t be the Guardian if they weren’t always trying to cadge money!
But the underlying science is sound, right? That is, CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are causing global warming and the resulting climactic changes are already underway.
Yes, but what will happen when, where, and how much (and how much adaptation is possible) is all very complicated.
And the deep question is this: what is our purpose in tackling it? People say ‘save the planet’ but they don’t mean that. The planet is in no danger from climate change (indeed it has never known anything but massive climate change. ) Some say it’s about saving ‘nature’ but the vast majority of nature’s experiments have never survived. Indeed, that is the very nature of nature itself. Ultimately, it can only be about ‘saving’ human life. (The preservation of other species and other habitats only in so far as they aid the survival of humanity.)
One can look at this in two ways.
1. The preservation of human life, as a lifeform in general. If this is the goal, then noone is remotely saying that climate change is going to render all of the planet as uninhabitable by humans. Also, if a person’s stated goal is to save future humanity in general, then they can easily contribute signicantly to that by living like a pauper, having no children, or, even better, committing suicide right now. I suspect that there will not be many takers, even among the most devotely apocalyptic.
2. To say that the goal is to try to ensure the survival and prosperity of as many of the direct descendents of humans now alive as possible. I guess this would be what most people would say they mean. This brings with it two further points. First, one can only deal in total numbers of humans; we cannot differentiate one from another. Second, survival is survival regardless of what the threat to life is. Saving 100 people from climate change caused risks in the future is immoral if the cost is to kill more than 100 people in a different way, now or in the future (or both.)
This is where important voices like Lomborg come in. Humans have never been at their decision making or moral best when in fear of their own imminent demise, real or imagined.
Dr Saga’s “Memories of Silk and Straw” is probably my favorite book on Japan. Through a mutual friend I got to have lunch with Dr Saga more than a decade ago now at his home in Tsuchiura and he was an interesting man but almost manic in the variety and intensity of his hobbies (he was working on painting several enormous canvases at the time). His “Confessions of a Yakuza” (also from one of his former patients) shares some of the sentiment of “Silk and Straw” but because of the narrower subject didn’t leave as much impression on me.