Utopian Activists Invade the AI-Quantum Computing Field

 

Don't Worry; Nothing to See Here.

Don't worry; people will all be out of work, and tremendous social upheaval will happen but AI will solve all conceivable problems. Lots of talk about what "we" need to do.

This Changes Everything

If you think you know about AI
Watch

A great blog entry was lost due to a quirk in Blogger. I will attempt to re-post later.

Watch the video - it's scarier than anything I can say here.

As if that weren't enough, Quantum computer is taking off. The presentation seems to have some elements of Utopial Activism.

Updating Your Ideas about Quantum Computing

A New Utopian Activism is Born

Russel writes here as a politician, not an "expert" on Artificial Intelligence. In fact, one may ask if there is any such thing as "Artificial Intelligence," the entity that needs to be controlled.

Page 173 summarizes Russel's Utopia:

1. The machine's only objective is to maximize the realization of human preferences
2. The machine is initially uncertain about what those preferences are
3. The ultimate source of information about human preferences is human behavior

The assumption that underlies the book is that "AI" can be controlled to create a society that follows the rules above. The rules don't arise from "AI" itself. They are straightforward statements of political agenda.

Russel spends the rest of the book showing that all the above rules are not feasible in practice (let alone desirable). He misses the real issue with Rule #1, which calls for the optimization of an ordinal entity. This fallacy is so common it passes without notice. However, the mistake is hard to forgive for someone posing as an expert in logic.

The problem is so common I need to make a brief digression to illustrate the problem.

Suppose my friend and I fill in a questionnaire after we leave a restaurant. The form is full of questions of form (0) Disagree (1) Slightly Agree (3) Agree slightly (4) agree. So we are being asked, for example, if the meal was satisfying, what we expected, or if we were satisfied with the service.

Some computer program will "do the math" and conclude, for example, that "average" satisfaction with the service is 4.5. This is nonsense. The categories are not numbers.

For example, the "math" will involve adding my answers to my friend's answers. Does it make sense to "average" the happiness of two people? This would be made more obvious if the categories were A,B, C,D and not numbers. Nobody would be tempted to "average" A's and C's.

Averaging ratings is ubiquitous on the web. For example, here is the way Amazon treats reviews of this particular book:

What can this possibly mean?

First off, you can say something. For example, 71% rated the book with 5 stars. That's about it. All by itself, it doesn't say much that is useful. I always check the 1-stars.

Does this mean they liked the book better than the 18% that rated the book with only 4 stars? To answer this, you need to get inside the heads of the reviewers. Do 3-star reviewers like the book three times as much as the 1-star reviewers? Do the 5-star reviewers like the book five times as much as the one-star reviewers?

Wouldn't checking why the 1-star reviewers hated the book make sense? Often they are not happy with the binding or late delivery! Does it make sense to check the 5-star crowd to see if they actually read the book or considered the criticisms of the 1-star reviewers? Did the 5-star reviewers actually understand the book? 

This is actually a dense and difficult book. Have all the reviewers read it?

You can ask the same thing about a hypothetical survey of the human race to determine how "happy" we are, on average or on average. Such a survey would not produce meaningful results because you can't do math with ordinal numbers, which express a sequence (order) but say nothing about the degree of whatever is being talked about. For example, the runner coming in first did not run twice as fast as the runner coming in second.

By the way, the same problem arises in Sam Harris's famous "moral landscape." which creates a multi-dimensional fallacy out of ordinal rankings and assumes against all reason that there is an optimum way to achieve the "best" outcome for humanity or just one person. Again we have an example of a common fallacy: Appeal to Irrelevant Authority. Harris knows nothing about actual optimization.

Russel's agenda is dead on arrival. Astonishingly, he spends the rest of the book showing why the idea is unworkable, yet reaches the conclusion that somehow it will work out, and he will continue to be invited to political events where he can headline as an expert on the subject. In his impressive list of references, Russel fails to present a single voice of support for his core idea, but his qualifications on the book jacket list all the political entities he belongs to.

There are even more fundamental problems with the book:

• Introducing "AI" totally misses the point, which is "control" of the systems we create, with or without hardware;
• The concept of "AI" is a smoke screen to cover the fact that the issues of control, even when confined to "computer systems," have nothing to do with the specific technology of "AI."
• The "Russel Agenda" is a Utopian "solution" to a made-up problem. Russel specifically advocates for an international panel like the IPCC to address it. We know how that is going: Utopian advocacy replaces Science.

I will have more to say about these issues.

The Leap Manifesto

In the Canadian context, the Leap Manifesto is worth a detailed look.  The Manifesto should be seen as a continuation of the activist rhetoric of Namoi Kine and her husband, Avi Lewis (pictured). Both are well-known and respected figures in the activist world. Kline is frequently found commenting "out of her lane," as with her astonishingly ignorant comments on nuclear power.

Kline's "Manifesto" has much in common with the other famous one, the Communist Manifesto, another Utopian vision of a classless society purged of the profit motive. We have a pretty good idea of how that turned out. We should be wary of "manifestos." All of them seem to skip the nasty details of getting the public to go along with the dream, along with the troublesome problems of dealing with 

real problems without a magic wand.

The couple has presented us with their dream world, a Utopia (making them "Left Wing Utopians" on my political spectrum), along with some completely fanciful ways of getting there. Public response has been underwhelming but has not hurt the couple's careers as "influencers."

THE LEAP MANIFESTO

We start from the premise that Canada is facing the deepest crisis in recent memory:

[This is a bald and arrogant overstatement. The "crisis" is that almost nobody agrees with them. Not every problem is a crisis. In fact, not every "problem" is real at all.]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has acknowledged shocking details about the violence of Canada’s near past. Deepening poverty and inequality are a scar on the country’s present. And Canada’s record on climate change is a crime against humanity’s future.

[For those unfamiliar with Canadian politics, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission looking into some shameful aspects of Canada's past. How this became "the deepest crisis in recent memory" is a mystery.] 

These facts are all the more jarring because they depart so dramatically from our stated values: respect for Indigenous rights, internationalism, human rights, diversity, and environmental stewardship. Canada is not this place today— but it could be.

We could live in a country powered entirely by renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit, in which the jobs and opportunities of this transition are designed to systematically eliminate racial and gender inequality. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher wage jobs with fewer work hours, leaving us ample time to enjoy our loved ones and flourish in our communities. 

[Bald Utopianism.]

We know that the time for this great transition is short. Climate scientists have told us that this is the decade to take decisive action to prevent catastrophic global warming. That means small steps will no longer get us where we need to go.

[Here, we see genuine social issues tried to climate issues explicitly to make "Manifesto" action urgent. No time to think. No need to vote. No need to consider facts, costs, or priorities. The manifesto is now 8 years old. Did the crisis come and go while I slept?] 

SO WE NEED TO LEAP  

This leap must begin by respecting the inherent rights and title of the original caretakers of this land. Indigenous communities have been at the forefront of protecting rivers, coasts, forests and lands from out-of-control industrial activity. We can bolster this role, and reset our relationship, by fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“Small steps will no longer get us to where we need to go. So we need to leap”.

[As implied by the name "Manifesto," this is a call for revolution, which makes it "Utopian." One must say that the United Nations has come up with a lot of declarations. None has the force of law, as implied here. We can judge the effectiveness of such declarations by how the UN has managed its founding goal: World Peace. The UN deserves an article on its own, but I regard most of its "declarations," including those coming from the IPCC, as "Utopian." ] 

Moved by the treaties that form the legal basis of this country and bind us to share the land “for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow,” we want energy sources that will last for time immemorial and never run out or poison the land. Technological breakthroughs have brought this dream within reach. The latest research shows it is feasible for Canada to get 100% of its electricity from renewable resources within two decades[1]; by 2050 we could have a 100% clean economy[2].

[The claim that we can get 100% of our electricity from renewable resources is blatantly false and misleading.  Does "getting ... electricity" means electrical generation? Even in that limited sense, does this mean we have the technology to create the baseline power generation and massive increase in infrastructure to support "renewables."] 

We demand that this shift begin now.

There is no longer an excuse for building new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future. The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard. That applies equally to oil and gas pipelines; fracking in New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia; increased tanker traffic off our coasts; and to Canadian-owned mining projects the world over.The time for energy democracy has come: we believe not just in changes to our energy sources, but that wherever possible communities should collectively control these new energy systems.

[Hidden in this demand is the requirement that Canada stops exporting oil and gas. Balancing this would be a huge demand for foreign technology solar panels and wind farms. Nuclear (ruled out by Kline) is the only technology that can promise a reliable baseline power supply. Neither the issue nor the solution is mentioned. Note also that the Manifesto calls for shutting down Canadian ventures in other countries. The Manifesto is against mining. Presumably the lithium and copper required for renewable energy projects will magically appear without mining it.]

As an alternative to the profit-gouging of private companies and the remote bureaucracy of some centralized state ones, we can create innovative ownership structures: democratically run, paying living wages and keeping much-needed revenue in communities. And Indigenous Peoples should be first to receive public support for their own clean energy projects. So should communities currently dealing with heavy health impacts of polluting industrial activity. 

[The above is an explicit attack on the "capitalist" economic system. No alternative is proposed so we must assume a top-down command economy such as the one that failed in the Soviet Union. Or worse. Typically, the fact that the shares of large corporations are held directly by ordinary people or indirectly through their pension funds. This is, in fact, an "innovative structure" that is at the heart of the capitalist economy.]

Power generated this way will not merely light our homes but redistribute wealth, deepen our democracy, strengthen our economy and start to heal the wounds that date back to this country’s founding.

[We have heard this promise before: the "classless" society. These proposals will not "redistribute" wealth; they will destroy it, starting with the fossil fuel industry.]

A leap to a non-polluting economy creates countless openings for similar multiple “wins.” We want a universal program to build energy efficient homes, and retrofit existing housing, ensuring that the lowest income communities and neighbourhoods will benefit first and receive job training and opportunities that reduce poverty over the long term. We want training and other resources for workers in carbon-intensive jobs, ensuring they are fully able to take part in the clean energy economy. This transition should involve the democratic participation of workers themselves. High-speed rail powered by renewables and affordable public transit can unite every community in this country – in place of more cars, pipelines and exploding trains that endanger and divide us. 

[ "Renewables" require heavy mining, so they are not really renewable at all. High-speed rail requires massive amounts of a steel-a major source of greenhouse gasses.]

And since we know this leap is beginning late, we need to invest in our decaying public infrastructure so that it can withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events. 

Moving to a far more localized and ecologically-based agricultural system would reduce reliance on fossil fuels, capture carbon in the soil, and absorb sudden shocks in the global supply – as well as produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone.

We call for an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations and stop damaging extractive projects. Rebalancing the scales of justice, we should ensure immigration status and full protection for all workers. Recognizing Canada’s contributions to military conflicts and climate change — primary drivers of the global refugee crisis — we must welcome refugees and migrants seeking safety and a better life.

["Reform" of the food supply system is implied here,  which will imply a further hit to the economy since "capitalism" - return on investment - needs to be outlawed.]

Shifting to an economy in balance with the earth’s limits also means expanding the sectors of our economy that are already low carbon: caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media. Following on Quebec’s lead, a national childcare program is long past due. All this work, much of it performed by women, is the glue that builds humane, resilient communities – and we will need our communities to be as strong as possible in the face of the rocky future we have already locked in.

Since so much of the labour of caretaking – whether of people or the planet – is currently unpaid, we call for a vigorous debate about the introduction of a universal basic annual income. Pioneered in Manitoba in the 1970’s, this sturdy safety net could help ensure that no one is forced to take work that threatens their children’s tomorrow, just to feed those children today.

We declare that “austerity” – which has systematically attacked low-carbon sectors like education and healthcare, while starving public transit and forcing reckless energy privatizations – is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth.How we can pay for all of this? Read “We Can Afford The Leap” by Bruce Campbell, Seth Klein, and Marc Lee

The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available — we just need the right policies to release it. Like an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties. Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending. All of these are based on a simple “polluter pays” principle and hold enormous promise.

[I'd love to see the math here. They demand not just the elimination of the fossil fuel subsidies industry but the elimination of that industry. There is an implied attack on all forms of "capitalist" contribution to the economy. How does that magically fund the socialist agenda?]

One thing is clear: public scarcity in times of unprecedented private wealth is a manufactured crisis, designed to extinguish our dreams before they have a chance to be born.

Those dreams go well beyond this document. “We call on all those seeking political office to seize this opportunity and embrace the urgent need for transformation”. We call for town hall meetings across the country where residents can gather to democratically define what a genuine leap to the next economy means in their communities.

Inevitably, this bottom-up revival will lead to a renewal of democracy at every level of government, working swiftly towards a system in which every vote counts and corporate money is removed from political campaigns.

[Experience shows (see below) that these ideas utterly fail as a "bottom-up" renewal of democracy. They are non-starters in the real world of democracy. Therefore, I see them as anti-democratic, as revolutions tend to be.] 

This is a great deal to take on all at once, but such are the times in which we live.

[NO KIDDING!] 

The drop in oil prices has temporarily relieved the pressure to dig up fossil fuels as rapidly as high-risk technologies will allow. This pause in frenetic expansion should not be viewed as a crisis, but as a gift.It has given us a rare moment to look at what we have become – and decide to change.

And so we call on all those seeking political office to seize this opportunity and embrace the urgent need for transformation. This is our sacred duty to those this country harmed in the past, to those suffering needlessly in the present, and to all who have a right to a bright and safe future.

[Gotta say  "sacred duty" explicitly makes this a pseudo-religious campaign. Don't expect logic to interfere.]

Now is the time for boldness.

now is the time to leap

Here is the Wikipedia entry on "LEAP," which delves into Canadian politics' impact.

In reality, NDP leader Tom Mulcair distanced the party from the manifesto and instead ran a moderate, "pragmatic" campaign that included promises to balance the budget and effectively perpetuate austerity.[15][16]

As it turned out, that campaign was a disaster for the NDP.

Then [NDP] premier Rachel Notley and president of the Alberta Federation of Labour Gill McGowan were vocal opponents, citing the centrality of the oil industry to Alberta's economy—and the industry's desire for new pipelines—as reasons to reject the manifesto.[5]

Gutting the Alberta economy would not be popular with Alberta voters. This raises the key problem with the "Manifesto." Like manifestos before it, policies would be rammed down the throats of ordinary people. Whatever its merits, The Manifesto could not be implemented in a democratic country. Notley's attempt to moderate the anti-capitalist tone failed. She lost the next provincial election to the far right. The dispute continues, with Alberta challenging the right of the Federal Government to cripple the economy of a province to meet climate change goals.

Bernie Sanders in the United States and Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom, but the NDP, under new leader Jagmeet Singh, again distanced itself from the manifesto.[29]

No further detail is needed. The Manifesto is dead in the water as a serious proposal. It is chiefly of interest as a fossil remnant of a Utopian dream.

--------------------------------------------------------------

PS --- Here is a presentation that depicts the explosive need for mining to meet the "energy transition." 

The Green New Deal Utopia

Any version of the widely discussed Green New Deal project must include these priorities: 1. Greenhouse gas emissions reductions will at least achieve the targets set in 2018 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, namely a 45 percent reduction in global emissions by 2030 and the attainment of net zero emissions by 2050. 2. Investments to dramatically raise energy efficiency standards and equally dramatically expand the supply of solar, wind, and other clean, renewable energy sources will form the leading edge of the transition to a green economy in all regions of the world. 3. The green economy transition will not expose workers in the fossil fuel industry and other vulnerable groups to the plague of joblessness and the anxieties of economic insecurity. 4. Economic growth must proceed along a sustainable and egalitarian path, such that climate stabilization is unified with the equally important goals of expanding job opportunities and raising mass living standards for working people and the poor throughout the world.

\ 

Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal 

The Canadian version of the Green New Deal is the " LEAP Manifesto "  There is no way for me to capture the psychedelic nature of this manifesto here. Please read it for yourself. It's not long. Without actually reading this document, what I have to say about it will seem to be a rabid overreaction.

LEAP calls for an end to capitalism, the route of all evils, including climate change.  LEAP will end all forms of poverty and injustice, including the poverty and injustice created by LEAP itself. A careful reading reveals that LEAP is not just calling for an end to capitalism but an end to the economy. On the extreme far left, the "economy" is seen as an invention of capitalism. Once we dispel this illusion, anything is possible. The only historical precedent I can think of is Pol Pot's approach to getting things done without nasty things like incentives.  Pol Pot is sometimes thought of as a Marxist, but Marx was perhaps the world's first economist. Pol Pot was coming from quite a different place.

Climate "disaster" is presented in terms even more shrill than usual. Net zero by 2050 is assumed. The secret is switching to a command economy, tossing out the profit motive, and rationing fossil fuels to zero by 2050. A Universal Basic Income is included in the picture, making all citizens employees of the State, which makes sense since the fossil fuel industry will not only be nationalized but destroyed and "capitalist" incentives to work and create are rendered illegal.

The LEAP manifesto derives its urgency from the Climate Crisis--the "Deepest Crisis in Recent Memory." Without that, LEAP is simply a laundry list of the social justice agenda. It's worth asking if social justice would somehow be promoted by destroying the Canadian economy. LEAP deserves to be treated as "Far Left Activism." Unlike communists, they calling not for nationalization but outright destruction of major sectors of the economy. It's worth noting that Net Zero by 2050 includes major reductions, if not elimination, of cement and fertilizer, so it's not just the dirty business of fossil fuels to be destroyed. Construction and agriculture will take a hit. We would also face a problem importing most of the "Green" technology with almost nothing to trade for it. While Canada would look like Utopia to the Greens, to the rest of the world, it would be an economic basket case, cut off from the miracle of international trade simply because it has nothing to sell.

It's hard to imagine where the capital needed to re-tool the energy infrastructure for wind and solar will come from since the concept of private (capitalist) investment and profit is ruled out. In other words, any non-governmental agency would be expressly forbidden to make a return on investment. I have a hard time imagining how the current energy infrastructure and service level could be maintained. LEAP seems to be literally unable to keep the lights on. Ah, but I digress into economic considerations ...

Climate Crisis: A Reply to the Utopians

 

While I am sympathetic to many "Liberal" or "Socialist" ideas, I see that there are many still far to my "left." I refer to these as the "Utopian Far Left." Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot would fall into this classification. The common thread is a promise of Utopia if only reason and individual rights are swept aside.

I take a close look at the inaugural address of the current head of the IPCC, Yensan-gun. My reasoning comes from many sources, but the reader who finds my thinking novel should refer to:

• The False Promise of Green Energy, Andrew Morris, et al.
• How to Spend $50 Billion to Make The World A Better Place, Bjorn Lomborg
• The IPCC report itself (IP6) and what it really says, not the "summaries."
• How to Avoid Climate Disaster, Bill Gates. Exactly what "net zero 2050" would take.
• United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) provides the complete UN vision of Utopia. It is important to notice that UNEP priorities are rolled into actual climate action plans, such as the "Green New Deal." Such plans claim to fix everything, not just the "Climate Crisis."

These are not isolated claims of the "climate denialists." It's just a matter of sticking to the facts, "running the numbers," and reading what the IPCC reports actually say at the "technical" level rather than the political "summary for decision makers." As information moves up the chain from actual research and data to the "summaries," uncertainty is removed, and the "party line" replaces expert opinion.

 Bold face and underline is my own of course. Comments in [].

 

From the inaugural address by the current IPCC chairman, Yensan-gun

9 June 2022

Bonn, Germany

Colleagues, Delegates,

I’m honoured to provide this keynote address at the opening ceremony of the first Technical Dialogue.

In the past 10 months, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a trilogy of reports providing policymakers with the most up-to-date science on climate change. These three reports are a dire warning about the consequences of inaction. Climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our well-being and a healthy planet.

[The need for urgent action is used to justify sweeping changes to the lifestyle of everyone on the planet. Historically, "urgent action" by Utopians has resulted in a catastrophe on an epic scale. This is a common political tactic. Among many objections, many point out that there are many problems that require urgent action. Action on one means inaction on the other. See Lomberg. It is also assumed that effective action is available - simply false (Gates). Historically, the grab for Utopia utterly fails (Morrison), but the costs have been real.] ...

The climate science is clear [very few issues are "clear" in the report. All have attached confidence levels]; our Physical Science Basis report concludes that: 

• It is indisputable that human activities [vague] are causing climate change and 
• Human influence is making extreme climate events, including [such as?] heat waves, heavy rainfall, and droughts, more frequent and severe [varying level of confidence but low in the categories listed. He is referring to model predictions that never have more than moderate confidence and disagree with each other]
• Human activities have warmed the planet at a rate not seen in at least the past 2000 years, and  [Hockey stick in disguise]
• we are on course to reach global warming of 1.5°C within the next two decades.

... a rapidly closing window [urgency again] to realize a sustainable, livable future for all [Utopia]. Climate impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage [and imposible to model - in fact, always impossible to model]. Multiple climate hazards will occur simultaneously. Climate risks will interact with other threats to compound the overall risk. Risks will cascade across sectors and regions. [Always true of climate whether it changes or not]

Even temporarily exceeding 1.5°C warming will result in additional severe impacts, [how severe? Cost, feasibility of avoidance] some of which will be irreversible. [urgency again]  We are not on track to achieve a climate-resilient, sustainable world. Action on adaptation has increased, but progress is uneven, and we are not adapting fast enough [We are not on track to Utopia - true].

As the mitigation to climate change report concluded, we are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C. Average annual GHG emissions during the last two decades were the highest in human history. Climate change is already affecting every region on Earth, in multiple ways. The changes we experience will increase with further warming. [Cause and effect is muddled here. Water vapor is the main GHG and a sign of life, not an "emission"]

Humanity is running out of time to limit global warming to 1.5° Cover pre-industrial levels. [Didn't he say we are not on track to 1.5?]

Yes, colleagues, we are at crossroads. Our actions today will shape how people adapt, and nature responds to increasing climate risks. [echos acceptance speaches of every politician ever. At last, I am in charge!]

The IPCC reports throughout this entire cycle focus on solutions. There are feasible and effective options [A bare-face lie] we can take to reduce the risks to people and nature, but their effectiveness decreases with increasing warming. [Any "effectiveness" at all remains to be demonstrated. Morris puts this kind of claim to the test, as it applies to "solutions" already tried]

Worldwide action to achieve climate resilience and sustainable development is more urgent than previously assessed. [GROWING urgency. The hockey stick.]

Climate action has been taken in many countries. There are policies, regulations, and market instruments that are proving effective. If these are scaled up along with climate finance and applied more widely and equitably, they can support deep emissions reductions and stimulate innovation. Moreover, our latest report shows that there are options available now in all sectors that can at least halve emissions by 2030. [total BS-Gates]

We have the tools and know-how required to limit warming. The decisions we make now can secure a liveable future. [Utopia]

....

June 10, 2022

NOTES:

The most compact and authoritative answer to Yensan-gun is "Unsettled," discussed in another post. The main point is that "Science" is far from settled and contradicts what was just said. The book provides an excellent description of how such nonsense floats to the top. The author is a respected client scientist whose credentials far outshine those of Yensan-gun.

----------

The consequences of a hotter planet include increasing incidences of heat extremes, heavy precipitation, droughts, sea level increases, biodiversity losses, and corresponding impacts on health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, and human security.

This mixes real problems (sea level rise) with hypothetical problems coming from the models and a broadly dark view of what humans will do to cope with change. The positive effects of change are completely ignored.

Chomsky, Noam; Pollin, Robert (2020-09-21T23:58:59.000). Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal. Verso Books. Kindle Edition. 

Activist Capture of IPCC

I take this to be a perfect statement of the position of the Activist, Utopain "left". For the moment, I want this document to stand on its own. This is the language that has been percolating down throughout the IPCC "summaris for decision makers" since the beginning. I see little point in rebutting Mr. Yensan-gun one-by-one. His mind is plainlly made up.  Bold face and underline is my own of course.

 

From the inaugural address by the current IPCC chairman, Yensan-gun

9 June 2022

Bonn, Germany

Colleagues, Delegates,

I’m honoured to provide this keynote address at the opening ceremony of the first Technical Dialogue.

In the past 10 months, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a trilogy of reports providing policymakers with the most up-to-date science on climate change. These three reports are a dire warning about the consequences of inaction. Climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our well-being and a healthy planet.

...

The climate science is clear; our Physical Science Basis report concludes that: 

• It is indisputable that human activities are causing climate change and 
• Human influence is making extreme climate events, including heat waves, heavy rainfall, and droughts, more frequent and severe.
• Human activities have warmed the planet at a rate not seen in at least the past 2000 years, and 
• we are on course to reach global warming of 1.5°C within the next two decades.

... a rapidly closing window to realize a sustainable, livable future for all. Climate impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage. Multiple climate hazards will occur simultaneously. Climate risks will interact with other threats to compound the overall risk. Risks will cascade across sectors and regions.

Even temporarily exceeding 1.5°C warming will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. We are not on track to achieve a climate-resilient, sustainable world. Action on adaptation has increased, but progress is uneven, and we are not adapting fast enough.

As the mitigation to climate change report concluded, we are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C. Average annual GHG emissions during the last two decades were the highest in human history. Climate change is already affecting every region on Earth, in multiple ways. The changes we experience will increase with further warming.

Humanity is running out of time to limit global warming to 1.5° Cover pre-industrial levels.

Yes, colleagues, we are at crossroads. Our actions today will shape how people adapt, and nature responds to increasing climate risks.

The IPCC reports throughout this entire cycle focus on solutions. There are feasible and effective options we can take to reduce the risks to people and nature, but their effectiveness decreases with increasing warming.

Worldwide action to achieve climate resilience and sustainable development is more urgent than previously assessed.

Climate action has been taken in many countries. There are policies, regulations, and market instruments that are proving effective. If these are scaled up along with climate finance and applied more widely and equitably, they can support deep emissions reductions and stimulate innovation. Moreover, our latest report shows that there are options available now in all sectors that can at least halve emissions by 2030.
We have the tools and know-how required to limit warming. The decisions we make now can secure a liveable future.

....



June 10, 2022

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