Gwynne Dyer -- Geopolitics in a Hotter World

Dr. Gwynne Dyer gave a talk, "Geopolitics in a Hotter World" – Sept. 2010 > So when the Hadley Centre put these numbers out they were incorporating (which the IPCC does not) the early impacts of positive feedbacks, as well as just how much carbon dioxide will we put into the air by 2060. First time that had been done, but it gives you a really frightening number…and then they did the map. Which is again, something that’s not normally done, and the consequence is we don’t have a lot of time. We’re in deep trouble. And the military know this; the military know this everywhere. > the rule of thumb is that you lose 10% of global food production for every 1 degree Celsius higher average global temperature. > So food becomes the critical issue and the countries most impacted are tropical and subtropical and this is where the geopolitics comes from. > “people always raid before they starve.” > There’s already a well established pattern: when you’re in deep trouble and you can’t feed your family, head north. > But the dirty secret is that you can only shut a border if you’re willing to kill people. > No government that cannot feed its population survives. > We’re going to go through the point of no return (and probably a good deal further) in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Almost certain. > And there is maybe a way to cheat: and that is geoengineering. > “we’ve crunched the numbers and we figure we could get one degree Celsius of cooling average worldwide ju

Geopolitics in a Hotter World – UBC Talk Transcribed (Sept. 2010) [link] Video [this video] Long, good, hard to summarize but I'll try: Things are worse than publicly talked about; there are a few options (geo-engineering). "People always raid before they starve." - - - - We have the solutions already. Cut-n-paste from a comment yesterday, apologies if you've seen it already, I think it's worth it: For practical advice on what to do I recommend Toby Hemenway's videos in re: Permaculture [link] Especially "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Planet – But Not Civilization" and the sequel "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture". Permaculture is a school of applied ecology (the word itself is a portmanteau of PERMAnent agriCULTURE) that has adherents and practitioners world-wide. It's not the only form of regenerative agriculture either. See also [link] Oceanic 3D farms! And now they are building reefs?

There's a video on YouTube, Gwynne Dyer -- Geopolitics in a Hotter World (2010) ( [this video] ), which very briefly touches on it IIRC. I'm talking about the bit that starts at 8m30s on the video, but I highly recommend watching the whole thing (or at leas the 1-hour talk part - the Q&A is practically inaudible for me). Basically, the IPCC doesn't publish studies - they study compilations of studies, every 4-5 years. And when they start compiling, they have a cut-off date at the very start and only use studies that have been both completed and have passed peer review from before that date. Meanwhile, the studies themselves have the same problem - they obviously can't start the study with incomplete data and update the data as they go. The studies need to start with data that finished before they started the study. And on top of that, they're necessarily a reserved body (Icd say "conservative" but that's ambiguous in politics) - IPCC is run by a bunch of governments trying to figure out the bare minimum of emissions reduction they need to commit to, to not be negligent - they don't want to hear bad news unless it's certain. The end result is that the data in the report is 10+ years out of date.

There's a fascinating talk from about eleven years ago: Dr. Gwynne Dyer – Geopolitics in a Hotter World – UBC Talk Transcribed (Sept. 2010) [link] video: [this video] Among other things he talks about is the possibility of unilateral geoengineering by some of the nations that will be feeling the effects sooner and more, uh, compellingly than others: > I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well, there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said, “have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?” > And I asked the question, “Do you think that this is something the Bangladesh government might want to do a little bit, before, let’s say, the US government or the Chinese government?” > He said, “yes it has crossed our minds.”–and then he stopped talking.

I've mentioned it on HN before, so apologies if you've already seen it, but there's a fascinating talk by one Dr. Gwynne Dyer: "Geopolitics in a Hotter World" (Sept. 2010) video: [this video] Transcription: [link] > I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well, there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said, “have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?” > And I asked the question, “Do you think that this is something the Bangladesh government might want to do a little bit, before, let’s say, the US government or the Chinese government?” > He said, “yes it has crossed our minds.”–and then he stopped talking.

Yes almost all policy making / war efforts are created from realpolitical or resource oriented goals. It's the old orders of power and the conglomeration of corporate entities that actually create the shooting script for various events including the creation of a border wall. The identity politics or the thin veneer of hollywoodesque narratives above most especially foreign policy is just exactly that, fantasy, while it's the military-industrial complex that in reality drafts the plans together with PR companies. Look for example at military historian Gwynne Dyers's talk here from 2010 both foreshadowing the refugee crisis, Syrian War and the border wall all from climate extrapolation without the identity-smokescreen. [this video] The whole border issue is extremely muddy though as it's not classically right-wing to protect the working classes from wage dumping by not letting millions of people in but has become a left-wing issue because class consciousness and economic policy has mostly been replaced with superficial identity based issues because they are allowed by the status quo. This is because they don't interfere with the increase in inequality and fall in real-wages happening in plane sight while pop-leftwingers are busy screaming about identity based issues (not that those aren't important). From a resource perspective one could argue that the ever more transnationally oriented elite couldn't give two f's about protecting the sovereignty of yesterdays empires and nation st

> As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we used to grow them on will be turning into a desert. We can find or develop new drought- and heat-tolerant varieties, like the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius)[1]. More importantly, we can alter the climate directly though our patterns of agriculture and horticulture.[2][3] > Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops. FWIW, there's a very interesting talk about that[4] and one of the take-aways is that we may well see e.g. Bangladesh unilaterally pursuing geoengineering solutions, not waiting for international consensus. > GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today. I'm not actually against genetic engineering, I just think we should wait a few hundred years, until we have a better idea of how life works -OR- some extra-terrestrial biospheres in which to experiment without risking Earth at all. In the meantime, I believe we already have all the biological diversity we need to tackle the coming challenges already, we just have to recognize and use it. In any event, the OP is BS propaganda, not science, eh? [1] "Phaseolus acutifolius, or the Tepary bean, is a legume n