That seems like a totally obvious statement. But it is nice to be reminded and have some solid research to back it up. Here are a few quotes from an article in The Guardian, with the full paper at plos.org.

Repeating climate denial claims makes them seem more credible, Australian-led study finds.  Even those who are concerned about climate crisis were influenced by false claims, showing how ‘insidious’ repetition is, researcher says.

“Repeating false and sceptical claims about climate science makes them seem more credible – including to people who accept the science and are alarmed by the climate crisis.”

“…soon-to-be-published research had found that climate sceptical claims and climate misinformation tended to “travel faster, further and longer from its origin than accurate climate information”

“The cognitive science is pretty clear that repetition is a very powerful tool because of how we process information. The more we hear something, from multiple sources, including those we trust, the smoother it becomes to process, the more accepted it is as ‘just known’.”

“Climate communications need to focus on repeating what is known and true much more than debunking, myth-busting and repeating what is not.”

The paper concluded: “Do not repeat false information. Instead, repeat what is true and enhance its familiarity.”

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It would be really nice, but highly unlikely, if the editors of the major media would heed that little bit of advice. Once again they are providing millions of dollars of free advertising to the people who spout the most dishonesty. I guess it makes sense; misinformation can be short, sharp and mean. It sells.

These headlines, from just one morning, illustrate the huge amount of information regarding the degradation of the biosphere flooding us every day.  I think they support my contention that we need a marketing focused entity to digest, package and distribute the underlying messages. (see previous post)

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Global methane emissions rising at fastest rate in decades, scientists warn.  Researchers call for immediate action to reduce methane emissions and avert dangerous escalation in climate crisis.

Kamala Harris will not ban fracking if she wins White House, campaign says. Harris, who had previously urged fracking ban, plans to highlight climate contrast between Democrats and Trump.

[This election is now less than 100 days away. A Republican win in any of the federal races, presidential, senate or house, will severely impact environmental action worldwide. State and local results will also have effects well beyond their borders]

Firefighters continue battle against more than 100 blazes burning in the US.  Many fires ignited by weather, with climate crisis increasing lightning strikes amid blistering heat and dry conditions

Greening the desert: is Sisi’s grand plan using up all of Egypt’s water?  The ‘Future of Egypt’ envisages turning tracts of desert into farmland to grow crops for export. But with sky-high food price inflation and a water deficit, critics doubt it is viable

Costly climate ‘solutions’ look like more pollution in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

How ‘world’s first oil town’ is wrestling with fossil fuel legacy.  Cop29 host Baku has cleaned up since its Black City days – but this summit needs to do more than whitewash the facade of a petrostate.

[My take on COP28, in Dubai, was that the forces which compel us to degrade our biosphere manage to exert control in everything. “Tens of thousands fly to COP 28 – which is somewhat ironic in itself – (… and these forces) stack the deck with fossil fuel enthusiasts.” One of the outcomes, hailed as a great success, were initial pledges of $400 million to compensate poorer countries for damages related to climate change. Which is a trivial amount given the costs now and into the future. At much the same time a US foundation pledged $500 million to fund various monuments. I know this is a false equivalence. I know the monuments are a worthy, beautiful cause. But really, where is the justice in this? (see previous post)]

Inside the battle for top job that will decide the future of deep-sea mining.  Marking a pivotal moment for the fate of the barely known ecosystems on the ocean floor, 168 nations will decide this week who will head the International Seabed Authority.

‘Morally, nobody’s against it’: Brazil’s radical plan to tax global super-rich to tackle climate crisis.  A 2% levy would affect about 100 billionaire families, says the country’s climate chief, but the $250bn raised could be transformative.

‘Your body is completely drained’: US workers toil in heatwaves with no protections. Though 2,300 people in the US died from heat-related illness in 2023, workers await robust protection laws.

Australia’s north-west reefs teem with life – but they are also at the centre of a massive fossil fuel expansion.

Unseasonal rainfall leaves Seine safe swimming plan in tatters at Paris 2024

As record heat risks bleaching 73% of the world’s coral reefs, scientists ask ‘what do we do now?’  A vast array of solutions are being worked on but experts urge a ‘fundamental rethink’ as temperatures are forecast to climb even higher in coming decades.

‘It doesn’t need to be one or the other’: balancing brolgas and windfarms in Victoria.  Victorian brolga numbers have shrunk due to habitat loss and drying wetlands. Now conservationists are calling for careful planning of windfarms.

A ‘scare campaign’ over national parks? The fight over the future of Victoria’s forests. Conservationists say the push to protect forests and endangered species with a giant national park has become mired in ‘disinformation’

‘No one understands local issues better’: rural councils call for greater role in renewable energy transition.  NSW, Victoria and Queensland local governments have limited roles in approving developments but advocates say they’re best placed to keep communities on side.

Wind and solar energy overtake fossil fuels to provide 30% of EU electricity.  Report finds 13 member states generated more energy from wind and solar power than coal and gas for first time in 2024.

‘Warning sign to us all’ as UK butterfly numbers hit record low.  Conservation charity raises alarm over climate crisis after wet spring and summer dampen mating chances.

BP to hand investors $7bn this year after profit beats forecasts.  Oil and gas company to increase dividend and buy-backs as quarterly profit hits $2.8bn.

Wildfire smoke may increase the risk of dementia, study finds.  As blazes spew smoke across western US, research shows it may be worse for brain health than other types of pollution.

…and more fire, more war:

We can blindly continue like this, driven by national and economic impulses, or unite and halt the degradation of the biosphere. Your choice.

“The chaos of the past few days suggests there has never been a better time to stand still and take stock – yet it feels as if we are hurtling somewhere at twice the speed we were even last week”.  That was Marina Hyde in the Guardian on the 16^th of July.  Today is the 23^rd, and the statement is twice as true.

“Stand still and take stock”.  We don’t have time for that sort of whimsy.  Let the world keep rushing on.

But what is happening to the biosphere while we rush?

Despite the laudable renewable energy programs initiated under the Biden/Harris administration the US is still a major contributor to global warming.  “The United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time … for the past six years in a row.” (US EIA).  Election of a Republican president and/or senate in the US will be devastating to environmental programs. But fossil fuel extraction will probably not change much under either party.

The governments of the UK and Australia, both under Labor control (UK since July 4, Australia since May 2022) also indicate no significant reductions in fossil fuel extraction – all in the name of national security, economics and, inevitably, electability.

Clearly there are very powerful forces that compel us to degrade our biosphere, and therefore ourselves.  These forces transcend politics and nations.  They appear unstoppable.

The Environmental Organizations – no matter how knowledgeable, committed and persistent – are, by comparison, small, local and inefficient.  They must, urgently, form a federation with the power and reach to halt and, if possible, to reverse the degradation of the biosphere.

We must stand still, take stock and act urgently – all at once.  It is possible.

I am totally fed up. 

On Friday (19 April 2024) , buried under all the war, politics and other headline grabbing nonsense that we impose on ourselves, was this article about PFAS.  Apparently, these lovely chemicals have been detected in sea spray at various places around the world, at surprisingly high concentrations.

So – that deep breath of healthy, invigorating, salt laden air – that fully completes our experience of the ocean – now contains toxic, man-made, crap.

Enough!  Now we can’t even sit on the beach without worrying about being poisoned.  We have to do something.  For me it’s the last straw, or nail, or whatever cliché suits.

I have only one idea, which I struggle to articulate on this site and here (once again) are the key points:

• “We”(all of us) are losing the battle for the biosphere.
• The existing (courageous, knowledgeable, untiring…) environmental organizations do not have the power to halt the degradation.
• They need to join into a federation to extend their reach and effectiveness.
• Quickly.

Since my 3 December 2023 “Battle for the Biosphere” entry I have tried to convert that rather long .pdf into a more approachable video. I excuse my lack of progress by learning just how to make a video and a medical interlude that wasted some months of my life.

In the meantime, two papers, with a focus on Artificial Intelligence, came to my attention.  I think they have significant relevance to my argument.

Which, to summarize, is:  Ecological/Environmental Organizations must combine to form an effective counter to the overwhelming power structures that strive for material wealth at the expense of the biosphere.

I have described this as a battle between two mega-creatures; Technology/Money (T-Mo) versus Biosphere/Humanity (B-Hu). 

(The slides illustrating the story of T-Mo and B-Hu, which I hope to turn into a narrated video, are included below)

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Divide-and-Conquer Dynamics in AI-Driven Disempowerment by Peter S. Park and Max Tegmark, both of The MIT Department of Physics is available at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.06009.pdf

The authors position the unchecked development of Artificial Intelligence as a “common threat” and explore, with mathematical rigor, how the opposition to this common threat becomes disjointed, rather than unified.  One underlying reason given is the different perception of the threat by current vs. future victims.

This last reason is also very applicable to the battle (if I may continue to use this emotive word) for the biosphere.  Current victims (small farmers, animal herders and fishers in the equatorial regions, for instance) view the threat of biosphere degradation very differently from those of us living in the luxury of the industrialized world.  Our children (and grand-children!), the future victims, are trying to get our attention.  They have been partially successful, but without unity in the environmental movement the overall results are disappointing.

I feel the Park / Tegmark paper is a very appropriate to the issues facing our movement.  If you substitute “Biosphere Degradation” for “AI-Driven Disempowerment” in the quotes below, then the parallels become quite evident;

“ Our model also helps explain why throughout history, stakeholders sharing a common threat have found it advantageous to unite against it, and why the common threat has in turn found it advantageous to divide and conquer.”

[First] ”…current victims of AI-driven disempowerment need the future victims to realize that their interests are also under serious and imminent threat, so that future victims are incentivized to support current victims in solidarity. [please see my comment re TIME below]

Second, the movement against AI-driven disempowerment can become more united, and thereby more likely to prevail, if members believe that their efforts will be successful as opposed to futile.

Finally, the movement can better unite and prevail if its members are less myopic. Myopic members prioritize their future well-being less than their present well-being and are thus disinclined to solidarily support current victims today at personal cost, even if this is necessary to counter the shared threat of AI-driven disempowerment.”

“…movement disunity and consequent inefficacy are caused by members’ myopia, naivety, collaborationism, defeatism, and complacency.” [These 5 weaknesses are equally applicable to the proposed joining of the environmental organizations.]

An example by the authors of divide-and conquer tactics by the “common threat” is this ad:

[TIME – I am not sure if it is necessary to point out the differences in time scale when comparing AI Deployment to Biosphere Degradation, but just to be sure…

AI has brought incredible change in a very short time. The authors show the impact on artists and designers brought about in a year. Here the difference between current and future victims is quite clear and they are, usually, of the same generation. Biosphere Degradation is, by comparison, still relatively slow. The future victims are the coming generations, and many of them are well aware of the threat to their welfare. If we acknowledge that distinction the analysis of Divide-and-Conquer is still very relevant]

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The report “The AI Threats To Climate Change” addresses current, and likely future, harm of Artificial Intelligence to the biosphere. It is available from the Friends of the Earth website.

“AI likely to increase energy use and accelerate climate misinformation. Claims that artificial intelligence will help solve the climate crisis are misguided, warns a coalition of environmental groups” / Guardian

Some quotes from the report:

“Silicon Valley and Wall Street love to hype artificial intelligence (AI). The more it’s used, they say, the more diseases we’ll cure, the fewer errors we’ll make—and the lower emissions will go.

Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind claimed “advances in AGI [artificial generative intelligence] research will supercharge society’s ability to tackle and manage climate change.”

 At COP28 last year, Google released a new report proclaiming 5-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions could be mitigated by the use of AI.

But there are two significant and immediate dangers posed by AI that are much less discussed:

• the vast increase in energy and water consumption required by AI systems like ChatGPT; and
• the threat of AI turbocharging disinformation—on a topic already rife with anti-science lies and funded by fossil fuel companies and their networks.”

[ This report was prepared in a partnership – itself already showing a coalescing of environmentally active organizations:

• Friends of the Earth https://foe.org/
• Climate Action against Disinformation https://caad.info/
• Check My Ads https://checkmyads.org/
• Global Action Plan https://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/
• Greenpeace https://www.greenpeace.org/international/
• Kairos- [URL TBA, it’s a popular name; Greek for “right time,” “season” or “opportunity”]

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“Battle for the Biosphere” slides in .pdf format may be slow to load. Hover over the first slide to display download and full screen options.

From now on I will use the symbol Ӕ to represent the biosphere.

Since starting this web site I have used ∃!Ⓑ to represent “There exists, exactly one, biosphere”.  The first two characters are standard math and logic usage, while the circled B indicates the bounded nature of the Biosphere.

Nothing could be simpler or more logical.  I could use that shorthand as a logo, an axiom on which to build a view of the entire environmental crisis and as my personal creation myth.

However, the real heroes of these stories, the climate and environmental protestors and activists, have consistently used the phrase “There is no Planet B”.  It is a good, forceful shout with a clear message.

I have skirted around the fact that my use of the letter “B” is in direct contradiction with the intent of “There is no planet B”.

Enough avoidance! From now on I will use the symbol Ӕ to represent the biosphere.

Why Ӕ ?

“A” for Planet A (…there is no Planet B), “E” for Earth.

Does this put up another hurdle to reading my stuff; which is already not that accessible?  Well, yes, maybe.  I will try to mitigate that difficulty by sticking to the following rules:

Ӕ is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as “ash”. / Wkipedia

In English it is pronounced like  the a in “ash” or “cat”, in German as the ӓ in “spӓt”.

But, as I try to say above, I never intended the symbol to be pronounced – it was always replaced by “biosphere” if spoken.  We’ll see if that makes sense.  Always open to suggestions…

The paper “WORLD SCIENTISTS’ WARNING: THE BEHAVIOURAL CRISIS DRIVING ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT”, first published online in September 2023, made it into the more accessible press in this Guardian article

The paper [“The Warning”] supports many of the points elsewhere on this site. The major difference between my approach and that of The Warning is the audience.  I aim for the community of Environmental Organizations and Environmental Activists. The Warning is primarily a call for “increased interdisciplinary collaboration between the social and behavioural science theorists and practitioners, advised by scientists working on limits to growth and planetary boundaries.”

As a result the language is academic, rather than my simplistic attempts.  I think both approaches are necessary if we are to make the changes required.  

I will try to summarize and pick some direct quotes.  However, I do suggest you read the original paper (it is not long!) and also look at the follow-on comments from the lead authors. 

We are consuming resources and dumping waste at a rate far above the earth’s capacity – creating an “Ecological Overshoot”.  Using up resources at a rate almost twice that of the earth’s [i.e. 1biosphere] capacity is bad enough, but if environmental justice were to prevail and all people attained the consumption model of the developed nations that ratio would quickly climb to impossible levels.  

Ecological overshoot in number of Earths required. Data from Global Footprint Network – June 2023 [On a personal note; my children were born around the break-even point on this graph – it’s stunning to see such massive change in such a short time]

 “…the evidence indicates that anthropogenic ecological overshoot stems from a crisis of maladaptive human behaviours. While the behaviours generating overshoot were once adaptive for H. sapiens, they have been distorted and extended to the point where they now threaten the fabric of complex life on Earth. Simply, we are trapped in a system built to encourage growth and appetites that will end us”.

The Warning analyses “… three drivers of the behavioural crisis in depth: economic growth; marketing; and pronatalism. These three drivers directly impact the three ‘levers’ of overshoot: consumption, waste and population.

[I insert my Biosphere Degradation diagram to show how closely it matches the three levers above – Consumption (Depletion of Resources), Waste (Waste and Pollution) and Population.]

“… the behaviours of overshoot are now actively promoted and exacerbated by social, economic and political norms largely through the intentional, almost completely unimpeded exploitation of human psychological predispositions and biases”.

“…we use the term ‘behavioural crisis’ specifically to mean the consequences of the innate suite of human behaviours that were once adaptive in early hominid evolution, but have now been exploited to serve the global industrial economy”. 

“This exploitation has accumulated financial capital – sometimes to absurd levels – for investors and shareholders, and generated manufactured capital (‘human-made mass’) that now exceeds the biomass of all living things on Earth”.

“Significantly manipulated by the marketing industry…these behaviours have now brought humanity to the point where their sheer scale – through our numbers, appetites and technologies – is driving ecological overshoot and threatening the fabric of complex life on earth”.

“These behaviours are related to our previously highly adaptive, but now self-defeating, impulses to:

• seek pleasure and avoid pain;
• acquire, amass and defend resources from competitors;
• display dominance, status or sex appeal through size, beauty, physicality, aggression and/or ornamentation
• procrastinate rather than act whenever action does not have an immediate survival benefit particularly for ourselves, close relatives and our home territories.

“In a global economy [part of the entity I label T-Mo elsewhere] that strives to create and meet burgeoning demand, rather than fairly and judiciously apportioning supply, these behaviours are collectively highly maladaptive, even suicidal for humanity”.

We have ” …three paths ahead:

• We can choose to continue using behavioural manipulation to deepen our dilemma,
• We can choose to ignore it and leave it to chance, or
• We can use an opportunity that almost no other species has had and consciously steer our collective behaviours to conform to the natural laws that bind all life on Earth”.

“This raises ethical questions, for example, who is worthy of wielding such power?” [Which is also a major consideration for the imagined counter-force to T-Mo, which I have labeled B-Hu elsewhere]

The Warning urgently calls …”for an emergency, concerted, multidisciplinary effort to…catalyse rapid global adoption of new consumption, reproduction and waste norms congruent with the survival of complex life on Earth.

[Yes, and I think the formation of a fellowship / federation of Environmental Organizations is one step in that effort]

2 deaths, a day apart:

Wolfgang Schäuble; (18 September 1942 – 26 December 2023) was a German politician whose political career spanned more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the longest-serving member of any democratic German parliament. Schäuble served as 13th president of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2021.

In 1989, Schäuble was appointed Minister of the Interior, and he led negotiations for reunification on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany. 

Jacques Lucien Jean Delors ; 20 July 1925 – 27 December 2023) was a French politician who served as the eighth president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995. Delors played a key role in the creation of the single market, the euro and the modern European Union.

As president of the European Commission (EC), Delors was the most visible and influential leader in European affairs. He implemented policies that closely linked the member nations together and promoted the need for unity. He created a single market that made the free movement of persons, capital, goods, and services within the European Economic Community possible.

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Both men had outsize roles in shaping the European Union. They may not have been able to “breathe a soul” into the EU, but came damn close.

During their tenures the Soviet Union (USSR) collapsed, with its 15 constituent republics gaining full independence on 26 December 1991.  The fall of the Berlin wall between the two Germanies in November 1989 was an integral part of that process.

The resolute military position and the economic strength of the US was of course another major factor in this history.

Although on different sides of “the political middle” both Delon and Schäuble were solid in their commitment to the transatlantic partnership with the USA and the inclusion of the UK into the EU.

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Fast forward to today; 

We have the patchwork of nations largely unchanged from that time.  We have a war in Ukraine. The UK has left the EU.  Despite some bright spots there are threats from within the EU itself, from neighboring countries and, depending on this year’s US elections, from the US.

What does this have to do with 1biosphere?

The EU is arguably ahead of the rest of the world in recognizing the degradation of the biosphere, in acknowledging the need for action and actually implementing policies to mitigate the damage.  It’s spotty of course; brown coal in Germany, no permanent nuclear waste storage in France, more oil exploration from Norway and so forth.

The war in Ukraine, quite apart from the human tragedy, is also an environmental disaster – wars just are.  A slide towards nationalistic, growth and greed based governments will set back environmental efforts, possibly by decades.  Time we don’t have to waste.

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Which brings me to the “what if”;

What if, in the early 1990’s, the western powers had turned to Russia and initiated an open and honest program to, first, recognize the enormous sacrifices made by Russia during the 2nd world war, and second, make that recognition real by something like the post-WW2 Marshall plan. 

What if we had built memorials to the fallen Russians across their country?  What if we had sent our presidents, prime ministers, kings and queens to lay wreaths and express our sorrow and gratitude?  What if instead of inserting for-profit companies (fast food, fossil fuels, luxury brands) we had built free hospitals, schools, universities and libraries across the country?

Would we have avoided the rise of a Putin?  Would we have an invasion of Ukraine?  Would we have a unified environmental policy from London to Vladivostok?

It probably could never have happened.  The western powers were in no mood to be generous to the “losers”.  National, economic, issues were the top priority.  And would the Russian people have accepted such gestures?

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I feel that we are in a similar situation now.  If we were to take positive steps now we might well have a far more palatable future.  We would have to lower our expectations of growth and profit. We would have to curb our excessive consumption.  We need to see the murderous hatred between nations as the futile waste it is.

Is that plausible given the overall society we live in?

Maybe not plausible – certainly possible.

This piece originally appeared in the Notes and Comment section of the July 3, 1943, issue of The New Yorker.

“We received a letter from the Writers’ War Board the other day asking for a statement on “The Meaning of Democracy.” It presumably is our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure.

Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.”

—E. B. White

[I heard it read on the radio.  It is relevant to this current discussion, especially to “The Battle For The Biosphere”.  My assumption is that democratic norms are needed to “save” the biosphere.  Some may argue that a benign dictator would be a better solution – history argues against that.

The language of the answer is of course dated and the themes are very American, very New York.  Applicable nonetheless

Except maybe “the score at the beginning of the ninth”.  If you are not a baseball fan you will need to look it up.  I had to.]

[The following .pdf file may take a few seconds to load. Hover over the image for download or full-screen options]

I present a challenge to the existing Environmental Organizations, and individuals, worldwide. My argument is that we must urgently coalesce into a potent social/political force to create fundamental changes. You may counter that this is either an unrealistic dream or is already happening through organizations like IPCC, COP or other, more local, joint efforts.

I would ask that you skim through the file anyway. I have been told that my emotionless approach using symbols and few words makes it impossible to follow the story. Therefore, this will likely be the last entry using this format. If you do persist I will be grateful for any feedback. Thank you.

[Update: In the following .pdf I use the circled B symbol to stand for the “biosphere” – as in “there exists exactly one biosphere”. That usage directly conflicts with the international environmental slogan “There is no Planet B”. From January 2024 I have changed my notation from the circled B to “Ӕ ” – for Planet A, Earth”. That makes more sense. See my January 14, 2024 entry for more detail.]