Earth 2100 update -- 06.14.2014

I like to call the ABC film 'Earth 2100' Agenda 21 for Dummies'

There's one particular section of this film which states that (and I am paraphrasing here)

If an agreement to manage climate change is not made by 2015, then it will be too late. The United States must make the first move or the world will not follow.

trailer:



more here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Earth2100/

Edit: this is the Discovery Channel version)



Well, it looks like we've made the first move.

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World cautiously relieved by Obama’s climate announcement
By John Upton

Sighs of relief are being heard around the world as Obama proposes new domestic climate regulations.

The U.S. has long obstructed global efforts to rein in climate change, perhaps most notably by refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Now the international community is hoping to craft a new global climate deal next year in Paris, and many see Obama’s rules as a good sign.

“I fully expect action by the United States to spur others in taking concrete action — action that can set the stage and put in place the pathways that can bend the global emissions curve down in order to keep world-wide temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius this century,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which guides international climate negotiations.

“The decision by President Obama to launch plans to more tightly regulate emissions from power plants will send a good signal to nations everywhere that one of the world’s biggest emitters is taking the future of the planet and its people seriously,” she said.

Back when Kyoto was crafted, the U.S. was the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas polluter. Now China is (largely because it serves as the planet’s workshop, making much of the stuff the rest of us consume), so China’s reaction will be especially important. The rest of the world is looking to the U.S. and China to lead the way to a new climate deal. From the Financial Times:

    Beijing leads a coalition of developing countries that has long insisted there can be no new treaty unless the US shows it is serious about tackling its emissions. Now it is. …

    China’s severe pollution problems have forced Beijing to look harder at curbing pollution from its coal power plants. It is still unwilling to be pushed into measures that could compromise its economic growth and may not end up doing as much as climate scientists say is necessary. But in private, some officials are showing signs of interest in a deal with the US that could make the Paris talks more successful than [the Copenhagen climate talks of 2009].

Obama’s proposal — which would force America’s power plants, the source of about 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce those emissions 30 percent compared with 2005 levels by 2030 — certainly isn’t being viewed around the world as a global warming panacea. But, following decades of inaction and years of mostly hollow presidential rhetoric on climate change, it’s welcome news.

Ronny Jumeau, a Seychellois ambassador who speaks on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, some of which are already being drowned by rising seas, described Obama’s proposed regulations as “inadequate in the greater scheme of things.” But he told Reuters that they could help trigger global action on climate change.

“If he manages to do as planned, will this be the moment when the U.S. can finally say to China, India, and other major developing emitters: ‘I’ve done as you’ve asked all these years, now what about you?’” he said.

sources here:
http://grist.org/news/world-cautiously-relieved-by-obamas-climate-announcement/

================== news from 2011:

* DECEMBER 8, 2011, 1:48 P.M. ET
Talks on Climate-Change Fund Make Progress
By PATRICK MCGROARTY

DURBAN, South Africa—Climate negotiators Thursday reported some progress to establish a fund to help mitigate the impact of climate change, even as they contended with the possibility that talks here could end Friday without a global agreement to reduce emissions after 2020.

"We...are going to be rapidly setting up the green fund," said Todd Stern, the chief U.S. envoy here. "It has made a lot of progress; I think it's an area that is among the most advanced," of those under discussion in Durban, he said.

However, negotiators remained far apart on the contentious question of who would contribute to the fund, one of many controversies that have dogged the Durban climate talks, raising fresh doubts about the prospects for global climate policy.

Some participants Thursday expressed open frustration and fear that the Durban talks could set back global climate efforts because of the lack of progress on major issues.

"I don't see the critical mass of energy needed to overcome some of the hurdles," African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka said.

The emerging agreement on the fund will govern the structure and oversight of the Green Climate Fund, which will manage a portion of what delegates hope will be the flow of $100 billion annually by 2020 to mitigate the impact of climate change in poorer nations.

more here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203501304577086502352895284.html

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U.S. Delay on Climate-Change Deal Prompts Backlash From Europe to Barbados
By Kim Chipman and Alex Morales - Dec 7, 2011 6:00 PM CT

President Barack Obama’s position that dangerous global warming can be avoided without deeper cuts in fossil-fuel emissions before 2020 has prompted a backlash in countries from Norway to Barbados.

There are “multiple pathways” to prevent temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) without countries strengthening pledges to reduce greenhouse gases by 2020, U.S. climate envoy Jonathan Pershing said at United Nations climate talks last week.

“It’s a very risky assumption, too risky,” Norway’s top climate change envoy, Henrik Harboe, said in an interview. “We know we are far below the recommendations of science.”

more here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/u-s-delay-on-climate-change-deal-prompts-backlash-from-europe-to-barbados.html

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Durban Climate Change conference: world close to deal on global warming
The world is within reach of a new deal to stop global warming Chris Huhne, the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said on Thursday as ministers from 194 countries embarked on last ditch negotiations at a crucial UN summit

By Louise Gray

8:10PM GMT 08 Dec 2011

As the latest round of talks in Durban, South Africa, come to an end, Mr Huhne said he was optimistic a new 'road map’ towards an international deal to cut carbon emissions would be agreed.

The road map would set out a timetable towards a legally-binding agreement that commits countries to reduce their emissions. The EU wants this to be in place by 2015.

However despite some optimism scientists warned that the size of the cuts currently on the table will fail to stop temperatures rising above 2C, generally considered to be the danger point where global warming causes floods droughts and other extreme weather events.

The negotiations at the United Nations Climate Summit have become increasingly tense over the past ten days with accusations of “chequebook diplomacy” and protesters thrown out of proceedings. The last high profile attempt at a deal in Copenhagen in 2009 ended in collapse and Mr Huhne said it could “all still go pear-shaped”.

However hopes were yesterday boosted after the US unexpectedly came out in support of the 'road map’ and China gave encouraging signals.

more here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8944662/Durban-Climate-Change-conference-world-close-to-deal-on-global-warming.html

================== In other news...

The Transhuman Future: Be More Than You Can Be
by Marcelo Gleiser
June 11, 201410:59 AM ET



How is it that we define a human? Is it our body? Our genome? Our behaviors? Our self-awareness? Our compassion? Our minds? All of these and then something more? What now may be obvious to most people about being human will become less so as we become progressively more integrated with technology both inside and outside our bodies.

Transhumanism, according to the dictionary on my Apple laptop, is defined as "the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology."

It sounds like something from a sci-fi movie, people flying around with purple wings (an image a student of mine mentioned in my class "Question Reality!" based on ). How about translucent skin or the strength to lift cars with one hand? Enhanced memory: who wouldn't want that?

If you have a purist definition of what it means to be human, without any intervention from outside gadgets, it's time to come to terms with reality: almost no one in modern society is purely human.

Our integration with technology is evolving us into something else.

Consider, for example, medication. If we take a drug that changes our chemistry to treat depression or high blood pressure, we are not the same. We are who we were before plus the medication. That's not quite the same as going beyond our current human state. But it is a change.

Ritalin, on the other hand, does change things in a more transformative way. That's why it's such a prize among college students, as it supposedly enhances cognitive faculties in ways that help during exams. The takes this to the extreme. But transhumanism is no longer just in the realm of the fictional.

Even vitamins, superfoods and protein powders are doing the same: enhancing physical performance, the immune system, improving memory, boosting sexual energy, etc.

And when we add prosthetic implants? Should an athlete with carbon fiber prosthetic legs compete with others who don't have the same technology? In the last Olympics, South Africa's Oscar Pistorius competed with prosthetic legs. What if he had won?

We are already in the transhuman era.

If it isn't vitamins or performance-inhancing drugs, who can be without a cell phone? This device is now an extension of who we are, indispensable in our everyday life. Forgetting one at home is tragic: a sense of loss, of disconnection, no memory, no schedule, no music, camera, news, email, maps, GPS, Facebook, Twitter, games. Nearly every app is an extension of our mental faculties, part of who we are.

Just a few decades ago, when you got to someones house you'd check out their records and books to get a feel for the person. Now, it's their apps.

We are now linked to huge amounts of data. Any one of us can connect by video to people across the planet; cellular devices are a means of extending our presence, of redefining the reality in which we live. Our brain is no longer just the gray mass inside our head; through its digital tentacles the brain now extends itself — and you — around the world.

The future? Transhumanism will only grow. Technological devices will be implanted in our heads and bodies, our used peripherally, like Google Glass, extending our senses and cognitive abilities. Why see only in the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum? Let's go ultraviolet! Infrared! Let's extend our hearing range, our memory capacity, our immune defenses, our life span, our brainpower.

The question that no one has answered, though, is what will this do to our species? Will we simply reinvent ourselves, taking evolution into our own hands? It seems that we are already doing this. And will we then become less human?

It seems so, but "less" may be a misnomer. We are becoming something else. We are becoming a new species. Let us hope that whatever we become, or some of us become, will be wise enough to deal with the unavoidable inequalities that will surely follow. Brave New World is not a good model for our future.

here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/06/11/320961912/the-transhuman-future-be-more-than-you-can-be

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12 Futuristic Forms of Government That Could One Day Rule the World
George Dvorsky
Thursday 10:02am

As history has repeatedly shown, political systems come and go. Given our rapid technological and social advances, it's a trend we can expect to continue. Here are 12 extraordinary — and even frightening — ways our governments could be run in the future.

4. Democratic World Government



We may very well be on our way to achieving the Star Trek-like vision of a global-scale liberal democracy — one capable of ending nuclear proliferation, ensuring global security, intervening to end genocide, defending human rights, and putting a stop to human-caused climate change.

Thus far, globalization appears to be unfolding across three stages. The first phase is cultural globalization, the second economic, and the third political. The first and second stages are largely complete, though some protectionism still exists. The final stage has proven to be the most difficult; nation-states are incredibly hesitant to give up sovereignty. But the dissolution of borders may be an inexorable trend that underlies civilizational development, as witnessed by the unification of China under the Qin Dynasty, the formation of the United States of America, the current experiment known as the European Union, and the likely unification of all African countries. Taken to its logical conclusion, we may eventually achieve a democratic planetary government.

the other forms of government, here:
http://io9.com/12-futuristic-forms-of-government-that-could-one-day-ru-1589833046