Pithy definitions from Dmitry Orlov

[GliderGuider]

Geoengineering: "Fixing problems you don't understand by using technology that doesn't exist."

The USA: "A decomposing corpse of a nation lorded over by a tiny clique of oligarchs who control the herd by wielding Orwellian methods of mind control."

Much more cynical delight and schadenfreude here:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/extinctextincterextinctest.html

[NYC_SKP]

1. Love it! But why can't they see that a Hydrogen Economy with Desalination Plants....

...can save America?!

Damn, we don't get nearly enough sanity around here.

Thanks for the post, this is powerful stuff!

[haikugal]

2. Emitting is always a good read..

My son turned me on to him years ago. Reinventing collapse is an interesting read and I recommend it. I haven't read his newer work or visited his blog for a while. Thanks!

[pscot]

3. Why bother learning from mistakes

when you can endlessly compound them...

[GliderGuider]

4. And, speaking of geoengineering

Engineers Offer to Save World from Engineers

The closer a person or a society comes to the end of its life, the more attractive magical thinking becomes. Clearly this is not going well, the thought process goes, but I can avoid the inevitable outcome if I 1) pray real hard, or 2) pay enough money to the shaman/priest/doctor, or 3) take lots and lots of Vitamin X while bathed in a strong electromagnetic field, or 4) sacrifice plenty of virgins to a volcano. The more hopeless the situation becomes, the more attractive becomes the idea of a magical, easy solution, and the lust to find one often intensifies until death intervenes. Thus now, in the dotage of our society, we are hearing a rising, insistent chant from the shamans of technology, a promise of an easy fix for the climate that is turning against us: “geoengineer it, geoengineer it.”

Geoengineering is an offer — from the industrial wizards who have virtually destroyed the ability of the planet to support human life — to complete the job. Spewing billions of tons of carbon dioxide (from burning fossil fuels) into the atmosphere has worked really well if you disregard the fact that it is slowly bringing the world to a boil. To counter that downside, the supergeeks are now — I am not making this up — proposing to spew millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to create aerosols that would reflect sunlight and presumably turn the burner down. And then what will happen to the toxic, nasty-smelling gas that is a precursor to sulfuric acid? We’ll figure that out when we get there.

Another brilliant idea from a self-styled geoengineer named David Keith is to substitute 200 million tons of aluminum particles for the sulfur dioxide, thus avoiding the smell and the acidity, but unfortunately coating the world in toxic aluminum when the particles, as they eventually must, fall back to earth.

No one in their right mind would actually support doing such things, which is why they are gathering increasing support around the world. The din has prompted the National Academy of Sciences to weigh in, just last week, with an authoritative opinion that said, after due consideration, the proposals have been found to be dangerous to the point of utter madness and we ought to continue to consider them, at government expense.

[appal_jack]

5. Orlov is quite brilliant, but he does have a few blind spots.

For one, his perspective on the Ukraine is wildly pro-Russian. I don't pretend to know enough about that region to say exactly how biased he is, but denying any measure of Russian imperialism strains credulity.

He is probably wrong on exactly when the oil will run out. Humans keep finding new ways of wrestling hydrocarbons from the earth. This extended remix of the fossil fuel economy might cause more problems than the extra energy solves, but predicting the exact expiration date is a fool's errand, and one that Orlov has flubbed repeatedly.

His climate predictions also have a pro-Russian tilt. In that, and all the other specific details he offers, he might be right, but it is far more likely that he is wrong. The climate is just too complex for hard and fast predictions on where will be livable in 50 or 100 years.

Nonetheless, a very worthwhile read, comments there included. k&r,

-app

[GliderGuider]

6. There's a funny thing about blind spots

One person's clear vision may look like a blind spot to someone else. Take my insistence that technology can't solve our worsening predicament. To a technophile that looks like I have a a blind spot regarding human ingenuity and the power of technology. To me, their insistence that technology can do the job looks like they have a blind spot regarding ecological and system issues.

[appal_jack]

7. Indeed, but when it comes to Russia & Ukraine, Orlov's blind spot is undeniable.

The recent revelations about the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, and Putin's plans to invade Ukraine prior to the collapse of its governement reminded me of this thread.

I have no problem calling out the CIA and other truly imperialist Western forces attempting to exert hegemony across the globe. But even if such entities are working in Ukraine (and I have no reason to doubt that they are...), Putin is trying for an imperialist hegemony of his own. Orlov grossly tipped his hand as a Putinista, and this bias makes me question his other assertions all the more closely.

-app