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Hi Martin,
As a bit of clarification: The evidence for global climate warming is very compelling at this point.  It's happening from all ascertainable measures.  The time course is less certain––cloud cover seems to be the last unknown. The chief proponent of "rescue by cloud" is an authoritative contrarian physicist at MIT, but his questions will likely be more definitively answered over the next couple of years.

I would love to see humans pull together, but we're not likely to do so for a bunch of reasons.  Partially, it's the geologic time horizon.  It's mostly beyond comprehension and prior experience.  It is beyond our perceptive capabilities and systems of belief. (It's not written in our genes as much as I wish it was.) As a species, we are very, very likely to go through a self-induced global environmental crises.  It's going to be pretty scatter-shot as to who will survive and who won't.  

First pass is that wealthy countries and people will fair better.  Geo-engineering the planet's atmosphere will happen at some point in the future.  Science, education, engineering, social cultural receptivity will all play a collective role.  It will likely be a concerted social effort.  Altruism and self-sacrifice will play a huge role in shaping our future, as will wars.

I feel somewhat at a loss with respect to effective actions.  We certainly have not been successful through informal education.  At least I haven't seen or heard of one block buster exhibit.  It's not a particularly attractive or interesting topic that's able to grab rapped attention.  The solutions are lame by default.  We're much more capable in the realm of optical illusions and geez whiz technologies. Stuff that's inherently engaging and fun.

Evidence from many, many sources suggests we're not likely to be able to pull together this time around, hopefully in our life times a new consensus will build.  There's too many winners and loosers for a clear-decision with climate change. It would be possible to orchestra concerned human action for something like a meteor or comet impact––an external clear and present danger––rather than climate change which is intertwined with us and slow, kind of like the race between the hare and tortoise.  

Oh, "green" Canada is a perfect example.  There are benefits to oil, benefits to warmer poles especially if you don't live near the equator, aren't a polar bear and don't live at sea level, (and we have a building consensus for that and in this country and it runs from Democrat to Republican).

It may be more firmly in our genes by the end of it all, but it's not there now.
C

On May 11, 2012, at 6:40 AM, Martin Weiss wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Charlie
> 
> *Should we make it *is an important. Since there are some questions about
> the course the climate will take (the effects of cloud cover are unknown
> right now), even though some predicted aspects of climate change are
> occurring (severe weather episodes), prudence (self survival) would suggest
> a level of proactive behavior.
> 
> There is no question that history shows that we, governments , make rash
> judgements but I am not convinced it is written entirely in our genes (and
> I don't think you believe this either). We have not been able to identify
> the complexity of genes that are responsible for our complex collective
> behaviors. It would seem that our altruistic natures which act on
> individual levels, and to some extent on community levels, should kick in
> to help us make decisions that might avert the dangers that Hansen outlines.
> 
> Martin

The opinions and thoughts expressed here are my own and should in no way be construed or attributed to the Exploratorium or related organization, and do not represent an institutional position.
Charles Carlson
Senior Scientist
exploratorium
3601 Lyon St.
San Francisco, CA 94123
[log in to unmask]
Tel:   415-561-0319
Fax:  415-561-0370
http://blogs.exploratorium.edu/whyintercept/









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