Ohledne https://situational-awareness.ai/ a Aschenbrennera: jestli bude AI spotrebovavat 20% elektriny nebo ne neni vubec point tech eseji (ktere mmch doporucuju procist, good read); jeho hlavni point je ten, ze AGI je mozna (ne nevyhnutelna, je tam mnoho nejistot) a ze nikdo moc neresi, jaky dopad to bude mit na bezpectnost, tedy alignment. V tom s nim souhlasim - pokud by se to nahodou opravdu stalo takto brzy (mluvi o '27/'28), tak budeme mit peknej turmoil a klima nas moc zajimat nebude, protoze budeme resit pravdepodobne takovy hospodarskopoliticky prevrat (rozvrat?), jako jsme nikdy nezazili. Jen si predstavte, co by se stalo s high-skilled a high-salary ekonomikou EU ve chvili, kdy si velkou cast mezd bilych limecku vezme US big tech. Zdanime sice mozna roboty, ale to vyjde tak mozna na zebracenky pro programatory, nikoliv na jejich hezke platy v soucasnosti ... [Mozna fakt neni od veci si koupit ty akcie NVidie, i kdyz jsou prepalene ...]

Aschenbrenner je ovsem matematik/ekonom a ne informatik. Myslim, ze nektere veci vidi hodne povrchne a jen prostrednictvim svych regresi a extrapolaci. Jsou to super uvahy, ale i on sam priznava, ze jeho predikce pres nekolik radu a let jsou zatizeny velkymi nejistotami (budeme mit dostatek dat? nevycerpa se fundamentalne nase schopnost je tezit? nenarazime na totalni odpor populace?). Cili stat se to mozna muze, ale mozna taky ne.

Pokud bude AGI, tak to bude znamenat tak velkou revoluci, ze nikdo neni schopny domyslet, co bude dal. Postaveni neandrtalcu v usvitu clouveka moudreho me ale moc nelaka ... Pokud ovsem AGI nebude, ale bude cim dal kvalitnejsi AI (coz je jiste), tak spotreba elektriny poroste tak jako tak. Jestli se to vyplati tim, ze bude o to vice akcelerovan vyzkum OZE/sekvestrace atp nevim (a imho to nevi nikdo).

Roger doing Roger

Economists at Harvard, who presumably know what they are talking about, have finally woken up to the fact that destroying the economy means the economy gets destroyed. Meaning there is not some supernatural separation between, you know - climate change "out there" in the natural world - and the real manly world of getting on and making good money.

'A 3C temperature increase will cause “precipitous declines in output, capital and consumption that exceed 50% by 2100” the paper states.'

But they get to the point when they say:

“These magnitudes are comparable to the economic damage caused by fighting a war domestically and permanently.”

So the war goes on for 100,000 years - give or take, of course.

Main take away - YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET YOUR PENSION.


Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought – report | Climate crisis | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report

What Happens When NASA Loses Eyes on Earth? We’re About to Find Out
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/climate/nasa-satellites-data.html

When the three orbiters — Terra, Aqua and Aura — are powered down, much of the data they’ve been collecting will end with them, and newer satellites won’t pick up all of the slack. Researchers will either have to rely on alternate sources that might not meet their exact needs or seek workarounds to allow their records to continue.

With some of the data these satellites gather, the situation is even worse: No other instruments will keep collecting it. In a few short years, the fine features they reveal about our world will become much fuzzier.

“Losing this irreplaceable data is simply tragic,” said Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Just when the planet most needs for us to focus on understanding how we are affected by it, and how we are affecting it, we seem to be disastrously asleep at the wheel.”

The main area we’re losing eyes on is the stratosphere, the all-important home of the ozone layer.

...

These days, with the rise of the private space industry and the proliferation of satellites around Earth, NASA and other agencies are exploring a different approach to keeping eyes on our planet. The future may lie with smaller, lighter instruments, ones that could be put into orbit more cheaply and nimbly than Terra, Aqua and Aura were back in their day.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is developing such a fleet for monitoring weather and climate. Dr. Loeb and others at NASA are working on a lightweight instrument for continuing their measurements of Earth’s energy balance.

But for such technologies to be useful, Dr. Loeb said, they have to start flying before today’s orbiters go dark.

“You need a good, long period of overlap to understand the differences, work out the kinks,” he said. “If not, then it’s going to be really difficult to have trust in these measurements, if we haven’t had a chance to prove them against the current measurements.”

Ministers of Germany, Brazil, South Africa and Spain: why we need a global tax on billionaires | Svenja Schulze, Fernando Haddad, Enoch Godongwana, María Jesús Montero and Carlos Cuerpo | The Guardian...
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2024/apr/25/ministers-of-germany-brazil-south-africa-and-spain-why-we-need-a-global-tax-on-billionaires

The renowned economist Gabriel Zucman sketched out how this might work. Currently, there are about 3,000 billionaires worldwide. The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2% of the wealth of the super-rich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. However, those who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good.

The argument behind such tax is straightforward: we need to enhance the ability of our tax systems to fulfil the principle of fairness, such that contributions are in line with the capacity to pay. Persisting loopholes in the system imply that high-net-worth individuals can minimise their income taxes. Global billionaires pay only the equivalent of up to 0.5% of their wealth in personal income tax. It is crucial to ensure that our tax systems provide certainty, raise sufficient revenues, and treat all of our citizens fairly.

Germany is a case study — perhaps the case study — of a Western middle power which made a strategic bet on a full embrace of interdependence and globalization in the late 20th century: it outsourced its security to the U.S., its export-led growth to China, and its energy needs to Russia. It is now finding itself excruciatingly vulnerable in an early 21st century characterized by great power competition and an increasing weaponization of interdependence by allies and adversaries alike. The war in Ukraine, which touches on almost every one of Germany’s bilateral, regional, and global interests, only accentuates its exposure. That this horrific conflict is taking place in the region that was part of the “Bloodlands” (the term coined by Yale historian Timothy Snyder), where Hitler and (to a lesser degree) Stalin murdered tens of millions of people is lost on few of my fellow citizens.

For much of the three decades after German reunification in 1990, Berlin saw Moscow (as well as Beijing) as a reliable strategic partner in a two-way bargain: Germany would import cheap energy, and export good governance in much the way that Eastern Europe had been transformed through entry into NATO and the EU. Ultimately, German policymakers hoped, this would transform not only these countries’ economies but also their political systems. And they believed — in an attempt to reconfigure West Germany’s Cold War Ostpolitik for a united Germany in the middle of Europe — that NATO and the European Union could and should be encompassed in a pan-European security architecture that included Russia.

The Kremlin, for its part, saw Germany as a friend, a partner, and as a strategic bridgehead into Europe — not least because it was importing roughly a third of its oil and gas from Russia. What the Germans called their “modernization partnership” with Moscow made for excellent business for a while; but in every other way, it proved to be a failure. Economic integration turned out to be strictly downstream, while many German businesses got burned by corruption and organized crime; political reform remained elusive.

Putin’s war and European energy security: A German perspective on decoupling from Russian fossil fuels | Brookings
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/putins-war-and-european-energy-security-a-german-perspective-on-decoupling-from-russian-fossil-fuels/

“The whole climate discourse is elite. It comes out of universities and from scientists, and is centred on the West. What about fishermen in India? They understand climate change. Many of us trust scientists but, as we saw in the pandemic, there is also scepticism about who these people are, telling us how to live our lives. The voices of fishermen carry credibility too.”

Ghosh cited Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and George W Bush’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, as examples of Western nationalism hindering climate action. But he also pointed to the way poorer nations use nationalism as an argument against decarbonisation: why should they curb growth when the West has profited at their expense? For these nations climate action “is not about the future, but about the past”, he said.

“When you come from a poor country such as India, you learn not to listen to what politicians say, but to look at what they do. Politicians around the world talk a good game, but they are basically preparing for war. Climate change is essentially becoming an all-out war and this is just the beginning.

Amitav Ghosh: “Climate change is becoming an all-out war” - New Statesman
https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/amitav-ghosh-climate-change-war

TUHO: Tak tohle je dobrý, jak dlóho nic. Od Lovelocka jsem slyšel naposled v Team Human
James Lovelock “We Humans Are A Good Thing” | Team Human
https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-146-james-lovelock-we-humans-are-a-good-thing
ale tahle česká verze je … bližší, no (:

Related

1 in 5 new car sales globally were EVs in 2023, and that's curbed oil demand – IEA
https://electrek.co/2024/03/02/1-in-5-new-car-sales-globally-in-were-evs-in-2023-oil-demand-iea/

The bad news is that energy-related emissions rose in 2023. But the good news is that continued expansion of clean energy technologies meant that global energy-related emissions rose less strongly than in 2022, even as total energy demand growth accelerated.

Emissions increased by 410 million tonnes, or 1.1%, in 2023 – compared with a rise of 490 million tonnes the year before – taking them to a record level of 37.4 billion tonnes.

An exceptional shortfall in hydropower due to extreme droughts in the US, China, and several other economies resulted in over 40% of the rise in emissions in 2023 as countries turned largely to fossil fuels to plug the gap. Had it not been for the unusually low hydropower output, global emissions from electricity generation would have declined in 2023, making the overall rise in energy-related emissions significantly smaller.

...

Advanced economies saw a record fall in their emissions in 2023 even as their GDP grew. Their emissions dropped to a 50-year low while coal demand fell back to levels not seen since the early 1900s.

XCHAOS: ja mluvil o tom, co nas ceka a cemu se nevyhneme, at ted udelame cokoliv, procesy jsou uz rozjete.... ne to, jak se s tim budeme vyporadavat

a btw good luck with that: "A hypothetical experiment calculated that it would cost over CHF 1 billion a year to cover all Swiss glaciers" gronsko je o kapanek vetsi nemluve o tom, co ti s tim udela novy snih, nova voda, tajici snih, odtekajici voda, vitr, etc ... cira utopie

Carbon offsets aren't a good climate change solution, my research shows.
https://slate.com/technology/2024/02/carbon-offsets-california-fire-neutral-shipping-climate-change.html

the promise of using trees to counteract carbon emissions is, unfortunately, undermined by those same emissions. The warmer world we’ve created by burning fossil fuels is one where wildfires are more frequent and intense, drought is more prevalent, and forest disease more virulent. Climate change has supercharged these natural, tree-killing processes, leading to an unfortunate irony: The very forests we often depend on as offsets are under threat and increasingly endangered by climate change itself.

Nowhere is this more apparent than California’s offset program, a multibillion-dollar market that allows the state’s major polluters to offset some of their emissions instead of reducing the amount of carbon they put into the air in the first place. More than 80 percent of the program’s offsets derive from protecting trees from being cut down—but there’s more than just chain saws threatening those trees.

...

Called the buffer pool, it’s a reserve of credits set aside to compensate for losses due to wildfires or other unforeseen events. Each time a forest enrolls in the program, roughly 15 to 20 percent of the credits it generates go into the pool. Anytime there is a fire, it’s the responsibility of this collectively funded insurance pool to step in and cover any carbon losses. Basically: The offsets come with some backup offsets.

Although this may seem to be a straightforward and savvy idea on paper, I work for a nonprofit called CarbonPlan, which has spent nearly four years studying how the buffer pool actually plays out in the real world. Our research has shown the pool to be far too shallow. Large fires have burned through at least six forests participating in California’s offset program, including the massive Bootleg Fire in 2021, which blazed through a large offset project in southern Oregon and triggered air quality alerts as far away as New York City. In three of those cases, the damage from wildfire has been so severe that the offset project was canceled altogether.

get an umbrella. .)

TUCKER: Let’s touch on climate change. It’s still being pushed in the United States and Europe. What’s your position?

PUTIN: Humanity is not even a Type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale. If we can’t harness the energy potential of the planet how can we control the climate?

TUCKER: Are you at least concerned?

PUTIN: I’m more concerned with real issues. Climate change is not one of them. The Earth does a fairly good job of regulating itself. And if Siberia gets a little warmer all the better. More farmland for Russia.

TUCKER: But what would you tell the true believers who’re convinced we’re headed for disaster?

PUTIN: I’d tell them worrying about climate change is like complaining about the weather. If you don’t like the climate, move. If you are worried about the weather, get an umbrella.

Related, podobny, nebo i lepsi cisla po zapadni evrope

The révolution is on: France has record year in EV sales | Electrek
https://electrek.co/2024/01/03/the-revolution-is-on-france-has-record-year-in-ev-sales/

It was a very good year in France for electric cars, for all kinds of reasons – among them, new cheaper cars entering the market supported by generous government subsidies. In 2023, 26% of new cars sold in France were battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, a huge 47% jump from 2022.

...

Odhad globalne 18% za 2023

Electric vehicles - IEA
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/electric-vehicles

Je tu milnik na ceste k zachrane klimatu. Nerustove investice .)

Good vibes to all.

https://twitter.com/MafinPhoenix/status/1736394093930877201?s=19

TUHO: Based on current climate policies around the world, various groups estimate that we’re now on track for around 2.5°C (4.5°F) global warming by 2100.

On the one hand, that’s not yet good enough to meet the target set in the Paris agreement. On the other hand, climate policies and clean technologies deployed over just the past eight years have already erased a full degree Celsius of global warming from the future world in 2100. Governments need to do more in the coming years to bring the Paris goals within reach, but the progress made over just the past eight years has been remarkable, especially in comparison to the prior decades of futility.

SHEFIK: Problem je, ze my ten kompetentni stat / verejnou sferu potrebujeme. Korporace proste urcity druhy problemu neresej / nejsou schopny resit (jinak bysme mohli stat ostatne zrusit uplne).
Neverim v outsorcovani klicovejch strategickejch rozhodnuti. Je to prilis riskantni, nejakou expertizu si proste musis drzet "doma". Jako kdo si asi myslis, ze ovlada ty konzultantsky spolecnosti typu Deloitte?

ABOUT THE BIG CON
A vital and timely investigation into the opaque and powerful consulting industry—and what to do about it

There is an entrenched relationship between the consulting industry and the way business and government are managed today that must change. Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington show that our economies’ reliance on companies such as McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY stunts innovation, obfuscates corporate and political accountability, and impedes our collective mission of halting climate breakdown.

The “Big Con” describes the confidence trick the consulting industry performs in contracts with hollowed-out and risk-averse governments and shareholder value-maximizing firms. It grew from the 1980s and 1990s in the wake of reforms by the neoliberal right and Third Way progressives, and it thrives on the ills of modern capitalism, from financialization and privatization to the climate crisis. It is possible because of the unique power that big consultancies wield through extensive contracts and networks—as advisors, legitimators, and outsourcers—and the illusion that they are objective sources of expertise and capacity. In the end, the Big Con weakens our businesses, infantilizes our governments, and warps our economies.

In The Big Con, Mazzucato and Collington throw back the curtain on the consulting industry. They dive deep into important case studies of consultants taking the reins with disastrous results, such as the debacle of the roll out of HealthCare.gov and the tragic failures of governments to respond adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic. The result is an important and exhilarating intellectual journey into the modern economy’s beating heart. With peerless scholarship, and a wealth of original research, Mazzucato and Collington argue brilliantly for building a new system in which public and private sectors work innovatively for the common good.


The Big Con by Mariana Mazzucato, Rosie Collington: 9780593492673 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/710959/the-big-con-by-mariana-mazzucato-and-rosie-collington/

A Carillo
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10160951062127954&id=589507953

We can achieve incredible results if we work in sync with Nature, even in the Chihuahuan Desert during one of the worst dry spells in the last 75 years, plus dealing with record-breaking high temps. Thanks to our holistic / regenerative ranching practices we have been able to infiltrate and protect every inch we have got so far, and we got just 4" of rain since January. I took these pictures this week. Not all the pastures across the ranch are this lush, but we have a good stand of stockpile grasses that will be critical to keep going until the next rains with minimal or no inputs.

J. Bierhanzel:
"František dnes vydal novou apoštolskou exhortaci o klimatické krizi Laudate Deum. Tepe do nezodpovědného způsobu života na Západě (emise na osobu jsou v USA 2x vyšší než v Číně a 7x oproti chudým zemím) a v části o duchovních motivacích ke změně cituje např. Donnu Haraway."

"Laudate Deum": Apostolic Exhortation to all people of good will on the climate crisis (4 October 2023) | Francis
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20231004-laudate-deum.html

degrowth meets modern minetary theory

Abstract
Degrowth lacks a theory of how the state can finance ambitious social-ecological policies and public provisioning systems while maintaining macroeconomic stability during a reduction of economic activity. Addressing this question, we present a synthesis of degrowth scholarship and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) rooted in their shared understanding of money as a public good and their common opposition to artificial scarcity. We present two arguments. First, we draw on MMT to argue that states with sufficient monetary sovereignty face no obstacle to funding the policies necessary for a just and sustainable degrowth transition. Increased public spending neither requires nor implies GDP growth. Second, we draw on degrowth research to bring MMT in line with ecological reality. MMT posits that fiscal spending is limited only by inflation, and thus the productive capacity of the economy. We argue that efforts to deal with this constraint must also pay attention to social and ecological limits. Based on this synthesis we propose a set of monetary and fiscal policies suitable for a stable degrowth transition, including a stronger regulation of private finance, tax reforms, price controls, public provisioning systems and an emancipatory job guarantee. This approach can support broad democratic mobilization for a degrowth transition.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800923002318