Forget 2C — World Bank says 4C global warming ahead

Will the big business wing of the GOP listen to its fellow plutocrats at the World Bank on climate change, or will the tea partier wingnuts continue to rule the roost?

World Bank economists say forget about a 2C rise in temperatures by the end of this century. The expect a full 4C, or 9F change, is already pretty much “cooked in the books.”

Brad Plumer gives a good summary of just what’s at stake with that kind of change … including the fact that we probably don’t really know yet everything that could be at stake.

The full report is here (PDF).

Oh, and US climate scientists at Boulder agree with theWorld Bank on potentially needing to worry.

This is not just scary … it’s scary as shit.

Poor countries will suffer the most … while the energy-gluttonous USofA adds most to the problem as people crank up the AC even more and demand more cheap electricity if this comes to pass.

Newspapers continue to ignore #Rosen and #Shirky

Looks like major American newspapers continue to ignore New Media “gurus” Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky, among others, on their strenuous insistence that newspapers should not put up paywalls.

E.W. Scripps will start rolling them out in 2013.

That’s after daily newspapers in the US passed the 20 percent mark this year, on how many of them have paywalls.

And, though just with its toes at first, the Houston Chronicle is also joining the paywall world. And, more Canadian papers are liking paywalls now, too. And, CJR's Ryan Chittum is giving the new media fluffers a well-deserved smackdown. His bottom line on paywalls? Some revenue (and he clearly shows paywalls are producing NET revenue, i.e., more profit) is better than the NONE you get without a paywall.

Just maybe, as part of that, more newspaper execs (and “Webbies” in general), are reading the full paragraph that contains Stewart Brand’s “information wants to be free” statement.

If you aren’t familiar with it, I’ll post it now:

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

The issue at hand is what “free” means, whether to Brand himself, or others.

A number of people argue that it means “free to access,” and not “free of cost,” though the free to access may include lowered cost. It’s unclear which one Brand meant.

That said, because the “free” part is one have of a polarity, it’s clear that Brand was NOT saying that information should be free. There’s no blanket espousal of that by him.

(Brand himself claims he's blamed for a lot of tech-neoliberalism stuff that is not his fault. The rest of that interview indicates he's lying to himself if he really believes that and lying to the rest of us anyway.)

And the Rosen and Shirkys of the world simply won’t tell you that.

Update, Feb. 22, 2013: Massimo Pigliucci weighs in well on this issue. 

The reality of BRIC nations' futures

Seeing who the Chinese Communist Party elected to top state leadership positions for the next five years, I think we can say serious political reform isn’t happening there in the near future. That means state-owned enterprises will continue to be propped up, and corruption will continue to happen. Add in the “demographic cliff” of the longer term, and it’s an open question as to how great an economic power China will be 20 years from now.

Russia? It’s clear that it’s all Putin, all the way down, until he croaks or a revolution knocks him off. And, as Pussy Riot shows, he’s only going to tighten his reins the longer he stays in power. That level of control stifles the non-corrupted part of the Russian economy. And, as the Middle East, Alaska and Texas show us, oil money corrupts. Declining oil money will corrupt even more, in Russia’s future.

What about India? Actual working, or theoretically working, democracy. Well, I just got done reading “Behind the Beautiful Flowers.” Beyond the poverty of Mumbai slums, the corruption, on a far more endemic, bottom-up level and way than China, is staggering, if what happens with local police, small-level politicians, city inspectors, etc., in poorer areas of Mumbai comes close to translating to the country as a whole. Add in India’s “demographic bomb” rather than “cliff” — that is, a deliberate push to surpass China in population, along with even worse resource degradation, and India’s sadly, but realistically, not a long-term economic power either.

That leaves Brazil.

Its democracy is newer than India’s but long enough now to seem reasonably stable. It’s got the best overall natural resources of the four, if it doesn’t overexploit them. It may just be the one BRIC that actually breaks through to the next level in the relatively near future.

‘Kenny Boy’ Salazar and the ‘Most open administration in history’

‘Most open administration in history’ my a--

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, by refusing to take questions about wild horse roundup and possible slaughter, at a public event, even if it was Election Day, exemplifies just how much it is Just.Another.Politician.™ at the helm of the White House.

The issue in question starts at about the 4-minute mark.

Unfortunately, Obama’s not the best at being Just.Another.Politician.™ in some ways. On the plus side, maybe “Kenny Boy” could PLEASE teach Dear Leader to get some cojones like this?

Second, this shows Team Obama isn't all that “green,” really. So, don’t expect much change on global warming issues in his second term.

Third, the wild horse issue is convoluted (aside from Kenny Boy's seeming ethics lapse). Fourth, people have eaten horsemeat for millennia, folks. Unless you're a vegetarian, you've got no room to complain, IMO.

My personal take? If sterilizations aren’t working well enough, and not enough people are buying wild horses to keep, other people WILL buy them to slaughter. Isn’t it better to have them transported shorter distances to be slaughtered in better-inspected US slaughterhouses, rather than Mexican ones?

Is the Internet conscious?

Now, my philosophy has no problem with imputing consciousness to non-carbon beings or creatures. (We would, of course, call anything with consciousness a "being" or a "creature" and not just an "it.")

Well, Massimo Pigliucci has a good discussion of claims about the consciousness, or not, of the Internet, here.

I agree with him that today's Internet is not conscious, but that, at some unknown date, it may become so. I also agree with what I take as his tacit thought that the "unknown date" isn't happening in the next few years. Sit down, Ray Kurzweil.

That said, especially on issues like this, Massimo gets some ... "interesting" comments and commenters. Baron and Dave S, definitely, on issues like this.

Per Baron and some of his interests in other blogs and such, I riff on Hanns Johst (not Hermann Göring): "When I hear the word 'noetic,' I reach for my revolver!"

My thought? Without going down Kurzweil's road, or Michio Kaku's, but with taking Lynn Margulis' idea of "symbiosis" beyond just carbon-based life (sorry, Massimo, you're being too restrictive there), we might talk about a symbiosis for a new type of consciousness at some point.

But, even that, rather than just talk about conscious humans being helped by the Internet, is some point away. And, if that symbiosis does become conscious, it will surely eliminate for now and beyond, the idea of the Internet having a free-standing, non-symbiotic consciousness.

That said, like SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, our definition of "consciousness" may be too narrow. Or looking in the wrong corners.

But, the Internet is not currently conscious, or even close to it.

And, contra Baron and a few Jains, hammers sure as hell aren't conscious and never will be.

John Jay, the first US Secretary of State

John Jay, by Gilbert Stuart/From Wikipedia

Yes, you read that header correctly. Of course, that’s not reality.

But, in the next of my occasional series of posts on counterfactual history, and especially counterfactual political histories, he IS the first Secretary of State.

And, there’s solid actual history behind it.

In fact, George Washington offered John Jay the position first. Only after he turned it down did Washington look to Thomas Jefferson.

So, what might have turned out differently had Jay taken the offer rather than eventually accepting the Chief Justiceship at the Supreme Court.

First, I’ll say that Jay stays two full terms, ingratiates himself more with Washington, and, in the process, builds up a Middle Atlantic power base. Among the side results, John Adams gets more marginalized among possible Federalist successors to Washington. To some degree, Hamilton may. More on him below.

Jefferson certainly gets more marginalized, as well more radicalized by remaining in France during the Terror and making some impolitic statements about it.

As a result, accepting the truth that Washington won’t, and deciding he wants a national-level political future, Jay forms the first political alliance of America, before Jefferson, meeting with Henry Lee, aka “Light Horse Harry” Lee and suggesting him for the vice presidency in a “team.” It works.

Hamilton remains outside the new government, at least at first. However, he maintains more cordial relations with Jay than he did with Adams in reality. 

Like Adams did, Jay avoids war with France, but smartly vetoes Alien and Sedition Acts legislation.

Result? Jefferson looks for partners in 1800 and lays on Burr, as in reality. Both parties court Adams for a dignified version of an “endorsement,” but he passes.

Hamilton works to negate Burr in New York, get non-Adams Federalists in New England, and succeeds. He opts to remain, again, outside of government The country finds a need for a 12th Amendment as Jay and Lee tie. Lee gracefully persuades the House to elect Jay; Hamilton works to this end, too.

Lee runs in 1804 against Madison. Elbridge Gerry thinks Madison is not anti-federalist enough and runs on his own. The race goes to the House and Lee wins.

Hamilton, meanwhile, eventually decides to work to become president of the Bank of the United States, having generated less personal antagonism from Burr in 1800 than in reality. As the first Bank of the United States faces renewal issues ahead, and Hamilton is unsure of how “sound” Lee is, from his point of view, on the Bank, he looks for moderate anti-Federalists/Democratic-Republicans, as well as Federalists, with whom to deal. This includes “Federalist” collaborator James Madison.

At this point, I will break off the alternative history, as the degree of speculation grows.

But, had Jay, with hindsight, seen how little work the Supreme Court would do, seen how the Secretary of State position could become a “launching pad,” and decided he wanted to launch himself past Adams, all of this actually could have happened.