My To-Do List for Saving the World

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Abstract

o the waste problem — e.g. incineration, plastics that break down rapidly — we subsequently discover we have produced an even bigger problem — e.g. nasty particles in the atmosphere, nasty sherds in the ocean. Do what we do with radioactive waste, bury it with great care until we actually know what we’re doing.3. We don’t exactly know what we’re doing to the upper atmosphere, nor what a changing upper atmosphere is doing to us, but until we do know a good start would be to stop injecting vast quantities of burnt aviation kerosene directly into it. A return to propeller-driven aircraft would part-solve this and part-solve a good many other problems connected to airmiles.4. Nuclear power is presently the best method of generating base-load electricity. We may (or may not) decide that building new nuclear power stations is the way ahead, but using existing ones to their uttermost is not just sensible it is de rigueur.5. It is obvious that the oceans are in trouble. It is also obvious that we don’t have the political tools to do anything about it since, while everyone has an interest in saving the ocean, everyone has an interest in exploiting their own bit of ocean or exploiting the common ocean. We pretty much know what needs doing, but only the supra-authorit

Options

y of a World Navy will force us to do it.6. Humankind is addicted to conflict and there’s nothing to be done about that short of abolishing humankind. However, there are ways and means to ensure conflict is limited to A bashes B until B does what A wants it to, without upsetting wider applecarts. And right now we need all the applecarts to be going in roughly the same direction, even the ones you happen to believe are being driven by particularly evil applecart drivers. Sanctions have proved to be ineffective but pernicious, destabilising for the sanctioners but dangerously isolating for the sanctioned. Yet everyone loves them because they are cheap and give the illusion that ‘something is being done’. Sanctions should be treated like chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.7. The Distribution of Deserts <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=5uNQIMcKNTM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=5uNQIMcKNTM</a>. You should ignore the limited production values — Applied Epistemologists don’t get paid for their work. You should, however, pay special attention to the bits that prompt the thought, “That can’t be true, I learned all about it in school.” That’s the kind of thing Applied Epistemologists are not paid to tell you about.</article></body>

(in no particular order)

1. Outlaw recycling 2. Put all waste in landfill 3. Ban civil jet aircraft 4. Re-open, re-build, repair all existing nuclear power plants 5. Create a World Maritime Agency with a vast fleet of warships 6. End all sanctions 7. Watch my YouTube on Desertification and the Hydrological Cycle

Notes

1. Recycling has achieved a roughly 12% success rate, much the same as when it started several decades ago. It is perfectly clear that no matter what we do with the detritus of civilised living, recycling is not it. But why abolish this modest contribution? Because (a) it has meant in practice offloading the worst of it onto poor countries who in turn offload it into the environment (b) it has provided an alibi for everyone who wants ‘to make a contribution’ that they are doing so. Just stop recycling and force us all to confront the problem effectively. The small amount of useful recycling, i.e. not just producing rubber and plastic crumbs, can be left to commercial scrap metal merchants as has been done ever since the birth of civilised living.

2. Every time we come up with some solution or other to the waste problem — e.g. incineration, plastics that break down rapidly — we subsequently discover we have produced an even bigger problem — e.g. nasty particles in the atmosphere, nasty sherds in the ocean. Do what we do with radioactive waste, bury it with great care until we actually know what we’re doing.

3. We don’t exactly know what we’re doing to the upper atmosphere, nor what a changing upper atmosphere is doing to us, but until we do know a good start would be to stop injecting vast quantities of burnt aviation kerosene directly into it. A return to propeller-driven aircraft would part-solve this and part-solve a good many other problems connected to airmiles.

4. Nuclear power is presently the best method of generating base-load electricity. We may (or may not) decide that building new nuclear power stations is the way ahead, but using existing ones to their uttermost is not just sensible it is de rigueur.

5. It is obvious that the oceans are in trouble. It is also obvious that we don’t have the political tools to do anything about it since, while everyone has an interest in saving the ocean, everyone has an interest in exploiting their own bit of ocean or exploiting the common ocean. We pretty much know what needs doing, but only the supra-authority of a World Navy will force us to do it.

6. Humankind is addicted to conflict and there’s nothing to be done about that short of abolishing humankind. However, there are ways and means to ensure conflict is limited to A bashes B until B does what A wants it to, without upsetting wider applecarts. And right now we need all the applecarts to be going in roughly the same direction, even the ones you happen to believe are being driven by particularly evil applecart drivers. Sanctions have proved to be ineffective but pernicious, destabilising for the sanctioners but dangerously isolating for the sanctioned. Yet everyone loves them because they are cheap and give the illusion that ‘something is being done’. Sanctions should be treated like chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

7. The Distribution of Deserts https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=5uNQIMcKNTM. You should ignore the limited production values — Applied Epistemologists don’t get paid for their work. You should, however, pay special attention to the bits that prompt the thought, “That can’t be true, I learned all about it in school.” That’s the kind of thing Applied Epistemologists are not paid to tell you about.