Quote:David Horn: First, AGW. Let's agree that this is an issue of increasing importance that will trigger real change at some point, but is entirely outside the boundary of politics. Yes, we can make political decisions that will slow or speed the process, but the process is based in physics. It can't be bargained down or delayed by popular vote. On the political side, we do have two takes on dealing with the issue: (1) move with a little due speed, and (2) ignore the problem. Only the scientific community is duly worried, and they have no political clout to speak of. What we do know: at some point the situation will be beyond our ability to ignore. I'm assuming that the timing for this is outside the current 4T window, so I'm also assuming the issue is delayed until <insert you best guess for the time when the SHTF>.A problem here is there are lags. For example in the second half of this century it is possible a 4C world will become inevitable. This doesn’t mean it will be 3C warmer than it is now in 2100. It means that changes will have been introduced that will mean a global temperature 4C above that of 1900 will arrive at equilibrium, which will take time to manifest. Nobody knows how fast. Past examples suggest climate can change in a way that sea level rises an average of 2 inches per year for 400 years. The CO2 rise we are seeing is faster than any previously so the process will probably be faster than that, but even if it is twice as fast that is still centuries. So it is unlikely the shit is ever going to hit the fan. It’s more like the boiling frog.
Quote:Second, automation. We are already seeing the less educated up-in-arms about their economic futures (as they should be), but the solutions being offered are both inadequate and straight out of cloud-cuckoo-land imprecise. We can see that the process is ongoing and likely to accelerate, so what do we do to accommodate millions of under employed citizens?An important problem, fortunately, one which a 4T can tackle.
Quote:Let's agree that closing the borders and blaming others won't get us there.I will assume this refers to closing the borders and tariffs. It is true that neither will get us all the way there, but they are a start. Both were elements in play last time we dealt with this issue. Since I don’t really know how what we did last time worked, a conservative approach would be to restore all the elements in play then and hope they interact in similar way this time. It like when you are running a new process in the plant and its going to hell. You start throw stuff at it, you try this and that. This is what FDR did.
[quote]I don't claim to know how this all plugs into one of Mike's reference models ... if it does at all.[/quotes]
Issues do not plug in. The quantities in the models are things like generational membership, population, elite number, sociopolitical instability etc. Only some can be empirically defined or measured (e.g. population). The others are either represented by proxies, assessed by correlations or analogies, or sometimes given by model output.