It’s a scenario, but not especially plausible.

Anytime someone tells me something like: the Greenland melting is 30 years away from becoming “runaway”, will take 1,000 years to occur, and will be unstoppable once it starts, I wonder if they’re related to Lord Kelvin (who, in addition to being a great physicist once declared, with utter certainty, that “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”)

Moreover, 30 year out predictions are tricky things– there was a wonderful Long Now seminar last year talking about global depopulation. And Stewart Brand, the guy who runs the Long Now, pointed out the obvious: 30 years ago we were worried about the calamities that would be induced by overpopulation; now we’re worried about the possibility of a depopulation spiralling into a feedback loop that causes the next dark ages.

Best,

Bill

I reread what you wrote and I did see that I misread with regards to the ‘investing in education’ statement. Considering how many times Mountain View Educational Foundation calls me asking for money to do things like art and music, I would say that we do need money in the educational system (but that certainly was not your comment)

As far as the links go I just tested them and they seem to work. If you can give me an example it would help.

But what did you think of the rest of the post: Did the climate argument hang together (even if you didn’t agree with it?)?

Most of your links are broken.

Past that, nowhere did I say “because we are not investing in education to stay a technological leader”– I happen to think we’re spending quite enough on education. The problem is that the educational system in this country is systemically broken (as are a number of the other large-scale systems in this country).

Further investment? Waste of money. Fundamental systemic change seems to be required.