Monday, July 02, 2007





Letter from Tällberg: We are about to leave the Holocene

"Rogue" NASA scientist James Hansen lead the panel off with a grim pronouncement, saying that there looms a "huge gap" between what is understood (by scientists) about global warming and what is known by the public. In short, Hansen says, the climate crisis is a far more dire and present danger than most of us like to think. "We are closer to a level of dangerous, human-made interference with the climate than we realize. [. . .] We are about to leave the Holocene."


Let's say we achieve some form of Kurzweilian technological Singularity around 2050. Combined with the mounting evidence that we're engaged in a climate catastrophe of globally devastating scope, it becomes almost impossible to argue against the 21st century being the most important in the long history of our species, if not that of the planet itself.

There's a very good chance I'll live to see if our intellect is up to the challenges in store. I consider it a privilege.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"There's a very good chance I'll live to see if our intellect is up to the challenges in store. I consider it a privilege."
------------------------------------
If our collective intellect were up to the challenges in store, we would not _be_ in our current dire situation. The penultimate danger of global warming, et al, has been known for over 50 years. Virtually nothing has been done, or will be.

Look to our history. There will be no singularity, except the one of implosion.