{"id":11591,"date":"2015-08-29T07:58:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-29T12:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11591"},"modified":"2015-08-29T12:07:12","modified_gmt":"2015-08-29T17:07:12","slug":"a-tragic-scenario-narrowly-cast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11591","title":{"rendered":"A Tragic Scenario: Narrowly Cast"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><em><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greattransition.org\/publication\/a-tragic-scenario-narrowly-cast#top\" target=\"_blank\">A Tragic Scenario: Narrowly Cast<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n<p><em>Book Review:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cup.columbia.edu\/book\/the-collapse-of-western-civilization\/9780231169547\" target=\"_blank\">The Collapse of Western Civilization<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The Climate Conundrum<\/p>\n<p>The anthropogenic roots of climate change have long been clear, and the dangers of inaction can be seen in melting glaciers and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. We already know how to solve the problem\u2014rapidly scaling up to 100% renewables, increasing energy efficiency, and moderating consumption levels among the affluent\u2014and we have the technology to do so. So why are we not taking action?<\/p>\n<p>This question has long intrigued two well-known historians of science, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. Their widely acclaimed book\u00a0<em>Merchants of Doubt<\/em>\u00a0(2011) chronicled one important part of the answer: a decades-long misinformation campaign against public interest regulations. Conservative scientists, whose Cold War anti-communism made them see the specter of \u201csocialism\u201d in any environmental or public health regulation, and corporate funders, seeking to protect their profits, collaborated through a network of \u201cthink tanks\u201d to undermine scientific consensus and thwart action on issues from second-hand smoke to acid rain to climate change.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Collapse of Western Civilization<\/em>, Oreskes and Conway\u2019s latest work, revisits this narrative through a different lens: a \u201cview from the future\u201d recounted by a twenty-fourth century Chinese historian. Although the authors describe\u00a0<em>Collapse<\/em>\u00a0as a hybrid of science fiction and history, it is more useful to view it as a scenario. Scenarios explore the scope of the possible, tracing paths out from the present to see how actors and drivers may interact, thereby providing insights into the uncertainty that lies ahead. Scenarios can generally be grouped into three broad categories: continuity, progressive change, and decline.\u00a0<em>Collapse<\/em>\u00a0is a scenario of decline. The question is whether it is a useful one.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">&#8211; See more at: http:\/\/www.greattransition.org\/publication\/a-tragic-scenario-narrowly-cast#sthash.u1lZsG3E.dpuf<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Tragic Scenario: Narrowly Cast Book Review:\u00a0The Collapse of Western Civilization The Climate Conundrum The anthropogenic roots of climate change have long been clear, and the dangers of inaction can be seen in melting glaciers and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. We already know how to solve the problem\u2014rapidly scaling up to 100% renewables, increasing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[141,150,8534,196,8533,8532,4528],"class_list":["post-11591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-climate-change","tag-collapse","tag-collapse-of-western-civilization","tag-decline","tag-erik-conway","tag-great-transition","tag-naomi-oreskes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11591"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11600,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11591\/revisions\/11600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}