plausible futures

James Lovelock

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he added.

“Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

Lovelock, 90, believes the world’s best hope is to invest in adaptation measures, such as building sea defences around the cities that are most vulnerable to sea-level rises. He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

Source: The Guardian. This is one of my main arguments for pursuing artificial intelligence. The planet is such a complex system that human intelligence (even in collaboration) is insufficient to solve global problems.

UPDATE: Raymond B. Cattell’s “A New Morality from Science: Beyondism” (1972).