Thread by @SteB777

1) Excellent points again from @GretaThunberg.

In this thread I want to establish what the problem is using the most simple problem solving strategy there is - of how to effectively solve a problem. The first step is always to define the problem.

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1388431232124530690

2) The problem here is self-evidently what politicians and businesses are referring to as "net zero" isn't actually net zero, it is what they are calling net zero. Calling something net zero doesn't make it real net zero.

3) To understand this problem, you must first understand the map territory relationship, where the map is a metaphor for an idea and the territory a metaphor for reality. How useful a map is, depends on how accurately it maps the territory.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80…

4) If a map is so inaccurate that it guides you over the edge of a cliff, which it doesn't even say is there, then that map is useless. However, as any hiker knows, even with the best map you have to still carefully look in front of you. There might have been a landslide etc.

5) No map, no matter how accurate, can 100% map the territory, which always has detail far more detail than any map can contain A map is simply a guide to the territory, it is never a full description of it. Likewise, an idea is a guide, not reality itself.

6) Therefore, ideas of net zero are only a guide to actually achieving net zero, carbon neutrality. We need always to look at what these plans for net zero will actually achieve. The plan is the map, reality is the territory.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_ne…

7) If the plan for achieving net zero is unrealistic, because it creates loopholes to avoid counting a lot of carbon emissions, or it is being implemented too late in an unrealistic time-frame, it is like a bad map, navigating us on a course to disaster.

8) Therefore, like using a map for hiking, you must always look at the territory in front of you. If the territory is nothing like that on the map, then you know the map is all but useless. You need a better map, and you need to always check and update the map.

9) It is the same with "net zero" plans. If the plans are not realistic in that they don't incorporate most emissions, and use descriptions that are unrealistic, and don't take into account how fast we need to reduce carbon emissions, those plans are useless and misleading.

10) There's a tendency with our modern culture to confuse the idea of something (the map) with reality (the territory). Ideas have become far more real to us, than the things these ideas refer to i.e. the reification fallacy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reificati…

11) Most imagine that just because politicians tell us that they're going to achieve "net zero", that this means they are going to actually achieve net zero, in a time frame that will prevent dangerous climate change.

12) This is why everyone needs to learn and think about the map-territory relationship. To understand things, we have to look at the reality, which is described by scientific evidence, not just what someone tells us in a fake authoritative way.

13) Effective problem solving requires far more than just defining the problem. It requires us to constantly re-evaluate what we actually know about the problem to check if we got it right. It also requires us to constantly re-evaluate our solutions to see if they are working.

14) If carbon emissions keep rising, if we keep destroying carbon sinks like the rainforests and peat bogs, so they emit more carbon than they store, it should tell us that we are not doing it right.

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1388404500461932545

15) If we had been using the very simple and well known procedures I lay out here, we would never be in the mess were are in. After the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the start of the COP Talks, if we'd been constantly re-evaluating the situation, we wouldn't be where we are now.

16) When I try to highlight the map-territory relationship and the reification fallacy, most people don't get it. They can't grasp that our modern culture can possibly be making such a simple basic error.

17) No it really is that simple. We have got so wrapped up in our convoluted ideas about economics etc, that we've not been able to see the forest (the big picture) for the trees (misleading ideas).

18) The reality of the world we live in is physical reality, the natural systems of the Earth, which sustain our lives and our economy. The natural systems described by modern science.

19) We, or rather our leaders and the majority of people bamboozled by their misleading and inaccurate economic ideas, have simply not been looking at the rock hard scientific evidence describing the world in which we live.

20) This is why a society wide understanding of the map territory relationship i.e. the relationship of our ideas to the world we live in is so vital. People are misled by ideas that seem to contradict the reality described by science.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80…

21) However, if you understand the map territory relationship, you know that to check if your idea is correct, you look at how accurate that idea is compared to reality described by science evidence and investigation. Not the supposed authority of the person espousing that idea.

22) The reification fallacy demonstrates that people are very prone to seeing ideas as more real than reality i.e. mistaking the map for the territory. We must change that.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reificati…

23) Again I understand why people have trouble believing that our societies and our modern culture has made such basic errors in our thinking. Yet we are we heading towards global suicide, when science told us what the basic problem was, a long time ago?

24) Thinking is like following a series of directions i.e. take the third turning on the right. However, if you take a wrong turning early on, and you don't realise it and carry on following those directions, you will get further and further from the true path.

25) This is why our civilization has taken such a disastrous path. Ideas are a marvellous tool, which have created lots of amazing technology. However, if you don't carefully check all these ideas against reality, you can get seriously misled by them.

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