Thread by @SteB777

1) I think we need a basic definition of effective problem solving and an understanding it.

After Greta's wonderful speech, self-appointed experts are claiming it is easy to criticise, but where are her solutions.

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1442860615941468161

2) Those who claim Greta and indeed anyone else, need to come up with a solution or plan now, fail to understand the basic elements of effective problem solving.

3) The basic elements of effective problem solving are to recognise the problem, to define it, to understand it, and to then acknowledge all of this. Without this, your solution will be absolutely useless for a whole number of problems.

4) Understanding and defining a problem, especially a very complex one like the climate and ecological crisis, cannot be done by a quick impulsive impression of the problem. In fact it is a continuous ongoing process.

5) Actually, finding solutions is also part of a long ongoing process in which you constantly have to re-evaluate your understanding of the problem, and the effectiveness of your solutions.

6) Nearly all those attacking Greta for just being critical are asserting we need technical solutions and list them. This demonstrates they have completely misunderstood the essential elements of effective problem solving.

7) In each case I've seen these arguments today, they have defined the problem as how to carry on with business as usual, and the present system, using technology to facilitate this. I will use this as a simple example, because it's typical of most of these arguments.

8) As far as they are concerned the thing that is sustaining people's lives is technology and the financial economy, and if you in anyway disrupt this, people will die. That is why they see maintaining business as usual, as essential.

9) I will briefly explain where they have gone profoundly wrong in their problem solving steps and their fundamental failure to understand the problem.

As I say they believe that the modern economy and technology is what sustains human life.

10) In fact, the primary thing that sustains human life AND THE ECONOMY are natural systems like the climate and natural ecosystems (involving biodiversity). It is just that most people don't see it - out of sight, out of mind.

11) It's a vastly complex subject I can't cover in depth here, but there is nothing, from the air we breath, to the water we drink, the food we eat, which is not dependent on natural systems. Without it there would be no human life, no economy.

12) You can take any part of it, the oxygen we breath comes from natural photosynthesis of plants, water comes from a combination of physical systems and vegetation, food relies on soil ecosystems.

13) The primary natural factor ecosystems are adapted to is the climate which exists both globally and at that specific location.

14) Although Homo sapiens as a species arose 200-300,000 years ago and spread around the globe 60,000 years, the first agricultural societies only arose within the last 10,000 years and the first civilizations in the last 6,000 years. Why?

15) Farming and especially civilizations rely on regular and reliable grain crops. These rely on a stable and equitable climate. Where you can reliably know those crops will produce a yield of grain, how much, the minimum amount that society can rely on.
intechopen.com/chapters/65015

16) It's now generally considered that prior to the Holocene climate of the last 10,000 years, which was ideal for regular and reliable yields of grain, that previously the climate was not ideal for that and not reliable enough.

17) If you have a climate where there are regularly summers that can be too hot, too dry, too cold, too wet, to produce a reliable harvest of grain, no large complex society could rely on it.

18) Indeed there is a lot of evidence to suggest many ancient civilizations collapsed because of local temporary climate shifts, which produced poor harvests.
climate.nasa.gov/news/1010/clim…

19) It's thought that one of the big dangers of anthropogenic climate breakdown will be possible food shortages, which would make our societies very unstable because of the social unrest it would cause.
ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/…

20) This is why those who think the economy and technology sustain the human lives of our societies, yet fail to understand the part that a stable climate, natural ecosystems and biodiversity play in this have not understood the problem.

21) If business as usual continues, leading to climate breakdown, the degradation of ecosystems and a continuing loss of biodiversity, it could destabilize our societies, and therefore the economy and the technology of those economies/societies.

22) In the minds of those obsessed with maintaining business as usual, they do not see or understand how climate breakdown, ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, could be caused by this business as usual, and disrupt our societies and economies.

23) In other words, what is missing from their thinking is how the degradation of these natural systems by the business as usual model, may cause major disruption to the food supply systems and therefore the economies and technology, they think feeds people.

24) I have only focused on food supplies for brevity here, but there are many other ways climate and ecological breakdown could seriously disrupt our economies, and the technology these economies maintain.

25) This is the serious danger of not defining the problem, in a hugely complex system, and just assuming you know how the system operates, just because you have no knowledge at all of natural systems.

26) The mechanism by which those focused on the economy and technology, miss this is the Dunning-Kruger effect. They simply have so little knowledge of natural systems, that they are unable to critique and recognise their lack of knowledge.

27) Only a small proportion of the population is scientifically literate. Only a very small proportion of the scientifically literate are literate in scientific ecology, environmental science and climate science. Only a tiny proportion of them have a good overview of all 3.

28) As such a tiny proportion of the population can understand ecology, environmental and climate science in a joined up way, including how it sustains our economy, the vast majority of the population are totally in the dark.

29) This is not a problem if most of these people realise and understand their lack of knowledge and listen to those have this knowledge. Unfortunately, as we've seen with COVID, vaccines, it's easy for manipulators to get people to ignore those experts.

30) Where you end up with people with no knowledge at all of natural systems in a joined up way, start pontificating on a topic they have got no knowledge at all of, and the Dunning-Kruger effect becomes strong.

31) @GretaThunberg may not yet have formal qualifications in the scientific study of natural systems, she nevertheless understands and has read in depth the scientific collations of that knowledge like the IPCC reports.

32) Therefore when Greta critiques the lack of effective action by our governments to address these crises, she is not offering her views or opinions. She is simply saying, this action does not meet the criteria laid out in the IPCC reports etc.

33) It is Greta that understands the effective problem solving approach of first recognising the problem, understanding it and defining it. This is indeed what she was doing in this speech.

34) Greta is also wise enough to know that pontificating about solutions or plans, is absolutely pointless before the crisis is recognized as a crisis, because it will not be treated as the crisis it is.

35) Anyone demanding solutions and plans has got far too far ahead of themselves, when the real problem is the way the climate and ecological crisis is not being recognised as a crisis and the plans of government are inconsistent with what is necessary.

36) Once again, because it is essential to understand this, but unless the climate and ecological crisis is recognised as the serious crisis it is, no effective plan will get even suggested, because the nature of that crisis is not properly recognised it.

37) It is positively dangerous trying to impose an inadequate solution onto a problem, a crisis. This is because the public then believe the problem has been solved, when it hasn't. This could lead to disaster, by it being left too late.

38) @GretaThunberg was not just being a smartarse know it all showboating our leadership. Her criticisms were based on a thorough understanding of the science in the IPCC reports and how government proposals are not consistent with this science.

@ClimateHuman @KevinClimate @KateRaworth @JKSteinberger @GeorgeMonbiot

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