Whither Planet 3.0?

Rob writes:
earth-wind

I haven’t stopped in here much lately but posted in my blog this evening (on a topic to be detested by many here) and saw the tweet linking to it from P3 come up. I wandered by and saw almost the identical topics that were here last time I visited. I didn’t even note many new comments in the threads that I’d read. I was going to go to the open thread and ask if both the publishers and the audience are losing interest and saw that there were comments in the “It’s your Planet!” section and clicked on that.Martin says that he’s “a bit disappointed, half jokingly, that [Mr. Greer hasn’t] found this place earlier.” I wonder what can be done to spread the site’s influence farther and make it more active. I haven’t gone to Alexa to assess its activity (not my job, you know?) but it feels like it’s … dying a bit. I know that I haven’t contributed articles as I told Michael I would at one point, so the blame rests in part with me. I seem to have enough trouble coming up with topics (and the time to pursue them) in my blog. And though my readership is tiny, keeping it up is important to me.

I would suggest that, for those who are interested in this site, we put our heads together to find ways to keep it fresh and active. I’d commit to some number of proposed articles per month but I’d likely be over-promising. But I find it an interesting enough site that it would sadden me to see it atrophy so I’d like to find some way to contribute to which I could commit and follow through.

Maybe my perception is off, if so, I’ll be glad to hear it.

Thanks, Rob. Let me reassure everyone who may be wondering that I am doing fine; better, indeed, than in years.

And for those who actually enjoy and/or appreciate my writing, I am happy to promise that despite the recent hiatus, there is more to come. (*)

lost-planet-main_0

But the mission of the Planet3.0 site is less clear.

Dan has put together some novel WordPress features that would enable a multi-author site. That is, we have a setup where authors can set moderation rules for their own threads without getting sitewide privileges. I can see this space being worthy of exploration.

But essentially, we haven’t really succeeded in creating a large enough community to sustain either the content (except inosfar as I keep blogging) or the community. And many of the things we’d hoped to do or considered doing have emerged elsewhere at least insofar as our core climate interests are concerned: Skeptical Science, The Conversation, the Climate Change National Forum, reddit climate, InsideClimate, and of course the continuing stalwart efforts of RealClimate. I’d also like to call your attention to the mostly excellent Global Warming Fact of the Day Facebook group where I have been hanging out of late. (I’m currently being called a denier there, though, which is peculiar, so ymmv.)

Some questions for y’all:

What other notable efforts are there to build a responsible conversation about the future?

How can we effectively discuss a world where climate is one of an array of existential threats, every one of which we need to address?

What role, if any, should Planet3.0 play in the current internet context? What other internet-based projects can we contemplate to advance public understanding and engagement in the complexities we face?

Ideas, please?

===
(*) – more to come, definitely, but possibly on some other URL…

This article was posted in Engage.

Comments:

  1. I'm a very frequent visitor, though there hasn't been much to see of late. It seems there has been plenty of interesting climate news that deserves to be discussed in a place like this.. certainly I often wonder how you'd be commenting, Michael.

    I don't know what the answer is for the site, unfortunately. It would be nice to have a place to read about interesting research being published in the field, as well as the broader questions that Planet 3 seemed to want to be about, concerning life on Earth in the next century generally. That takes contributors and sustained effort, of course.

    For my part, even Real Climate isn't publishing nearly enough. There's always stuff going on over at Climate Etc., though.. ;-/

  2. I need to share some of the blame here. I haven’t had the time to write nearly as many articles as I would have liked.

    It seems the central issue getting holding Planet3 back is its limited audience. A big reason might be what Annalee Newitz calls the valley of ambiguity. A lot of what Planet3.0 has published (and a lot of what I find interesting) falls right in that valley, and thus doesn’t get shared nearly as much as I would hope.

    Ultimately I think the viewpoints Planet3.0 brings to the table are incredibly valuable but they languish in obscurity.

    The larger question is how to build a sustainable publication that published articles that fall into the valley of ambiguity and target a more technical audience. How do we achieve critical mass for a discussion platform that doesn’t get bogged down by denial, trolls and ideologues. I wish I had an answer

  3. For my own part I hate the format of the page. I was a follower of "Only In It For the Gold". and if you wished to see any new content if could not have been easier to find: the new content was at the top of the page. For me at least I don't know how to tell at a glance it there is nothing new to see or not.

  4. A few thoughts:

    The commenting system discourages participation. Comment moderation takes way too long. Requiring name and email to post seems sufficient, backed up by deleting the trollish stuff. The recent comments bar needs to be up top somewhere.

    "Honest, wide-ranging, scientifically informed conversation about sustainable technologies and cultures, toward a thriving future" I like more emphasis on the science itself. I think there's still lots of important material that gets little attention. But also, looking over the current front page, how many of the posts even relate to "sustainable technologies and cultures"?

    Agreed about the confusing front page. Plus the lack of dates is glaring.

    How long was that light bulb article up front? RC manages to draw eyeballs even with a low post volume, but they're the only example of such that I know of.

  5. One thing that would help get more and better responses would be to have some kind of WSIWYG editor for comments.

    Many of us are completely incapable of using HTML tags and attributes properly and it is frustrating not being able to post embedded links, block quotes and graphics easily. And if it were possible to edit or delete a comment shortly after posting it, that would be helpful, too.

    If you want a good quality discussion, with nicely laid out comments with graphics, it would encourage your commenters and your readers if posting were easier.

    We need a site like this; one that's well moderated and that encourages intelligent debate.

  6. Thanks.

    Turns out that one is hard, harder than the dates one, anyway. At least in WordPress. AIUI.

    You're not the first to ask for that. We will front burner it if we proceed.

    I agree that encouraging intelligent debate (really, intellignet discourse where respectful disagreement is not just tolerated but welcome) is the main point. I don't see how the world gets out of this mess without actually engaging on our disagreements.

    How we do it under the P3 rubric is what I am asking for ideas on.

  7. Perhaps it would help to try a game of contrasts. What would you like the site to do that Skeptical Science or Real Climate or Climate Etc. don't?

    Do you want to get into the kind of things that David Brin and other 'futurists' talk about? Do you fancy anthropology and the history of science? How about technical or scientific developments outside of climatology?

    Do you want to talk policy (my brother is a solar energy policy specialist up in Minnesota.. perhaps I could prevail upon him to do a piece on what they're doing with feed-in tariffs for roof PV there?)

    Have you looked at multi-tenant blogging sites like freethoughtblogs.com or patheos.com? That could be a way of getting different opinions out there without confusing things together too much for one blog.

    Might there be utility for a wiki? A list of recommended resources?

    What about interested amateurs? I'd enjoy writing some things, but I'd be as interested in peer feedback and discussion for my own edification as anything else. Is there room for that sort of thing?

    Perhaps a simple RSS feed facility for links that members find interesting? There's certainly enough happening in twenty-first century science and culture and politics to be worthy of note for those interested in holistic knowledge of forces shaping our civilization.

  8. I have often been embarrassingly prominent for long periods of time in "recent comments". Comments should be processed at least on a daily basis to reach a larger audience. Many people even a few hours delay quite personally, but several days can add irrelevance to annoyance. As to when people might have time and energy to produce new material, it depends on their lives and is not always possible.

  9. I've had a few thoughts, though I suspect that, if they could be and were carried out at all, would primarily satisfy me. As a start though, I agree with earlier commenters in many ways (though I'm unclear as to Mr. Fuller's comment). I do think that dating is important so that it's easy to know if something new is added. As to moderation delays, some sites moderate the first or first couple comments and then let them in immediately if the first ones meet guidelines. You can always put them back in moderation and remove objectionable stuff. The ability to edit or delete one's own comments would REALLY help.

    As to me: I'd think the site's ostensible approach is unique and valuable. I'd like to see categories for articles: layperson and semi-layperson summaries of research; news; sustainable economics; commentary; a sort of serialized objective primer on various topics (atmospheric physics, atmosphere/ocean interaction, ecology, statistics, etc.); guest posts by well-known folks (Greer, Tamino, an economist, Carson (the Science of Doom publisher, perhaps someone who honestly and knowledgeably holds a divergent view - maybe even your nemesis Dr. Briggs, etc.), what's being done on large and small scales, and others. All would have the "Honest, wide-ranging, scientifically informed conversation about sustainable technologies and cultures, toward a thriving future" emphasis that I think makes the site special. Perhaps, with categories, a commitment to add something new to at least one of them, say, every other day.

    I realize that that would have a dramatic impact on the amount of work that goes into the site and it might result in me being the only one who liked it but you asked for ideas and those are mine.

  10. How about asking for permission to publish interesting and pertinent articles from books and magazines? I now (as you might now if you've read my comments here or some of my posts here) have kind of fastened to the term "self=poisoning" which I picked up from an essay in a book by Robert P. Banks entitled "Towing Icebergs, Falling Dominoes, and Other Adventures in Applied Mathematics." The article is entitled "How to Reduce the Population with Differential Equations." I think the article would be an excellent fit here. By the way, I heartily recommend the whole book.

  11. I was going to ask "What is P3's mission?" but I see above that it is "Honest, wide-ranging, scientifically informed conversation about sustainable technologies and cultures, toward a thriving future."

    This is, IMO, over-broad, translating to "Stuff that's not PR".

    I'd like to see a post soliciting comments on what we think is needed in a climate/sustainability website, the current (non-P3) existence of which we're either not aware of, or have forgotten.

    (And Steve B, it is possible that the milieu of unmoderated commenters is less benign than you realize.)

    Agreed that it's hard to see at a glance what's new. I'd prefer a slimmed down, more compact representation. Also more pointers to articles within P3's mission that are online elsewhere.

  12. I strongly admire and support"curious" advocacy for sustainability material, though I know it can be tough and hard work.

    I also agree that unmoderated comments go nowhere fast. The effort is so organized and all pervading that it would not take long for a loophole to be found and exploited.

    "hopelessness is just impatience in disguise" (repeat, I know, but I'm adopting that I hope).

  13. I didn't suggest that comments be unmoderated. There are various approaches to moderation that reduce the delay problem adequately, one of which was suggested above. I mentioned after-the-fact removal of problematic comments, but that has the drawback of requiring close attention.

  14. our idea for immediacy of conversation was the membership model.

    but self-hosted wordpress is hard to modify .

    if we had a critical mass i could justify putting the time in for custom software but i am
    facing a chicken/egg sort of problem.

  15. WYSYWIG editors are problematic. Not so much because of WordPress, but they just generally produce bad HTML. It might look ok today but if the site gets a visual redesign all that bad WYSWSG generated HTML can come back to haunt us.

    This is true of the comments and even some of the articles we have published here. I do try and clean up some of the bad HTML I see in the articles.

    In a perfect world everyone would write in Markdown.

  16. Haha! So I'm the last who doesn't have a well-kempt tree of bookmarks always at hand.

    This stupid excuse borders to criminal neglect. While such oversimplifying thinking is not untypical, in this context it is counterproductive. Wrrr, one of the root pathologies of Homo S Sapiens!

    Needing some triage of where I spend time, I herewith decide to boycott said blog until it has planet3.org on its blogroll.

  17. I'd say worry less about the exact mission or niche it's aiming for and concentrate on producing content. I don't think the content will self-organise in quite the way P3 might have wanted - giving people membership rights and the ability to post isn't enough. We could do with some strategies for producing it. Someone else (whose comment I now can't find) said they'd write something and didn't - I've done exactly the same, maybe three times. Vague offers need to get turned into writing. There could be various ways of encouraging this, but I reckon the main thing is worrying less about the tech part and more about people interacting.

    A small example and an actual request: I've offered and failed to write book reviews. We should have a book club where *at least* two people buy the book, one is the assigned article writer and the second (and others) will have read it and gathered some thoughts by a given deadline - say, one or two a month. I'm currently reading Diane Coyle's GDP: an affectionate history. It's brilliant and has a lot to say about P3 concerns. If I can get one other volunteer to read it, I'll agree to write up a P3-focused review for a month's time and that person (or people) can then chip in. If we had pairs of people doing that, it's not beyond silly to have a P3-style peer book review once a fortnight.

    The point of that: peer pressure. I f**king need it. If I know someone else is reading it to a deadline, I'll have to produce the piece of writing. We need more of that. The pair-writing thing could work for other articles too, but the thing is just to have *someone* who's going to send a cajoling email asking how the promised article on x is coming on as there's only a week left. There could even be a little ongoing table of promised articles, draft dates, published dates and Assigned Cajoler... maybe, just a thought, but something more structured and human and possibly even a bit top-down.

    Happy to brainstorm other ways of doing this, but those are my suggestions. That specific one: if someone wants to volunteer to read the GDP book, let me know (and P3 let me know if you're happy to accept the review, pending a draft read of course) and a more general one: tighter communication and peer pressure among those who want to write here but keep on finding other pressures intervene. And maybe asking for a list of topics, knocking up some dates etc.

    We just need to get some content going - the rest, I suspect, will take care of itself.

  18. If it's a matter of inflexibility of the software stack, there's always Drupal. I'm working on putting together a Drupal site at work, and the software is more than rich enough to set up on your virtual host, with lots and lots of options. I'd be interested in helping out with that.

    I say that knowing that I had committed to looking at doing some Python for you before that I didn't come through on, of course. ;-/

  19. I don't have a lot of drupal experience, but I am not inclined to go in that direction. Once you hit that level of complexity/flexibility I think other (non-php) options start looking more attractive. Be it Django, Rails or Node.js

  20. I'd largely agree with Dan O, particularly about this: the main thing is worrying less about the tech part and more about people interacting. I don't think there's anything majorly wrong with the format and I can't see that any community who's success is dependent on superficial formatting issues could be sustainable. I also like the sound of the book club idea.

    Something I'd like to see more of, though I can see that you might be reluctant to do it, is more opinion from Michael and Dan M. One of the reasons I come here is because I trust the judgement of our hosts (and many other regular commenters here) and I want to see what they have to say. I won't always agree with it, but then it would be pointless if I did and of course I'm more likely to adjust my opinion than change others' as a result. I'm always interested to see your takes on the current teacup storms and real news stories, so maybe more regular brief commentaries on these?

    Most of all I want to see challenging discussion, but not falsely challenging. Might it be possible to set up something like the Climate Dialogue dialogues, but without the need to polarise quite so obsessively, and perhaps something more solutions-based than science-based?

  21. Is there any way to get to have all comments appearing but the ability for members to vote them off if they are clearly unconstructive, so moderators don't have to be vigilant at all times themselves?

  22. I like drupal because it is relatively turnkey, with complete cms functions that can be administered through the web interface. There are others along the same lines. I'd not recommend going down to a framework level unless there was a compelling reason to do a full custom setup.

  23. On sustainability:

    I meant sustainability as in, ways of achieving on-the-ground emissions reduction, since I view GHG reduction as the crucial aspect of sustainability. From UCLA:
    http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/no-way-around-it:-reducing-emissions-will-be-the-primary-way-to-fight-climate-change-ucla-led-study-finds
    (caveat, I have not read this story closely)

    What I see lacking, since nobody asked me, is a reality-based site (online or off) for addressing tough questions on sustainability as it pertains to emissions reduction and societal values and plain old practicality. Does Planet3.0's "sustainable technologies and cultures" also include considering the projected impacts of various sustainability policies?

    For example, urban water use, particularly in a drought.
    Inside: on the one hand we're asked to cut indoor water use, on the other I read somewhere (sorry for the quality of this citation) that (technologically speaking?) we're near the limit of waste plumbing's tolerance, low flow wise. At what point does investing in further technologies for cutting indoor water use no longer make sense? And at what point does diverting graywater for outdoor uses no longer make sense?
    Outside: How does the scarcity (and high embodied GHG emisiions) of drinking water square with promoting urban agriculture, given that most water for it would come from the drinking water system (whose treatment & transport entail substantial GHG emissions)? A certain amount of urban ag is good for quality of place, which is good for a low-C future (since it makes the low-C choice, living in cities, more attractive), but at what point is 'more' urban agriculture no longer better?

    LEED. How useful is LEED in reality, when you can get LEED approval for building a structure that's massively construction-resource-inefficient and high in embodied GHG emissions (too much concrete, inefficient use of space) for the degree of "function" it provides? And that isn't centrally located, so entails high transportation costs for its users?

    How do we get the idea of sustainability and "greening" back on track, when implementations of it are (often) not only concrete-rich, but citizen-hostile? (Minor example: "natural" landscaping features that constrict needed sidewalk width)

    How do we deal with the conundrum that a whole lot of emissions-reduction policy will impinge on profits, variously positive and negative, on (and thus entail rubbing shoulders with, or rubbing the wrong way) an industry that's notorious for corruption? Or the conundrum that smart cities are monitored cities, with - if the security aspects aren't REALLY carefully addressed, and I have no clue how how that would be done - potential disturbing opportunities for targeting citizens that one monitor or another deems undesirable?

    And WHEN do we deal with these things, given that biting off more than we can chew is a recipe for paralysis, and paralysis is exactly what we can't afford? Are there times that even voicing such questions is counterproductive, and if so, realistically, when is better, since without addressing them we just get further off track with such "green" efforts? (And how do you know when, in voicing such questions, you're just acting as a tool for interests that may not have future peoples' best interests at heart?)

    And at what point should someone who is utterly clueless about strategy just go back to his or her knitting, when the issue has consequences as monumental as this one has.
    (It's a good thing that hope is renewable)

  24. I absolutely think those are great questions. Whether this site can answer it depends on whether people with the skills to engage on these subjects show up.

    The way to start is to ask a single question at length. Which gives me an idea.

  25. Establish a mechanism to allow more vigorous discussion. I say this in a constructive way--you are all members of the choir. Invite someone who disagrees with you to post in a section called Minority Report. Don't moderate it.

    It will bring you new readers. There is too much good content here to waste it the way you do--and again, I mean that constructively.

    It's kinda Marketing 1010101.

  26. Curious, you are a breath of fresh air, always focusing on action and solutions. I join with Tobis in hoping you will continue to try to keep us all honest. Honesty is another infinite resource.

  27. Hi Curious,

    It's been a while since I read it, but it seems to me that a lot of these questions you are asking a addressed quite effectively by Amory Lovins in 'Factor Four'. I'm aware he's not everyone's fave flavor right now, but don't let that put you off. One interesting point that is made, for example, is that one big part of the energy waste problem is large urban office buildings, and remediating this by design was possible then and even more so now, but these buildings are often not owned, but leased by the occupants, so the builders (landlords) have no vested interest in making them energy efficient.

    Hard to comment on your water issue, since resource management in this context has to be in terms of local circumstances. As far as 'what is the greenest way to live in the modern world/US/Britain?' the answer again will probably depend on the geographical context. What I will say is that I moved from a big city to a small town, from warmer south to colder north, but that my energy bill in the past year is the lowest I have ever seen, partially from lifestyle choices and partly from the inherent energy-efficiency of the stone-walled cottage I now inhabit.

    Hope this helps.

  28. How do we deal with the conundrum that a whole lot of emissions-reduction policy will impinge on profits, variously positive and negative, on (and thus entail rubbing shoulders with, or rubbing the wrong way) an industry that's notorious for corruption?

    A discussion of carbon taxes, and the likelihood of getting one through a Congress in which 161 members have signed the Koch-backed no carbon tax (unless it is revenue-neutral) pledge, would be interesting.

  29. Thanks for replying OPatrick. Just another thought on the `people interacting' thing: I think skepticalscience do a basic `peer review', or more mundanely, `checking each other's work before posting'. That doesn't seem to happen here. I've read many posted articles with typos and mushed up paras that a second reader would have picked up. To me, this would be a useful bare minimum for a writing community: having at least one person on hand to read a draft, both for substantive comment to improve before posting and for typos. I'd be happy to proof any drafts anyone wants to post before they go live.

  30. Dan, when I did my article I noted that it was impossible to go back in and fix three typos I found after I hit "submit". This is a bug, not a feature. Just sayin'

    I think most of us are challenged for time, too.

  31. I am disappointed to have posted the last comment here. I hope you all will hurry over to Neven's and then to the story link and read it as soon as you can. It's a gripping read and though no doubt the science could be improved (and there are other complexities not mentioned) it gave me a cauld grue (shivers, havers).

    http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2014/06/the-day-the-ice-cap-died.html

    story here

  32. I am increasingly indifferent to the kerfuffle-du-jour. Various BS from the usual purveyors thereof seem to me to be misallocations of attention. Calling attention to them by mocking and/or refuting seems to go nowhere in improving people's actual understanding of our bizarre circumstances. I don't object to others playing that game on P3 - if it brings traffic in, so be it. But don't look at me - I've paid my dues on that front.

    And I think McPherson delenda est. But enough people are taking on Lomborg, so I lack enthusiasm for the task. Besides, it's arguable that I have as much philosophically in common with the Breakthrough Boys as I do with some of the more prominent "good guys", in that I think technical solutions are terribly undervalued by those who acknowledge that there is a problem in the first place. This is sort of tragic.

    Other than my increasing ennui with the climate soap opera, I would write more if I were merely blogging. But P3 as currently formatted limits me to two types of piece - long form articles and "Beyond" pieces linking elsewhere. For a while I was trying to force a long article out of myself every week - with Dan's occasional contributions and occasionally from Susan (and I have one in the queue from Fergus) it kept the place lively.

    Nobody seemed to understand the purpose of the smaller articles in "Beyond Planet 3" which was to highlight interesting items elsewhere on the web and kick off discussions with reference to them. I've made a few attempts to get others to contribute there to little avail, though lively conversations sometimes do ensue there.

    P3 has re-run articles from other web sites on occasion, but I really dislike that idea of how to use the web. Typically this fragments the conversation, and often the authors fail to participate in the ongoing give and take, which also makes things worse.

  33. You and I and most of our readers relish the valley of ambiguity.

    We need not get a mass readership. But we do need a readership. We are not alone in disliking cheerleading and oversimplification. The question is how to get critical mass.

  34. We could move the "beyond" section above the fold in the next redesign. But it's mroe important just to have more stuff.

    If people perceive this as mt's blog, mt will go back to Only In It for the Gold, and possibly, for all its limitations, back to Blogger, which was way more fun as a software platform than WordPress, which despite all Dan has achieved with it, I basically loathe.

  35. As I said above, and as I explained over dinner last night, I am opposed to rerunning articles from elsewhere on the web. P3 is generous with outbound links. Some people are generous in return.

  36. Voting: that's a nice idea. If you know of a suitable WordPress plugin, speak up.

    Else, we can consider it if we generate the critical mass to justify custom software.

    Indeed many of the features I would like to add to a custom site involve voting among members.

  37. No off the shelf CMS. Period.

    If we take the plunge to do a redesign of the guts, I am open to Python or JS/Node frameworks only. Or somebody else needs to run the show. Would love to have somebody local to work on this with, Jon, but it has to be fun.

    Other people's content management is just bureaucracy, and any custom add-ins are hell to produce and flatly impossible to properly test.

  38. If that's a reply to me (I have trouble with my nestings!) - fancy reading that GDP book? It's much less dull than it sounds! Or you could suggest another book. I think you'll find Coyle's book on GDP a good foil for bringing up a bunch of P3-type questions, particularly around global management and how we ended up with the warped system we now use. We need articles that can snowball new topics - there's just got to be some pushing uphill for a bit.

    Relatedly, this is (so far, I'm only 15 mins in) a very interesting chat between Dougald Hine and Christopher Webster. I disagree with the way Dougald's argument is going, but it's the right kind of conversation.

  39. Hmm.. I'm failing to see where I suggested that. My suggestion is to recruit/solicit such authors to produce new material for this site. Your emphasis is different than the home sites of those I mentioned and, for the matter of that, of any site of which I'm aware. That's why it's valuable after all. Do you think that it's impossible to ask some of those and others to write briefly with regard to P3's emphasis? For example, I'd think that an economist would be interested in addressing some of the concepts you and others have mentioned here and that we discussed over dinner.

  40. Well, I have to admit I've been a primary no-show for the last year. I took a job last October working for the Union of Concerned Scientists, and I kind of felt I had to go cold-turkey on contributing to other blogs. In the end I still didn't produce enough of what they wanted from me, so I am now a free agent again, and hope to rejoin P3.O or in any case its people, if this ends up not being the venue of ultimate destiny.

    I saw quite a few good ideas in this thread, and look forward to following up on some of them. I have a lot of fractionally-baked ideas of my own that have been accumulating in my year in a mainstream environmental organization.

    Cheers everyone,

    --Paul

  41. I'm interested in pursuing two closely related questions. The first is, given the transparent obviousness of "it's too warm already," what are the obstacles to a true "emergency mobilization" to reduce GHG emissions, and how do we go about addressing them? The second is the question of stranded assets, taken very broadly; capping the allowable emissions budget dramatically revalues an enormous range of assets, especially fossil fuels but also infrastructure, land, skills, water, etc. Given the difficulty of getting would-be losers to agree to international treaties unless they're compensated adequately, how do we create the institutional and normative conditions for such compensation claims to be seriously addressed?

    --Paul

  42. Funny you should ask. I'm going to name some people I've been discussing a collective assessment project with; the formal "committeefication" of the group is still pending but maybe I can provoke some of them into posting here in advance of a formal charter. Here are a few (I'll add more later):

    In no special order:
    Timmons Roberts: International aid and international capital flows more generally; a world systems theory perspective on the climate crisis.

    Azibuike Akaba: Linking local and state environmental justice concerns with global climate justice

    Paul Kumar: Interaction of labor movement and class-based organizing with ecological and global justice issues

    Francisco Donez: The role of state regulatory agencies in mediating ecological and environmental justice conflicts

    Matt Cox: distributing the benefits and burdens of climate policies in an equitable way in the US; cities and regions as loci for climate policy and organizing.

    Michael Tobis: What people who work on climate policy need to know that climate scientists know. What people who work on climate science need to know that climate policy experts know. What natural scientists are to make of economics.

    Note that the people I'm listing are my friends; there might be a different dream team of people to whom an invitation from me to contribute volunteer labor might not currently be so attractive.


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  1. I think this site is a joke to be honest. There is no effort to engage commentators. Anything Tobias doesn't like or disagrees with, he just shits all over it. That does little to engage interest or discussion.

    I don't think Tobias knows half of what he claims (he's a stuffed shirt imo). Planet 3.0 is dead because of this.

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