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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 11h

The University: We need to become leaders in climate and sustainability and there is an urgent need to develop climate science courses.

Me: Our department has climate in the name and we already offer courses on climate science at every level.

The University: Who invited you to this meeting?

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 4d

Years ago I used to teach a Climate and the Media course. The highlight was bringing in science reporters to talk to the class. Those reporters played a crucial role translating science and filtering out cranks. Now the cranks have the megaphone and the local reporters have been laid off.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 5d

One of the things that I have looked at is how the Earth got into these global glaciations called snowball Earth where billions of years ago ice covered the entire planet. Or we have applied our climate models to other planets. Interesting climate problems, but not necessarily sustainability?

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 5d

There is overlap and intersection, but not all climate information is useful for sustainability and not all sustainability work impacts climate or even needs climate information.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 5d

This isn't important, but I'm getting tired of academics using "climate" and "sustainability" interchangeably. There is overlap between climate and sustainability work. Conflating the two and not being precise about what you mean creates confusion.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 5d

There is also growing awareness of a cognitive penalty. Using generative AI means you don’t learn or retain information. Sure, you might be able to code or prepare a presentation faster (although the evidence is ambiguous), but there is little to no retention of information. No learning. 2/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 5d

Here are some takeaways from the panel on AI and climate. AI is being used to speed up some research tasks, but this comes with significant costs. Those costs includes the environmental impact, which can be immense and will be paid by future generations. 1/

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 7d

Panel on AI and climate actually went well? At the end I had the audience and panelists get up and move to one side of the room or the other depending on whether they thought AI was a net harm, neutral or positive for society. That is a real histogram.

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 7d

I am scheduled to moderate an AI and Climate panel tomorrow for climateweek at umich and, remembering that I thought the iPhone would bomb and picked betamax over VHS, I might be the worst choice to moderate any tech related conversation.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 6d

The mean was slightly negative, but close to neutral. I think the audience is skeptical, but also in wait-and-see mode.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 7d

Panel on AI and climate actually went well? At the end I had the audience and panelists get up and move to one side of the room or the other depending on whether they thought AI was a net harm, neutral or positive for society. That is a real histogram.

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 7d

I am scheduled to moderate an AI and Climate panel tomorrow for climateweek at umich and, remembering that I thought the iPhone would bomb and picked betamax over VHS, I might be the worst choice to moderate any tech related conversation.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 7d

I just got a spam email asking me if I'm attending Fruit Attraction this year and I have so many questions.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 7d

I am scheduled to moderate an AI and Climate panel tomorrow for climateweek at umich and, remembering that I thought the iPhone would bomb and picked betamax over VHS, I might be the worst choice to moderate any tech related conversation.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 12d

Heat kills more people than flooding, but we invest way more money in preventing flooding than cooling people. Strategies like more air conditioning, accessible cooling centers and strategic green space are all effective at reducing mortality and need to be promoted.

Mar Benavides @marbenavides.bsky.social · 12d

eos.org/articles/cli...

Climate Change May Have Killed 16,469 People in Europe This Summer - Eos

Researchers warn that preventable heat-related deaths will continue to rise with continued fossil fuel emissions.

eos.org

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 16d

The audience for geo-engineering seems to come mostly from the same small group of scientists, their billionaire patrons and a handful of hucksters interested in making a buck. When I dig down, it seems like the "grassroots" campaigns are all organized by consultants and public relations folks.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 16d

I’m starting to think that there is less of an appetite for geo-engineering than I had feared. To support geo-engineering you have to actually believe in climate change and not subscribe to any of the bonkers conspiracy theories about weather modification. This seems like a low bar but here we are.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

Hint: to successfully complete this assignments you will need to talk to social scientists, legal experts and government folks.

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

So here is a homework assignment for all the scientists and engineers out there. Try to do a climate harms assessment for *your* community. How much of the solution space is technocratic and how much is political, legal and social? 12/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

Instead, the goal is to set up geo-engineering as a binary where the only choices we are allowed to evaluate are technocratic solutions for what are essentially social problems. 11/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

When I have brought this up I have been dismissed like I am a small child asking for a pony for my birthday. And that is because the harms reduction paradigm isn’t set up to be a comprehensive harms reduction strategy, which likely has to include some form of reparations/damage funds. 10/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

But this sets up a false binary. What about other strategies that more effectively reduce harms? It turns out that money is one of the best predictors of resilience to weather and climate risks. From a harms reduction standpoint, what about investing in loss and damage funds? 9/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

From a harm reduction standpoint, there is no question that decarbonizing reduces more harms than geo-engineering. The authors essentially argue that we have failed to decarbonize thus have put ourselves in a situation where we must consider geo-engineering. 8/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

Loss of land associated with sea level rise will result in loss of cultural heritage, but it isn’t clear that polar geo-engineering is addressing the most dire threat many communities face . . . unless you consider harms to infrastructure and buildings to be greater than loss of life. 7/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

But the biggest threats from sea level directly are to land and infrastructure. Heat and tropical storms kill more people than flooding. Warming also devastates marine and terrestrial ecosystems with dire consequences for local economies. 6/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

The first question is harm to who and how do we assess "harm"? If we start thinking about sea level rise specifically, then coastal communities are much more vulnerable to sea level rise than inland communities. 5/

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

So basically, it is ok to do harm so long as you prevent greater harm like some kind of elaborate trolley problem.

But let’s think more about harms because this is something that scientists and engineers should always do and this is where it gets interesting. 4/

Trolley problem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 25d

The authors instead argue that researchers need to center harm reduction in assessments of geo-engineering and this harm assessment needs to be compared to the harm without geo-engineering? 3/

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