Whither PRAG

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John Nissen

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Jul 5, 2024, 9:02:17 AMJul 5

to Planetary Restoration, Hans van der Loo, Garrity, Dennis (ICRAF), Anton Keskinen, Herman Gyr

Hi everyone,

You may be interested to know why I have not called any PRAG meetings recently. The main reason was to focus on particular points of advocacy, such the letter to Wertli, which I discussed with a small group resulting in the sending of an improved version a week ago. This needs to be followed up. Another reason is that I would like to spend time on writing a book, which I started some time ago with Peter Wadhams but which I’ve not managed to progress recently.

There’s been an interesting discussion in HPAC started by Robert Chris. His main point was to stop playing the blame game, so as not to make enemies. He also said: “We just need something good enough to prevent the climate system from imposing a painful and destructive correction for humanity’s myopia.” Roger Arnold followed up with a piece about tribalism, but also to say not to blame the fossil fuel industry. But then Jim Baird came up with an approach which counters the tribalism: “Climate change is the kind of universal threat to the planet that Ronald Reagan suggested could cement a common bond and purpose in defence of humanity. I believe he was right.”

While PRAG has focussed on preventing catastrophe with “emergency cooling intervention to refreeze the Arctic”, we need to give people the hope for a better future, which we believe is possible by restoring temperatures to where they were, prior to the 80s when various tipping processes were activated.