Go Ahead and Glue Yourself to The Scream

I really loved the new Sam Harris podcast "Science and Civilization"; Harris chats with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about numeracy and the difficulties humans have with numerical logic . . . the section about global warming was especially enlightening-- and, as usual, I am adding my own thoughts and tangents into a summary of what was discussed; Tyson points out that people have trouble understanding the dire consequences of one-degree change in average temperature because they don't think in Gaussian (Bell) curves-- we think about one degree warmer in our house or on an average day, but the fluctuation has much greater significance at the edges of the curve-- that's where the action is at (the storms, droughts, wildfires, dust storms, erosion, heat strokes, and death) and even if most people DID understand the ramifications at the long tail of a one-degree change, the mathematics of our political cycle precludes our political system from addressing the problem because we elect people in four-year cycles-- so the time horizon is too short to run on a long term concept like climate change . . . politicians run on inflation, cultural wedge issues, gas prices, immigration . . . things that are happening NOW . . . and Sam Harris is concerned that young people are th eonly people that care about these issues, but the way young people are protesting is kind of deranged-- especially the folks gluing themselves to "priceless" works of art; Tyson explains that young people are the only ones who care about these kind fo long term problems, plus they are the people with time and energy to protest-- I agree, and quite honestly, these "pricesless" works of art are only priceless in a market economy with extreme wealth inequality-- we have plenty of digital pictures of the art and it's only paint on canvas, so who gives a fuck? . . . maybe some rich art patrons but for the rest off us, the planet, the ecosystem we live in, the current state of the oceans and rivers, clean air and water, endangered species . . . all these things are far more priceless than art; a species took millions of years to create-- so I say, go ahead and glue yourselves to famous paintings if it gets some attention to the cause of climate change-- you've got to break a few eggs to bake a cake . . . but then you've got to explain the statistics to people as well-- so good luck.