740
The continuing debate between an individual and its population gets that much
more terrifying on the Yom Hashoah, International Holocaust Remembrance Day
each January 27 (27 Nisan by the Jewish calendar) to remember the start of the
Warsaw Uprising, and to commemorate at least 6 million Jewish lives and at least 11
million others, destroyed by the Nazi Regime and its vast number of collaborators
6
.
In addition, the last week of January 2020 witnessed the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
heightening the Doomsday Clock to its worst calibration since its inception just
after World War II, to 100 seconds before midnight, predicated upon extraordinarily
increased tensions and environmental calamities throughout the world, disasters that
have begun to clearly transcend any governmental infrastructures to cope with them
7
.
81.3 The Optimism Paradox
At the same time, earth and Climate Scientist Andrew Glikson of Australian National
University has brought to bear a terrifying summary of greenhouse gasses data to
date, including “(CO 2 > 411.76 ppm; CH 4 > 1870.5 ppb; N 2 O > 333 ppb plus trace
greenhouse gases) land temperatures soar (NASA global sea-land mean of 1.05 °C
since 1880”
8
. That same week—late January, 2020—at the four-day World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jane Goodall warned against messages of
“doom and gloom,” suggesting that such declarations would indeed daunt all those
holding out for hope. In what we might call Goodall’s five-point plan, she volunteered five reasons for hope, even as she first intoned “gradually”—in terms of the
possible time frame for winning over discord and opposition to viewpoints and
strategies; before expressing her belief in “young people,” “the resilience of nature,”
“social media…strength in numbers,” “the human brain, we’re coming up with
solutions faster and faster,” and “the indomitable human spirit”
9
.
We find all five pivotal points the very essence of the Optimism Paradox. By that
we mean to imply that such optimistic prospects are a bespoke point of contention,
increasingly fragile, aggravated beyond easy intellectual redemption, promulgated
for the benefit of some perfect logic, a back-to-school mentality, filled with joy and
great excitement, a cause-and-effect teleology that accepts the premise that there are
solutions for everyone and everything. As if there were true Utopia in Plato’s
Republic; a Form or likeness, in which all solutions could be counted on.
6 See the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/remember/days-ofremembrance/resources/calendar, Accessed January 23, 2020.
7 See “The End May Be Nearer: Doomsday Clock Moves Within 100 Seconds Of Midnight,” NPR,
by David Welna, January 23, 2020 January 23, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/01/23/799047659/
the-end-may-be-nearer-doomsday-clock-moves-within-100-seconds-of-midnight,
Accessed
January 23, 2020.
8 See January 15, 2020, “The Australian firestorms: portents of a planetary future,” by Andrew
Glikson, Arctic News.
9 See “Jane Goodall: I Do Not Believe In Aggressive Activism/Forum Insight,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akFyasOcFQA, Accessed January 24, 2020.
81 Biological Proxies for the Individual
The continuing debate between an individual and its population gets that much
more terrifying on the Yom Hashoah, International Holocaust Remembrance Day
each January 27 (27 Nisan by the Jewish calendar) to remember the start of the
Warsaw Uprising, and to commemorate at least 6 million Jewish lives and at least 11
million others, destroyed by the Nazi Regime and its vast number of collaborators
6
.
In addition, the last week of January 2020 witnessed the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
heightening the Doomsday Clock to its worst calibration since its inception just
after World War II, to 100 seconds before midnight, predicated upon extraordinarily
increased tensions and environmental calamities throughout the world, disasters that
have begun to clearly transcend any governmental infrastructures to cope with them
7
.
81.3 The Optimism Paradox
At the same time, earth and Climate Scientist Andrew Glikson of Australian National
University has brought to bear a terrifying summary of greenhouse gasses data to
date, including “(CO 2 > 411.76 ppm; CH 4 > 1870.5 ppb; N 2 O > 333 ppb plus trace
greenhouse gases) land temperatures soar (NASA global sea-land mean of 1.05 °C
since 1880”
8
. That same week—late January, 2020—at the four-day World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jane Goodall warned against messages of
“doom and gloom,” suggesting that such declarations would indeed daunt all those
holding out for hope. In what we might call Goodall’s five-point plan, she volunteered five reasons for hope, even as she first intoned “gradually”—in terms of the
possible time frame for winning over discord and opposition to viewpoints and
strategies; before expressing her belief in “young people,” “the resilience of nature,”
“social media…strength in numbers,” “the human brain, we’re coming up with
solutions faster and faster,” and “the indomitable human spirit”
9
.
We find all five pivotal points the very essence of the Optimism Paradox. By that
we mean to imply that such optimistic prospects are a bespoke point of contention,
increasingly fragile, aggravated beyond easy intellectual redemption, promulgated
for the benefit of some perfect logic, a back-to-school mentality, filled with joy and
great excitement, a cause-and-effect teleology that accepts the premise that there are
solutions for everyone and everything. As if there were true Utopia in Plato’s
Republic; a Form or likeness, in which all solutions could be counted on.
6 See the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/remember/days-ofremembrance/resources/calendar, Accessed January 23, 2020.
7 See “The End May Be Nearer: Doomsday Clock Moves Within 100 Seconds Of Midnight,” NPR,
by David Welna, January 23, 2020 January 23, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/01/23/799047659/
the-end-may-be-nearer-doomsday-clock-moves-within-100-seconds-of-midnight,
Accessed
January 23, 2020.
8 See January 15, 2020, “The Australian firestorms: portents of a planetary future,” by Andrew
Glikson, Arctic News.
9 See “Jane Goodall: I Do Not Believe In Aggressive Activism/Forum Insight,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akFyasOcFQA, Accessed January 24, 2020.
81 Biological Proxies for the Individual