Lessons learned at sea: compromise, tolerance, mutual aid [NY2140]

Andrew Revkin had an interesting oped in the NYTimes yesterday (29 Aug 2019), Greta Thunberg and the Lessons of the Sea. He explains: "n 1978, when I was 22, six years older than Greta is now, I serendipitously had the chance to sign on as a crew member on a 55-foot-long, partially home-built sailboat, the Wanderlust, that was circumnavigating the planet." It's the first lesson that caught my attention:

Our first long crossing, from Auckland to Sydney, Australia, was the stormiest. We spent eight out of 11 days on the Tasman Sea pounding into chaotic gale-driven seas. Without GPS or an autopilot, we had taken on extra crew members to handle the night watches. In cramped conditions day after day, everyone aboard felt unfairly overtaxed. But you learn to smooth rough edges, tamp hard feelings and not hoard the Hershey bars. Despite a no-smoking rule, the skipper, Lon Bubeck, even allowed the two chain smoking New Zealanders to light up — in the inflatable dinghy trailing behind.

This gets to my first point. In hashing out climate policy, accommodation is vital among those who have the same goal but differ on how to reach it. I’m thinking here, for instance, of clean energy advocates who disagree about the role of nuclear power in reducing emissions. It’s vital to acknowledge the inevitability, even desirability, of having a diversity of climate solutions.

Why'd that interest me? Perhaps for that last paragraph? Not really, though color me sympathetic. It's the first paragraph. Why?

Because it speaks to Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 – and here I'm thinking of yesterday's post, "Social change in New York 2140 [revolution revised and revisited]", especially the addendum. Why'd he crank it up to eleven on the sea level, a 50 foot rise when that's not what the models show? Because that would cause more stress, and more living in close quarters, like on an ocean-going yacht. The book is centered on one building, the Met Life Tower. All the central characters live there. Quarters are cramped, for everyone. Some of those characters are making a pretty good living, surely upper middle class whatever that would be in 2140, perhaps even in Tyler Cowen's top 10% to 15% (scan down to the "Society" section of that post; he's not imagining the cramped quarters of a post-climate change world). But they live in one-room apartments and they take their meals in a large communal dining hall.

Stern discipline.

Tough love?