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Mandelbrot Fractal Zoom

To produce something for many people was once an expensive endeavor, capital was required to open a factory or obtain a printing press.

If you’re reading this, you probably own a factory and a printing press. It’s the object attached to this screen. But you might need workers to help you turn ideas into products. This is where LLMs can help.

I’ve long been fascinated with fractals, these entities so rich in detail that they seem to live between dimensions as if overspilling the plane but not filling the volume. But I’d never bother coding them, the idea was enough, the work was too much.

With ChatGPT4 I created the above HTML5 fractal in a few steps, starting with the prompt to use the Multiverses palette:

Draw a Mandelbrot fractal using the palette #A66021 #07091C #19837E #11C55A #FFFD34 #B9FB4F #732401

Using the Code Interpreter this, pleasingly, produces an image in the ChatGPT window using Python. A few more prompts created one in HTML5 that zooms on click with overlay text that disappears.

What I’m feeling right now is a fractal sense of accomplishment — I’d be more proud if I’d coded this from scratch — to have been an artisan rather than a foreman. I’ve overspilled the plane, but not filled the volume.

Join me as I explore the limits of knowledge and technology in weekly interviews with academics, writers & entrepreneurs. In discussion with philosophers, poets, and physicists we’ll delve into foundational questions in arts and science.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Google Podcasts

MULTIVERSES

Coffee table conversations with leading thinkers and makers. Multiverses explores the limits of knowledge and technology.

Is climate change inevitable? Will AI make us intellectually lazy, or expand our cognitive range? Is time a thing in itself or a measure of changes? Are we living in a branching multiverse? What does phylogenetics research tell us about medieval manuscripts? How can you write a poem that outlasts the human race?

The host is James Robinson, variegated, bipedal, and occasionally monomanic.

mutliverses.xyz

To stop global warming it is not enough to stop atmospheric CO2 rising. That is not the meaning of net zero.

Despite net zero being a core concept in the Paris Agreement, it appears to be much misunderstood. The idea of net zero can be traced back to the work of Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at Oxford and a veteran of several IPCC assessments.

Myles explains the original intent of net zero and what we really need to aim for: zero transfer of carbon between the geosphere (Earth’s crust) and everywhere else (oceans, land, atmosphere).

Myles also makes a strong case that, if we want to hit the 2050 goals we need to invest more heavily in large-scale geological carbon capture and storage. Many climate activists worry that such a policy would detract from the progress of renewables and give the fossil fuel industry carte blanche to continue emitting. But Myles points out that our reliance on fossil fuels is not falling as quickly as we need, and CCAS is technologically viable, economically feasible, and essential to reaching true geological net zero.

(00:00) Intro

(2:29) What is net zero?

(4:12) Net zero is not a stable state but dynamical

(6:20) If we stabilise concentrations of CO2 we would see half as much warming again

(9:10) The meaning of net zero is often confused

(12:20) The danger of carbon accounting double counting

(16:56) The difficulty of establishing additionality

(19:52) Geological net zero is what was originally meant by net zero

(21:30) There are no significant natural sources or sinks of carbon between the biosphere and geosphere

(27:25) COP 28: the fossil fuel industry has got to be part of the solution

(30:50) “It is almost dangerous to claim it’s possible to solve the climate crisis without getting rid of CO2 on a very large scale … injecting it back into the Earth’s crust”

(32:30) Phasing out fossil fuels altogether is effectively letting the industry off the hook

(32:45) To what extent can we trust the fossil fuel industry? The potential dangers of CCAS

(35:30) “The cost with today’s technology of recapturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing under the North Sea … “ is such that the natural gas industry could recapture all emissions and still be profitable at current prices

(40:10) Carbon pricing has failed: people do the cheapest thing first and the costly, slow-to-develop things (e.g. CCAS) are not coming fast enough

(42:20) The difficulty of getting a carbon capture flywheel going

(45:05) Intermittent energy supply is not a problem for carbon capture

(45:45) Is biochar a viable alternative to geological carbon capture?

(47:08) Biochar can’t hit the scale we need

(48:55) Extended producer responsibility

(50:10) eFuels (synthetic fuels)

(50:44) Final comments: we have the technology but we need to be realistic, we need to start taking carbon back

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19| The Meaning of Net Zero — Myles Allen

November 16, 2023

James Robinson