I want to propose for consideration the idea that the Technological Singularity and global warming / climate change are inextricably linked ideas. From this idea I want further to suggest that efforts to prevent or minimise climate change will, at best, delay the inevitable unless the idea of the Technological Singularity is properly included in the proposed solutions.

First I should explain how I started this line of reasoning.

About 10 years ago I noticed something which puzzled me. According to the historians technological progress was extremely slow 4000 to 5000 years ago in comparison with today. The same procedure was used for hundreds of years before someone added a small improvement. I wondered what was the reason for the different pace of progress. Obviously there were different political and social structures but that doesn't seem anywhere near sufficient explanation. My first conclusion was that progress in communication was the driving force. At first ideas could only travel as fast and as far as a person could walk. Then came the horse and the horse-drawn carriage and the sailing ship. Next came the steam train and the steam ship and the telegraph. Each new way of communicating had the effect of spreading new ideas and new ways of thinking more rapidly than what went before.

More recently I re-read a story derived partly from the idea of the Technological Singularity and when I looked up the topic there was another suggestion of a driving force.. increasing population. More heads with more spare time to think about the problems.

Finally I think increasing wealth is also a driving force.

Whether events progress generally in the directions suggested by some of the singularity believers remains to be seen, but I find it difficult to reject the concept completely. I look around me and see technological progress everywhere and the rate does seem to be increasing. Every weekly issue of New Scientist seems to present at least one new development which would have looked like magic only 5 years ago. There is one obstacle to progress which could have more effect nowadays than it would have had a few decades ago. I call it "the committee effect". Specifically the inability of human beings, especially in groups, to make rapid decisions about the implications and applications of new technology. I suspect the committee effect is already being seen as another problem to be solved.

My present conclusion and concern is that the singularity metaphor is only too appropriate: an irresistible gravitational force. I think that climate change, pollution, resource exhaustion are consequences of the singularity and I worry that no-one else seems to notice the above mentioned driving forces. For instance, I suggest that current progress on recycling is much too little. Recycling needs to be developing at least as fast as technological production or the battle is already lost.

It also seems to me that humans tend to think in linear time i.e. the last project took 2 months to complete, so it will still take 2 months in 2012. Is this valid?

NB I know that just about every statement above is open to expansion, interpretation and disputation. That is my intention.