Global Warming

[gene90]

Gothmog, thanks for the detailed reply. don't worry about length. thankfully I do not suffer from ADD and like detail.

So here is another thought/question that I would like to throw infront of you all. I agree that in the light of all this data we should do something. But IMHO, environmentalists and scientists must also understand that there is no point in just reiterating that we have got a problem because of which everyone shoudl change their lifestyle. Because nobody is listening. A safe assumption is humans as a group are short-sighted and will not understand something untill it is too late. Kyoto is nice and all but ineffective for that reason. Could scientists/environmentalists suggest something else?

for example, Could we do something active and different? what would it take to actively start removing greenhouse gases from teh atmosphere in an industrial scale or something like that? Maybe we could build giant plants that absorb co2 from the atmosphere?

is that feasible? have some numbers been crunched to see what kind of energy that would take to do that (obviously it shoudl be run on solar or nuclear or hydroelectric or we would burn fossil fuels and create more co2 than we extract)

There have been proposals of pumping CO2 back into the ground (energy intensive, but workable) and talk of fertilizing the oceans to increase sequestering.

 

[betazed]

Your comment on "capitalism", and another's comment about "people with bucks on their brains".

So because I think capitalism has flaws you extend that to "I hate money". WHoa thats quite a logical leap!

A move to "alternative" energy would be irresponsible socially, economically, and environmentally. If CO2 is the only reason for the shift, I'll stick with fossil, thank you.

That's a nice statement you make (and without any backup arguments). But considering your earlier logical gymnastics I am not too keen on asking for your arguments.

If you want to stick to fossil, be my guest. As I said to carlos earlier the burden is on him and his tribe to make sure that the boat (that he and you both are in) stays floating. This is Friday and I have given up on you and your ilk.

 

[gene90]

I still can't see why you accept one set of imperfect, model-based predictions as gospel whilst rejecting the other outright!

....

Strange how observational data that conflicts with your views is dismissed by you as 'anecdotal' - the same fault for which you had previously lambasted others!

Ok, bigfatron.

Let's assume that economic models and climate models are equally understood and both are flawed.

In that case we don't know if anthropogenic GW is happening, and we don't know what Kyoto will cost.

That makes your point moot.

Why?

Because if you don't have GW, you don't have a need for Kyoto.

 

[gene90]

That's a nice statement you make (and without any backup arguments).

Ok. We'll put the GaAs solar cell plant across the street from your kids' school, and the windfarm next to your house. Cheers.


For those who don't know, there are very real environmental issues that don't involve CO2, and most alternative energy sources are kind of hard on them. GW is the only thing that keeps modern coal plants from being the best energy source we have in terms of environmental quality. Think carefully before you suggest we give it up.

GothMog: you should still go look up that article in AAPG Bulletin.

CarlosMM: how do you feel about the papers that still blame solar forcing on most climate changes for the last 10,000 years? That one in Science comes to mind. Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate, I think it has already been refered to in this thread.


Here is a series of concerns that I have:



How do I test the theory of anthropogenic global warming in a timely manner? What are the potential falsifications?

If I present you with evidence of a past CO2 increase without a following increase in temperature, will you concede defeat?

Do you agree that without potential falsifications, a tenet cannot be science? If you can present no potential falsifications, will you concede defeat?

 

[gene90]

So what is the logic behind denying that GW is real because you oppose Kyoto?

No, but your misunderstanding of my argument is beginnging to confuse me

Kyoto is a political treaty that has very little to do with science.

I agree to the point of possibly putting that in my sig.

I don’t think there is any proof that Kyoto will be bad for our economy, so I don’t know why you are so upset about it.

Your argument is moot.

If both models are wrong, there is no GW, and no need for Kyoto.

5% IS A LOT!!!!!

Is it?

The whole point with models is to be able to simulate cases you for some reason cannot measure directly. Models have proved to be very useful for such purposes, and are used extensively in all kinds of research and technologic development with a remarkable success.

Uh huh.

Last I heard, science was about observation.

Climate models are in now way intended to predict anything remotely as detailed as a weather forecast. They operate at a completely different level.

Yet the model the same system, only over longer timescales.

Increasing CO2 disturbs the energy balance of our planet.

So does farming, if you believe CarlosMM's cite.

Let's get rid of agriculture.

Why not? We have already hijacked it! The opening post specifically said “Lets not turn this into a discussion of what is causing global warming”.

I wasn't here for it.

 

[gene90]

No, you must have confused the numbers. The world stated in 4000 BC. That makes it 6000 year old. Haven’t you played civ? Apparently the bible estimates the age of the earth to be about 6000 years too. Coincident? I don't think so!

Hey Pikachu, are you a Young-Earth Creationist?

 

[CurtSibling]

The Old Testament takes data from sources far older than a mere 6000 years...

Ah, but look how that is rejected!
Such is the state of revisionist modern thinking!

 

[gene90]

H2 cars COULD BE WORKING and be FINANCIALLY SOUND by now - if the big firms hadn't penny-pinched the research. Just one example.

You know, that's great and all, except that the current source of hydrogen is natural gas. You're still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. How about that MIT study that found that current gasoline hybrids are as efficient as a hydrogen car prior to 2020? (By which time we will supposedly get H2 from electrolytic dissociation of water).

 

[gene90]

Personally I don’t trust Gaia enough to let her run with our anthropogenic changes (as apparently basketcase and gene90 do). I also feel that it is necessary to start creating institutional structures capable of addressing climate change regardless of how the next 50-100 years actually end up.

Well, "Gaia" seems to have been running things for the last three billion years or so, and I don't see that changing.

 

[gene90]

Care to meet my challenge to find even one peer reviewed article (in a journal with at least a middling ISI ranking and within the last decade) that makes the claim that the correlation between the sun and climate is so strong that ‘it leaves little room for anthropogenic influence, or much of anything else’?

I have found it difficult to find much of anything that deals with the last few decades. And I already told you that I haven't found the ISI reference.

And, I am convinced that the article in AAPG Bulletin, which is aimed a a non-lay audience, clearly demonstrates that there are holdouts from GW, at least in certain communities. This is almost as good as actually generating a PR paper to show the same with a lot less work. I consider the issue settled, if you do not.

In fact, I wonder at how you could not realize that there are holdouts? This is not the first time that the issue has come up in AAPG Bulletin, there was a similar article from a climatologist at ASU that they ran in 1999. There was a discussion and reply in Nature London in 1996. In fact, there is a state climatologist upstairs that doesn't believe in global warming.

No. There are many ways for energy to be distributed within the earth system.

Ok. So you are saying that I can dump CO2 into the atmosphere and not increase temperature?

You just say that that will change some other variable, and you can't say where?

This is sounding more and more like a non-falsifiable (non-scientific) premise.

As I already mentioned, one prediction from climate models is a decrease in stratospheric temperature. This has been shown after being predicted – current research suggests that this affect may be increasing stratospheric/tropospheric mixing (as shown by stratospheric water vapor and methane mixing ratios).

Well that's good for you because until recently the data was flatly contradictory to your models, and they stuck with them anyway (see my non-falsifiability argument). A more cynical person might suggest that that test took a little bit of shoehorning to pass but I haven't read the paper that supposedly reconciled models and observation, though I have run across the reference.

Climate is not static. It is always changing, what it is doing depends on which timescale you are interested in (you can make it do whatever you want it to do just by choosing the interval over which to plot). This is also why the 150 year curve doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Oh, and it's either getting warmer or colder. Your model had a good chance of passing this test to begin with. And if it didn't fail, you would've just gone back to tinker with variable until you did get one that passed.

I am unmoved.

 

[betazed]

@gene90: so let me ask you this. what are you suggesting? are you suggesting that we just ignore this climate change thingy altogether and just carry on merrily doing whatever we are doing? or do you have some other action/path on your mind?

 

[gene90]

@gene90: so let me ask you this. what are you suggesting? are you suggesting that we just ignore this climate change thingy altogether and just carry on merrily doing whatever we are doing? or do you have some other action/path on your mind?

We should continue as we are now, until technology progresses to a point where we can get energy from a less environmentally disruptive source (fusion, or offworld). Until then, the best sources are fission and fossil.

EDIT: The issue is important because the only real indictments against modern fossil fuel technology are limited (though still plentiful) supply and GW. When you get past the CO2 emission, you see that the plants are cheap to construct, don't involve a lot of toxic substances, don't take up much area, and can be built near the end user's physical location, to minimize transmission losses and costs. They're not pretty to look at but don't require us to cover Arizona with solar cells or North Dakota with windmills. They are also not subject to the vagaries of climate and don't have the maintenance costs of large areas of equipment exposed to the open environment.

In short, if we're running off of coal (or nukes) I can tuck the plant away someplace convenient. But if we're talking about solar or wind, where the energy distribution is so much more diffuse, the plants are going to be everywhere, and it will be expensive (in terms of money, resources, labor, land, and environmental quality).

It frustrates me how so few people seem to come close to seeing "the big picture" with environmental issues. "Renewable" energy sources aren't necessarily good for the environment. And they certainly don't come without significant environmental costs, as well as economic.

 

[betazed]

We should continue as we are now, until technology progresses to a point where we can get energy from a less environmentally disruptive source (fusion, or offworld). Until then, the best sources are fission and fossil.

And what if (say) it is too late by then? After all we have been trying to get fusion for the last 40 years. It is possible that it will take another 40 years (maybe 100 years) before we have controlled fusion.

Are you saying there is no chance of that, and there is no chance that you are wrong at all? Not even 5%, 2% or 1%?

 

[BasketCase]

It is also possible that all the "science" on human-caused global warming is complete crap. You're saying there is no chance that you are wrong at all?? (5, 2, 1, blah blah, you know the rest)

 

[gene90]

And what if (say) it is too late by then? After all we have been trying to get fusion for the last 40 years. It is possible that it will take another 40 years (maybe 100 years) before we have controlled fusion.

Are you saying there is no chance of that, and there is no chance that you are wrong at all? Not even 5%, 2% or 1%?

There is always a chance that I am wrong.

What of it?

Are you saying that we should make such destructive changes to our economy, our environment, and potentially our society, to avert something that "might" happen?

If you want to support such changes, then the burden of proof is on you to prove that such radical, and probably destructive, changes are absolutely necessary.


Hey, we "might" get hit by an asteroid next month, but we're not building a planetary defense system.

EM fields "might" cause cancer, but we have cellphones.

GM crops "might" have an environmental impact, but we grow them.

I "might" have a nasty accident driving home, but I'm going to anyway.


Individuals cannot live their lives, and civilizations cannot advance, with an irrational fear of anything that "might" happen. We are rational creatures, and instead of fearing possibilities like GW we should instead weigh the alternatives and then make an informed, and rational decision. From what I see presented in support of GW, and from the consequences of what we would have to do to avoid alleged GW, I'm not ready to change.

 

[betazed]

There is always a chance that I am wrong.
What of it?

Well, if you are very wrong then we are in a hole.

Are you saying that we should make such destructive changes to our economy, our environment, and potentially our society, to avert something that "might" happen?

What destructive changes are being proposed? Can you tell me when anyone proposed a destructive change. Here is the first change that I am proposing.

I am proposing that we come to a consensus that this is an issue and we should not leave it to chance and hence agree on what we can do to minimize the risk. Will you agree with that change, or do you consider that destructive?

If you want to support such changes, then the burden of proof is on you to prove that such radical, and probably destructive, changes are absolutely necessary.

of course, the burden of proof is on us. When did i say otherwise? But it seems to me that you will not see any evidence.

Hey, we "might" get hit by an asteroid next month, but we're not building a planetary defense system.

Sure we should. The only problem is that we do not have the capability to do that yet. when we have teh capability we should. In any case we know roughly what the chances are of that happenning. about less than 1 in a million. can you say the same thing about climate chnage?

 

[gene90]

I am proposing that we come to a consensus that this is an issue and we should not leave it to chance and hence agree on what we can do to minimize the risk. Will you agree with that change, or do you consider that destructive?

Ok, we can talk about what I would be willing to do to minimize the risk. But bear in mind that what I am willing to do will be dependant on how strongly I believe or disbelieve in anthropogenic global warming, how much I think that any change will help, how much collateral damage such a change will generate, and if the climate change is inevitable anyway.

When did i say otherwise? But it seems to me that you will not see any evidence.

Evidence? Where's that?

The evidence for GW is a recent increase in temperature, whereas there have always been natural fluctuations in temperature, there is no particular reason to think that people are the cause.

The rest are models, oversimplified abstractions of reality that sometimes meet observations.

 

[betazed]

Ok, we can talk about what I would be willing to do to minimize the risk. But bear in mind that what I am willing to do will be dependant on how strongly I believe or disbelieve in anthropogenic global warming, how much I think that any change will help, how much collateral damage such a change will generate, and if the climate change is inevitable anyway.

Great, we have come to our first agreement. See that was not so hard at all.

And of course i agree that what you are willing to do is dependent on what you believe in and your perception of risk. So I ask you again what steps do you think we should take to minimize risk?

{I am just not willling to rest with your earlier answer that we should do nothing because that means that you do not even believe there is any risk. }

 

[BasketCase]

I am proposing that we come to a consensus that this is an issue and we should not leave it to chance and hence agree on what we can do to minimize the risk. Will you agree with that change, or do you consider that destructive?

Potentially destructive. The Earth's temperature pattern over the last half a million years shows that we're currently overdue for another Ice Age. If the pattern holds, cooling the planet off artificially is the LAST thing we want to do.

 

[gene90]

So I ask you again what steps do you think we should take to minimize risk?

Well, ok. Suggestions, for the United States:

(1) There should be renewed political debate on whether the nuclear power industry should be expanded in the US, with the possibility of building breeder reactors to recycle nuclear waste.

(2) Encourage more people to use passive solar systems to warm their homes, as well as heatpumps, in addition to conventional heating/cooling. This could take the form of tax-free loans.

(3) Continue to research means of using biowastes for fuels. It will never replace petroleum, but could potentially offset some of it.

(4) Educate coastal communities, developers, and the public about the potential for sea level rise. Certain areas with particularly high property values, such as the Manhattan Financial District, might consider the future need for levees in their long-term urban planning.

(5) Encourage industry to develop means of trickling CO2 emissions through algal ponds. The algaes used could be GM'd to make useful products.

(6) Farmers should plant a diversity of crop types and strains to minimize catastrophic loss due to short-term climatic fluctuations and the attendant diseases (such as the Potato Famine, a repeat of the Year Without A Summer, or the rains of (I think) 1317). Agriculture is probably the greatest vulnerability our species has to climate. Anything that can be done to harden it would likely be helpful.

(7) Cut subsidies to fossil fuel companies, except in emissions control research. We can pay for the cost of fuel as a hidden cost in income taxes, or publicly at the pump. At the pump, we are more likely to be inclined to conserve.

(8) Continue theoretical and applied research into climate change, natural, unnatural, accidental, and deliberate. When the next Ice Age comes around, you'll want to at least be capable of making an attempt at averting it. BasketCase makes a good point in that a cease in CO2 emission might be potentially destructive, but I'd say that it's no more likely to be more or less destructive than alleged anthropogenic global warming.