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367 comments on DrumBeat: November 29, 2006
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367 comments on DrumBeat: November 29, 2006
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2476994,00.html
The days of empire may be gone but global warming will make Britain the centre of the civilised world once again, according to James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia theory, which views the world as a self-sustaining organic system.
In a bleak prophecy he says that global warming will become so intense within a century that much of the world will become uninhabitable. The British Isles, however, is perfectly placed to become the most desirable location in the world in which to live and one of the few areas able to feed itself. It will be able to survive the devastating consequences of global heating, as he now terms it.
Professor Lovelock was one of the first scientists to give warning of the dangers of global warming, which he believes is here for 200,000 years. It will wreak so much havoc that the Earth wil be able to support only 500 million people, just one in six of today's population.
Aah so that's why Robert Rapier has moved over here.
....The British Isles, small and surrounded by water, will remain cool enough to sustain a modern, technologically advanced nation, despite being 8C (14F) hotter on average. "The British Isles may be a very desirable bit of real estate because we are surrounded by the sea," he said. "The summer of 2003 will be typical of conditions by 2100."
A 8c rise will even make Aberdeen in winter bearable.
There is nothing that anyone can do to stop it really. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia and other countries which hold the vast majority of oil reserves, and whose economies are hopelessly and utterly dependent upon the oil spigot staying open will never cap off their wells and stop selling petroleum and its by-products.
So - if there really is such a thing as global warming - and if some Westerners believe that burning fossil fuels is the reason - the best place to burn those fossil fuels is in the west. The western democracies are the only places where such things as catalytic converters, scrubbers, emission controls and other such expensive anti-pollution devices are ubiquitous.
One need only stroll through any American or European city, then take a stroll through a place such as Shanghai or Mumbai to see the evident truth. The waste gases exiting the tailpipe of a modern western automobile is cleaner than the ambient air in many developing world cities! The faster we in the west can burn through the global fuel supply, the better for the world - if in fact, human activity is responsible for global warming and the burning of fossil fuels is the primary culprit behind said phenomena.
This debate was also raging at the petroleum club.
First of all, the pollution control devices you mention do nothing to prevent the release of greenhouse gases. They prevent smog and acid rain, but not climate change. To prevent climate change the CO2 would have to be sequestered, which isn't happening today.
Second, the persistance of climate change effects from the greenhouse gases is a matter of some debate. Some of what I've read (sorry, no links at the moment) suggests that while a portion of the greenhouse effect is permanent (until the carbon is recaptured), some effects last only on the scale of 100 years or so. Only!! : ) Nevertheless, if it is inevitable that all the fossil fuels will be consumed, it would be less damaging to spread the consumption out over as long a period of time as is possible.
I guess the best answer is to begin to use biodiesel created from algae. The carbon is sequestered back in the algae, which has a high lipid count and is a good source for biodiesel (the best).
However, I remain unconvinced that carbon emissions from internal combustion engines and fossil fuels has a huge impact on the global climate.
See here:
I could have sworn that there was carbon in that table... and it's not even Friday.
I guess we should get a biodiesel from algae program running... we just need to build all of our electric utilities on the edge of deserts...
In any case, ALL of the fossil fuels will certainly be built unless we develop some alternative - and of course, none is in sight unless you believe in zero point or some other magic.
On a side note... nitrous oxide smells funny.
>>cymbal crash<<
:-)
OK. Say, for sake of argument, that CO2 is a major contributor to global warming - is it a 90% contributor, a 60% contributor, or what? We have no idea. The models are neither accurate enough nor proof.
We have built massive hot urban megapoloises, cut down masses of trees, expanded deserts; are you saying that these have no effect? Are you saying that the million of other factors, which we are totally ignorant of, and which have changed in the last 50 years, have no effect.
The statement that CO2 causes Global warming may be good politics - it is bad science. We do NOT have enough proof.
Continental drift was a new, somewhat radical hypothesis when I was first in college. It gained credibility as it became more understood, more was learned about ocean bottoms and rift zones, and it was put to the test. Additional data supported the hypothesis and it gradually became accepted.
The way consensus developed with continental drift is similar to how it has developed with global warming. The consensus initially was very skeptical, it didn't start with a consensus. The consensus built as one test after another further supported the hypothesis and each test strengthened rather than contradicted the case.
He changed his mind, of course, and long before he died. He says the objections to continental drift were based on mechanism - how can continents move like that? When a mechanism was presented - plate tectonics - objections melted away. Mainly because there was so much evidence.
From time to time, decisions have to be made. When a paper is submitted to a scientific journal, the editorial board has to decide whether to publish it. Somebody might come up with some device that uses some unusual effects to achieve some useful function, and various potential investors have to decide whether to commit resources. A physician and patient need to decide on a course of treatment.
My point here is that science thrives on diversity and disagreement. As far as science itself goes, there is never a need to force any kind of winner-take-all final battle. It's when action is required that we get stuck making a decision, casting our vote, placing our bet, reaching a verdict, etc. But all this is outside science - really it is some kind of political process.
Nobody ever gets to rely on the level of certainty involved in a mathematical proof when making decisions about how best to act in the real world. The scientific evidence might be quite strong in support of direction A, but it isn't hard to find situations in history where it turned out that the strong scientific argument was based on fundamental errors and in fact direction B was the much better path.
If you're the person making the decision, and it's just your personal business, you get to pick the theory you like. If there seems to be a wide scientific consensus one way or the other... well, sometimes there is a fortune to be made by bucking the trend!
If, however, the decision involves lots of people, e.g. an editorial board or a legislative body, then usually the decision making process is codified to some degree, and usually involves some kind of consensus. Wasn't it the Indiana state legislature that passed a law that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was 22:7? Codified consensus doesn't have to respect mathematical proof!
"CO2 causes Global warming" may not reach the level of scientific consensus that would make you comfortable as the basis for a highly consequential decision, but I sure don't think "CO2 does not cause Global warming" has any better consensus behind it!
It's a fine pickle, really!
The whole climate or geochemical system of which CO2 forms one part - that is complex to an utterly overwhelming degree. To what extent there is a significant warming trend and to what extent human burning fossil fuels causes that... it's too politically charged for any decently clear scientific verdict to emerge, but any effective argument will have to be far more involved than your 1-2-3 syllogism.
Here's an analogy to see how your reasoning might not hold. Do you know what a trim tab is, on a ship's rudder? To get the ship to turn right, you basically turn the trim tab to the left. If the rudder were fixed to the hull, the ship would indeed slowly turn left. But because the rudder is movable, the trim tab just pushes the rudder over, and the ship turns right.
So, for example, while CO2 itself has a greenhouse effect, maybe it also affects plant growth somehow in a way that in turn affects water vapor, and that indirect effect could be much stronger that the direct greenhouse effect from the CO2. That is the kind of alternative theory about how burning fossil fuels affects the climate that climate scientists have to work through and eliminate.
It seems like the evidence, after a considerable amount of scientific work to eliminate such alternatives, does point to a connection between fossil fuel burning and a global warming trend. But the connection is much more difficult to establish than the simple syllogism you propose.
There is a danger that folks who doubt the burning-warming link will hear such a syllogism and might get the idea that the scientific argument is that flimsy, which would encourage their skepticism. Of course, a certain amount of skepticism is still appropriate. But not that much! So I would encourage you not to induce that inappropriately high level of skepticism! Which is why I am trying to help you understand the flimsiness of the syllogism.
built=burned
(Posts pea-brained chart suitable for convincing 8th graders)
Can you give us a pointer to some of your research publications? Peer-reviewed journals only please. What, you don't have any? My God man get busy, the world's scientist need to here from you immediately. We will all be grateful when you have pointed out their mistakes.
By the way, How's that cure for cancer coming?
Also can you please share your ideas for advancing nuclear fusion?
Heracles: This is an issue that has an overwhelming consensus across the world's scientific community. Do you really believe that vast amounts of carbon, sequestered in fossil fuels for millions of years, would have no effect at all on our thin sliver of atmosphere when we release billions of tons of the stuff in a mere 150 years? Your position is simply not logical, nor is it supported by the data.
You really need to get out more. You are arguing the earth is flat; your only evidence is that it looks that way to you, therefore it must be true.
Of course, when you do finally get out, be careful you don't fall off the edge of your world.
Cheers!
In fact, the planet is just coming out one of those rare cold spells known as an ice age.
No one denies that the climate has changed over millions of years. It's the large increase in CO2 over a relatively short period of time that is disturbing.
Let's see, we'll use some data from a scientist working on modeling (not measuring via proxies in ice cores) the climate and atmosphere hundreds of millions of years ago, and reinterpret it to argue that increased CO2 is a) nothing unusual or b) nothing to fear. I'm sure CO2 was a lot higher way back then, but there wasn't any oil or coal in the ground either. I know! Let's hurry and put it all back up in the air and see how things are.
Or perhaps we should just set our browsers to block images from the aptly named junkscience.com
That is pure disinformation.. CO2 makes warming, human makes CO2.
And let's wait for the next year's hurricans..
Besides this, do you really need more evidences?
Common sense should be enough to feel that the various pressures and strains we put on our ecosystem cannot be without effects.
If you are sick do you need real evidences from your doctor in order to take some pills or change your behaviour?
If you ask all doctors, they will argue and come with various diagnostics ranging from "it's psychosomatic" to "you are dead before the end of the day", will you still wait for the absolute evidence before taking any action?
IMHO we have already more than enough evidences right now to consider that it would be very very unwise to wait before acting.
So what would you recommend? Capping off the oil wells and going back to horse and carriage?
(One thing that I'm convinced will not stand the test of time and that is the US style of suburbanization. Large homes heated by fuel oil, far from city centers which are accessed via single occupant fuel-guzzling SUVs is unsustainable, and we will see an upheaval in this lifestyle in our lifetimes.)
Can anyone on this forum realistically expect that the last drop of fossil fuel will NOT be burned somewhere by someone?
If the last drop of oil is burnt in two hundred years, the result will be less dramatic than if it is burnt in two decades.
This doesn't follow. We don't know the amortized cost of climate change (if positive) and the cost of some mitigations are large; Its hard to do cost benifit analysis on such a scale. Sure we can do some mitigations which are very large and essentially free, but these mitigations are often blocked by politics: replacing coal with nuclear power can be done at cost in many places.
Did you read Nicholas Stern's review The economics of climate change?
What mitigations work? How much will they cost? What are the economic gains of such mitigations? These are policy decisions that really cant be rationally made without this knowledge. Oh sure there are things that you can do for free, like replace all future coal power with nuclear, and that will have an enormous effect on emissions, but how much will it really effect any economic costs?
''ice ages have been more damaging to human civilization than any warming has ever been...''
Civilisation developed after the Ice receeded.
Who knows what cities lie under 100 meters of water at the edge of the continental shelves.
Buy future waterfront property at +9 meter elevation. Wait for Greenland to melt. Sell for big profit. Buy more property at +30 meter. Wait for Antarctica to melt. Surefire multigenerational profit plan.
Civ = about the last 9 k years before present.
Even if it was 15 k years, the Ice ages were before civilisation.
Hom Civis is not that old.
If you want, I know somebody who wants to offload some Erik von Daniken books.
I will sell you them for a (small percentage...).
http://www.peer.org/campaigns/epa_library/
But now ask the Phillipines how the typhoon season is working out for them - as they're about to be hit with their 4th storm > Category 4 this year.
It's not just about USA - it's called GLOBAL warming or GLOBAL climate change - the name makes it real easy to see that it's not all about one place on the map...
What are you talking about? Lots of typhoon and cyclone action in the world this year. Australia had two back to back CAT 5 storms, one of which knocked out almost all of the country's banana crop.
Come on, can't a misogynist come out of the PC closet gracefully?
8C is not something that makes Aberdeen bearable in winter, it makes London like the Sahara. Except that with 8C London is underwater.
I have this old silly London taxi from 1967. Drove it today. The heaters run full time. You can turn the blowers on and off but the heaters, no. In 1967 maybe a few hours of summer afternoon per annum when sliding the windows down was not quite sufficient. The original owner installed valves on the heater hoses sometime in the late 70's but you've got to open the hood to operate them. Air conditioning would have been utterly purposeless 39 years ago.
Thats the change with 0.8C of warming, anyone thinking 8C will be manageable isn't thinking clearly.
Thinking about my taxi and the different planet it was built for I wonder if anyone still has a functioning memory.
Or maybe it's more general. Climate change will only ruin everyone else. I seem to recall some government report for Australia on the effects of climate change, largely concerned with how it might cause lots of undesirable poor brown people to seek entry as refugees as their island nations get the Atlantis treatment. It never seems to have occurred to anyone that climate change might screw up Australia as well.
As for Britain being desirable real estate in the future... perhaps only if you have an outboard motor to replace the Land Rover...
The lifeboat will be swamped with sheer numbers. And yes I wouldn't get a house in London, Essex or Norfolk either.