Forecasting Doomsday

Boccaccio writes "James Lovelock, the planetary scientist famous for his Gaia Theory, writes in today's Independent of his belief that it is already too late to divert an environmental catastrophe which will see much of human civilisation destroyed. Fearing it too late to be green, he instead suggests communities plan for survival in a Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords. "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity.""

Comments

Obligatory Richard Pryor

[thatguywhoiam]

In regards to climate change, and those who deny it:

"Who are you gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"

Just getting off a week of +5-10C weather, in January, in Toronto. (40-50F for the Americans.) That is really, really atypical.

So is the 28 days of rain the west coast just received.

So is the 13 feet of snow in Japan.

Its unsettling.

Re:Doomsday can come only from governments

[Fordiman]

It's similar to the way things could be nicer worldwide. If, for example, everyone donated $0.25, you could cover the world's landmass with 802.11g WiFi and have enough left over to make it solar/wind powered, impregnable, maintenance free, and, aside from the $0.25, completely free to everyone.

Similarly, if you donate $0.25, you could cover the world's landmass (6km granularity) with solar-powered atmospheric H2O/CO2 reclamation facilities. The would quickly offset the global warming problem; with less CO2, and more importantly, less water vapor in the atmosphere, you have less heat trapped and less H2O being produced to trap it. For that cost (at $0.25 per person, at 6km granularity - 3km radius per unit in a hexagonal array, the possible cost of a unit is about $400), you could rig seasonal fuzzy logic (unit is at lat 45, temp is about 66 deg, it's january. Turn on and start drying the atmo; we're too warm and wet right now.), to maintain the balance after the problem is repaired. Not to mention the possibility that a district could relocate its excess water to more needy places for cash.

'Cept, you'll nevr get it done. Too many people would argue against either ("Free WiFi to all would hurt industry!" or "We have no idea what reducing moisture and CO2 levels could do to the environment!"). That's where it all falls apart, really. Doing such things would require both a full understanding of each project (to quell the naysayers) and an organization willing to actually act in the public interest (unlike government, which acts more on a pluralism of cash-backed interests).

That's where it all falls apart really. To truly understand such projects, you need to actually do them, and there aren't any organizations that act purely in the public interest. Thus, you'd have to find a way to make the projects tangably profitable for all people.

Oh, well.