Geo-Engineering to stop Climate Change

MattSparkes writes "Following the latest report of the United Nations climate change panel, there has been a flurry of renewed interest in so-called geo-engineering. This is the theory of using technological schemes to stop climate change. These can range from sun-shades orbiting the Earth, to pumping millions of tonnes of sulfur into the atmosphere to the bizarre idea of painting the ground white to reflect more light. Let's reduce our emissions now, before I have to go and paint my roof bright white." Thanks to jamie for pointing out another potential solution of seeding the southern oceans with iron to spur plankton growth.

Comments

anything

[polar red]

anything to stop the people from acting responsibly?

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[CastrTroy]

This kind of crap just amazes me. People think up trillion dollar plans like putting up million of tiny umbrellas into geosynchronous orbit to deflect sunlight, but we can't get people to just not drive SUVs, or even go so low as to take the bus, or even walk to the store which is only a block away. I've never owned a car, and I'm really not convinced that I ever want to. There's only a couple instance where I would really want a car, like picking up groceries, but they have a delivery service anyway, for when I want a lot of groceries. Going away for the weekend isn't too much of a problem. Renting a car for 1 weekend a month costs less than most people's insurance.

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[wakim1618]

It is not an either/or situation. Research into such technologies is useful as a complement to behaving more responsibly. People can behave more responsibly and there will be nevertheless be some warming. Or they don't need to alter their behavior as much if we manage to implement some terra-forming technologies. After all, most of the households in the world do not enjoy the level of energy consumption (and green gas production) enjoyed by OECD countries such as the US and France.

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[CastrTroy]

But most of the solutions are quite out of reach unless the environment has been destroyed and we have no other choice. Telling people that we can just terraform the earth is a bad thing, because it gives them the wrong impression that it's OK if they mess with the environment because science will just fix it. In the end, I think people are better off with cutting down on emissions, and even saving themselves a few bucks rather than destroying the environment and then spending trillions of dollars to fix the problem.

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[spellraiser]

The problem is that there's just too many people. Trying to control or influence all of them is nigh on impossible, short of making the things you describe illegal, which would probably lead to a revolt.

A large segment of the population, any population, will always be stupid, thoughtless, and self-centered.

It doesn't help that the fastest growing and arguably the most powerful ideology in America today, evangelism, actively encourages bigotry, narrow-mindedness and a contempt for scientific principles that would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. And oh, the icing on the proverbial cake is that it doesn't matter what we do with the planet anyway, because it's all going to pass away any day now, and the faithful few will be taken to a paradise where they don't have to worry about anything at all, while the faithless multitudes will burn in hell forever.

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[Lazerf4rt]

People think up trillion dollar plans like putting up million of tiny umbrellas into geosynchronous orbit to deflect sunlight, but we can't get people to just not drive SUVs.

It's the same phenomenon at a different scale. Man sees himself as the ruler and conqueror of his environment, instead of coexisting with it. That's the root problem. If people realized that the earth was, literally, a physical extension of themselves, maybe they wouldn't find it so easy to abuse.

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[Critical Facilities]

While I agree that the orbiting umbrellas is a ridiculous proposal, I think you're looking at things from a skewed perspective with regard to automobiles.

First of all, you obviously live in a major metropolitan area to be able to not own a car (that is, you must have copious and effective mass transit available to you). For many people across the country, owning a car is not an option if they are to be able to get ANYWHERE (see work, school, hospital, etc). While I agree that if one can feasibly find alternative means of transportation, then one should opt for that method, but we shouldn't demonize the very idea of owning a car under the assumption that the only reason people do so is out of selfishness/laziness.

Second, the problem isn't in owning SUV's or other gas guzzling cars, it's the fact that those cars (and car makers, oil companies, and government decision makers) are forcing us to power those vehicles with petroleum. The idea of getting rid of these vehicles is a crude attempt to treat the symptom and not the disease. Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space, make it bad that no one seems interested in solutions to powering these vehicles differently.

In short, just keep in mind that your particular circumstance (i.e. being able to walk to the store and carry your groceries home) isn't necessarily everyone else's (like the mother of 4 with the SUV...imagine her carrying those groceries when the nearest store is 7 miles away)

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[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone has the luxury of living close to it all, as it is in mid to large cities.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Holy Crap this is like the 5th?
Article in two weeks on global warming.

Note to the editors ease up people your not going to convince anyone.
Or has the page count been going down recently?

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[FooAtWFU]

People think up trillion dollar plans like putting up million of tiny umbrellas into geosynchronous orbit to deflect sunlight .... I've never owned a car, and I'm really not convinced that I ever want to.

Thoughts are cheap. Moving to an urban center where there's a grocery store a block away, and decent public transit, is much more expensive. (And there's probably less fresh clean air, fewer trees, less green space, more noise.) If you're already comfortably settled in NYC or Toronto or Los Angeles or something like that, good for you! Cities are neat. And if you're complaining about people who are already in a big city, that's one thing. But I live in a mid-sized city (200,000) and our bus service is... pretty marginal. You could probably use it to commute if you really had to (and were willing to walk a good distance to get there), but you really need to drive if you want to get to half the places worth getting to.

Myself, I drive a little old 1988 Volkswagen Fox that gets awesome gas mileage. Not that I've ever had to drive it very far, either.

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[Hamilton Publius]

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months' time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains "very likely" as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain's top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter's billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you're forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is "Why is east Antarctica getting colder?" It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you're at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it's confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on

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[ajs]

Actually, not driving SUVs doesn't help much. The real alternative to SUVs (and trucks, minivans, etc.) is lighter vehicles. Hybrids sound good, but really their efficiency is almost entirely based on their weight, not the fact that the oil is being burned at a powerplant rather than in your car. In fact, power generation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses.

What would help quite a lot is converting from coal and petroleum to nuclear power generation. That would pretty much solve the problem over-night, slashing our CO2 production by nearly 50%! What impact that would have on the climate... isn't actually 100% clear. It certainly is likely to have some impact, though.

Personally, I'm not concerned. I'd rather address mercury pollution than greenhouse emissions any day of the week. After all, warmer weather never caused my father to stop being able to tie his own shoes .... :-/

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[rbarreira]

You don't have to make things illegal, some taxation goes a long way. Why don't people just admit that gas is not as cheap as it used to be? Lately, it required for example going to Iraq for a very expensive war. Many countries rebuilt themselves in a way which makes it more attractive to use public transports, which are usually safer and often faster than going by car anyway!

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[endianx]

Yeah I agree. If humans are partially responsible for global warming, then the solution is to just stop doing whatever it is we are doing to cause the problem.

I do not think we understand this stuff nearly well enough for us to intentionally go messing with it. We could make things much worse.

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[m0rph3us0]

Not driving IS a TRILLION DOLLAR PLAN. People think the benefits of a car are simply free. Exactly what type of fucking vehicle do you think they deliver your groceries in moron?

If you want a cooler planet you don't drive and not use electricity, because I don't care and I like driving I'll keep driving my car.

The main problem with Global Warming is it's driven by the sun so there is fuck all we can do about it anyways.

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[UbuntuDupe]

Trying to control or influence all of them is nigh on impossible, short of making the things you describe illegal, which would probably lead to a revolt.

False. If you just assess the actual costs of these activities on the people that do them, they have a strong financial incentive not to do them -- this is how it works with every product on the market. You don't need to, for example, encourage people to avoiding eating "unnecessary" foods -- the "unnecssary" expense already does that. If food was as socialized as roads and air currently are, I can 100% guarantee you we'd see proposals to give tax credits to people who exercise less than 1 hour per week in the hopes that this would lead them to request less food from the Food Department. (Just as you see proposals for tax credits for switching to specific energy-efficient technologies.) People who eat too much would be derided as "stupid, thoughtless, and self-centered."

If you simply taxed in proportion to the costs imposed on others, people would be free to do whichever energy-saving alternative is least inconvenient for them. Even if they do nothing, hey -- at least you have a huge war chest with which to research better technologies or reduce the impact.

If you can't bring yourself to advocate that, you have to keep in mind any other solution is probably less efficient. And if you can't trust a government to administer that properly, you have to think about what it would do with a less efficient solution.

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[Anonymous Coward]

"Exactly what type of fucking vehicle do you think they deliver your groceries in moron?" Uh, they get to the store by truck, train, boat, plane. You're a cretin if you can't be arsed to BIKE to the grocery store. And stop stuffing your face with crap and you'll have less stuff to carry home too.

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[qazsedcft]

What would help quite a lot is converting from coal and petroleum to nuclear power generation. That would pretty much solve the problem over-night, slashing our CO2 production by nearly 50%! What impact that would have on the climate... isn't actually 100% clear. It certainly is likely to have some impact, though.

I agree, but the problem is that a lot of these coal plants are in countries where there are more urgent problems to solve than CO2 emissions. For example, here in Poland over 95 percent of power plants are coal powered. And not the efficient 21 st century type, but the 40 year-old post-communist era type. However, nobody is going to invest in modernizing these power plants when there are so many other infrastructure problems, like the lack of a national highway system (ironically).

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[jav1231]

Yep. We're all making the assumptions that Global Warming isn't a natural cycle of change. What if, like a hoard of scientists believe (granted, not the "gods" most environmentalists want to agree with), it is a natural warming? Then our efforts to reverse this are a perversion. We, then, become what we claim we loath: someone negatively impacting the environment. But hey, we can sit back on our fat grant checks living la vita green.

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[CastrTroy]

I'm not really saying that not driving at all is going to work for everyone, but the attitude of some people with cars is that they have to drive everywhere, even when it's actually easier to walk or take the bus. People will drive to the store when it's only a 5 minute walk away and they spend more time waiting for their car to warm up. People will drive around for 10 minutes looking for the perfect parking spot just so they don't have to walk 3 blocks. Sometimes it really is faster, or at least less stressful to take public transit or walk, and a lot of people don't.

And public transit is as good as your city wants to make it. I'll agree that it helps to be in a large city, but there are plenty of large cities , LA for example, where public transit is worse than even in small towns. A lot of it depends on how much your local government really cares about having a good public transit system.

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[ajs]

There's no reason not to get started.

That said, the chart I linked to is ONLY for the U.S., and yes, coal is less than %20 of our energy production and around 75% of our energy production-related emissions source (I'm eyeballing that figure from the chart)... coal is a huge problem in terms of pollution, so climate change / global warming aside, I'm happy to see it go away. Nuclear power is an issue only so long as we continue to have a "not in my back yard" response to waste disposal (the science around which is pretty impressive these days).

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[nightfire-unique]

Firstly, I respect your choice not to drive.

Having said that, I do drive. I actually ride to work in the summer (mainly for health), but in the winter, I drive. Yes, I burn oil to do this, and that is a very bad thing. I will move to electric the second I can afford an electric car. I will be an early adopter.

I think what you need to consider is that "this kind of crap" is not just needed because many of us drive oil burning cars. There are many sources of CO2 emissions and you are 90% as guilty as I am at producing them. You and I are westerners. We waste enormously. I don't know if you realize how much you waste, relative to the vast majority of the inhabitants on this planet.

So you don't drive. Cool. I appreciate that. Do you own a leather couch? A private condo? A house? Do you take hot showers in the morning? That water was likely heated by electricity generated at a coal power plant.

Do you eat processed food? Lots of meat? Do you take jets to go on vacation? Perhaps you buy musical instruments? Computers?

Cars are ONE waste of energy, but there are thousands.

Living "in harmony with nature" to some people means more than not driving, it means abandoning our modern society: the chemicals we use to grow enough food to feed everyone, the dams we use to prevent flooding, the fire planes we use to stop forest fires, the hot showers, the delivery of luxury sofas, and abandoning worldwide travel.

To me it means nuclear power and emission free transportation. If the science supports "meddling" with atmospheric properties (and I don't think it does in this case) then I don't have a problem with it to preserve our way of life.

Don't forget - you will always eat. You and I are rich. It is the poor who will starve when the price of food triples.

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[GooberToo]

Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space

Simple fact is, most people don't need the space! People like to pretend that families never left home until the SUV came out. BS! Fact is, very, very, very few people actually need an SUV, 4x4 truck, dully truck, or other such gas hog. Fact is, most people can do quite well in a midsize car.

If you want to argue their right to own it...fine...but please stop with the false claims that most families need SUVs as that is complete garbage.

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[KKlaus]

The plans are kind of stupid on the whole, but (no offense) so is yours. After 100's if not thousands of years of countless people saying "but if we just used less" with regard to common resources and being ignored, you'd think they'd stop suggesting it.

Look at it this way: anyone that's predisposed to use less for no return to themselves is selected against evolutionarily. So it's not surprising that things have turned out this way. PEOPLE ARE NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE, THAT ALTRUISTIC. MOVE ON.

It would be nice, just like it would be nice if people weren't violent, but unfortunately they are, and we need to realize that stepping backwards as a race or nation is a last ditch solution, not the first. Even if SUV drivers are annoying.

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[Intron]

Also you can read, work on your laptop, etc. while riding on a train or bus. Subways you are pretty much limited to avoiding eye contact and wishing that the person next to you didn't eat quite so much garlic.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You must be great fun on dates.

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[stud9920]

Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space, make it bad that no one seems interested in solutions to powering these vehicles differently.

You don't need a 2 tons SUV for that. A 800kg station wagon would do. Did YOUR mother need a 2 tons SUV ? Did she have lower living standards ? Probably not even...

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[soft_guy]

I call straw man on your comment. The stores aren't 1 block away from my house. I have to drive over an hour every day just to get the work. I can't afford a house any closer to my office than that. Telecommuting isn't an option. There aren't buses that go from where I live to where I work.

I have taken public transit when I lived other places - it is OK sometimes, but not other times. It is difficult and confusing to use and it can take 3 times as long to get anywhere. On those occasions when it makes sense, I'll use it. Otherwise, I'm driving my car. And I did try to pick a car that gets decent mileage - it is not an SUV.

Solving Global Warming is important however we can do it. If that means coming up with a machine to rapidly pull carbon out of the atmosphere, that is fine by me. I'm willing to pay the taxes to pay for it. If I need to switch to a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt (concept car they were showing at a recent trade show - it plugs into the wall to re-charge and the first 40 miles are electric, after that it uses gas like a hybrid), fine. I will do what I can, but not working isn't an option.

There are maybe four or five cities in the US with really good public transit and even in those cities, you have to be going where the lines go. And I don't see heavy investments in these kinds of systems happening in the near future. Not everone can live in these places.

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[Rucker]

This need not be an either/or scenario. We can both reduce emissions AND find carbon sinks. According to Eric Steig, "[i]f humans stopped producing CO2 today, it would take around 700 years to come back down to the original value." I don't know how accurate that number is, but I suspect he's at least right that it would be a long time.

Interestingly, I recently read a claim that overfishing is causing a boom in smaller fish that eat algae/photoplanton causing a drop in carbon sink activity. I don't know if that's credible though. If anyone has info on that, please post.

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[Critical Facilities]

but please stop with the false claims that most families need SUVs as that is complete garbage.

I never claimed that. Nevertheless, you seem to get my basic point which is, let's solve the PARENT issue of what powers these vehicles and stop bickering over whether this person NEEDS the extra space/horsewpower/4x4/etc. I think the idea of conservation is obviously a good one, but I think that sometimes people like to throw this argument up as a red herring to distract from the much harder to answer question of "what are we going to do to reduce out dependency on oil?". I'm not suggesting that I have the answer (I wish I did), I just would like to see us all work on the same team toward a common goal rather than just start with the infighting.

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[wakim1618]

There is a very long way to go in terms of behaving responsibly. The kyoto accord is hardly a start since it reduces emissions to 1990 levels for US and Europe, currently largest in per capita emissions. Suppose that energy consumption and green house gas production of the average indian and chinese person increase to 50 percent of 1990 levels of Europe in per capita terms. That is a very large increase in green house gas production. This is not even addressed in the kyoto accord. So not only does india and china have to find very large increases in the efficiency of their consumption with regard to emissions but both the US and Europe will still have very large reductions in their per capita emissions for an equitable effort towards combatting climate change. Although the technology is still expensive and sounds like science fiction... with some research, it may not be so in 20 years and could have a role (limited) in our collective efforts.

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[SaDan]

Pray tell, who sells a station wagon in the US that could hold four kids and still have a bit of room for storage (like coats, groceries, etc) and gets reasonable fuel economy?

Most people who have a small family and own an SUV would be better off with a more efficient minivan, no doubt. Beyond that, selection of efficient vehicles for a decent sized family is very limited.

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[CastrTroy]

How come Europe has so much better public transit then? What is so different about Europe that makes it possible to have good public transit? The only difference is that they are committed to building a good public transportation system. Cities that make the effort to have good public transit can do it. It's not impossible, it's just that most cities never made the effort. Mind you, there are a lot of cities that are too messed up now, and making changes would be more costly than just staying with the status quo, but they should have changed things long ago. I think it's good that you are willing to make changes in your life to cut down on global warming. My problem is with those who refuse to do anything that might inconvenience them in the slightest way.

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[rbarreira]

Yes, that's another reason why I may never (or at least not soon) buy a car. Maybe I'd rather ride a train for an hour and read than drive for 40 or 50 minutes and not being able to read AND having to drive carefully if I want to get to work at all...

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[careysub]

anything to stop the people from acting responsibly?

Unfortunately the global warming problem is so severe that even a magic wand that shuts off all carbon dioxide production worldwide today, and stripped away all CO2 released over the last 7 years, wouldn't stop continued warming for most of the next century (though it would markedly reduce it). See page 13 of: the IPCC Working Group I Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers. Even extremely optimistic scenarios for reducing CO2 release lead to warming over the next century three of more times greater than the "magic wand" solution.

Although acting responsibly is certainly necessary, the situation has reached the point where even immediate dramatic responsible action (not yet in evidence, sadly) will not avoid severe climate change in coming decades and centuries. To reduce the scale of the developing disaster additional measures may be necessary.

Crutzen's stratospheric sulfur injection proposal has the advantage that natural experiments have already proven that it works. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 was a recent example.

A recent report on this in Science was: Science 20 October 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5798, pp. 452 - 454,
"A Combined Mitigation/Geoengineering Approach to Climate Stabilization"
T. M. L. Wigley

Summarizing Wigley's findings, Richard A. Kerr in the same issue stated:

Pulling off a "human volcano" to counteract global warming would take some wherewithal. Pinatubo put up 10 million tons of sulfur, most of which fell out of the stratosphere within 2 or 3 years. So humans looking to cool the greenhouse by stratospheric shading would have to send millions of tons of sulfur tens of kilometers into the air every year, perhaps century after century, in order to renew the continually depleted shield of haze. The resulting acid rain would be minor compared to current levels, say proponents. People have discussed delivery methods from balloons, big guns, and giant planes. To ease the burden of lifting megaton masses, the late Edward Teller--father of the hydrogen bomb and "Star Wars" missile defense advocate--proposed substituting more efficient reflectors for sulfur, something metallic and perhaps engineered like tiny retroreflectors.

Daunting practical aspects aside, the latest--although preliminary--climate modeling hints that shading the globe to counteract greenhouse warming could actually work. In this issue of Science (p. 452), climate researcher Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, reports that in a simple, so-called energy-balance model, firing off a Pinatubo eruption every 2 years or so would be enough to counteract the projected warming indefinitely. And so far in sophisticated general circulation models (GCMs), "all the simulations have suggested it would basically work," says Caldeira, who has run many such simulations. Crutzen, who has been cooperating on other GCM simulations, agrees. "It's very tantalizing," he says. "It just looks too good."

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[Martin Blank]

If it works for you, great. However, most cities in the US have exceptionally poor public transportation. I work eight miles from where I live. To drive to and from work takes 25 and 35 minutes respectively using streets (freeways take slightly longer). Taking the bus involves over an hour in each direction, and we're on exactly the same route. An extensive light rail project running from almost where I used to live to just about where I work was scrapped due to concerns from the rich end of it in favor of a project less than a quarter of the size and servicing even less of the county population (this same rich end also scuttled a new airport near them).

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[gilbert64]

Well as the old saying goes... freedom isn't free.
If you allow people to do what they want they will.

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[wrook]

I understand what you are saying, but I think you've missed one very important issue.

If you want to reduce your energy usage, it makes sense to actually look at the impact each of these things has towards energy usage. I did this and was surprised by the result.

Yes, taking an airplane is unbelievably wasteful. We should all avoid it if at all possible. But the biggest ones in my life (in order) are:

1) Car. And this is with a TDI Golf. I got rid of it last week.
2) Heat. Sigh... this one is hard to fix. I'd like to get a ground source heat pump. But I can't afford the $10,000 it will cost right now. After I've saved up some from not driving a car it should be a sinch, though. Since last year though I've turned down the thermostat in the winter 2 degrees and disabled the AC (everything under 40C is tolerable
anyway -- over 40C, I wear a wet T-shirt and it seems to help).
3) Dryer. Air drying clothes isn't actually too painful for me, so why the heck not?
4) Imported food. I live in a cold climate so the grocery stores are full of imported food. But local food is sooo much tastier. I'm trying to improve my diet by only buying local. I've found the easiest way is to contact local organic farmers. Strangely it appears to be cheaper than buying the crap in the grocery store anyway.
5) Electric lights. I've switched over to compact flourescent. I'm also trying to make sure that I only have 1 or 2 lights on in the house at any one time at night.

So far these measures seem to have reduced my personal energy usage to about 1/3 of what it was before. And I don't seem to be unhappy because of it. I *did* have to change my lifestyle. But not in a bad way. Reducing the crap that I buy (packaging, electronic goodies that I don't actually need, etc, etc) should have a positive influence as well.

Trust me... These are *small* measures that will only be difficult for the first few weeks. True, some people need a car. But *most* people don't (there are far more people in cities than not). But even people who must have a car can reduce *a lot* in other ways. Hell, if you are in the country, you can buy your own windmill. That's something I can't do in the city.

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[xtal]

Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space, make it bad that no one seems interested in solutions to powering these vehicles differently.

The 4 kids are going to have a hell of a lot more environmental impact than the SUV ever will. Something to think about.

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[ShadowBlasko]

Sounds exactly what happens around here. You from Cincinnati?

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[Ephemeriis]

I've got a family of 3, so we're short one person...but we all fit just fine into a mid-size car. We go grocery shopping too, and all of that fits in the trunk. We've even got room for more people (we can actually fit about 6 in our car) in the back seat, for when we need to haul other people around. We've transported Christmas trees, furniture, a television...everything short of a major appliance (washer/dryer/refrigerator) in our car. Obviously the family with 4 kids doesn't have to drive an SUV just because they've got 4 kids. Families of 4, and more, have been getting along without SUV's for quite some time now.

Further, there's really little reason why we here in the US need to have a society organized around personal transportation the way it is. All over Europe people manage to get along just fine with their own two legs, public transportation, and maybe a bicycle. Just because you don't live in a major metropolitan area doesn't mean you can't have public transportation or a city designed for human beings. Quite a bit could be done to reduce or completely eliminate the need to own your own car.

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[ScentCone]

How come Europe has so much better public transit then?

Population density. Ancient civilization centers (most US cities haven't been around as long as many individual European townhouses).

If you're pretending that the geography and history of the two scenarios is the same, then right there you've completely killed off any credibility you have on this entire subject. You want to reduce emissions in a way that actually matters? Why aren't you spending all of this energy preaching nuclear energy? One or two nukes, in place of plants burning coal and natural gas, will do more than taking away the minivans of every family in a large city and replacing them with cars so small it takes three of them to move the same group of people between the same two points.

I'm one of the evil SUV owners you're blathering about. I telecommute at least 4 days a week, with no need to even start the vehicle at all. But then, some days I'm driving around with 500 pounds of rackmount servers as payload. Or six people, two dogs, and a big pile of gear. Renting a vehicle large enough to handle that, 4 or 5 times per month, would cost at least twice what it costs me just to own the vehicle and use it when I need it (not to mention I don't have to get transportation to where the vehicle is, and back again when I'm done). In heavy snow, when our local public transportation essentially fails entirely, and the grocery delivery services all say they can't function, and all of my neighbors' compact cars are completely useless, guess who is always asked to get people around, including kids to the doctor, etc?

Assuming you can lump all truck owners into one big Evil Bucket, while completely skipping over the fact that electricy generation is far, far more dirty and carbonating than the difference between an SUV and some other passenger vehicle that can even approach the same carrying capacity - that's just intellectual dishonesty. When I do social things with several friends, we take one less efficient vehicle (mine), and leave three other vehicles parked. Suddenly, my lower-mileage vehicle is getting the best mileage per person that we could possibly arrange. Evil! That's me.

Re:anything

[bigpat]

anything to stop the people from acting responsibly? Acting responsibly is finding the most economical way for the most people to live on this planet together happily. Whatever way possible.

I have great respect for the idea of living humbly and trying to exist in a way that lets nature take its course, for better or worse. But people that sit smugly at their computers at the pinnacle of civilization surrounded by the comforts that are causing the stress on the environment in the first place, have little merit in my book when they suggest people should simply act "responsibly" to avoid the destruction of the environment. Unless you are living on 10 acres of your own land, drinking your own well water and sustaining yourself with the fruit of your own labor in a resource neutral way and paying the minimum of taxes (that would otherwise pay for others to be wasteful) and NOT connecting to the Internet, then you are part of the problem, just as I am.

Re:anything

[SaDan]

Family of three is not one short of a family with four children (six people total). Quite a difference when you're trying to get into a mid-sized sedan.

I have three children, and know getting everyone into a mid-sized car IS possible, but tight for everyone. Does not make for pleasant trips in the car. This is why I do not own a mid-sized car, and instead own a minivan. When child #4 arrives, it will be time to move up to a full-sized van. I only hope I'll be able to buy a diesel powered full-sized van (Dodge Sprinter might do nicely, gets reasonable fuel economy for its size) when the time comes.

Re:anything

[Lemmy Caution]

That explanation for the differences between Europe and the US doesn't really fly as well as you think. Most Americans live in regions as dense as Europe. If you have ever been to England, for example, you would notice that it is quite possible to commute to London on public transit from as many as 80 miles away - and quite a many people do. Likewise with France.

Historically, the auto industry made an extensive effort in the early and middle part of the 20th century to replace rail-based mass transit with cars and buses. This led to patterns of urban development designed around the car-commuter in the 50's and later. Before mid-century, a much less dense US primarily commuted on trains.

Re:anything

[m0rph3us0]

Seriously, has anyone even looked at what happens if we let global warming take its course. We are talking about a 2 foot sea level rise vs. rolling back the clock to 1699.

Personally, I'll take a little warm weather and a little more ocean front property.

Re:anything

[ajs]

I should point out that my comment conflated hybrids with wall-powered electric cars. An old silliness of mine that I don't seem to be able to give up. Much the same is true though, and the difference in efficiency between a hybrid and any other very light car is not all that large.

The real key is to address how we generate power centrally. That will address more than just CO2 emissions.

Re:anything

[dwarfking]

Geography and population density.

The United States had a large amount of physical space with less population, so the cities are not as compact and more sprawling.

European cities started out largely as outposts and towns around royal residences that the US never had.

If people aren't spread out as much, public transit is very good and economical. Think of it like DSL service. Companies won't spend money to put DSL infrastructure in less inhabited areas because the population doesn't support the ROI.

Same thing with mass transit in the US.

I spent 2 years in Germany in the mid 80's and my car stayed in storage at my home in the US. I had a bicycle for intown use (with saddle bags to carry groceries) and I used trains for trips. Loved every minute of it. Where I live in the US (outside a large city) the only subway station is 40 miles away and there is no bus service to my suburban county. My office is on the edge of the city where the bus lines start.

In the US the primary mode of distance travel is by air, with all the fun little restrictions we deal with there. I wish we had train service like European countries do.

Re:anything

[cliffski]

forgive my ignorance but are there not some mothers of 4 in the USA who cannot afford an SUV?
Do they starve?

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, when I was a kid my folks owned a massive Chevy Caprice wagon - had a huge v8 and seated about 12... wasn't called an SUV because nobody thought up the name yet, but big vehicles with lots of cargo room have always been popular.

Re:anything

[pizza_milkshake]

The problem is that there's just too many people. Trying to control or influence all of them is nigh on impossible

Wrong. Simply offering consumers an alternative by enforcing a phase-out of damaging products/technology can be enough, as was the case of ozone-damaging CFCs.

Re:anything

[virtualsobriety]

Instead of thinking of ways to mess with this unimaginably huge closed system we are living in, Why can't we just accept that this planet/solar system/universe is more complex than SUV's releasing Carbon into the Air and let the Earth take its own course. While I think every effort should be made to improve our current technologies and move away from a costly oil based economy, It is irresponsible and short sighted to throw up your hands, claim carbon, oil and SUV's are the source of a slight/gradual change of what was the norm for a short period of time 30 years ago and continue this path of panic. Real scientists who do real research aren't in agreement as to wether or not natural cycles are the cause of "global warming" (a terribly misleading and politicized name) why are the masses? There was a hole in the o-zone layer, we stopped pumping Chlorine and Flourine into the air and the Earth is taking its course to solve the problem...Anyone who thinks more action than that is warrented in this instance is uninformed or irresponsible.

Re:anything

[ArcherB]

I spent a few years in Michigan... Trust me, unless you like be stranded at home for days at a time... you need and SUV.

Now I live in Texas, where like many parts of the country, has dirt roads. And unless you like the idea of stranded at home.... You get the idea.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the guy who buys an Excursion to take himself to work alone every day is in the right, but just because he doesn't need his SUV doesn't mean they aren't needed.

Another note... My small 1995 Toyota Avalon gets about 25 mpg. My Isuzu Rodeo (a SUV) that I had in Michigan got about 20-22. Not really much difference there. So don't blame SUV's.

What you need to do is rather than not own a car at all is go buy a car that runs on something other than petroleum so that auto makers can see that this sort of thing really can sell.

Re:anything

[ArcherB]

Most people who have a small family and own an SUV would be better off with a more efficient minivan, no doubt. Beyond that, selection of efficient vehicles for a decent sized family is very limited.

We traded in our 4-Runner (an SUV) for a Sienna (a minivan). The gas mileage is not much different. Still, you have a point. Both vehicles get better gas mileage than the station wagon my aunt drove.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

like the lack of a national highway system

Sort of makes the old pollock jokes funny again, doesn't it?

Re:anything

[Suriyel]

We could irradiate all of the large cities and solve a lot of the world's problems in one whack assuming we were able to get most of their populations. Any survivors would quickly perish once the corner convenience store ran out of the super-ultra-vegan tofu.

I don't want to sound all redneck, but you cityfolk REALLY need to step out of your urban jungles once in awhile. It is your high density population lifestyle causing a fair deal of these supposed problems as it is.

Re:anything

[bnenning]

PEOPLE ARE NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE, THAT ALTRUISTIC. MOVE ON.

Thank you. As you note, this is a textbook case of tragedy of the commons, and trying to guilt people into using only what they "need" is not going to work. What would help is taxing the sources of undesirable outcomes such as pollution and carbon, providing a direct incentive to consume less and seek out alternative energy sources.

Re:anything

[bigpat]

I dislike it when people on the environmentalist bandwagon decide to define anything that humans do to effect the environment as "bad" and immoral, but letting nature take its course is somehow "good" and "moral". I do not see this magical divide between the actions of people and nature. It is human arrogance that sees ourselves as beholden to a different standard than the rest of the natural world.

We are natural and when we build our homes and lives no less moral or no more than a beaver building a damn, or a bunch of bees building a nest. The question should be what kind of world we want to live in and what we want to do in order to create it, not some sort of false moral choice between what is natural and what is not.

I don't deny global warming has been happening in the last hundred years or so, and will probably continue and that it is most likely caused by people burning oil, coal and natural gas. But the choice we face is what kind of world we want to live in and what we can and are willing to do in order to make it happen. The choice is not about "responsibility", but about what trade offs we are willing to effect a particular outcome. It is about balancing expectations about what we can do with what we cannot control. Some further global warming is certainly desirable and good, as we have benefited from some global warming already, but too much would bring about change that was too rapid for our civilization to adjust to without significant losses of our investments in infrastructure and would increase the possibility of wars when natural migration of human populations are blocked in unnatural ways.

So, to be clear my criticism is with the attitude that we are somehow more moral when we let nature take its "natural" course, rather than trying to make the best world we can with whatever means that we have. We should understand that whatever we do, nature will take its course.

Re:anything

[robophobe]

Ah, the real agenda emerges! New taxes! I thought I smelled a rat. Real cost my ass! The left has found a convenient and convincing new club to beat us with. The threat of global warming. This is just another excuse to extract my hard earned wages from me. Now I'll have to pay a tax for my "CO2 footprint".

This has been tried before. In the 70's our so-called climate experts were crying doom and gloom over global cooling. They were convinced that we would be in trouble in 10 years. I would laugh my ass off were it not for those who are buying in to this new hysteria.

Re:anything

[ArmorFiend]

The SUV is bad, but not nearly as bad as the 7 miles to the grocery store! People look too much towards cars as the culprit, and less at their real estate. Buy a home in a walkable community. These don't have to be big cities! The most walkable communities of all are small towns that fit under Wal Mart's radar. Urban cores are a distant second, because the traffic is more dangerous for kids. Suburban Sprawl is by far the worst. People who choose to live in the sprawl are shooting the environment, and their own health, in the foot.

Re:anything

[adpowers]

That's quite a cop out.

First of all, people choose where they want to live. By choosing the suburbs, they know they will likely have to rely on their vehicle most of the time. Suburbs may be cheaper, but if you can live in the city and not own a car (but perhaps use something like FlexCar to get one when you need it), then you might come out even.

Second, you claim that you are forced to use petroleum. That's funny. My parents, who drive more than I'd like (although, less than average), have a VW Jetta running on biodiesel. There were no state guards at the pump physically preventing us from filling up.

Finally, I think most of these people are just fucking lazy. Most of the people who claim they can't do anything without a car probably haven't tried. Do you really need to drive half a mile to the grocery store? I live in a city and I bike everywhere, even to the suburbs (even to other states and countries, occasionally). For some commutes (long ones that spend most of the time on the freeway) it is slower, but if you are doing in city driving, a bike can be nearly as fast. Plus, since you are getting exercise, you need to spend less time in the gym getting rid of the "suburban gut".

Re:anything

[UbuntuDupe]

I think you misunderstand. My point was that a tax on the desired output you want to reduce is the most efficient and least inconvenient way to solve the problem, if your primary goal is to protect the environment. The extent to which environmentalists almost universally reject this approach in favor of banning specific inputs (like incandescents) suggests a different prioritization.

Re:anything

[SaDan]

Figures I'd get someone who trades in probably the most efficient SUV out there for an equally efficient minivan. Damn you, Toyota! ;-)

I was thinking more along the lines of a Dodge Durango, Ford Explorer, Chevrolet TrailBlazer style SUV vs most minivans. I shudder to think of the Lincoln Navigator types when they hit the pumps.

Re:anything

[GooberToo]

I wasn't making the argument that no one needs SUVs. I honestly believe some number of people do need such a vehicle. Having said that, very sure most people do not have such a need.

I wish I still had a link which had some interesting statistics. It's been a couple of years since I last read it but they were roughly (ballpark numbers) something like this.

60%? 70%? of all off road vehicles never see anything other than paved streets.

80% of all SUVs spend 90% of their time with a single person; the driver.

The 20% of SUVs which normally contain more than one person spend most (sorry, don't even remember the ballpark number) of its time with less than 4 people within it. This means most can make use of a more fuel effecient car.

Long story short, sure, there certainly are people that need SUVs and trucks (4x4, etc). These people are by far the minority of SUV and truck owners. Simple fact is, most people see it as a status symbol to try to be part of the "me too" crowd. Remember when people used to buy a car to set themselves apart? Now they buy a vehicle to be part of the herd.

As for your mileage comments, yes I'm aware that some small SUVs get resonable mileage. Most, on the other hand, do not.

Ya, I'm sure this will be beat up since I can't provide the link. So, I invite you to take them in stride. Now, even if my numbers are off by 10%-20%, those numbers still look pretty damning for SUV owners.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, you obviously live in a major metropolitan area to be able to not own a car (that is, you must have copious and effective mass transit available to you). For many people across the country, owning a car is not an option if they are to be able to get ANYWHERE (see work, school, hospital, etc). While I agree that if one can feasibly find alternative means of transportation, then one should opt for that method, but we shouldn't demonize the very idea of owning a car under the assumption that the only reason people do so is out of selfishness/laziness.

It is amazing that my grandparents were able to survive at all before the advent of the automobile.

I live over 5 km from the nearest "corner" store and over 50 km from the nearest "grocery" store. I do not own a car. It is miraculous that I am able to survive at all.

Clearly, the natives and early colonists had extraterrestrial assistance, as survival without an automobile simply is not possible.

I agree that there is a tendency to demonize car owners, but there is also a tendency to own automobiles without thinking too much about it, or assuming that it is a necessary prerequisite for a particular lifestyle even though it is not.

Not owning a car is freedom. Freedom from regulation. Freedom from expense. Freedom of movement.

Give it a try, it is extremely liberating.

Re:anything

[kabocox]

To me it means nuclear power and emission free transportation. If the science supports "meddling" with atmospheric properties (and I don't think it does in this case) then I don't have a problem with it to preserve our way of life.

Don't forget - you will always eat. You and I are rich. It is the poor who will starve when the price of food triples.

I was thinking about that the other day when reading about Mexican tortilla prices increasing by 400% over a short timespan. I just thought how I'd adjust if my McDonalds meal went from $6.37 to $19.11 or $25.48 per meal. I'd of course stop going to McDonalds. One of the reasons that I go there though, is that they are one of the cheapest lunch places for me to eat at other than bringing my own bag lunch. You only think that we are rich. Yes, we are wealty compared to the third world. I can afford a $6.37 lunch. I can't afford though if the price of my meals or gas goes up 300-400% over a few short months. I won't be making any additional income so something else will go first.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

2 Timothy 3 Perilous Times and Perilous Men

1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

(ac so I cuold mod you up)

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like reposting Slashdot articles for karma bonuses!

Re:anything

[greenrd]

Your analysis doesn't mention animal products, which suggests to me that it is flawed. If the goal here is to fight global warming, you need to take into accont secondary contributions to global warming, like methane emissions from cows, which gets complicated.

If everyone in the world had to pay taxes or spend emissions credit for the emissions they directly gave rise to, there would be a better economic incentive to reduce carbon emissions in the most efficient ways possible. Of course that's a pipe dream, so we have to make do with patchy emissions trading schemes and suchlike.

Re:anything

[InsaneProcessor]

The left thinks they have the power of God. Since God created all of this, do you really think that He gave us the power to destroy it? We can only effect our small piece of it in a small way. When you start trying to mess with it, God will put a a stop to it. He has limited us this way.

Re:anything

[L0rdJedi]

Families used to drive station wagons. Problem is, hardly anyone sells station wagons anymore. So it's not that families didn't leave home until SUVs came out, it's that SUVs didn't really exist on a large scale until station wagons disappeared.

Bring back station wagons and people might drive those instead. I personally doubt that since station wagons were generally longer than current SUVs and had much worse gas mileage. Most of todays SUVs get a lot better gas mileage than the huge vans I use to see around town (we owned a huge family van that got about 6 mpg). The only SUV that gets that bad of gas mileage, that I know of, is the Hummer, and most people don't drive those.

Re:anything

[polar red]

We are talking about a 2 foot sea level rise when all ice melts,we talk about a rise of about 70 meters, that's not even counting expansion of the water due to warmer weather; maximum levels were about 600 meters above current sea-level.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted there are sure to be some people who need cars to get around, but those people should be limited to farmers and the like. A major problem is urban sprawl. The farther apart people are the more expensive it is to offer some viable public transit options. It is incredibly wasteful, not only of gas, but of all the other materials it takes to build a car when one person is driving a 4 passenger car to work/the closest wal mart. If 80% of the population lives in the city then 80% of the population should be able to live without cars.

Re:anything

[polar red]

http://merkel.zoneo.net/Topo/Applet/

Re:anything

[j-turkey]

...but we can't get people to just not drive SUVs, or even go so low as to take the bus, or even walk to the store which is only a block away. I've never owned a car...

I don't mean to pick on you, but I've gotta sound off on this one. So having never owned a car, and most likely living in an area where one isn't necessary, you're saying that everyone should be more like you? From the sound of it, you live in NYC, where delivery and public transportation are totally ubiquitous. I've lived there, and miss it. However, NYC is unique, even among other large American cities. What you're asking for just isn't viable for most Americans.

Most Americans don't live in areas where public transportation is available, or is even feasible (most don't even live in an area with city blocks). Secondly, people with families need big vehicles to haul their kids around. Vehicles with lots of mass eat lots of fuel. Station wagons, minivans, and SUV's all tend to get pretty similar fuel economy because they're all tanks. SUV's are popular today -- tomorrow, it will be wagons, minivans, or something else big and heavy. Many people can't afford a big family vehicle and a small grocery-getter/commuter, so they must use their family car to commute/shop/whatever. I have more of a problem with how judgmental people tend to be, without giving the slightest hint of the benefit of doubt to ther fellow humans. SUV's aren't the problem, they're just a lightning rod for environmentalist rage. This way, everyone else contributes to a problem, but gets to point their fingers at everyone else (because they drive an SUV). To complicate things, SUV's are popular among the affluent, and this is the easiest argument that environmental activists get to make (that the rich are eating your lunch). Maybe rather than trying to tell everyone else how to live, we should forget about everyone else, and honestly take an inward look at how we live and try to make a change there. Let everyone else worry about themselves.

FWIW, I don't own an SUV and am not in any hurry to get one. I'm also not particularly affluent. If I had my way, people would finally see hybrid cars as an overpriced fad and buy diesels, which get better fuel economy in the real world (they're not designed to do well on EPA tests and poorly in day-to-day fuel economy) and have a proven track record for longevity and reliability. In my idealized world, Americans would also look at motorcycles as a viable alternative to cars, as they cause less traffic congestion and use less fuel. Furthermore, motorcycles are crazy fun :)

Re:anything

[Ogive17]

Just because you don't live in a major metropolitan area doesn't mean you can't have public transportation or a city designed for human beings. Quite a bit could be done to reduce or completely eliminate the need to own your own car. Well, actually it usually does. Lower population density typically makes it difficult to provide feasible mass transportation. I can call for a taxi if I want one, but it'll take 15-20 minutes for one to show up. And what makes a taxi on the road better than my car on the road? I'm willing to bet my car gets better mpg and has less emissions.

There was another poster who said most people who have SUVs or full sized pick-ups don't actually need them. While I agree that some people don't need them, I'd also like to say it depends on where you live. In colder climates, a heavier vehicle is better when the roads are bad. My civic is so light weight I could barely get it up a hill last week when we had a few inches of snow on the ground.

My overall point.. Don't pretend there is one option that is the best for everyone.

Re:anything

[Mister Whirly]

Actually, most of the "left" doesn't believe in God, or flying spaghetti monsters either...

Re:anything

[kuom]

Just because most people don't need it, doesn't make it wrong to own it. How many people need a 36" TV? I am sure someone can argue something like this completely made up statistics: "75% of the humans can see just fine on a 20" television, while the other 25% can see well on a 24" television." How many people need a 3.0GHz CPU? Or on that note, how many people really need computers? Maybe the fact that SUVs are so popular is because it solved a particular consumer problem.

Re:anything

[electroniceric]

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers.

Evidently the scientist in Mr. Caldwell and yourself feels no need to produce repeatable evidence for this claim. Show us the data, or quit repeating hearsay.

And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Is that why a guy who assumed the title of State Climatologist so he could sow doubt about global warming appears on CNN at least an order of magnitude more often than one of NASA's most senior and respected scientists? That definitely sounds like a media cover-up to me. C'mon, man, if you're going to use the tobacco lobby's disinformation techniques, at least use them with some finesse so they aren't just flopping around in the open all exposed and gooey.

He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun's magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

Clearly such mundane and well-researched explanations for warming as carbon-driven greenhouse effect must not be right, if far-fetched ideas like cosmic rays could be invoked to magically produce clouds that give us the explanation we hope is true. Who needs Occam's Razor when we've got Occam's Crazy Straw?!? As it happens, my father has spent years studying cosmic ray showers. His group, which works out of a ragtag lab called Los Alamos, is obvious unfamiliar with the power of Occam's Crazy Straw, so they have made no predictions of global temperature change whatsoever.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you're forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is "Why is east Antarctica getting colder?" It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you're at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it's confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

Amazing - someone must have broken into your ISP and blocked: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/, because it shows exactly the opposite effect (strong increases in surface air temps, offset by cooling in the stratosphere). Of course those silly NASA scientists are morons compared with some cold-fusion type cranks in a Danish basement producing unpublicable results. And as has been explained here countless times (though sadly without use of Occam's Crazy Straw), the word "global" next to "warming" means "averaging all over the globe", and therefore local cooling is not only permitted, it's often expected.

You have done an amazing job researching and writing a book that incorporates absolutely no verifiable scientific fact, but relies exclusively on crackpots, unlikely theories, and misinterpretation of existing science, and you are to be roundly commended for your Herculean efforts. Move over Intelligent Design, there's a new pseudoscience in town.

Re:anything

[operagost]

Why does everyone on Slashdot assume that the entire world lives in cities?

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, seriously. Lead is far more important even still. You people gotta learn to take care of your own.

Re:anything

[Spoke]

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter's billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages.

I stopped taking the author seriously after I read this line. The author obviously doesn't understand global warming, either and is using examples out of context to support his theory.

Global warming will cause an overall warming effect across the entire planet. Over the entire planet, some areas of the earth will cool significantly, some will not change at all, and others will get warmer. Weather in general will get more extreme - This means more drought, more heatwaves and yes, more freezes and freak blizzards.

While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

Nice, so give a hard number for how much ice has increased in the souther ocean, but decline to state by what percentage sea ice has declined in the Arctic. I suspect that Arctic ice has decreased by significantly more than 8%. I'm also sure that the collapse of that huge ice shelf in the Antarctic may have had something to do with the increase in sea ice in the southern oceans.

Re:anything

[BytePusher]

This article brings to mind one thought. Suppose the mechanism for global-warming is a natural(i.e. not caused by industrialization) and self stabilizing process. Currently, the process stabilizes at a point amiable to life on earth. Suppose then that we change the system(thousands of lenses, etc...) reducing the energy the earth absorbs from the sun by 1% or more. Where then would the process stabilize? It's hard to know. Maybe the whole earth will end up like Hawaii, but maybe it will end up like Antarctica. Then we wouldn't have enough energy(Mainly from food, since nearly all life on Earth is solar powered.) to reverse the changes we've made. I'm all for being cautious by reducing emissions, dependence on oil and such, but it seems just as irresponsible to take such aggressive and irreversible steps against a phenomenon we don't know exists for sure or if global-warming does exist, the details of how it works or un-works itself.

My fear is that the whole world seems to be in massive group-think mode regarding global-warming, which, in my opinion, has historically been a Bad Thing(tm).

Re:anything

[maxume]

You can solve half of your problems by being the guy who eats too much garlic. As a bonus, it's delicious.

Re:anything

[operagost]

Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space

Simple fact is, most people don't need the space!

I'd say a family of six does! But for the left, it's never about "need". It's about "you're an SUV-driving idiot."

Re:anything

[operagost]

No, but they drive old minivans that get worse mileage than a modern SUV.

Re:anything

[sleigher]

I would gladly ride the bus/train. If they can come up with a way for me to get from my house to the train station, and then from the train station to work, then keep the price for the total round trip less than driving I will do it. Additionally I am a consultant so sometimes I need to go from one work location to another in the middle of the day and back quickly. Or if I have to respond after hours or weekends. The times I have been to Europe have shown me that it is indeed possible. America just needs to get the will to do it. --

Re:anything

[operagost]

And I don't seem to be unhappy because of it.

I would be pretty damn unhappy walking around indoors with 40C heat. How do you keep your computer from crashing?

Re:anything

[Bluesman]

Actually, you do need the space, because of various laws passed for "protecting the safety of children."

It used to the be the case that you could hold your kid on your lap in the passenger seat, or let them sit in the back seat *without a child seat* before they were old enough to vote.

These days, you need a huge vehicle just to be able to fit all the ridiculously huge safety gear that the law REQUIRES you to have.

I'm glad you made the comment that you did. It's a perfect illustration, of how one group who has no idea how the another group must live, can nevertheless radically affect them through well-intentioned knee-jerk reactions.

Re:anything

[sleigher]

no family needs an SUV. My family has one car. A station wagon. Room for all the kids, the dog and whatever we need to bring on the trip. Still get 25 MPG highway. Not great but better than an SUV.

Re:anything

[Mister Whirly]

You must not have got the letter from the White House. Even Bush now claims he has been saying global warming not only exists, but man is contributing to it, ever since he took office.

Also, the author really need to learn what the word "average" means. He sounds ridiculous making statements like - "So one awkward question you can ask, when you're forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is "Why is east Antarctica getting colder?" It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming".

Maybe what makes it an awkward question is his limited understanding of simple scientific concepts, and common word meanings?

Re:anything

[sponglish]

Clearly such mundane and well-researched explanations for warming as carbon-driven greenhouse effect must not be right, if far-fetched ideas like cosmic rays could be invoked to magically produce clouds that give us the explanation we hope is true.

Shazam! You write it and it appears:

A team of more than 60 scientists from around the world are preparing to conduct a large-scale experiment using a particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, to replicate the effect of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere.

They hope this will prove whether this deep space radiation is responsible for changing cloud cover. If so, it could force climate scientists to re-evaluate their ideas about how global warming occurs.

Mr Svensmark's results show that the rays produce electrically charged particles when they hit the atmosphere. He said: "These particles attract water molecules from the air and cause them to clump together until they condense into clouds."

Mr Svensmark claims that the number of cosmic rays hitting the Earth changes with the magnetic activity around the Sun. During high periods of activity, fewer cosmic rays hit the Earth and so there are less clouds formed, resulting in warming.

Low activity causes more clouds and cools the Earth.

Here's more detail on Svensmark's experiment that prompted the larger test:

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

Re:anything

[soft_guy]

How come Europe has so much better public transit then? Who the fuck cares? I DON"T LIVE IN EUROPE!!!! I'm not a citizen of a european country. I've never been to europe. So, it isn't an option to me. It is totally irrelevant.

Re:anything

[GooberToo]

As for the first part of your post, fine...I already said you're free to argue other merits. I'm just not willing to do so. My contention was at the assertion that most families require SUVs as no other options exist. Simple fact is, most families do NOT require SUVs and a much more effecient alternative exists. If people want to own one, fine, but can we please stop with the BS that ALL families can't survive without an SUV? Sure, some families do require large vehicles, but saidly, these days, most that can afford the worst offenders don't even qualify as an "atomic family." Which is to say, last I heard, most SUV owners have zero to two kids. Go figure.

Maybe the fact that SUVs are so popular is because it solved a particular consumer problem.

Which problem might that be? How to raise gas prices for all consumers? Or the ever popular, how to be a herd animal? Joking aside, for the bulk of SUV owners, it's a status symbol and NOT a consumer problem which was solved.

Re:anything

[GooberToo]

And these are the same folks that I wouldn't bat an eye at for driving an SUV. I believe large families, which are by far the minority, were exempt from my statement as I said, "*most* families."

BTW, last I heard, they stopped making station wagons because no one was buying them except for the few large families which required them. These days, fewer people even have large families. That alone tells you that MOST buyers of SUVs are not buying them to cruise their kids around. SUVs are a status symbol, plain and simple.

There is a difference between *NEED* and someone trying to compensate for loose fitting underwear.

Re:anything

[Mad Dog Manley]

Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space

Bull. My parents had a piece of crap, small Lada that had springs coming out of the seats. We were 4 kids, and somehow, just somehow, my parents were able to get us around and survive.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so glad you finally woke me up. Here I was believing I needed a car for my 68 mile round-trip commute. Why, I should just bike to work -- assuming an average of 15 mph that's only 2 hours to work and 2 hours home. Who wouldn't relish 4 hours of commute on top of a 10 hour day?

Next you might ask why I live 34 miles from work. Well, it didn't used to be that way. But some asshats flying airplanes into buildings pretty much destroyed the industry I worked in for a few years, so that nice job only 5 miles from home evaporated. I could move closer to work, assuming I could come up with the half a million bucks for a house and continue to make the payments on my current house (the house next door, very similar in size, price, and features to mine has been on the market for 9 months and it's unlikely it'll be sold any time soon).

Finances wouldn't be so bad, but my wife's career was destroyed by a medical condition.

Other than that, sure, everyone can live close to work.

Re:anything

[GooberToo]

Yes I understand you're a troll...but I'll bite.

Actually, you do need the space, because of various laws passed for "protecting the safety of children."

According to you, parents can not legally drive their child/children around in a Ford Escort?

Now that's funny.

I'm ignoring the rest of your inane blathering.

Go back to your bridge, troll. LOL.

Re:anything

[GooberToo]

I had no idea they were still making station wagons. I'd heard rumors they were talking about bringing them back. Are you driving an older one or a newer one?

Re:anything

[cayenne8]

"People will drive to the store when it's only a 5 minute walk away and they spend more time waiting for their car to warm up."

What is this warming a car up you speak of? hehhe...depends on the climate you live in I guess.

I recently moved to where I do actually have a grocery store nearby...I'm in some apts (3rd floor) since Katrina ran me out of NOLA. I buy groceries once a week...and there is no way I could carry that much walking 5 blocks down the street...especially during the summer (approx May-Nov down here), or in the rain (which it does a lot) with that many groceries. As it is, I have to often make 2-3 trips up and down the stairs to my car to get all my stuff up the stairs.

However, this is really the first time I've ever lived anywhere so close to a shopping center...in the past, I usually hit 2-3 different stores on my shopping day, to get the various specials, double/triple coupons...etc. On those days...I would easily cover 10-20+ miles just on grocery shopping. I'll grant you sometimes I only need a few things...at my present location, I try to stop by the store on the way home (already have my car, since my daily to work and back is about 77mi). Back when I was at the old place, for small runs, I'd take my motorcycle to the store....

Just saying, in the US, the VAST majority of people don't have any way to get and do things without a car...distances are just too much...and what public transport there is..is slow, you can't depend on the schedule...and there is usually a large distance to be covered on foot since the pickup/drop off points aren't generally anywhere near where you need to be for work, etc.

Not to mention, it isn't too good to show up for work, sweatsoaked or drenched from rain (southern Louisiana) waiting and walking from bus. You gotta have A/C on down here from about May-Nov.

So...in many parts of the US...just not practical at all not to have a car and use it.

Re:anything

[cayenne8]

"I think you misunderstand. My point was that a tax on the desired output you want to reduce is the most efficient and least inconvenient way to solve the problem..."

I think that many in this country have lost sight of what taxes are for....

They should only be levied in order to pay for govt. services, no more or less.

They are not there to promote social behaviors....at least...they should not be.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how people think walking to the store and turning their appliances off at night is the answer to global warming. It will require industry and governments to change the way they operate. Coal power plants seem like an obvious place to start. The US military's use of oil is another one.

If you want to make a difference as an invidual than you should organize and protest but if it makes you feel better to use a zip car to drive the Phish concert than by all means. Make sure you turn your lights off before you leave.

Re:anything

[stud9920]

I'll give you a counter example: I am a paraglider pilot. We generally manage to squeeze FOUR adults, plus FOUR huge bags. They are really huge, you could carry a person in them. And that's in a station wagon. Make it easily SIX in a minivan.

Driving hundreds of kilometers in the station wagons is not uncommon as we are from a flat country and need hills to take off.

And I have not started yet about the assault tank structure of SUVs. Give me a break; as paraglider pilots, WE are driving in muddy,hilly terrain. And we are happy with our station wagons or superminis for all it matters. An SUV is not needed, especially with leather seats.

Ironically, as paraglider pilots, we are well aware that driving 500km for generally nothing, potentially a 5 minutes flight and exceptionally a 3 hour cross country flight is not the summum of fuel efficiency. But at least we are not going there with a road monster that could be better used by the soccer mom who needs it for her groceries.

Re:anything

[cayenne8]

"Both vehicles get better gas mileage than the station wagon my aunt drove."

Hehehe..that reminds me...I've always wanted to get one of those old '75-'76 Trans-Ams, the last years of the 455 engine. Hehehe..I always thought it kind of neat that they put a stationwagon engine in a normal sized car. Got about 10 gallons to the mile, but, man, that was fun.

I keep an eye on eBay...they can still be found, I'd like to have one for the weekends....

Re:anything

[maxume]

Trucks without four wheel drive generally suffer from being rear wheel drive; most cars, including your civic, handle just as well or better in low traction situations than a truck without four wheel drive.

Re:anything

[Maxo-Texas]

I think you could just stop at "The problem is that there's just too many people."

We can keep cutting our lifestyles to the point where we avoid beans so the methane from multitudes of humans don't impact the atmosphere or we can get the population back down to 3 Billion and live on a paradise planet with a great deal of freedom.

Re:anything

[cayenne8]

"Just because you don't live in a major metropolitan area doesn't mean you can't have public transportation or a city designed for human beings.Quite a bit could be done to reduce or completely eliminate the need to own your own car."

And who exactly is going to pay the exhorbant cost of retooling entire cities to set this situation up? Lordy..I can't imagine what it would take to tear up Houston for rail, and get busses all coordinated to take you all over town....That is one metropolitan area they'd have to nuke, and start all over with in order to make it public transportation friendly as you picture it.

Most cities are that way...and the costs to overhaul the current hwy system in them, is not practical. Not in a city that take you an hour or more to cross....on a good day with light traffic.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Some families are large enough that they will not fit into a normal car.

Re:anything

[UbuntuDupe]

Yes and no. If you're referring to the practice of trying to prod people into doing stuff we think has some sorta-kinda long term benefit, like owning a home, or going to school, I agree. But if you're referring to making people pay for their torts through something called a "tax", I disagree. If someone e.g. dumps garbage on your lawn, they should pay for it. I see nothing wrong -- from a libertarian perspective -- of "taxing" "lawn garbage dumping" and applying the proceeds to its cleanup. (It would have to be high enough that the victim would just barely prefer having the garbage dumped.) Allowing people to dump costs on others without paying is as bad as tax, and undesirable for the same reasons.

If CO2 emissions perform that function (and that's the mother of all if's), then it's not unreasonable to assess emittors an amount equal to their quotal share of the minimal cleanup cost, after discounting for time and the uncertainty of the science. But I seriously doubt that once you did the calculation, most environmentalists would consider it "high enough".

Re:anything

[hansonc]

http://www.epa.gov/emissweb/wgn-07.htm

I see Subaru wagon's pretty much everyday with 3-4 teenagers with snowboards or ski equipment on the top or in the back. The newer Legacy wagons get between 19 and 30 mpg depending on the configuration.

Yeah I'll be the first to admit that 19mpg doesn't sound that great until you consider that the Ford Explorer, one of if not the most popular vehicles of the last 15 years, gets between 15 and 21mpg.

Re:anything

[Martin Blank]

Southern California, actually, and more specifically Orange County. There was a line that was supposed to run from Fullerton in the north of the county to Irvine in the south end, but the Irvine residents managed to block it because it would bring too many people to their area. I think part of the reason they fought it is the perception that public transit is for poor people.

They also fought the airport (conversion from the old El Toro MCAS) using some very dodgy tactics, suggesting that aircraft would have trouble clearing hills on a northbound departure. However, loaded C-5 Galaxies never had such trouble, and it's widely believed that they just didn't want the sound nearby for fear of losing value on their homes, even though abatement was planned into the project. I'm sure some of them also didn't want a few thousand white collar jobs invading their cushy gated communities as well.

Re:anything

[ksheff]

people in those areas got along just fine with normal cars before SUVs became popular, so they don't really NEED SUVs either.

Re:anything

[sleigher]

Well it's a '96. So a few years old but I refuse to buy a new car. So many nice cars can be had for so much cheaper if you buy as a second owner.

Re:anything

[boingo82]

SUV's (and also minivans) came out around the same time as seatbelt laws.

Big families went places before SUVs and minivans, but they did so by tossing all kids unbelted in the backseat (and one in the back window) and holding baby on mom's lap.

That's not legal anymore, and it's impossible to fit 3 child safety seats in most sedans now. Since kids have to be in a child safety seat or a booster until age 7 in some states, it's likely that a family would have 3 or more children in these seats, necessitating an SUV or minivan.

In my particular car, we are able to fit 2 safety seats in back but it is not possible to seat someone between them. With safety seats in place our Altima seats 4, tops, and the occupant in front of the rear-facing seat better be short.

Improved safety regulations made people purchase large cars that they don't need EVERY day, because on the off chance you need to transport more than 5 people, they ALL need to be buckled. Most of us can't afford to buy a minivan/SUV AND a small, efficient car, so we have to lug around all that excess steel even when going by ourselves to work.

Think about it...the reason the minivan succeeded when it did was not because people started having bigger families....it was because child safety seats had just hit the market, and because seatbelt laws were just starting to. The families weren't new, the greed wasn't new, but the need to seatbelt everyone was.

Re:anything

[Skreems]

Is walking out of the question? I've noticed a much greater willingness to walk long distances to reach public transport in European cities, and even some of the larger cities in the US. But in smaller cities, and certain areas of the country, suggesting to someone that they walk 3/4 of a mile to reach a public transport stop would result only in laughter.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, people choose where they want to live.

Thats correct forgive me if I find the idea of living in a innercity hell hole less then appealing.

That's funny. My parents, who drive more than I'd like (although, less than average), have a VW Jetta running on biodiesel. There were no state guards at the pump physically preventing us from filling up.

Right tell you what lets see that Jetta make it 5 miles on wasboard road in the winter and up a half mile driveway. All winter.

Do you really need to drive half a mile to the grocery store?

No I don't I have to drive 40MN ONE WAY to the nearest box store. Walking that would be about three days one way.

I live in a city and I bike everywhere

Good for you do you want a cookie now?

Face it not every one wants to either live like that or looks up to your shinging example.
What is with the controll issues anyway?

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that's a good idea. If we all have our groceries delivered and rent cars, then we could blame the grocery store's vechicles and rental agencies for the changing climate.
If you don't need a car, fine. 90% of us do and will continue to need transportation. I can't walk 15 miles in 30 minutes, taxi fare would kill me and there are no busses where I live.

We'll always need more power; and we need it with less pollution. People should just invest in replacing fossil fuels with some other promising tech like betavoltaics.

Re:anything

[boingo82]

You'd be surprised. When my evaporative cooler broke last summer, temps reached 104 (40c) in our house. It is MISERABLE - all you can do is lay there and moan about how hot it is - but the computer did keep functioning, fancy graphics card and all. It never crashed due to the heat but you would not believe the fan noise. The fridge also ran constantly and the exterior was hot to the touch.

Re:anything

[HappyDrgn]

A liver is a physical part of a person, but that does not stop over 60% of the adult united states population from drinking... point is, physical extension of our body or not, a good portion of people just don't care about the filth they live in and the dangers they pose to themselves or the planet.

Re:anything

[blank_reg_0]

It seems to me that the best solution is taxation and subsidization. All that needs to be done is to increase the tax on gas and use the revenue generated to subsidize public transportation, if you do this enough eventually people will decide that it is too expensive to drive themselves and start using public transportation which in turn will be cheaper since the people who don't want to use it will be helping pay for it. We don't need any sort of an expensive and pain in the ass tax system when taxing is as easy as increasing the tax on gas, which in and of itself rewards people more or less directly on the cause of concern, the usage of gas. There is no need to individually regulate citizens when a general solution will have the same effect. The actual rate of taxation will be dynamic in order to fine tune the system, In my opinion a good place to start would be a rate at which people don't have to pay to use the bus system. As the economy sits now I believe that anything below about 4$/gallon and people will continue to drive to work.

The most general solution is quite often the best.

Re:anything

[hiroller]

You know, I've been thinking along the same lines lately. I've always been a big believer in the greenhouse theory and have made changes in my lifestyle to reflect it (i.e., I ride a bicycle to local fruit stands instead of driving to the grocery store, etc). But the more I watch and learn about the theories concerning our planet, the more I wonder if we could be mistaken. One of the things I keep wondering about is that the earth's magnetic poles are in continous movement. This movement seems to cause a fluctuation in the earth's electromagnetic field, decreasing it as much as %10 since the 19th century. Since this protects us from global winds, could this not be a part of the problem or is this already considered in teh current calculations for global warming?

Another point that I have been pondering is that even if global warming is caused by man, it is pretty arrogant of us to believe that we will kill the earth (or all of the life found on it). It seems very likely that we could kill ourselves and most of the organisms that are adapted to the world as we know it, but life will still live on. This has already occurred during the Great Dying. So in a sense, we are really trying to save ourselves from ourselves

Re:anything

[UbuntuDupe]

The most general solution is quite often the best.

I agree, but that's exactly what's wrong with part of your plan. Why subsidize public transportation, which is just one of many solutions to congestion that people might prefer? Once the toll is in place, people can choose whatever method they like that is compatible with that cost. Some may carpool. Some may find it worth it to pay the huge toll. Some may use buses. Some may switch work hours.

But first of all, why try to tackle congestion with a pollution tax? You should tax pollution for polluting and congestion for congesting. Crossing them is counterproductive. If you have an enormous tax on gasoline, people can congest traffic just the same by switching to electric cars that get an effective 1000+ miles per gallon (due to most of their fuel coming from non-fossil-fuel sources).

I also would have to disagree that $4/gal will get people to stop driving to work. It's not even close. I estimate in my journal entry, it would have to get up to $30 each way to thin the traffic.

Re:anything

[ElectricRook]

I think you misunderstand. My point was that a tax on the desired output you want to reduce is the most efficient and least inconvenient way to solve the problem

This is the first step to oppressing a minority...

"Those damn Jews are ruining the country", is exactly how AH started his show.

Only this time around, it's those damn Conservatives. We need to stop those people at all costs, before they cause the end of us all!!! It's for the common good.

Next week, it's those damn [Mexicans|Negros|Libertarians|Chinese]...

Dude, go back and read some George Orwell.

Re:anything

[Shajenko42]

Ok! We'll just tear down all the cities and rebuild them with mass transport in mind!

Re:anything

[ArcherB]

people in those areas got along just fine with normal cars before SUVs became popular, so they don't really NEED SUVs either.

Practice what you preach! People got along just fine with computers before the Internet became popular, so you don't really NEED to post on slashdot either!

Re:anything

[ArcherB]

Hehehe..that reminds me...I've always wanted to get one of those old '75-'76 Trans-Ams, the last years of the 455 engine. Hehehe..I always thought it kind of neat that they put a stationwagon engine in a normal sized car. Got about 10 gallons to the mile, but, man, that was fun.

Actually, my cousin took the 327 out of the station wagon mentioned above and dropped it into a Chevy Vega. My God that car would fly!

Re:anything

[ArcherB]

Figures I'd get someone who trades in probably the most efficient SUV out there for an equally efficient minivan. Damn you, Toyota! ;-)

I was thinking more along the lines of a Dodge Durango, Ford Explorer, Chevrolet TrailBlazer style SUV vs most minivans. I shudder to think of the Lincoln Navigator types when they hit the pumps.

Well, if you want full disclosure, we traded in a Ford Explorer (V-8 w/ all time 4WD) to get the 4-Runner. It got between 15 and 20. I agree that the Excursion is a bit much for southern city driving.

Re:anything

[budgenator]

Still anything we do isn't going to change the peat bog burning in Borneo, or slash and burning the Brazilian rainforest to grow sugar cane to make ethanol for fuel.

Re:anything

[St3v3J0bz]

Uhh? Volkwagen makes a couple wagens. (Or at least up to 2006 they did.) 60 mpg with the TDI? But I suppose thats apples to oranges considering its a diesel engine. The hybrid SUVs don't even get 60 mpg.

Re:anything

[SaDan]

We're talking about a family with four kids, so that implies seating for six.

I agree, four adults plus baggage isn't going to be a big deal for most sedans or wagons these days.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good principle for people, on average, to try and live closer to work if at all possible. It is sad that it can't be the case for you, and I am sure that the commute doesn't help your quality of life (especially if sadly your wife has a medical condition) compared to an equivalent job
closer.

Aiming, on average, to shorten commute times and generally drive in a more efficient way (combine multiple things into a single trip, for example
- e.g. pick up groceries on the way back from work with a small detour rather than making a separate trip that is longer in total) helps. It
also saves money, reduces dependence on foreign oil, leaves more oil in the ground for making things, and all sorts of stuff. Different things
will work for different people, though.

Other things we may see more of are flexible working hours (congestion with current vehicles reduces fuel economy, although it would trouble electric
vehicles somewhat less) and some working from home. I don't think working from home all the time works for most people, or even most businesses (even
high tech ones) but for some one or two days working from home a week might be possible and it could make a significant impact on road use and also
reduce congestion for those who are driving at peak times. I don't know if you work in an industry that would allow it, but it might be an option.

Car pooling can be an option for some. Again it takes planning and won't work for everyone, and can be difficult if people are trying to combine
it with flexible hours and some home working too or have longer commutes. It's something we'll probably see more of in the future, though, with
probably more sophisticated car pooling partner matching systems. Of a slightly different nature is the old 'company bus' scheme which picks up
workers from their doors each morning even in areas poorly served by other mass transit systems and takes them to the place of work.

Finally according to an article in The Economist a few months ago cutting back the speed limit on roads to no more than 55 would lead to a reduction
in gasoline requirements of something like 15%. Journey times for long trips would be increased but most trips people do are relatively short or the
portion at over 55 is relatively short in time duration so for most routine trips (perhaps not your commute, though) people wouldn't really lose
out much. Cars tend to lose fuel economy quite rapidly above 55, though, so the effects on overall fuel use are quite significant.

Re:anything

[Keebler71]

Amazing - someone must have broken into your ISP and blocked: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ [nasa.gov], because it shows exactly the opposite effect (strong increases in surface air temps, offset by cooling in the stratosphere). Of course those silly NASA scientists are morons compared with some cold-fusion type cranks in a Danish basement producing unpublicable results. And as has been explained here countless times (though sadly without use of Occam's Crazy Straw), the word "global" next to "warming" means "averaging all over the globe", and therefore local cooling is not only permitted, it's often expected.

I am not positive but I am pretty sure that we didn't have weather satellites in 1880. The GP's claim was that the best source of temp data (US Weather Sats) show the temp to be fluctuting about a constant mean. Your rebuttal links to NASA networks of land wx survey sites. A staple claim by the anti-GW crowd is that the measured temp increases are an artifact of wx data being taken in urban areas which are warming due to "heat island" effects independent of a constant temp outside of the urban area.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

"What would help quite a lot is converting from coal and petroleum to nuclear power generation. That would pretty much solve the problem over-night, slashing our CO2 production by nearly 50%!"

I wish it was so. I wish nuclear power had been expanded long ago (the French had the right idea). Planning to commissioning of a nuclear powerplant takes about 15 years, during which more carbon dioxide is expelled into the atmosphere for no power gain, making things worse. Gradually over the next 10 years it redeems itself and provides power up to the point at about 25 years from initial planning it is carbon neutral, and then a net gain. The problem is that if a mass building program of nuclear plants was started today it would be making things worse for 25 years. This is not to say that it is not worth doing, since coal plants (until clean coal and sequestration becomes a full commercial reality) are even worse, it is just that nuclear power is not a quick fix or panacea.

In any case I think new forms of generation need to be considered alongside efficiency, such as better insulation on houses and office buildings.
There is a carbon cost here, of course, in terms of transporting and machining the insulation and so on. It is certainly something to be
considered for new builds. In some parts of Europe the newest builds don't require heating in winter (admittedly the winters have been warmer
on average lately, but even so it's still fairly impressive). Insulation, shutters, thick curtains, glass treatments, awnings, building
orientation, or even well placed trees can also cut down on the requirement for air conditioning in summer.

In some instances these measures can lead to higher building costs, but sometimes these can be recovered quickly through reduced operating costs.
If a building is efficient enough not to need some of the usual systems (e.g. it is cool enough without air conditioning) systems can be
eliminated and recover some or all of the additional construction cost at construction time.

The ideal is to aim at lowering the carbon dioxide emissions without having to resort to living in yurts, i.e. retaining the same quality of life
and/or standard of living.

Re:anything

[Bigboote66]

Hybrids sound good, but really their efficiency is almost entirely based on their weight

Completely untrue. Compare, for example, the Toyota Yaris to the Toyota Prius:

Yaris: 2288 pounds, MPG: 34/40, with "real world" mpg being about 36.

Prius: 2932 pounds, MPG: 51/60, with "real world" mpg being about 45.

36 mpg is great gas mileage for a ICE car, but it's far short of 45. That's not saying that you shouldn't buy a smaller car if you can. My 1996 Maxima got, at most, 29 mpg (24 mpg mixed driving) when I first bought it, and it weighs only 80 pounds more than Prius. Sure, it's zippier, but did I really need that power? No; my next car will be small & efficient, possibly a hybrid.

Given that the Prius is almost 700 pounds, and 33% heavier than the Yaris, and gets 25% greater gas mileage, I'd say that weight is not really the most important aspect in its efficiency.

-BbT

Re:anything

[rbarreira]

No we don't, but the majority of pollution comes from cities, no?

Re:anything

[JesseMcDonald]

But if you're referring to making people pay for their torts through something called a "tax", I disagree. If someone e.g. dumps garbage on your lawn, they should pay for it. I see nothing wrong -- from a libertarian perspective -- of "taxing" "lawn garbage dumping" and applying the proceeds to its cleanup.

I don't think I disagree with the basic idea here, but what you're describing isn't a tax. Compensation for a tort is not taxation, and is determined on a case-by-case basis by the courts, not for all of society through a legislature. Up until fairly recently (the Industrial Revolution) this was exactly how pollution was handled, by the courts. That changed when the courts started taking cues from utilitarian calculus and merchantilism instead of the traditional common law; ergo our current dilemma.

Re:anything

[Omestes]

They should only be levied in order to pay for govt. services, no more or less.

This is not meant to be a troll, or flamebait, though it may be taken as such, but I feel obligated to ask "Why?" I've seen sentiments such as these bandied about on Slashdot pretty commonly, and no one ever really explains it. What is wrong with using taxes for punative, or behavior changing, reasons?

I'm not saying I personally think they should, or shouldn't be used in this way, I really don't have much of an opinion.

Curiously, couldn't punitive environmental taxation be seen "funding a government service", or at least future ones. The taxes could be seen as an offset for future expenses incurred by the effects of global warming (as caused by the taxed services). Again, I don't know if I buy this or not, it is a way of looking at it though.

Re:anything

[UbuntuDupe]

I understand, but I was saying was that, if e.g. garbage dumping became a common enough practice (for whatever reason), there would be nothing wrong with pre-empting the inevitable lawsuits by simply taxing the practice as it happened, and compensating the victims, and then anyone who thought that was insufficient could sue to recover the rest. The "tax" is thus justifiable as being, in essence, streamlined tort compensation.

Re:anything

[sleigher]

Well in some large cities in the US if you walk a mile outside in the summer you are risking your health. I wish I could still live in the city and walk everywhere. When I lived in S.F. I rarely rode the bus because I walked almost everywhere and it was great. Now with my line of work, and having kids, almost impossible not to have a car. I will say that we have one car though. My wife and I agree to have one car. Most families have 2 or even 3 cars. When we can, we will be getting a more fuel efficient car than what we have.

Re:anything

[AoT]

Compensation for a tort is not taxation, and is determined on a case-by-case basis by the courts, not for all of society through a legislature.

I think the idea is that it is possible to determine a standardized cost for doing certain things. Say, for every Kilo of CO2 release $X amount of harm is done, then someone who release Y Kilos of CO2 must pay $XY.

The real problem with this scheme is where the money ends up. Because if history is any guide then the poor will end up not getting anything, the middle-class will get stilts (you know, for when the water rises), and the rich will get the rest of the money.

Re:anything

[AoT]

We're talking about taxes, not rounding people up.

Tool.

Re:anything

[Overly Critical Guy]

Global warming will cause an overall warming effect across the entire planet. Over the entire planet, some areas of the earth will cool significantly, some will not change at all, and others will get warmer. Weather in general will get more extreme - This means more drought, more heatwaves and yes, more freezes and freak blizzards.

You mean like the freak hurricanes we were supposed to get in 2006, as predicted by climate scientists last year? Oh, that didn't happen. Well, there's always the rise in global temperatures. Oh, yeah, the global temperature record shows no rise since 1999. Hmm. Well, let's just believe what Al Gore tells us and never question anything. It's easier that way.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Orbiting umbrellas are exactly the right approach.

The orbit we want is around the sun, at the L1 position between the sun and the earth.

What we want to put there is a very large array of solar sails that "float" on the solar wind, and block a good portion of the sun's energy from reaching the earth.

What we want to make it out of is located on the moon. Boosting it from the moon to L1 by overcoming the moon's 1/6 G gravity is a job for electrical mass drivers.

When we want to do it is about 80 years from now, when there is already an array of space elevators to get things to space cheaply and colonies on the moon to manufacture the solar sails.

And finally, we don't want to go wrecking the present economy with carbon-limiting strategies that may or may not succeed, but are guaranteed to succeed in wrecking the economies of the industrialized nations, most notably the USA.

This problem is simple, if expensive to fix, but the good thing is we can put it off until its cheaper.

Re:anything

[ray-auch]

Going away for the weekend isn't too much of a problem. Renting a car for 1 weekend a month costs less than most people's insurance.


You must have awfully cheap rental or awfully expensive insurance (at least compared to here).

I just got the insurance renewal for our family car (an MPV, which does low mileage, used maybe once a week during the week and once in every two or three weekends, plus maybe 3 week-long holidays /yr). About 350 (GBP). Renting the same car (well, similar size but lower spec) over a weekend would cost me close to 200 just for one weekend. Even for only 12 weekends a year you'd need a weekend rental at 10 per day - that would cover just the insurance excess-reduction on the rental.

Overall, excluding fuel (but including depreciation etc.) the car probably costs 4k / yr. Sounds expensive for something we don't use that often, but it's still cheaper than renting anything close to the same vehicle for the same usage.

Re:anything

[Capsaicin]

Please guys there is nothing insightful about this post whatsoever. In the first place it merely cut and pasted an article from elsewhere (how much insight does that require?) Secondly Calder's article has already been debunked.

The Svensmark experiment was doing the rounds 6 months ago. Are the Denialists running out of steam?

Re:anything

[misleb]

Second, the problem isn't in owning SUV's or other gas guzzling cars, it's the fact that those cars (and car makers, oil companies, and government decision makers) are forcing us to power those vehicles with petroleum. The idea of getting rid of these vehicles is a crude attempt to treat the symptom and not the disease. Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space,

This argument always bothered me. First of all, I've never found SUV's to be particularly spacious. I mean, they have front seats and back seats like any other car. How much space to kids in a backseat need, anyway? The extra space is hauling capcity, really. And in my experience, such space almost never gets used. So what you end up with is a jacked up car with 4 wheel drive and an appetite for fuel. If a family really needs space, minivans are the way to go. But guess what? Minivans aren't cool. SUV's are. SUVs are status symbols.

make it bad that no one seems interested in solutions to powering these vehicles differently.

But that's just it, the fact that so many people put themselves into large debt just to own a gas guzzling SUV is the sign that nobody seems interested. While outlawing SUV's won't solve the problem, SUV's are still part of it... or at least a symbol of it.

In short, just keep in mind that your particular circumstance (i.e. being able to walk to the store and carry your groceries home) isn't necessarily everyone else's (like the mother of 4 with the SUV...imagine her carrying those groceries when the nearest store is 7 miles away)

So an SUV is required to get groceries if the store is 7 miles away?

I'll grant you that some people need to own a car... but very few actually utilize an SUV.

I do get a kick out of the mother of 4 driving around in an H2. How much are those things, anyway? Aren't there better things a mother of 4 could be spending her money on? Maybe college? Maybe private/extra schooling?

-matthew

Re:anything

[Omestes]

Never had a problem with computers here in AZ. I've sat around in a 107-110F apartment, sans air conditioning, with nary a crash. I've sat around at Starbucks with my old iBook in 117 degree heat writing a couple time, granted only for the length of a cigarette, with no ill effects.

I have an old 8086 that ran find when it hit 122, and our AC crapped out, with no problems.

I think it has to be substantially hotter to really matter too much.

Re:anything

[Capsaicin]

Suppose the mechanism for global-warming is a natural(i.e. not caused by industrialization) and self stabilizing process.

But we know with 90% confidence that it isn't natural (ie it has been caused by industrialisation). Why would we want to make such a fancyful supposition?!

That being said, we don't have to go around making counter-factual assumptions to be extremely worried about the unanticipated effects of taking "aggressive and irreversible" steps to cool the planet down.

Re:anything

[Spoke]

Climatologists explained why we didn't get more hurricanes than usual in 2006. A quick google search for "2006 hurricanes global warming" quickly presents several reasons:

1. 2006 Ocean surface temps in the North Atlantic have cooled down, while the media in 2005 led people to believe that 2006 would be more of the same. I could not find any concrete evidence that in general scientists agreed that 2006 would be a record hurricane year.
2. The link between global warming and large tropical storms seems to be under some debate.

Please provide a source for your theory that global temps have not risen since 1999. All the plots I have seen show 1999 as an abnormally hot year, again showing how some would like to pick one single data point to support their views. The same people would like to use the current record snow fall in NY or the record cold in CA earlier this year as proof that the earth isn't warming.

If you follow the trend from the past 50 years (or longer) it is quite clear that global temperatures are rising.

Re:anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey mods: Please take a look at parent's profile. This post is obviously not "Interesting", but a cut-n-paste Troll like the rest of the user's plagerized posts, spread mostly offtopic, like so much manure.

Re:anything

[JesseMcDonald]

I understand, but I was saying was that, if e.g. garbage dumping became a common enough practice (for whatever reason), there would be nothing wrong with pre-empting the inevitable lawsuits by simply taxing the practice as it happened, and compensating the victims, and then anyone who thought that was insufficient could sue to recover the rest. The "tax" is thus justifiable as being, in essence, streamlined tort compensation.

First, the only reason you need to "streamline" anything is that the courts aren't doing their job. There's no reason why a court ruling has to be any more expensive than the sort of tax you're proposing. Either way someone -- probably a consumer organization of some sort -- will have to investigate the polluter and gather evidence. One of the victims will have to file for arbitration and win a ruling against the polluter. At that point the polluter's actions are established fact and it ought to be trivial for the other victims to win similar rulings -- all they have to do is show that those same actions affected them. Why isn't it that simple? Well, you tell me -- what is the typical result of an enforced monopoly? Private arbitration exists, but only when both parties agree in advance on an arbiter. Private arbitration also lacks the use of most forms of non-aggressive (defensive) force that government courts wield. Put private arbiters on equal footing with government courts and I guarantee that the price of resolving disputes like this would decrease dramatically. (Obviously this would also mean taking some truly aggressive actions away from the government courts, too -- most contempt-of-court sentences, for example.)

Second, as another responder pointed out, the taxees and payees in your system does not precisely correspond to the offenders and victims. You can't just average everything out and expect the system to remain just; justice depends on all the little details you're trying to "streamline" away. If you're actually going to prove each offender's guilt, determine the harm caused to each victim by each offender, and transfer exactly that amount from each offender to each victim, then -- well congratulations, you've just reinvented the court system. If not then it's almost a certainty that you'd be stealing from some entities and overcompensating others, and probably losing a lot of the "compensation" to third parties in the process. The latter two obviously aren't much of a problem of themselves (from a rights p.o.v.), but the former is. Any private party that put such a system into practice would rightly be called a thief; I see no reason to hold a government organization to any lesser standard.

Re:anything

[toddestan]

Actually, the reason why the station wagon died out is that under the cafe regulations, they are cars. Cars are held to a more strict safety and environmental standard than light trucks (SUVs, etc.). Because of this, it meant that SUVs weren't competing on the same playing field with stations wagons, and station wagons simply couldn't compete (except where price wasn't such a big deal, such as Mercedes). This is also the reason why, a few years back, Subaru jacked up the frame and put bigger tires on some of their wagons to get it out of the car category and into the light truck category.

Part of the solution to the SUV problem is to make them meet the same CAFE standards as cars. This would jack the price of SUVs up to where they should be, and sales would naturally drop.

Re:anything

[toddestan]

And some families are just too big. Overpopulation is another problem we face, there is no reason for more than 3 kids, and most families should have only 2.

Re:anything

[toddestan]

Heavier vehicles in colder climates are generally bad. They have more momentum, they are harder to control, and they generally have a higher center of mass. All of those are bad in slippery situations, and that's why you see disproportionally more SUVs and trucks in the ditch whenever it snows. Of course, higher ground clearance and more mass can benefit in deep snow, but having to drive through deep snow is fairly rare, while slippery roads is a lot more common - even in Minnesota.

Re:anything

[electroniceric]

Ahem. While Svensmark's results are indeed interesting, you don't think that based on the results of a single lab experiment claiming that everyone else's assessment are wrong is a
wee bit premature? This is yet another example of misusing results, and Svensmark should really be embarrassed about his tactics. Rather like how Pons and Fleischer reacted to their now-infamous results.

There are indeed plenty of interesting questions to ask and answer about global climate change, but somehow the anti-GW crowd always manages to seize on each new discovery as evidence of wrongness and wrongheadedness on the part of the climate science community about the diagnosis of anthropogenic warming. And the reason denialists don't like that diagnosis is not because of science (except maybe old-guarders like Lindzen), but because the policy implications don't line up neatly with this or that view of the world they have. There is no science in climate denialism, because the questions all flow from the answer - which must be that people are not responsible for warming - rather than vice-versa. As I said before, this is exactly the same as Intelligent Design, where the answer that God created the world begets a series questions to demonstrate this, rather than vice-versa.

Note that to get any of your above "questions" to line up with your chosen answer requires bringing together a misintepretation of data (localized Antarctic cooling is indeed happening but is in no way contradictory to current understanding of climate change) two allegations of conspiracy (the refusals to publish Svensmark's results AND the so-called lack of media coverage, despite that obvious fallacies in both conspiracy theories), an as-yet uncorroborated laboratory finding that's been inflated into a unjustified conclusion about climate change and a counterfactual claim (please, please look at the GISS data - when you don't incorrectly average in the vertical, the data does not show stabilized surface air temperatures, it shows a dramatic increase in surface air temperatures in all but a few places in the world - that's where the records for warmest years come from, and to the point of the child post below this, the issues about urban areas are directly address in the current IPCC assessment and do not have a substantial impact). This is what's so infuriating about this whack-a-mole game. Any single random potshot that happens to land is trumpeted as evidence that the whole can be shot to pieces. Every time you dig into one of these arguments, there's never reputable, reproduceable science behind it. There are plenty of open questions about climate change, but the ones you're trying to keep open have been closed. If you are really interested in the science, start asking questions about what the variability between model runs means for predictions (which, quite reasonably, are still at least a half an order of magnitude apart).

Re:anything

[wrook]

I have to admit that I tend to stay away from discussions of animal products. For most of the past 5 years I have been vegan. Some people think I'm an animal rights activist for some reason. But really, I don't see animal products fitting into a sustainable lifestyle. Lately I've begun to eat some animal products, though. I started to realize that taking an extreme position made me look like a loony (whether I am or not -- jury's still out ;-) ). Now I simply eat vegan at home, and eat whatever is easy when I'm not. I don't tell people that I have any special dietary requirements. But when they come over to my place and realize that I only ever serve vegan food, they usually figure it out. But I have helped a few people to enjoy eating veggie from time to time. And I figure that getting 10 people to eat veggie once a week is better than me eating veggie every day.

I guess the reason I posted is sort of to tell people that you can cut back on some things and still be happy. In fact, when you take something out of your life it is always replaced by something else. That other thing may be just as good, or even better. For instance, I love taking the bus. It's very relaxing compared to struggling with rush hour traffic. Not having a car means that I can't run around and to everything on a whim. But that means that my life is much more calm and predictable. I have to cook for myself, too. But that saves me money and I've found that my cooking is better than the restaurants I might go to.

OK, I haven't been without my car for very long, but I've been slowly trying to move towards a more sustainable lifestyle for many years now. Doing so seems to have forced me out of the rat race to a certain degree, and while I miss some things, in the end I'm happier.

I don't think we need to make big plans to change the whole world. Such a task would be virtually impossible. I just think that we need to show people that they can be happy (even *happier*) with less. If some people try it and like it, maybe others will too. If enough people enjoy it, then the culture will shift of its own accord.

Of course not everyone will agree. But that's OK. :-)

Re:anything

[Critical Facilities]

How much space to kids in a backseat need, anyway?

You obviously don't have kids, or you've long since forgotten how much more than just the kid(s) comes with them when you're in the car. Diaper bags, strollers, carseats (and their respective bases), sports equipment, schoolbags/books, toys, etc. Not to mention anything that YOU might need to bring on the way to school/work (laptop, workout bag, overcoat, briefcase, etc). My Nissan X-Terra has much more space in it. The back seats are a great size and the "trunk" area is huge. I take issue with the fact that you think that SUV's are exclusively a "status symbol". My Nissan is neither expensive nor fancy. It is also surprisingly good on gas compared with your "oh-so-much-better" minivan.

I get pretty tired of listening to people with nothing significant to say just piling on this latest trend of dumping on SUV's and characterizing all of us who own them as uncaring, uneducated people. I'll even give you a little ammo here, NO, minivans are not "cool". OK, you happy? I must be a horrible person to want to own a vehicle that I actually LIKE!! I mean, wow, the nerve of me!! How dare I? People like you never bother to consider that minivans tend to be much more expensive than the smaller SUVs (often significantly so). Not to mention that the gas mileage is often the same and sometimes BETTER in a smaller SUV. (My X-terra gets around 22 mpg, how's your minivan doing? I can guarantee if there's a difference, it's not some monumental number that you're characterizing it to be).

So an SUV is required to get groceries if the store is 7 miles away?

No, again, I never said that. But, when people like you jump on this "let's bash SUV's" bandwagon, you all like to make weird assumptions. And while we're on it, why don't people like you bash people that own things like this or this or this or this ...I could keep going and going here. All of those cars get worse gas mileage than my SUV **GASP** how can that be???

Basically people, shut up about SUV's causing all the problems that you're seeing with our dependence on foreign oil and global warming. It's not as simple as eliminating 1 type of vehicle and we don't really care that you prefer to buy a minivan. Some of us don't like them and can't afford the BIG $$$$ for a good one anyway. I'm not saying everyone should own a Hummer, but geez, lay off if an X-Terra is a better fit for me huh?

Re:anything

[cluckshot]

How about a different and respectful track? I wouldn't mind seeing a cleaner world. There are about 7 billion reasons I can think of right off the bat that say we don't need to be polluting our air, water and land with what we are doing. We don't need to argue over global warming or cooling or whatever to suggest that making a mess is not wise.

In this light I would suggest that people tend to see only surface effects and situations regards their activities. The USA for example does import massive amounts of oil, it also exports most of it right back out as finished products such as food, fertilizer, fiber, refined oil products and such. Sorry for those who want to blame someone but we are kind of in this together. I live in Alabama, USA. We are the worlds 2nd largest energy exporter. Coal! The same people who are yelling this nonsense about Kyoto and such are also sucking up our coal while telling us we cannot burn it. So we get to blast apart our mountains to make China, India and Indonesia have Electric power and running factories. You see Alabama's Coal is too dirty to be burned in Alabama but well... it is quite OK in some other places. Alabama also is a net CO2 uptake sink we are just about #1. (Georgia USA is #1) You see we have massive forests. So we produce the oxygen that blows around to China for them to mill our wood and .... It all is one power big game people.

Lets be fair though. Since the research at Ben Nevis (England) and the discovery of the Cloud Chamber over 100 years ago, the science for cosmic rays causing clouds has been known. It isn't new science! It is also quite obvious for anyone to see that the climate is changing and always has been so. It never stays the same. It is also obvious that mankind can poison and destroy enough area and resources to make a horrible mess. Why don't we start looking for how we can clean up our mess and not just make more? The fact or fiction of "Global Warming" doesn't really matter, whether the world gets colder or warmer, isn't going to be the end of the world. Poisoning large parts of our earth with our stupidity is not wise.

For those who are looking for the reality though, I would suggest a trip to the web and look up SOHO and start learning about the electrical universe that surrounds us. For those who want to argue about stuff here on earth..., How on earth do you get mad at me for burning coal in a plant with a scrubber for the smoke when you let the Chinese compete against me without doing any cleanup at all? Shouldn't China have to scrub their smoke? Of course before I confuse you too much the US-TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) operates some of the largest coal fired power plants on earth. They scrub the S02 out of the smoke. Now we see environmentalists suggesting we plant S02 to cool our planet? Go figure. US-TVA's SO2 emissions are not insignificant. A few years ago the US-TVA looked at selling the SO2 as an industrial raw material (base for sulphuric acid). They were stunned when they discovered that they could if they did so produce 12 times the entire world demand for SO2. Just a few points to think about when you realize that China is planning to burn under Kyoto 6 times as much coal.......... all within the treaty while Alabama has to cut back. Hmmmm!? This isn't troll, its just noting the facts folks. Have fun with your conclusions.

Re:anything

[sponglish]

It might have been interesting to have a back-and-forth with you, but when somebody calls me a "denier," suggesting that my skepticism about AGW can in any way be compared with holocaust denial, well, there are less obnoxious people in the world to have a conversation with.

Re:anything

[TheoMurpse]

How do you live in Poland (here in Poland), but say something 40 years old is post-communist, when Poland was communist until 1989?

Re:anything

[UserGoogol]

All laws oppress minorities, except when they oppress majorities. Laws against murder oppress people who like to murder, for instance. The only difference is that Jews weren't really causing that much trouble, so tossing Jews into camps and stuff is a net-harmful action, while tossing murderers into prison is a net-beneficial action.

Re:anything

[UserGoogol]

It doesn't matter what a thing is for. If you can make delicious cake with a hammer, then make delicious cake. Perhaps it's more accurate to call it an "externality-compensation fee," but that's just semantics. The only issue that matters is whether such a tax is a net benefit, or whether it ultimately causes more harm than good.

Re:anything

[qazsedcft]

No need to be so picky on words. When editing I first wanted to write "communist era" then "post-communist", but forgot to remove the word era. Here we use the term "post-communist" to refer to any legacy from those times, and the word "communist" alone to refer to political affiliation (in a pejorative way).

Re:anything

[misleb]

You obviously don't have kids, or you've long since forgotten how much more than just the kid(s) comes with them when you're in the car.

Depends on how many we're your talking about, but I know 2 kids fit in an average sized 4-door. A hatchback or miniwagon helps. But average trunk fits most things fine. Maybe you prefer your X-Terra. That is fine. I'm just sayin' it isn't as necessary as you might think.

Not to mention anything that YOU might need to bring on the way to school/work (laptop, workout bag, overcoat, briefcase, etc).

Sorry, I don't carry much with me, generally. I'm not a "lug arond a laptop/overcoat/workout bag" kind of guy, if you know what I mean.

My Nissan X-Terra has much more space in it. The back seats are a great size and the "trunk" area is huge. I take issue with the fact that you think that SUV's are exclusively a "status symbol". My Nissan is neither expensive nor fancy. It is also surprisingly good on gas compared with your "oh-so-much-better" minivan.

Minivans are more for when you need to carry around more than 4 people on a regular basis. I admit, it is beyond even most SUVs are far as carrying capacity.

I take issue with the fact that you think that SUV's are exclusively a "status symbol".

I never said "exclusively." As a matter of fact, I believe I specifically stated that some people can utilize them, but nearly everyone I know who owns one is single and is almost always the only one in it and almost never carries much. Then there are also SUVs that do get decent gas mileage and are more or less just cars. Dont' take it so personally.

No, again, I never said that. But, when people like you jump on this "let's bash SUV's" bandwagon, you all like to make weird assumptions. And while we're on it, why don't people like you bash people that own things like this or this or this or this .

Don't worry, I do! My criticism of excess knows no bounds! Heck, I even criticize myself. Imagine that. Being critical of ones own choices, preferences, and supposed needs.

All of those cars get worse gas mileage than my SUV **GASP** how can that be???

What gave you the impression that I spend all my time and energy criticizing SUVs... because I made one post on slashdot about it? I'm sorry that you hear about it a lot. Maybe you don't deserve it personally, but I still think there is something to the argument. The fact is that people use automobiles as status symbols. It just so happens that SUVs (and yes, the glorious oversized pickup too) happens to be the fad at the moment.. one of the main symbols of excess in America.

Basically people, shut up about SUV's causing all the problems that you're seeing with our dependence on foreign oil and global warming. It's not as simple as eliminating 1 type of vehicle and we don't really care that you prefer to buy a minivan. Some of us don't like them and can't afford the BIG $$$$ for a good one anyway. I'm not saying everyone should own a Hummer, but geez, lay off if an X-Terra is a better fit for me huh?

Now you are not even talking to me and are taking it way too personally. I specifically said that getting rid of SUVs isn't a solution. Making people recognize and care about their excess is, perhaps.

-matthew

Re:anything

[stud9920]

Why does the dad have to come with them to the Walmart ? If the dad is available, he should be babysitting his kids while the mom goes shopping. Besides, there are very safe compact MPVs available with retractable seats, allowing up to five kids in the back.

Re:anything

[emilper]

wish I had mod points to put "Reasonable +1" on this post.

I also wish there was possible to start a suit against these morons that shout "danger, we're all gonna die" in the crowded room filled with nuclear weapons, standing armies and half-educated idealists with a death-wish called Earth.

Re:anything

[electroniceric]

I'll admit that my tone was somewhat obnoxious, particularly in my original post, and I apologize for that tone. It is born of frustration at seeing the same cherry-picking and willful misunderstanding go on over and over. I've had this "back and forth" before, and it's not based on good science. If you were to say: hey, there's this cosmic ray paper that provides a possible mechanism to explain some of the warming presently attributed to GHGs, and therefore reduce the estimations of climate sensitivity to GHGs, I'd consider that a discussion, particularly given the challenges in modelling aerosols and clouds. But leading with prima facie false conspiracy theories about the media and scientific community and counterfactual claims about air temperature strongly suggests that you're more interested in latching on to a favorable subset of evidence than in a genuine scientific discussion. I don't know you, so if my estimation is overly cynical, sorry. But nothing you're saying suggests you're anything but a denier.

Re:anything

[SaDan]

Eh? What does a trip to Wal-Mart have to do with anything? At some point, a family of six will all be in the same vehicle.

Do these MPVs, with retractable seats, have room for anything else once the family is buckled in?

Re:anything

[dajak]

I can't afford though if the price of my meals or gas goes up 300-400% over a few short months.

In the case of the McDonalds example: if the price of the ingredients triples, the price of the finished product at your local McDonalds only goes up a fraction of that. When the potato harvest failed here in northwestern Europe, potato prices doubled & the price of french fries at fast food retaurants went up 5-10%. Most of the costs of the product are in transport, location, wages, advertising, etc, which depend on land value, local average income, distance from the places where it is produced, etc. For the people who buy the ingredients directly at the source the price really triples.

Re:anything

[ElectricRook]

"justice," however defined, usually involves guys with guns, courts, judges,
prosecutors, and the like all of whom are empowered by the state to use
violence, even to kill you if necessary.
--Jonah Goldberg nationalreview.com 10/15/2004.

Re:anything

[nudibranchOne]

We know that change is a constant.
We know that land that is repeatedly used for the same purpose deteriorates.
We know that the earth goes through seasons.
Why do we assume that change is not, in the long run, good?

Historically, we know that there have been periods of warmer and colder weather. Different life forms naturally change and adapt, or disappear. I can not help but wonder if the current change in weather patterns is a necessary part of continued life on earth. Perhaps the attempts to stop change is the real danger?

Re:anything

[stud9920]

You should probably not put an adult on these retractable seats (I've been on one and it's not ideal), but for kids it's OK. The room for the seventh seat is usable for for what you want. I wouldn't recommend going on a camping trip with 6 passengers with one, but then again I wouldn't recommend buying a car because of a two weeks camping holiday.

Re:anything

[hesiod]

> God will put a a stop to it.

Yes, thankfully he doesn't like the concept of "free will" and micromanages us daily.

Re:anything

[hesiod]

> If people realized that the earth was, literally, a physical extension of themselves

No we, literally are not. Figuratively, we are extensions of Earth. Unless, of course, we came from another planet, in which case we would be an extension of that one. We sprung from the Earth, the Earth did not spring from us.

Re:anything

[hesiod]

> > Simple fact is, most people don't need the space!
> I'd say a family of six does!

"MOST": A significant portion of a given population, but not 100%

> But for the left, it's never about "need"

And for the right, it's never about responding to an argument, it's about making a counterexample to what they wish was being argued.

Re:anything

[hesiod]

So someone is acting irresponsibly if they have the means and desire to care for more than 3 children and do so? Does it make a difference if the kids are all their own or were adopted? If someone adopts 20 children, there is no increase in population. Of course, this person would be too big for an SUV and had better invest in a bus, but that's not the point. What I'm pointing out is that some people really do have a genuine use for such things and having a large family doesn't make you a bad person.

Re:anything

[rbarreira]

Which cities and how hot are they?

Re:anything

[Lazerf4rt]

You're just attaching a different definition to the word "extension". You took it to mean "consequence" or "result". I intended for it to mean "inseparable part".

Interestingly, though, how do you really know the earth doesn't spring from us? You're basing your assertion on a big body of evidence collected in books and fossils and scientific theories. But you weren't actually there in person to confirm there was an earth that existed before you did. I realize it sounds like an absurd way of invalidating your point. But it's interesting when you consider that according to Taoism, all dualities emerge simultaneously, mutually creating each other. There may be some truth to that.

Re:anything

[ksheff]

posting on slashdot or any other discussion site could hardly be considered a need by anyone in their right mind. however, there are always people saying "I live in [some northern state|BFE w/o paved roads]" or "I have kids" followed by "that's why I need an SUV". no, they WANT an SUV because they've bought the auto company's marketing BS. Given that I grew up in a northern state in an area where most of the roads weren't paved, I know for a fact that people got along just fine for decades w/o SUVs. it's not surprising that most of the vehicles I've seen lately stuck in ditches are SUVs: the drivers believe the marketing BS and drive like they are invincible.

Re:anything

[hesiod]

OK, it makes more sense now. However, if we were truly inseparable, astronauts could not go to the moon. Taken to its extreme, it would mean we could not jump in the air; that would separate us -- very temporarily -- from the Earth, sort of (ignoring that the gaseous fluids surrounding the Earth are actually part of it). Of course, I am pretty sure this is not what you meant.

> how do you really know the earth doesn't spring from us?

Because we require oxygen to breath, which means it must be present (duh). Finding pockets of oxygen in the "vacuum" of space seems to be rather difficult, without it being around/part of a planet... or at least enough of it that will support the continuance of mammalian life, as I understand. Therefore, the gases must have collected around this body of rock before anything came about to use those gases.

This ignores the possibility that the Earth is completely imagined and does not exist outside of our conceptual reality. Being purely imagination, that could have sprung from us. That leads to the question of whether a nonexistant/imaginary object can be considered to "sprung" from us simply because we imagined it.

Is this off-topic enough? :)

Re:anything

[sleigher]

I am thinking places like Phoenix in July. I have been there and I would not want to do that especially when I get older. It can get upwards of 115* or even 120* sometimes. Not to mention Phoenix is really spread out and isn't very consolidated. So everything is far away.

Re:anything

[cliffski]

I see, I didn't realise 100% of the USA population owned a vehicle and drove. No wonder your carbon usage is so high. Other countries have public transport.

Re:anything

[Have Brain Will Rent]

My knowldege of global warming is pretty much: a large majority of scientists seem to think global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity. That is probably the extent of knowledge of 99% of the population. IMHO one ought to be somewhat perturbed when the populace at large begin demanding immediate political action based on nothing more extensive than that little snippet.

In any case, I say this not because I am a doubter but because I acknowledge my lack of information. However I don't need more information to have problems with the comments of the previous poster.

Evidently the scientist in Mr. Caldwell and yourself feels no need to produce repeatable evidence for this claim. Show us the data, or quit repeating hearsay.

I think anyone with experience in university would acknowlege that things become politicized, including resarch slants.

Clearly such mundane and well-researched explanations for warming as carbon-driven greenhouse effect must not be right, if far-fetched ideas like cosmic rays could be invoked to magically

Sarcasm isn't necessary if you have logic on your side. Being well researched does not mean a theory is correct, nor does something seeming far-fetched mean it is wrong. Other researchers in a specific area not thinking of a particular idea also does not mean the idea is wrong. The attitudes you are displaying do nothing to promote science or the scientific method.

You have done an amazing job researching and writing a book that incorporates absolutely no verifiable scientific fact, but relies exclusively on crackpots, unlikely theories, and misinterpretation of existing science, and you are to be roundly commended for your Herculean efforts. Move over Intelligent Design, there's a new pseudoscience in town.

Apparently the idea contains enough scientific merit that CERN is willing to devote some beam time to it... the number of eperiments considered valuable enough to achieve that are quite small. So your comments make you appear to think that both CERN and the 60 odd researchers willing to test out this hypothesis are... what? Crackpots? Stupid? Gullible?

Really, when you attempt to argue this way you aren't doing yourself any good, or advancing the point of view that you appear to hold. In fact if you want to promote science you should be campaigning for some measurable funds to be devoted to examining other causes for global warming... just in case all the people who are "90% sure" turn out to be wrong. Forget about the unnecessary turmoil to society etc. if the current theories turn out to be wrong... what about the fact that since global warming does seem to be happening we will be pretty thoroughly screwed if X years down the line we find out, too late, that the cause was something else and we have been misdirecting our efforts to mediate it?

The local paper had one of the people heading up the UN study saying something like "the greenhouse gases we have already pumped into the atmosphere will linger there causing further global warming for centuries to come and there isn't anything we can do about that." As soon as someone starts talking about what human capabilities will or won't be centuries from now you can be sure they are BS'ing. Such obvious BS'ing, scare mongering in this case, would be unnecessary if the peson could present conclusive evidence etc. and indulging in it helps none of us. It certainly does nothing to promote a general appreciation of science in the populace. To quote a fictional character "Just stick to the facts Ma'am."

Completely different question I've been wondering about. Aside from warming from greehouse gases (or whatever mechanism you choose) how much warming is taking place simply as a direct result of human activity? Other than a small fraction radiating into space (yes, I know, the whole point of greenhouse gas theory etc.) every joule of energy we expend in manufacturing, transportation, eating... every joule we expend on anything turns into heat. How much of a temperature rise can we expect from that alone?

Re:anything

[UbuntuDupe]

My small 1995 Toyota Avalon gets about 25 mpg.

Hold on -- this is city driving, and this is from your personal measurements of "miles driven" vs. "fuel added to refill tank", rather than EPA estimates? Avalons are pretty large, and my tiny Ford Escort gets ~27, city. (And 36 highway, oddly enough...)

Re:anything

[SaDan]

So, this wouldn't be an acceptable vehicle for someone looking to anything other than stuff small people in the back of a car.

What we're looking for is something you CAN do more than stuff people into and drive around. For a family with four kids, this MPV you're thinking of really doesn't sound like a good choice for this purpose, IMHO.

Re:anything

[stud9920]

If you want (shallow) people to find you attractive, you should not settle for less than a Ferrari. But you don't. Because you cannot afford it. So you take compromises. It should be the same for assault tanks like SUVs: the planet really cannot afford them. So people should take compromises. Would the family be more comfortable in an SUV than in an MPV? Problably, not taking into account the money that could have been spent better on housing or education. Would daily (or even holiday-) travel be unbearable in an MPV / station wagon ? No. I know. Our parents didn't need them and they had standards of living very comparable to the current ones. Heck, I went up and down France at least five times on the backseat of a Renault 4.

Re:anything

[GooberToo]

I couldn't agree more with you about forcing these things to meet CAFE standards. Good point. Good post. Are you sure we're still on /.?

Re:anything

[jav1231]

I'm convinced, based on the balance of data I've read about, that while man may contribute to the problem the problem is out of our control. The climate is changing, as it always has. In fact, evidence shows that the relative stable climate we have enjoyed as humans is NOT the norm. The arrogance isn't so much that we think we're controlling it so much as that we think our slice of perception is as it has always been. In that sense human-cause theorists are just a narrow-minded as they like to claim others are. One fact is inexcusable: The climate will get warmer because it always has and it will cool again. The thinking that we can stop it is futile. Can we make contributions, yes but given that we know it will happen anyway, we should be taking a serious look at the cause. The data is just not conclusive as to cause, despite the well-intentioned.

Re:anything

[SaDan]

Wow... OK, let's reel it back in a bit.

I'm not even discussing the part about image here, it's all about being practical and realistic. I'm also NOT promoting SUVs over more efficient means of transporting a family.

I grew up in a family of six, and SUVs and minivans did not exist during my childhood. We managed to get around, while my brothers and I were young, in a 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu, then a 1980 Oldsmobile 98 Regency. Large family car, bench seats front and rear. This worked until my brothers and I started grade school, at which point all of the family didn't really fit well in the car. We purchased a full-size 1984 Chevrolet Beauville window van, which was a great improvement over the cars (and actually got better fuel economy than the cars due to a slightly smaller engine and overdrive transmission).

The point is, our parents didn't have the option of SUVs as we know them, or minivans in any sense. It was large sedans, or station wagons until the mid 1980s. Standards of living have changed quite a bit, whether you accept this or not.

What I would like to know is this: What sedan or station wagon is available today that can provide seating for a family of six, and still have a bit of room (reasonable) for storage?

I'll infer from your posts that you are living or grew up somewhere in Europe. I'm in the USA. I'll still look forward to hearing about a station wagon available in Europe that seats six people.

Re:anything

[Ogive17]

You see more SUVs/trucks in the ditch because the owners are over-confident/stupid and don't realize that all vehicles stop the same on ice... regardless of 4WD or not.

Well...

[kitsunewarlock]

As an architect, let me say that the moment you try to force me to paint my beautiful roof-top gardens white, I will be forced to get...hostile...

If only "hostile" meant more than "think about sending a nasty e-mail."

Re:Well...

[UbuntuDupe]

Don't worry -- you can still feel morally superior to people living with a quarter of the space (indoor and outdoor) by pointing out how you use CFL's, while they don't.

Re:Well...

[MattSparkes]

We'd have to monitor the effect every few months, and instruct people to lighten them up or darken them.
'This month we all need to go with battleship-grey to keep the optimum temperature...'

Re:Well...

[niconorsk]

Well, I would think that having roof-top gardens, assuming those are actual living plants, would be quite good for reducing carbon dioxide levels. If every single building in the world had a garden on top of it, I think we would take quite a big bite out of the problem. Not to say that someone won't decide to force people to paint their roofs white. The government's capacity for doing stupid things will never cease to amaze me.

Re:Well...

[SlashdotCrackPot]

It's ok man, Chia-Shingles come in multiple colors of white: White, Off-white, supremacist, Mother of Pearl, and yes even the ever so popular "Tighty Whitey."

Re:Well...

[Technician]

As an architect, let me say that the moment you try to force me to paint my beautiful roof-top gardens white, I will be forced to get...hostile...

Will enough roofs get painted white to counter the number of solar collectors being installed for hot water, pool heaters, PV and other dark surfaces?

You put up a black solar panel and you just thought you were doing the right thing.

Re:Well...

[onepoint]

I have been thinking that maybe the government should sponsor ( foot part of the bill )in high sunlight zones ( like southern Florida, southern Texas, maybe even in California ) road pavement that is a light shade of gray instead of black.

Given, it's not much of a solution, but it might reduce just a very small amount. I keep thinking it's a whole bunch of small solutions that will solve some warming issues.

Re:Well...

[AndersOSU]

That is the whole problem with global warming - there isn't one big solutions. And while all the small solutions may add up to a solution to climate change, they certainly will add up financially.

The other problem is inertia. Even if every new road were constructed of light concrete, rather than dark asphalt, how long before there is even a 5% increase in concrete roads? And then what is the cost differential between concrete and asphalt?

Lets face it we're lazy and cheap, but I think (could be wrong) that we are more lazy than cheap so some expensive but easy (for the general public) solution - what this article talks about - are more attractive than options that are hard, but cheap solutions.

I think we're more likely to launch trillions of orbital sunshades than to convince China (or even Pennsylvania) to stop burning coal.

Re:Well...

[rbarreira]

And while all the small solutions may add up to a solution to climate change, they certainly will add up financially.

And according to some analysis I've seen, not finding a solution will certainly also add up to big negative amount of money.

Re:Well...

[Socguy]

Forget about roofs; lets make our highways white.

Re:Well...

[d3ac0n]

I have been thinking that maybe the government should sponsor ( foot part of the bill )in high sunlight zones ( like southern Florida, southern Texas, maybe even in California ) road pavement that is a light shade of gray instead of black.

They already have this. It's called concrete.

And there is no need to have big socialistic central government programs. Many communities are switching to concrete in urban areas because it lasts longer and is cheaper to maintain than asphalt. Unfortunately, the initial investment is rather high, but with the higher costs of the petroleum that goes into asphalt, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper (relative to asphalt) to use. Very warm areas especially benefit from concrete as a paving material due to it's lack of flow characteristics once set.

Re:Well...

[AndersOSU]

I'm not saying global warming isn't something that is worth spending money on, or that the cos to doing nothing is zero.

I'm just saying some of the little things, like making white roads, putting blankets on glaciers, and painting roofs white, might be extremely expensive, and have little or no effect. It's a cost-benefit thing, if the money spent on white roads were instead funneled to something like alternative energy research we'd probably be better off.

Re:Well...

[onepoint]

that's interesting to know, and thank you for the information. But I am looking at it from the federal sponsorship level, first get those huge multilane roads into lighter shades, I would think that asphalt could be colored lighter, and they need the road maintenance every few years. Federal government gives credits to the states for it. When there extended life cycle comes to an end, then slowly work towards your solution of concrete. We currently have a shortage of concrete down here in Florida so the cost of it are rather high

climate change is a liberal myth

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't produce any proof of it. hh.

Re:climate change is a liberal myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, nor can they produce proof that the earth cicles the sun and that earth is older than 5000 y.o.. Go play on the white house lawn. When you grow up, try to avoid the war just like any normal republican.

Re:climate change is a liberal myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.

Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.

Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.

Dr. Václav Klaus the second president of the Czech Republic and a well respected professor on climate change

Re:climate change is a liberal myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, nor can they produce proof that the earth cicles the sun and that earth is older than 5000 y.o.. Go play on the white house lawn. When you grow up, try to avoid the war just like any normal republican.

There we go people liberal faked Elitism at its best.
I say faked because the poster is hoping that if they put on enough airs no one will ever guess that used to jack off in the closet to male underwear models

Re:climate change is a liberal myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure BS. Klaus has no training in climate science. His background is Economics and extreme right-wing ideology.

Okay, now i'm scared

[Anonymous Coward]

We're all going to die.

Bad Idea

[ArcherB]

The road to permafrost is paved with good intentions.

Re:Bad Idea

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Naah, that's just the road to the sauna. Can't have a real sauna without a snow bath afterwards.

Re:Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The norm where I live is half a mile of ice on the ground. That is if your time period is more than a few thousand years. I think if we start opening the Pacific to the Atlantic around Central America we might be able to moderate the next ice age. It would be a shame if we started a hundred years too late for us to get it done on time.

Re:Bad Idea

[fritsd]

Not for long, it isn't! http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg187251 24.500
Ever heard of the term "autocatalytic process"?

tunable 'nuclear winter'

[Anonymous Coward]

...to precisely counteract the contribution due to global warming?

Re: tunable 'nuclear winter'

[Black Parrot]

> ...to precisely counteract the contribution due to global warming?

[Dr. Strangelove, looking at thermometer on the wall]: "Ok, one more ought to do it."

Why is everyone so afraid of change?

[Spazntwich]

Personally I think it'd be kind of nice for a greater portion of the world to be upgraded to tropical and sub-tropical.

Cheaper vacations. And the superhurricanes would take out all of those damn snowbirds in Florida.

Re:Why is everyone so afraid of change?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the current "tropical and sub-tropical" will also be upgraded to "unlivable".

Re:Why is everyone so afraid of change?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how much thought did the current "tropical and sub-tropical" give to those living in the freezing regions of the world. The boot's on the other foot now. The temp here has been averaging -25 for the last 7 weeks. Oh yeeeesssssssss, I'm all against global warming........ I like paying $5000 a year in heating bills, and having my car rust out to nothing after 4 years thanks to all the salt on the roads to keep the ice off.... Keep Canada Cold!!!! Yeeeeesssss.

Fuck you and your ilk.

Re:Why is everyone so afraid of change?

[a1cypher]

I'm afraid thats not exactly how it would work. Global Warming doesn't neccessarily mean that everyone on the world gets warmer climate. It actually causes more extreme weather. This means larger and more frequent hurricanes, freak blizards, etc.. One of the more dangerous threats is the melting of the ice caps. If these were to melt entirely, there could be massive flooding around the world, displacing (or killing?) millions of people.

Even just a few more degrees increase in the average temperature could be disasterous.

Re:Why is everyone so afraid of change?

[Anonymous Coward]

If these were to melt entirely, there could be massive flooding around the world, displacing (or killing?) millions of people. Why would that be a bad thing? There are a few billion too many people on the earth as it is.

Scares me...

[spikexyz]

...to think we're clever enough to find a technical solution that massive alters the fuctioning of a biosphere we understand to little about and not cause bigger, unanticipated problems.

Re:Scares me...

[spikexyz]

Scares me to think that we think we're...I mean.

Re:Scares me...

[UbuntuDupe]

The Simpsons: Australia edition

Skinner: Hm, it would be great if we had something to hunt here. I know! Let's import rabits and turn them loose!
Lisa: But they'll have no natural competition and could devastate the ecosystem!
Skinner: Don't be silly, then we'll just turn cats loose. They'll go feral, and the bunnies won't have a chance.
Lisa: But cats are even worse in the wild!
Skinner: Don't be silly, then we can just bring in leopards. You think cats have a chance against them?
Lisa: But leopards are even more dangerous!
Skinner: Don't be silly, if it ever gets bad, we can just give everyone a high-powered rifle and tell them to shoot the leopards on sight.
Lisa: Isn't it kind of dangerous to tell people to fire high-powered rifles at rapidly-moving targets in population centers?
Skinner: Don't be silly, we'll just abolish the right to a trial by jury and have the death penalty for accidental killings. You think anyone's stupid enough to be reckless with a rifle if that's the consequence?
Lisa: But then you'll have a totalitarian government!
Skinner: Ah, but that's the easy part -- then we just vote in a new constitution.

Re:Scares me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha... I was thinking of this one:

Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Re:Scares me...

[khallow]

Well, actually I don't see anything scary in coming up with technical solutions that don't cause bigger, unanticipated problems. I guess that also would be an indication that we would understand the functioning of the biosphere, if we could do that.

Re:Scares me...

[GreyPoopon]

Scares me...

Two words: CANE TOADS. History has shown that when it comes to the environment, the best thing man can do is AVOID INTERFERING!! Of course, that includes not causing the problem in the first place....

Re:Scares me...

[altoz]

not just massive changes to the biosphere, there are massive unanticipated socio-economic problems that may result as well.

Re:Scares me...

[hobo sapiens]

If we understood the earth, we wouldn't make such a mess of it. Yet we dump crap into oceans without any heed to the consequences, we cut down forests without considering what lives in there, we try (unsuccessfully) to force large rivers into channels so we can develop on natural floodplains, and now we are talking about wrapping the earth with a giant tin foil umbrella? Face it, man is retarded. We know nothing and have the hubris to pretend we know it all.

Besides, even if some crazy Rube-Goldberg contraption were to solve some problems, we'd just find some other way to screw things up. It's called risk compensation, and we're darn good at it. The root of the problem here isn't technological -- instead there is a fundamental problem with mankind in general. Failure to address the root problem and the devising of some crazy contraption intended to fix our mess isn't going to fix a thing.

My crazy solution:

[Ihlosi]

Find some way to vent 20% of the planets atmosphere into space. That should get rid of enough CO2.

Re:My crazy solution:

[aadvancedGIR]

That's easy, all you have to do is to crash the moon, and as a bonus, you'll have far enough dust in the atmosphere to totally cancel the greenhouse effect and few enough survivors sothat you won't have to worry about natural resources for a few hundred million years.

Re:My crazy solution:

[dyslexicbunny]

I have a better plan. The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (I just googled CO2 exhale rate and they sound legitimate) estimates the average person exhales 1 kg/day of CO2. Assuming the world population is 6.7 billion people, this leads to ~2.45 billion metric tons of CO2 a year.

Clearly, we can reach the goal of 1 billion tons a year for ten years by simply asking people not to breathe as much. I'll be sending out the scheduled rotation for when you can breathe in about an hour so just hold your breathe in anticipation.

Richard, let me know when I can get my check. Can it be a big one like pro golfers get? I watched Happy Gilmore last night on TBS and would like one too.

Re:My crazy solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there were some way to connect the atmosphere to space...

Re:My crazy solution:

[SlashdotCrackPot]

Find some way to vent 20% of the planets atmosphere into space. That should get rid of enough CO2. Hey, your plan is half done!! We've already made you a hole big enough for the exhaust vent out of the Ozone layer.

Re:My crazy solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, your plan is half done!! We've already made you a hole big enough for the exhaust vent out of the Ozone layer. Hey at least we don't have to hire Bruce Willis to crash into it and drill a hole in her....

Re:My crazy solution:

[s21825]

Like a big tube that goes from the ground to space ... the high pressure atmosphere should force all the air up to the low pressure vacuum of space. Kinda like a space elevator, but for cleaning.

Re:My crazy solution:

[tbischel]

thats not nearly as crazy as you think...
venting atmosphere

Re:My crazy solution:

[hemorex]

The code is 12345.

Re:My crazy solution:

[thoth99]

I have a better plan. The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (I just googled CO2 exhale rate and they sound legitimate) estimates the average person exhales 1 kg/day of CO2. Assuming the world population is 6.7 billion people, this leads to ~2.45 billion metric tons of CO2 a year.

Interesting possibility. I suppose if the militia in Darfur could just step up its efficiency a bit, it would be entitled to collect Richard Branson's money. Where's Mao Zedong now that we really need him? I suspected all along that the IPCC panel had to tie back into communism somehow.

Re:My crazy solution:

[Ihlosi]

I'll be sending out the scheduled rotation for when you can breathe in about an hour so just hold your breathe in anticipation.

Is that some anti-capitalist liberal commie scheme like economic plans ?! The free market can take care of this, without any schedule (did you say that some government body was going to be in charge of that ?). Just make air a tradeable commodity like real estate, water, and so on, and let the free market decide on who gets to breathe and who doesn't. And there will be absolutely no handouts. You got no cash for your next breath ? Well, make some quickly, and I hope you're good at holding your breath.

Re:My crazy solution:

[rapidweather]

As long as we have a funny thread:

Truck all the snow they have in NY to other parts of the country, where they need a white covering on the ground, and need cooling off. That ought to do it.

Problems in the way

[CRCulver]

While I found speculation on technological solutions for climate change entertaining in the terraforming context of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (beginning with Red Mars ), I question whether the same concepts would work for Earth. Using some kind of orbital shade to limit sunlight would cause problems with wildlife. If you've been through a total solar eclipse, you've seen how the birds go crazy, imagine sudden loss of sunlight lasting for a long time. And who's going to pay for this? In terraforming another planet, you might have companies willing to invest in the context of development of mining, but it's hard enough to get even governments to allocate funds for climate responsibility.

next use for algae/plankton

[nietsch]

Harvest the top layer of them, concentrate and convert them to biofuel using TCP (total conversion proces, a kind of wet pyrolysis)
A biofuel tanker with the appropriate machinery would go out on the ocean with a load of iron (or iron rich earth), spread the iron and at the same time harvest the algae and convert them to biofuel. Since it injects more minerals than it harvests, more carbon will be removed form the carbon cycle than would be harvested with the biofuel.
Just an idea I would not like to see patented.

Re:next use for algae/plankton

[WindBourne]

Well, groups are already working on just this idea. The funny thing is that others are perusing the conversion of cellulose to ethanol/oil. I find the later one laughable. It is inheritantly a batch process of the feed stock (used by pigs and cattle) then mulched into the ground. Worse, the process is spread over a 2-d area. In contrast, algae is a stream process AND is a 3D. What that means is that it will use a fraction of the land, resources, and energy that cellulose (and other approaches) will use.

Re:next use for algae/plankton

[P_11]

The question that you neglect is what happens to the plankton that dies and falls to the ocean floor? Does it rot quietly or does it deplete the oxygen from the sea water? A solution to global warming that results in massive die-off of ocean life from lack of oxygen does not quite meet the need.

Re:next use for algae/plankton

[nietsch]

Already there is a constant flow of detrius coming raining down on all ocean floors. Some of it is consumed and some of it becomes locked in the ocean mud floor. This mud may very well become anearobic, and thatis a good thing, because that will keep metabolic rates low so that the amount of carbon removed from the cycle increases.
The dead zones you refer to happen in coastal waters and are most likely caused by argicultural runoff, causing a hypertrophy situation. If you apply your nutrients intentionally there is no reason why you could no monitor to prevent a hypertrophy situation and still increase the production of that patch of ocean.

Re:next use for algae/plankton

[P_11]

I agree that it is attractive if the idea is not overdone. Organic matter that has settled in a deep ocean trench is effectively removed from the atmospheric cycle for the indefinite future. Pressure alone will keep any CO2 or methane tied up as carbonates or clathrates or possibly even as liquified gases. The worry comes from the ocean currents and the weather-related upwelling of deep ocean sediments that is well-known off the coast of South America. Sediments rich in decaying organic matter could potentially deplete all the oxygen in the coastal areas - just exactly the areas of richest marine life. It would be very hard to predict such an event with our current knowledge of ocean currents. Documenting it after the fact would be the record of a tragedy.

Reminds me ...

[FredDC]

... of Futurama.

Let's start dropping giant ice cubes into the sea to stop global warming!

Why enforce silly rules like cutting down emissions if you can come up with a half-baked crazy idea instead?

Re:Reminds me ...

[Thuktun]

Reminds me of Futurama. Let's start dropping giant ice cubes into the sea to stop global warming! NARRATOR: Of course, since the greenhouse gases are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time. Thus solving the problem once and for all.

SUZIE: But--

NARRATOR: Once and for all!

Stop screwing with ecosystems

[ThePopeLayton]

How many times do we have to screw up an ecosystem before we learn that we don't understand ecosystems well enough to predict what our acts will do.

1st. In Moab, Utah the forest service planted Russian trees to prevent the erosion of the river bed, only to find out that the plants have drained the river and killed many endogenous plants and animals.

2nd. Cane Toads were introduced into Australia to eat the insects that prey on the sugar cane. It turns out that the insects that eat sugar cane in Australia and Hawaii are completely different and there are no predators that can eat the Cane Toads. Now Australia is over populated with a Cane Toads which again are killing the natural plant life and animal life.

3rd. I can't think of another off the top of my head but I am certain there are probably hundreds of examples of this.

We must stop screwing with the ecosystems. When I hear of orbiting solar shields and massive projects to paint the desert, I get really scared because a scientist who really understands the delicate balance of the ecosystem would never dare to suggest such an idea. Only one who doesn't and is looking to make a buck and get on time for "saving the planet from global warming" would do it. These ideas will only result in causing more problems then they solve.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[steevc]

Someone introduced a few rabbits to Australia so he could shoot them. There's a few million now, even after myxomatosis was used to try and control them.

Pigs and goats have ruined a few ecosystems. Rats too, but they were not put there intentionally. Gardeners have introduced a few plant species that that taken over, e.g. giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed.

Ecosystems only get balanced over long periods. I'm sure there are plenty of cases in pre-history where a new species has moved in and destroyed what was there before, but eventually a predator/parasite/disease will move in or evolve to control it.

You would hope that we know enough now not to just introduce a species without planning for controlling it's spread. In any case it should be possible to re-forest using local species in most cases. I expect someone will propose genetic manipulation to help things along, but that has it's own dangers/unknowns.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[cvd6262]

3rd. In Arizona they planted broom grass (or something like that) to stop erosion, only to find that it bridged the natural fire breaks in the habitat. A region that used to suffer few fire is now threatened annually.

4th. By not allowing woodlands to burn periodically, we've created the potential for much worse destruction by fire.

5th. I'm sure people can think of others.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[maxume]

Dutch Elm disease, Emerald ash borer, Kudzu, Sea lampreys, Zebra mussels and on and on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_invasive_spec ies

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[mlk]

Grey Squirrels were introduced to the UK as a mix of Red & Grey squirrels were prettier than just red.

http://www.redsquirrel.org.uk/

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[thefirelane]

How many times do we have to screw up an ecosystem

Don't worry, come winter the apes will all freeze to death.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[Wah]

Don't forget humans. They've invaded and controlled damn near every ecosystem on the planet, often leading to the extinction of competing organisms. Also, their dependence on using small exposions to enhance mobility is having a hugely negative effect even on the ecosystems where they haven't become dominant.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.

Forget it, Pal. If I can get modded up instead, no way am I responding.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[Reality Master 101]

When I hear of orbiting solar shields and massive projects to paint the desert, I get really scared because a scientist who really understands the delicate balance of the ecosystem would never dare to suggest such an idea.

I agree with your overall point, except for the above which is one of the great myths of environmentalism: The earth (ecosystem or otherwise) is NOT fragile and delicate! It's incredibly tough, with powerful systems of equilibrium. The earth has undergone constant catastrophes and climate changes since day 1, yet life has survived, adapted and thrived.

That's not to say we should screw around with it or that it's completely impervious to man-made intervention, but it's not this robin's egg that will self-destruct if someone releases methane from their rear-end.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[Chacham]

4th. Slashdot was overrun by kiddies, so moderators were added to help the signal/noise ratio. Well, kiddies became moderators, and made the noise even more noisy.

5th. Meta-moderators were added to slashdot to keep the moderators in check. Well, the meta-moderation turned out to be so annoying, many good moderators didn't bother, which removed them from being moderators, making the kiddies have an even stronger say.

Then again, lets attack the real beast.

6th. Email was added to FTP to allow a new interesting form an sending messages. Well, it was removed from FTP and given its own tranfer methods, and now most email is spam.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Honey bees arent native to North America either.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[jafac]

The problem is human motivation, and our limited lifespans.

Some people would rather make a buck today, dreaming up a "solar umbrella" scam (or breeding african and american bees, or dumping black sea ballast water in hudson bay, etc.), knowing that, it will probably not work, and end up screwing future generations worse.

If people lived forever (or at least longer than the average of the 60-some odd years of today), they'd have a direct interest in sustaining our ecosphere. They might even stop breeding like rabbits too.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[kabocox]

We must stop screwing with the ecosystems. When I hear of orbiting solar shields and massive projects to paint the desert, I get really scared because a scientist who really understands the delicate balance of the ecosystem would never dare to suggest such an idea. Only one who doesn't and is looking to make a buck and get on time for "saving the planet from global warming" would do it. These ideas will only result in causing more problems then they solve.

Give us an emergency and a Five Year Plan to fix it, and we'll either fix it or make a 20-100 year problem that's a lot worse. What's the worst thing that can happen? It's not like we are playing with the orbit of the Earth or anything important like that. ;)

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[MythoBeast]

If you've been anywhere near Hawaii, you know about the Mongoose. With all the ships arriving, rats disembarked and began destroying the ecosystem. Simple European solution - introduce the Mongoose to eat the rats. The problem with this is that the rats sleep in the day and mongooses sleep at night, so the mongooses didn't impact the rat population, and they doubled the destruction of the ecosystem.

The real problem I have with most of these solutions is that they're not terribly adjustable. Painting a million square miles white isn't a simple task, it isn't easy to undo, and then you're left with several cubic miles of paint to dispose of. Another generation's problem? Probably not. The space umbrellas and "big cloud of bits" solutions have the same problem - how do we get them back OUT of orbit when we start swinging towards turning the earth into a giant snowball?

The iron seeding idea is probably most practical and financially viable, but it involves messing with the food chain. In the short term it sounds like a good idea because you increase the food chain all the way down the line by replacing a food source that we've killed off in other places with various pollutants. There are two problems with it, though. Once we start doing it, we'll have a huge die-off if we stop. You think they're going to keep dumping iron in the ocean when we run out of fossil fuels? You think anyone's going to care? The other (and subsequent) problem is that we don't know what'll happen to the carbon when these huge algae blooms stop happening. There's a reasonable belief that they'll just return to the atmosphere in the form of methane as the algae (and creatures that eat the algae, and creatures that eat them) die and decay, making this a very short-term benefit.

Needless to say, I'm in the "stop pumping it into the atmosphere in the first place" camp.

, as it involves increasing algae blooms, which will increase general biodiversity. Unfortunately, we still don't know what happens when the increased creatures start dying off. They coul

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[Cedric Tsui]

I don't believe such enormous programs would be used to save the ecosystem. They would be used to save us.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[Hucko]

3rd. God made the garden of eden and then introduce man, the earth has been copping it ever since

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[arbarbonif]

Actually the problem is more accurately put as 'species are fragile and delicate'. The Earth will be fine, the question is if we will all die out. Right now we have WAY more people to support than we can on subsitance. If there is a major climactic shift that makes grain producing regions stop producing we are kinda screwed (Especially since alot of the non grain-producing regions are already taken with other activities).

The other problem is the size of the system; If we do manage to destabilize it it will most likely not become obvious until it is far to late to fix it. The inertia of a giant system plunging merrily to collapse (as defined as 'humanity dies') is enormous.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[jez9999]

Someone introduced a few rabbits to Australia so he could shoot them. There's a few million now, even after myxomatosis [wikipedia.org] was used to try and control them.

Careful, there. That bandwidth costs money.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[CodeManBob]

5th. Kudzu was brought in from Japan to prevent erosion. The plant is now overruning the American Southeast and covers 20,000-30,000 sq. km.

Fixing what isn't broken

[canuck57]

Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? Who has determined this? Where do they live? What are their motives?

At one time when for natural reasons the earth had lots of CO2 in the atmosphere it warmed up and taller trees grew towards the poles. Great prairie fires dumped millions of tons of CO2 in weeks. Warmer temperatures and more trees resulted. This reduced CO2 and on came a subsequent ice age. It also left behind coal, natural gas and tar sands where today it is too cold for this to happen.

Nature is just fine tuning for the 6.5 new critters crawling on it. It needs to warm up to have more vegetation to scrub out the CO2. Let nature do it's thing.

Man contemplating whole scale planetary changes like this is similar to giving children an atomic bomb kit.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[Black Parrot]

> Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad?

Consider the direct cost of moving all the world's coastal cities to higher ground.

Consider what's going to happen when the world's current breadbaskets turn to deserts, and some of the present day's have-not countries find themselves sitting on the new best farmland.

> Nature is just fine tuning for the 6.5 new critters crawling on it. It needs to warm up to have more vegetation to scrub out the CO2. Let nature do it's thing.

Yeah, nature doesn't care. But most of us kind of like our easy dinosaur-free lifestyle, and would like to pass it on to our children.

> Man contemplating whole scale planetary changes like this is similar to giving children an atomic bomb kit.

Yeah, probably so. But we're being forced into the terraforming business whether we like it or not.

Cutting emissions is surely the safest way to manage it. (And for those of you still denying that its anthropogenic, it hardly matters. We have the need and the power to do something about it, and it's past time we got started.)

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[GundamFan]

But but but change is scary!

We have to totally rethink everything and come up with new processes to prevent change!

I don't believe or trust ether side of this debate anymore, but at the same time conserving energy and emitting less waste makes sense to me so I guess I am for new technologies.

Remember we do have a relatively safe, clean, carbon neutral and power source that the rest of the world seems to be clamoring for but we are to scared to use because of a few movies and an episode of McGiver.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[zippthorne]

What makes you think it would be economically costly to move the cities? Remember the timescales we're talking about are hundreds of years. Most buildings simply don't last nearly that long.

Simple attrition should take care of the problem. No one would actively move the cities anywhere, but in a couple hundred years people would notice that some cites just kind of waned away, while others shifted slightly.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[ralph1]

That sounds alot like evolution that cant happen.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[woozlewuzzle]

To me, all those things you mention simply sound like new business opportunities.

"Consider the direct cost of moving all the world's coastal cities to higher ground."

For everyone having to spend a dollar to move there's someone else making a dollar. Encouraging spending is good for the economy.

"Consider what's going to happen when the world's current breadbaskets turn to deserts, and some of the present day's have-not countries find themselves sitting on the new best farmland."

When cars became popular, the guys making horseshoes found themselves becoming mechanics or going out of business. Change always brings troubles to those who refuse to change. Globalization is taking the low-level jobs and moving them to places that see them as high-level jobs. There are people who want to stop globalization because of the threat to their way of life and don't care that there are benefits to other people's way of life. Change is a given. It's all about opportunity.

"Yeah, nature doesn't care. But most of us kind of like our easy dinosaur-free lifestyle, and would like to pass it on to our children."

We don't have the world our parents had and they didn't have the world that their parents had. Heck, already our kids don't have the world we had. I think that's called adapting to your environment. Mankind's ability to do that has kept him at the top of the food chain for a long time.

Cheers

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[FooAtWFU]

Okay, first of all: I'm not a big OMG Global Warming guy. I think, now, that it's happening, but we'll deal with it, and it's not going to be the end-of-the-world issue certain people are painting it as. Now, that said...

For everyone having to spend a dollar to move there's someone else making a dollar. Encouraging spending is good for the economy.

WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! Alert! Alert! Broken window fallacy! Broken window fallacy!

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[gfxguy]

And what's going to happen when the worlds desserts turn into lush forests?

There's not only bad, there's a lot of good. Flooding that cost hundreds of millions of dollars provided an agricultural yield that was worth billions more than it would have been.

It's not all bad, it's just different. There's always been trials and tribulations, and weather has always both helped us and hurt us, and the future will be no different.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[Asic Eng]

Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad?

Probably - humans have adapted their settlements to the areas they live in. Change in their environments means that their agriculture and housing won't be suited anymore.

E.g. lots of people live in coastal areas, if the sea level rises (which is relatively likely) that means they'll lose their houses and land. On the other hand inland areas which are dry could become even drier - people there might not be able to grow food anymore.

Of course, earth may well stabilize itself in a few thousand years, and humans as a species might survice that, too. (Why not - we survived the ice age, after all.) However the economic and humanitarian costs of such an adjustment would be gigantic. It would seem to make sense to come up with strategies to avoid this scenario in the first place. There is really no need to put that much CO2 into the atmosphere.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[Eccles]

Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad?

The problem isn't so much that it's getting warmer, but that it seems to be doing so quite quickly. The polar bears may be the canary in the coal mine, but it seems like Arctic changes are happening fast enough that the polar bears can't adapt. While mankind doesn't particularly need polar bears for more than their aesthetics, the concern is that temperature changes could have similar effects on creatures we do depend on. And if that happens, we'll have major problems supplying the world enough food. At the very least, we may lose significant diversity in our diet.

This has already happened in seafood; although not due to global climate change, it is due to human action. There used to be laws limiting how often you could serve your servants lobster. Now it's cheaper to serve steak. Tuna? Cod? Wild salmon? All overfished. Yields in the Chesapeake Bay are way down. Drift nets often catch more bycatch than target species. And Zebra mussels are endemic in areas they never used to be, killing the species more useful to us. Again, all of this is not global warming, but it does show the impact we can have on seemingly limitless environments.

That is not to say that I support some of these schemes. Instead, what we want to do is lessen our impact. Create neighborhoods where walking is more practical. Use a carbon "tax" to give people an economic incentive to be more enviromental.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[khallow]

FooAtWFU already pointed it out, but when you have to move cities, then society has collectively lost resources. Namely, the effort of moving the city is taken from somewhere else and would be a huge opportunity cost. The only mitigating factor I can see is that substantial rise in ocean level is going to take centuries to play out. So the cost of moving cities can be spread out over a long period of time.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[maxume]

New Orleans has flooded three times this century. The third time was the worst, as people had constructed more buildings in the low areas, and the Mississippi river delta was smaller than it had been, making New Orleans a worse place to have a city than in earlier times. It is currently being rebuilt anew. I do not share your faith that simple attrition will do one damn thing.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[Sperbels]

Consider the direct cost of moving all the world's coastal cities to higher ground. Consider what's going to happen when the world's current breadbaskets turn to deserts, and some of the present day's have-not countries find themselves sitting on the new best farmland. Consider the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Cutting emissions is surely the safest way to manage it. (And for those of you still denying that its anthropogenic, it hardly matters. We have the need and the power to do something about it, and it's past time we got started.) Agreed. It's about time we stopped polluting our atmosphere and start building more nuclear power plants.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[geomon]

"Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? "

Yes. Dumping a bunch of fresh water into the world's oceans can stop these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulat ion

Not only do they control coastal climates, they also control the deep circulation of nutrients bottom-to-top of the ocean's food chain. Stop these and the coasts become wetter and the interiors become dryer and colder. The moderating effects that these belts have on our climates allows us to have agriculturally productive continental interiors.

"Who has determined this?"

Scientists.

"Where do they live?"

Everywhere, around the world.

"What are their motives?"

We like to eat and live just like you do.

Funny that.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just different

The problem is that "different" is bad, to a lot of people. Thanks to people who have decided that housing/land/etc. is an "investment" rather than simply a place to occupy, a lot of investment capital will be irrevocably lost. The same will go for farmland: Texas farmland is already withering in the summer, promising "long growing seasons" as a lot of people are claiming is a "good thing" overlooks that probably billions will have to be spent developing irrigation (and freshwater sources) just to keep crops alive in the heat. They could move north, but then they'll be competing for land that will end up costing (billions-1) thanks again to the land investors. It would also simply postpone the inevitable: if heating continues, then their new expensive farms will eventually need new expensive irrigation systems.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[narsiman]

Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? Who has determined this? Where do they live? What are their motives?

Yes it is. Seriously, it is. I determined so. I live near the east coast of the US (considerate - global audience). I would like to bequeath my home to my children not submerged in 5 feet of water.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[radtea]

Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? Who has determined this? Where do they live? What are their motives?

Human economies are highly optimized for current conditions, which includes current climate conditions as well as tax law, etc. Here in Canada we have a bunch of people are proclaiming we they are teetering on the edge of economic disaster because of a change to the way some businesses (income trusts) are taxed. This is a tiny change compared to the global economic dislocations that might come from climate change.

As the Earth accomodates to a percent or so increase in effective insolation due to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses we are likely to experience significant economic dislocations, by which I mean things like poor harvests, shifts in errossion patterns that will disturb equilibria along coasts and rivers, and things like that. These things will cost money, and the one business group that is notably worried about global climate change is the insurance industry.

There's a reason for that, and if you trust the wisdom of the market you should take the concerns raised by the insurance industry fairly seriously.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[couchslug]

"Consider the direct cost of moving all the world's coastal cities to higher ground."

Over time, it would force the replacement of old infrastructure. While we cherish old cities out of sentiment, building better ones is easier with a cleaner slate. Post-WWII Germany, Japan, etc are examples.

"Consider what's going to happen when the world's current breadbaskets turn to deserts, and some of the present day's have-not countries find themselves sitting on the new best farmland."

Then the have-nots will have a shot at agriculture. Large countries like the US have sufficient room to adjust their agriculture production to suit, and places like Canada may become habitable! :-P

"Yeah, nature doesn't care. But most of us kind of like our easy dinosaur-free lifestyle, and would like to pass it on to our children."

Not sure what that means, but reptiles are tasty if frog legs, gator,and snake are anything to go by. I'd be happy to eat dino-steaks.

"Cutting emissions is surely the safest way to manage it. (And for those of you still denying that its anthropogenic, it hardly matters. We have the need and the power to do something about it, and it's past time we got started.)"

The alternative is simply adapting to disruptive change.

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[corbettw]

And for those of you still denying that its anthropogenic, it hardly matters. We have the need and the power to do something about it, and it's past time we got started.

And that right there is the whole problem with this debate. At the root, we don't know what causes global warming (though there are some interesting theories out there). Until we know what causes the problem, how in the world can we hope to find a solution?

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[EEBaum]

That's all fine and good, except for one minor issue...

We're cutting down the trees faster than they can regrow.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nature is just fine tuning for the 6.5 new critters crawling on it. It needs to warm up to have more vegetation to scrub out the CO2. Let nature do it's thing."

Yeah! Did you just forget that most of the forrests are already gone in most parts of the world....and you think suddenly there will be trees all over when we need more land because of draught in todays food producing areas?

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? Who has determined this?

Depends on how far it goes. As near as the GCMs can tell, areas that depend on winter snowpack for their water supply are going to run short, and despite increased overall precipitation there will be more frequent droughts.

>Where do they live?

Bangladesh?

Re: Fixing what isn't broken

[zippthorne]

It would if we'd require poeple to get their own damn insurance. You want to be compassionate? Fine, play government-provided 'insurer' this time, but make it clear that there won't be any more federal money the next time around. It's been hit three times in a century. It would be folly to think that it won't be hit again.

Oh.. and deregulate insurers at least enough that they can charge the exorbitant rates requied to even reach breakeaven without leaning on a mysterious government funded "insurance-insurer," thus exposing the real cost of precipitous locations. We shouldn't be in the business of federally subsidizing failing business models or idiotic housing placement decisions.

Carbon sequestration prize

[mdsolar]

Here, I've asked for folks interested in competeing for the $25 million prize to get in touch http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=221624&cid=179 62344. I'd be interested in structuring this in a manner similar to open source development. The basic idea is to use ocean seeding to build new fisheries, thus turning a profit and making the carbon sequestration economically viable.

Re:Carbon sequestration prize

[ThosLives]

The only thing that concerns me about the Branson prize is the magnitude: a billion (metric) tons of CO2 per year is a little over 2.7 million tons/day. I don't know what product or market out there might exist for that amount of quantity; there is surely no "new" market, and any existing market, to suffer the displacement of that much product, would also have unwanted effects. Let's say you convert that CO2 into something like gasoline (I personally hate the idea of alcohol as a fuel; sure it might burn clean, but the drop in energy content per unit volume is not attractive, let alone the impact of grain being traded as energy instead of food). The sheer mass Branson is requiring is the equivalent of the mass of around the order of 10 million barrels of gasoline per day - approximately the entire US market for gasoline. I don't think any of the oil interests are going to look fondly at instantaneously losing an entire market - there are severe political ramifications for any product that would be able to sequester a billion tons of CO2 per year. That's just energy - think about the effect on a food market, or any other market.

That's a key point, because if something is not economically viable, society isn't ready to just "donate" resources to save the environment; sure some minority of the population is going to do this, but without immediate beneficial impact or blatant punishment tactics, the only way to get people to change their ways is to make things more convenient for them now.

We have, today, the technology to extract CO2 from the atmosphere; just run big chillers, distill the CO2 out then split it into charcoal and oxygen...but that requires massive amounts of energy (say, solar and/or wind) which could be used directly instead, and without a large enough market for that much new charcoal and oxygen, the "threat" of future climate problems is not enough an incentive for people to build large enough conversion factories. The "future benefit" of sequestering the CO2 is not worth more (in the eyes of the average individual) than the opportunity cost today. It's a political and economic problem only, not a technical one.

So, unless there is a way for society to economically absob the cost to pull this much carbon out of the atmosphere without a loss in standard of living it's not likely to be successful. The tradeoff then becomes the perceived risk of climate change versus loss of standard of living to implement the changes. That's the troubling part; humans have a tendency to worry (probably rightly, though often to an unhealthy extreme) about today rather than the future.

Re:Carbon sequestration prize

[mdsolar]

That's exactly right which, I think, is why the prize conditions stipulate that the method be economically viable. This is why I've settled on fish. We are already geared up to replace the protein in our diet with fuel in our tanks: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm at least for a season. So, a new source of protein looks like it might meet favorable market conditions. The oceans are about tapped out for fish with fisheries collapsing all over http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Fish/Fish_d ata.htm#fig2 while aquaculture is polluting in many aspects. Why not them make the best of it and move the aquiculture out to the desolate regions and call the pollution sequestration? With a major increase in the fish supply, natural stocks can be allowed to recover. The surface area should be adequate given the photosynthetic efficency of single celled organisms http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html, the remaining worry being the mixing of CO2 into the water. However, to win you only need to run the thing for ten years, so disolved CO2 and a little mixing from weather ought ot provide an adequate resevoir for that timescale.

I think your comment about making things convenient is very important especially in getting renewable energy going on a big scale. But, when it comes to food, the political consequences of making anything inconvenient can be severe, so working on assuring an over-supply makes a lot of sense. If Brown is right in the first link here, people are going to be very upset.

Re:Carbon sequestration prize

[mindshaper155]

My boyfriend was telling me about this, and I agree with you that it is not economically viable to pull this plan off. People do need to change their ways and not put so much CO2 into the air. A good example of this would be to actually enforce the speed limit so people aren't burning as much fuel. The slower people go, the less gasoline they burn, and less CO2 goes into the air. Also what bothers me is that some millionaire is throwing his cash around, albeit in a good way, to help get the environment cleaned up. Global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer has been a problem forever; why are people making such a big fuss about it now?

Re:Carbon sequestration prize

[mdsolar]

Ozone depletion has not stopped but it is turning around

Since the adoption and strengthening of the Montreal Protocol has led to reductions in the emissions of CFCs, atmospheric concentrations of the most significant compounds have been declining. These substances are being gradually removed from the atmosphere. By 2015, the Antarctic ozone hole would have reduced by only 1 million km out of 25 (Newman et al., 2004); complete recovery of the Antarctic ozone layer will not occur until the year 2050 or later. Work has suggested that a detectable (and statistically significant) recovery will not occur until around 2024, with ozone levels recovering to 1980 levels by around 2068 (Newman et al., 2006).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Curre nt_events_and_future_prospects_of_ozone_depletion

Depending on your age, 1980 does not seem like forever. Warming has been going on for longer, but what is a big deal now is that we're pretty sure that we are the reason for it http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/knowing-warmin g.html. With ozone it was much easier to tell. Now, the signs that warming is happening are all over the place as well.

The reason for wanting to look at sequestration is that we might be in very big trouble with only extreme measures left as options. Then again, we might not. Eliminating the use of fossil fuels may be an adequate response which would be a good idea for many other reasons anyway.
--
Get solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Global Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

No one disputes Global Warming.
We can see that it has occurred in the past and is occurring now.
What is in dispute is cause and cure, if any.
These cycles have taken place long before we had ANY impact on the planet.
*shudder* I can only imagine the swings once we start "tweaking" the cycles! */shudder*

Re:Global Warning

[FooAtWFU]

No one disputes Global Warming... What is in dispute is cause and cure, if any.

The cause is academic, and only matters insofar as it affects the Cure.

But you're right. When Reason Magazine, the unofficial publication of Libertarian politics, "Free Minds and Free Markets", says "global warming is an issue", then... well, in my book, there's not much more sense to holding out on the issue.

Re:Global Warning

[gfxguy]

I think a failing of many environmentalists (and don't take that as a slam, because I consider myself an environmentalist) is they feel this need to "preserve" everything when nature itself doesn't do any such thing.

We are preserving forests with certain kinds of trees dominant when every few hundred or thousand years the dominant trees would have naturally cycled to another variety.

We try to strictly preserve animal populations when, for millions of years, the dominant animals have cycled between various predators that over hunt to various prey that thrives becasue predators died off.

And now we're going to try to preserve the global average temperature when, since the planet came in existence billions of years ago, the temperature has always cycled for various reasons. And there's more than one cycle at work, too.

We try to preserve every animal from exinction when nature has killed off far more species than man ever has. Now, I agree it's tragic when a species is lost, and it's more tragic when it's lost because mankind has over hunted them, but those are not the only protected species. It's a fact of nature that some species simply don't deserve to exist; evolution didn't treat them kindly. Most species die because they are NOT suited to the EVER CHANGING environment our planet gives us. So while I do agree with laws protecting species from over hunting, the fact is that we try to protect too many from nature itself.

Lastly, we are human beings. Unless you believe some alien dropped us here as an experiment, then we are part of nature, too.

So yes, I consider myself an environmentalist; I think we ought to stop polluting as much as we do, I think we need to protect our drinking water, I think we ought not hunt species to extinction. I many of the lightbulbs (no, not all) are flourescent. I turn the water off when I'm brushing my teeth and shaving. Both my cars are ULEV, and I make it a point to combine trips when I go out.

My question is why do so many environmentalists want to prevent nature from happening?

Re:Global Warning

[Thuktun]

I've never seen environmentalists trying to prevent Nature from happening. I'm not sure where you got that idea.

Metaphorically speaking, "preservation" usually entails roping off areas to prevent human meddling, not laminating everything to ensure it doesn't change.

CFL++

[brunes69]

People who don't use CFL's in this day and age IMO are just being anally retarded.

Modern CFLs are cheaper for the consumer, better for the environment, and indistinguishable from incandescents when placed in any enclosed fixture.

Re:CFL++

[UbuntuDupe]

No, they're not. They're really, really not.

Most calculations I've seen, even assuming you have to buy a stronger light to replace incandescents, give an effective ROI of over 100%, untaxed. (You're not taxed on avoiding consumer expenses.)

I wet my pants at the idea of a 13% ROR, pre-tax.

You really think I'm passing that up for no reason?

By the way ... when you focus on controlling inputs (what kinds of light I can use) rather than outputs (total energy use, or total CO2 emissions necessitated) ... you start to give the impression you're more interested in micromanaging others' lives than actually saving the environment. Just a heads-up.

Re:CFL++

[greginnj]

Modern CFLs are cheaper for the consumer, better for the environment, and indistinguishable from incandescents when placed in any enclosed fixture.

Help me out here, before I finish my Kool-Aid on this -- what exactly does 'modern' mean? I bought a few packs of 100W-equivalent CFLs about three years ago, and they had a _horrible_ burnout rate -- more than half of them burned out within two years. Not cheaper for the consumer, at the approx $4/bulb price I paid. Not a no-name brand, either; I believe they were Phillips.

And what's the fully-loaded environmental cost? Do they still contain mercury, like traditional fluorescent tubes? What happens when they get dumped in a landfill and broken open? How does their environmental cost of production compare to that of incandescents?

I'm willing to use CFLs, (and still do) but I haven't heard these questions answered anywhere. If CFLs really are such a great solution, we shouldn't be afraid of such questions...

Re:CFL++

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you even tried them? Basing it off of stuff you read on some dude's blog is foolish, at least buy a few and try them out in a room.

Sure, in unenclosed situations they are noticeable, but in most enclosed fixtures they are perfectly fine. You can adapt, you know, and you will soon get used to the slightly different color or brightness.

Unless you have some terrible eye sight, you really don't need to live in something as bright as a surgeon's room.

Re:CFL++

[aliquis]

cfl = energy saving light bulb?

In that case no since only regular bulbs and halogen bulbs give full spectrum light, light tubes does not and the energy saving light bulbs are just light tubes in disgues (spelling..)

There exist light tubes which are supposed to have a better light spectrum but I've got the impression they are made with 3 or 5 various kinds of phosfors which just gives you more "peaks" in the spectrum instead of 1 but not one large smooth spectrum as in the ones where you actually got something burning.

Also there are the issue with color temperature, thought I guess most of them are around 2700K or whatever and similair to light bulbs, halogen might get higher and with light tubes and so you can get 6000 and 6500K or so to.

Btw I would like to have a light solution with very natural light with good contrasts, colors, no "reflections" and so on, could anyone suggest something? Ott-lites are expensive so not those =P

Re:CFL++

[aliquis]

Cheaper as in $4 + energy cost vs regular bulb + energy cost for the same amount of time.

Re:CFL++

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>I bought a few packs of 100W-equivalent CFLs about three years ago, and they had a _horrible_ burnout rate -- more than half of them burned out within two years.

Did any of them start smoking? I can make a really good guess what brand it was. The same brand has also had trouble meeting its advertised brightness specs.

I've been having good results with CFs every place that they'll fit, including some places you'd expect to be problematic like heat-retaining cans in track lighting. They do have electronics in them, which is a vulnerability.

Re:CFL++

[aliquis]

Also here in Sweden we don't throw tubes containing mercury in landfills, or batteries, or any electronics at all longer. Atleast if people does what they are supposed to do.

We got collection for paper/magazines, paper boxes, glas, hard plastic, soft plastic (which i think they just burn), metal, batteries and electronics and compost/organic. So the only rest is uhm.. mostly soft plastic since it gets burned anyway, small plastic pieces on bread bags, cat litter, uhm.. =P

Halt!

[WED Fan]

We are going to make massive changes, spend trillions (US word) of dollars, make some irreversable decisions on ideas based upon an idea whose roots are based more in economic-geopolitical warfare than actual science.

When the hard core scienetists do not agree (and anyone saying there is consensus for man-caused global climate change (warming or cooloing) and there is no need to listen to the other side, are not only wrong, but their motives must be seriously examined), and we are looking at this in a highly emotional state, nearing hysteria, or religios ferver it's time to step back from the jumping off point and realize that we are being led, like lemmings or children by the pipers of anti-capitalism and population control.

Does anyone find it suspicious that the proponents of this man-caused point of view fly around exhaust belching planes and drive in caravans of SUV's, playing the "carbon neutral" carbon-credit shell game (3 card monte, really), to preach this idea when they could just teleconference in, and lead by example? Can't the inventor of the Internet show up to all his conferences by way of video and never travel? Wouldn't that be more beneficial? Wouldn't that show the world it is possible to globally telecommute? Saving the planet starts with you, Al?

Al doesn't believe it himself. It's not enough of a priority for Arianna. No, it's a means to a socio-political ends, nothing more. And the public is being hoodwinked.

Re:Halt!

[waif69]

More real climatologists are popping up and stating that the concept of man-made global warming isn't real. The real issue is the rest of the world wants to punish the US and have them pay some sort of UN tax. In the 1970's the press reported stories that the planet was cooling and we needed to change how and what we do in industry and how people consume to alter global weather. Either the attempt to change the global weather from the 1970's caused the global warming and the environazi's were very wrong then or they are wrong now or they are just plain wrong and want to blame everything on mankind and want to deal with their guilt for being rich or successful or something.

Re:Halt!

[kerrbear]

Al doesn't believe it himself. It's not enough of a priority for Arianna. No, it's a means to a socio-political ends, nothing more. And the public is being hoodwinked.

Drastic measures aside, whether there is warming or not, I feel that reducing carbon emissions is a good thing anyway. Even if global warming is a hoax, it would not be a bad thing to stop pumping pollutants into the atmosphere.

Re:Halt!

[ogma]

The fact that this idiotic rant gets modded +5 insightful says more about the current state of slashdot than it does about the original poster.

The IPCC report states that it is 95% certain that humanity is influencing global climate change and this guy thinks it's some sort of global conspiracy? Slashdot what the fuck has happened to you?

Re:Halt!

[AutopsyReport]

It fell off the edge of the Earth. Now what were you saying about 95% certainty?

Re:Halt!

[Eternauta3k]

Can't the inventor of the Internet show up to all his conferences by way of video and never travel?

When I read inventor of the Internet I thought "WTF, Tim B. Lee is preaching about global warming?". Anyway...
It's hard to convince people to do stuff and dramatically change their ways of life if you're a face in a screen. For example, I recently read that Al Gore was coming to my country to talk about global warming. Do you think it would've made the news if he was just going to show up in a screen?

Re:Halt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ladies and gentlemen, here we have a textbook example of the ad hominem attack.

Re:Halt!

[narsiman]

to top it you have replies that have been modded. I see a paid wikipedia conspiracy in slashdot postings too !!

Re:Halt!

[ogma]

You make a good point - current scientific consensus changes throughout history. That doesn't alter the fact that human-induced climate-change is currently the best explanation we have. Beating strawmen like "Well they thought the earth was flat once you know!" isn't good enough - you have to show why all those scientists who agree with the IPCC findings are wrong, and why the minority of scientists who disagree with them have better theories.

They once thought that light was composed of particles, then we find out it's not, and now we find out it kind of is again. Does that make my case any stronger? Of course not - and neither does pointing out the once-assumed flatness of the Earth make my case any weaker.

Re:Halt!

[ChrisMaple]

The GP used calm language, you used the phrase "idiotic rant". Look in a mirror.

Re:Halt!

[AutopsyReport]

you have to show why all those scientists who agree with the IPCC findings are wrong, and why the minority of scientists who disagree with them have better theories.

I honestly don't think this will happen. Assumptions made by the media about GW being an absolute truth is in such an abundance that it's difficult to erase the whole idea of it. Consensus says global warming is a fact and scientific findings mostly supports this. It's a compelling idea and it is understood why someone would believe it.

But it's simply too early to assume we need to take drastic measures like those mentioned. As many others said, it's ridiculous that we are willing to spend trillions on these tricks, but we can't even convince someone to reduce their emissions / consumption / etc.

I believe in due time we will realize that the Earth is not nearly as susceptible to its inhabitants as we currently believe it is. We've got evolution on our side -- a strong ability to adapt to any environment we live in. Why can't the same be said about the Earth?

Re:Halt!

[Anonymous Coward]

The man-made global warming fascists are really using those mods.

Slashdot is, if anything, highly emotion driven. Being geeks, they think they understand science, but most have a terrible socialist, if not communist, bent. Mention DRM, publishers controlling their content, people being able to control their intellectual property and they go nuts. So, don't be surprised when slashdotters go all mod-you-down fascist.

They can't handle the truth.

Re:Halt!

[Anonymous Coward]

He makes a bogus point: that the idea that the earth is flat was ever popular is a MYTH which can be traced back to a mostly fictional account of Columbus' voyage published in 1828. That the earth is spherical has been known for thousands of years, and its circumference was calculated with high accuracy by the ancient greeks.

It is all too ironic that anti-scientific wingnuts so favor this criticism of mainstream science when in fact that it is totally false, based purely on rumor and ignorance when actual evidence that is not difficult to obtain clearly shows that historical mainstream scientists knew quite accurately what they were talking about on at least this point.

Re:Halt!

[sbate]

95% is not 100% we are 100% we evolved from monkeys or things that look sort of like monkeys - I am 95% sure that we were created by intelligent monkeys who wanted a friend. Global warming does not have an overwhelming appreciable human cause that is provable.

Re:Halt!

[maxume]

CO2, the primary 'carbon emission', is only a pollutant to the extent that it causes warming; if there is no warming, the increase in CO2 concentration caused by burning old things is essentially harmless. CO is a bit nastier, but it isn't persistent.

Re:Halt!

[asterion]

It is global, but it ain't a conspiracy, it's right out in the open, and the GP is right - the IPCC and the UN in general is motivated not by climate science, which is utter horseshit (where's the 4 billion yr old control experiment? Why are ALL the planets getting hotter? They can't predict the whether next week, but know for certain to fractions of a degree the temp 100 years? When the can't explain either the glaciation cycle or little ice ages?) but by skimming big $$$ from the evil Americans.

And you have the gall to complain about mod points HERE? All that's necessary to get modded up here: Bush sucks, America sucks, Eminent Doom, blah blah blah = +5 Insightful!

Stop Breathing

[Anonymous Coward]

if those of you who honestly believe that human induced global warming is a reality would merely hold your breath for 10 seconds each day.....that would save the atmosphere TONS of CO2

Re:Stop Breathing

[WindBourne]

Sadly, there are ppl like yourself that will believe that this will work. That is why there are still some who think that Global warming is not occurring and maybe about 10-20% who actually think that man does not contribute.

"Geo engineering"

[hackus]

Errrrr.......no.

Leave the planet alone please.

We know WAY too little about the planet to start screwing around with its Biosphere.

Not only that, but you do not get a second chance if you screw it up.

I say we start someplace else and experiment there, so if we do screw it up, no biggy.

Even the dumbest WINDOZE admin knows you always experiment on a TEST server before doing anything to your production server if you do not want downtime.

"Downtime" in this case would mean the Earths Biosphere.....I hope I do not have to explain what that means.

Besides, if we experiment with a different world, the WORST that can happen is it doesn't work.

Best possible thing that can happen is we get another planet to live on.

Half the people on this planet belong on Mars anyway....IMHO. :-)

-Hack

Re:"Geo engineering"

[Shadowlore]

No, the worst thing that could happen is that it works on some other planet, but due to any of the myriad of differences the same technology has the opposite effect, or severe unintended effects when used on Earth; and then it is used on Earth.

No, the cat does not "got my tongue."

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

[Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in Sarcastic Nobody's Listening Mode] Stop. Don't do it. Accidently inducing an ice age will kill billions of people.[/sarcasm]

How about changing inclination or hey its orbit??

[gd23ka]

I'm pretty much sick and tired of all this UN global warming FUD
and so here we are stuck with yet another debate on bad science,
bought science and science with an agenda and then we'll move
on to what science as an organized religion has in common with
say catholicism and clamor for the excommunication of the
heretics who dare question the holy doctrines.

Oh and I'm not done ranting yet either...

[gd23ka]

I mean look at this, here someone is thinking of mucking around with the
planet far worse than people driving in their cars and cows passing gas,
like dumping million of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere
or painting large parts of the planet white or shading the planet from the
sun from orbit ...

believe me whoever comes up with these halfbaked (http://www.halfbakery.com)
ideas has no clue what could happen.

Before we do something stupid...

[GVIrish]

I hope they put a LOT of research and consideration into basically terraforming Earth. The law of unintended consequences could cause more devastation on a shorter scale than global warming could. Just the idea of seeding the ocean with iron could have the unintended consequence of algal blooms that could wreak havoc on marine ecosystems, especially coral reefs. Tread carefully gentlemen.

Re:Before we do something stupid...

[SaDan]

I'll believe scientists know something about climate change when they can effectively (and accurately) terraform Venus or Mars.

I agree, let's not accidentally destroy our own living space. The planet has hosted life for quite some time now, with plenty of cycles from hot to cold. If it's inconvenient for us, that's just too damned bad. The system works just fine as it is.

On a planetary scale, even burning fossil fuels is being carbon neutral.

As Scientists, we had better be right

[finarfinjge]

This article and the one earlier, concerning the causitive nature of cosmic rays on climate should be read together. Many of the readers here are scientists, engineers (applied scientists) or at least capable of a fundemental understanding of science. To those people I say: If you are a proponent of man influenced climate change, you had better be right. This issue has now progressed to the point where the majority of people on the planet believe that there is no scientific doubt whatsoever about human influence and more precisely carbon dioxide. If this is wrong, if humans are not influencing climate or if that influence has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, science will be at fault and science will (rightly) lose credibility.

This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution.

There are a large number of interest groups out there that are waiting with increasing anticipation that this issue will blow up in the face of the global warming proponents. A large number of the rest of us will get hit by the shrapnel of that explosion. As an engineer and consultant who gets a great deal of work and money out of efforts to curb green house gasses, I personally love the hype. As a believer in the importance of science in all of our lives, I am now getting very nervous about the future reputation of science.

Cheers
JE

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[danpsmith]

This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution.

Let's stop roping evolution into it, okay? Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with global warming. There are entire branches of science that function off of evolutionary theory, in these fields, evolution is something that no longer has to be "proved", it is simply used. Evolution happens. It's been proven time and time again. Scientists can watch micro-evolution happen in front of their eyes. We need to stop promoting anti-science as a movement. Maybe science could get it wrong, that's possible. Maybe most scientists could agree that global warming is caused by man and later be proven to be wrong, but that doesn't mean you throw away all the useful information you've learned through scientific theory and start acting like they got it all wrong. The scientific community isn't a unified religious organization, despite religious peoples' attempts to promote it as such.

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[AutopsyReport]

Maybe most scientists could agree that global warming is caused by man and later be proven to be wrong, but that doesn't mean you throw away all the useful information you've learned through scientific theory and start acting like they got it all wrong.

Of course you don't throw away that information -- but you also don't force a solution on something that may not be a problem.

The real problem is that most scientists do not admit uncertainty in their findings, so the general public is led to believe that global warming is infallible and we must respond to protect the Earth.

To many, the greatest threat is not if global warming will alter our way of life 15 years from now. The threat is the effect of combating global warming with extreme measures like the proposed ones when we might not have a problem.

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[Jerf]

Maybe this is a dumb heuristic, but: When have politicians, the media, and the elite class ever come together to correctly say something about science?

Every time it has happened, it has been both wrong, and disastrous.

If we're getting to the point where we're seriously talking about ecologically engineering cooling, we're getting uncomfortably close to "disastrous". I'm way more afraid of global cooling than global warming (one is, for all the propaganda, inconvenient, the other renders the globe truly uninhabitable), and it'd be so very much fun if our 1% cooling solution turned into a 10% cooling solution accidentally. Oops.

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[finarfinjge]

I said:
"This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution."

You Said:
"Let's stop roping evolution into it, okay? Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with global warming. There are entire branches of science that function off of evolutionary theory, in these fields, evolution is something that no longer has to be "proved", it is simply used. Evolution happens. It's been proven time and time again. Scientists can watch micro-evolution happen in front of their eyes. We need to stop promoting anti-science as a movement. Maybe science could get it wrong, that's possible. Maybe most scientists could agree that global warming is caused by man and later be proven to be wrong, but that doesn't mean you throw away all the useful information you've learned through scientific theory and start acting like they got it all wrong. The scientific community isn't a unified religious organization, despite religious peoples' attempts to promote it as such."

And hence showed that you missed the entire point of my post. I am a believer in evolution. I value science and empirical evidence to support theory. I agree with you on evolution.

Now try to follow this carefully.

If the climate becomes stable for a decade or so AND if CO2 levels go through the roof, how will you respond with your rational argument when someone says "That's what they said about global warming". And every non-scientist listening will nod in agreement and think "yea, they lied to me about global warming, why wouldn't they lie to me about evolution". I fear this. You should fear this. You should start to point out that this type of assinine argument is going to be given credility because the same people who are proponents for (scientifically proven) evolution are also proponents for (scientifically inferred) global warming. Very few people who determine what becomes law or who gets money know the difference.

Cheers
JE

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[mdsolar]

My experience is that when things have been rechecked as often as the IPCC report, it takes a real breakthrough to shift the field. When that happens, it is not so much that everybody was wrong as there is just a new way of seeing things. I personally don't question the Newtonian results all that much except where the Einsteinian results differ from them. Sometimes I do, but this hasn't led to a lot of progress so far.

I think you are taking the yahoo aspect of attacking science a little too seriously. Much of that is simply done in bad faith. There may be some sincere motive somewhere down there, but the method of argument is so often based on rhetorical methods that are intended to mislead that one just has to become dismissive.

One can hope that it will turn out that climate is not sensitive to GHGs alone and some new unconsidered aspect may come into play to make this so, at least for a period, but that hope looks pretty thin as things stand.

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hate to mess with your worldview, but science is always wrong. That's how science works - through constant refinement and revision of existing ideas to better reflect our evolving understanding. Despite many cycles of disproving accepted theories, science is still the best game in town. The only way we become dangerous is if we give in to pride and refuse to keep pace with new developments.

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[finarfinjge]

"I really hate to mess with your worldview, but science is always wrong. That's how science works - through constant refinement and revision of existing ideas to better reflect our evolving understanding. Despite many cycles of disproving accepted theories, science is still the best game in town. The only way we become dangerous is if we give in to pride and refuse to keep pace with new developments."

I'm guessing that you replied to this after most had read the article etc. once and hence little chance for modding up. You are not messing with my world view. Reread my original post. Carefully. My world view is: The media reporting of the IPCC et. al. would have us believe that science is absolutely correct in this. None of the proponents of man made global warming are standing up and saying "Hey we could be wrong". As you seem to understand, this is absurd. The enemies of science will grab this failure (if it is indeed a failure) and use it to forward a myriad of idiotic proposals, such as intelligent design and the dangers of immunization. They will get funding for science cut back. They will get people to stop donating to Sierra Defense and others. This issue is about as public an issue as science has had. If we have it wrong, science itself will be at stake. And by then it will be too late.

Cheers
JE

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[Anonymous Coward]

"This issue has now progressed to the point where the majority of people on the planet believe that there is no scientific doubt whatsoever about human influence and more precisely carbon dioxide."

The majority of people? Do you have any evidence to support that statement? Any worldwide surveys to cite? It sounds like you're just making stuff up.

If you are citing unreferenced research, I would still warn that popular opinion is a lousy way to determine scientific truth. The majority of Americans reject fundamental tenets of evolution, and believe in angels. Without getting into whether the majority is right about these things, it's fair to say that the scientific evidence has little bearing on what the majority believes.

If the majority of people on this planet thought you should jump off a pier, would you?

Re:As Scientists, we had better be right

[danpsmith]

If the climate becomes stable for a decade or so AND if CO2 levels go through the roof, how will you respond with your rational argument when someone says "That's what they said about global warming". And every non-scientist listening will nod in agreement and think "yea, they lied to me about global warming, why wouldn't they lie to me about evolution". I fear this. You should fear this. You should start to point out that this type of assinine argument is going to be given credility because the same people who are proponents for (scientifically proven) evolution are also proponents for (scientifically inferred) global warming. Very few people who determine what becomes law or who gets money know the difference.

I don't know if you live on the same planet as me, but non-scientific, irrational arguments get weight all the time in these type of conversations now. One my favorite headnodder idiot arguments has to be: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Does that mean they will be in the position to do anything about it though? Not really. If the population wants to continue to get stupider about subjects instead of educating themselves, we aren't going to be able to prevent it. That's the problem with not being in the "average" sector. You can try your hardest, but at the end people won't understand what you are saying. I suggest watching idiocracy.

What's so bad?

[Guppy06]

"Let's reduce our emissions now, before I have to go and paint my roof bright white."

If you do it now anyway, your air conditioning bill in the summer will be lower. And depending on how you get your electricity, painting your roof white would, in fact, reduce emissions.

Why the bias in favor of strict controls over individual actions?

Re:What's so bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shuddup with the white paint already!

I have got a patent currently going through the hoops on erecting white reflective shields to offset carbon footprints. The lovely thing about it is that the figures are so vague that any size will do any amount of offsetting - I am going to be advertising 1000 sq ft as a full offset for a Brit - 3000 sq ft for a US-ian. Smaller sizes pro-rata.

You saw it here first! Look for 'Green-Bright' (tm)

Re:What's so bad?

[Asic Eng]

Why the bias in favor of strict controls over individual actions?

Cause individual actions have so far failed to work. If they hadn't we wouldn't even need this discussion.

On top of that, there is the mathematical problem of the prisoner's dilema. If company A and B would increase cost and reduce carbon emissions, all would be better off. However if just company A does it, people will buy from company B and A will be broke. (Vice versa if B does it.) People invented rules and governments to address that fundamental problem.

Science along fixes nothing, people do.

[elucido]

It's not science that will fix global warming, people will solve it.
That's the whole point, if each and every person does not come up with their own unique solutions, applying their talents and abilities, then even if there is more science, it will not be solved.

This is a multi-disciplinary challenge. It will not be solved simply by terraforming, although terraforming does help, we have a long long way to go to create a more efficient planet. The lack of efficiency exists everywhere, from the lack of economic efficiency which causes the massive amounts of joblessness and poverty in the third world, to the poor designs of our houses, to the unsustainable use of our land and natural resources. So just telling people to consume less solves nothing, the solution is to consume efficiently, and produce efficiency.

It's simple

[DeeVeeAnt]

Personally I favour the solution which is currently being pursued by the world's wisest leaders. Carry on completely as normal with our eyes wide shut and our feet firmly on the gas. Within the next 50-100 years, the seas should have risen sufficiently to wipe out the majority of the factories and cars which mostly reside just above the current sea level. CO2 emissions will rapidly fall and the larger ocean surface will reflect more of the incident sunlight. Problem solved ;D

No one disputes Global Warming - anymore, maybe

[benhocking]

Less than 15 years ago, Rush Limbaugh was declaring that NASA was able to build satellites that could detect the influence of the full moon on temperature, but that they hadn't yet been able to detect global warming. Although one might be tempted to, it's not fair to call Rush "no one".

warming

[ralph1]

bizarre idea of painting the ground white to reflect more light. Let's reduce our emissions now, before I have to go and paint my roof bright white." Not so bizarre just like snow on the grown it will work and kind of ez to do but should be last choice.

The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

If you go into the middle of the rain forest, and dig down a couple of feet you hit sand. You would think that if trees were removing all this carbon from the atmosphere the layer would be a 100 feet deep. What happens is the wood rots and releases most of the carbon as CO2 and methane.

I would say that most of the carbon 'sinking' is done by algae that dies and falls to the bottom of the ocean, where it is cold and oxygen is limited. We don't know though if we fertilize the ocean that the algae will end up in the right spot, or just find its way to an area where the carbon would return to the atmosphere.

Re:The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one

[Anonymous Coward]

If you go into the middle of the rain forest and look up, you see a 100 feet deep layer of trees. That's where the carbon is.

Re:The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one

[Anonymous Coward]

Rainforests are notoriously bad in long-term carbon storage: they are so warm and humid that everything that dies is recycled pretty much instantly. Let's cut them down and replace them with tree farms that preserve carbon in finished products. Yes, I am being facetious, but not completely: as I pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, if climate change alarmists expect the rest of the world to make sacrifices, they need to make sacrifices themselves as well.

And if you are looking for long term carbon storage, check out peat bogs and boreal forests - those places are amazing.

Re:The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one

[mudshark]

The sequestration value of rain forests is the ongoing static amount of biomass in an undisturbed system. You get problems when forests are converted to lower net static biomass vegetation regimes, such as pasture or cropland, which simply don't hold as much carbon at a given point in time over the same area. You also risk the long term inability to reforest if rainfall patterns change with the removal of massive evapotranspiration mechanisms. See the Amazon for a case study.

Sequestration through production of calcium carbonate (limestone) by marine organisms is a hugely important factor. Ocean fertilization might increase this process, but carries its own risks and possible unintended side effects: iron toxicity in multicelled creatures, giant evil squid being roused from millenia of slumber by all those exoskeletons, etc.

Of course, the fact that we're merrily burning all that carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago doesn't help a whole lot.

Re:The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one

[Shadowlore]

If you go into the middle of the rain forest, and dig down a couple of feet you hit sand. You would think that if trees were removing all this carbon from the atmosphere the layer would be a 100 feet deep.

Unless you know more about the process of decomposition and reuse in nature. Much of what passes as "common sense" is in fact wrong when it comes to areas beyond the basic topsoil level.

Decomposition requires many things. Among them ready access to oxygen. Once you go down a few feet, this oxygen supply gets sparse. Furthermore, so do carbon based components (i.e. formerly living material). Once outside of the narrow envelope of natural decomposition it ... now get this ... stops happening. Ever uprooted trees, or seen them uprooted? Most trees have a very shallow root depth - it is more important for their wind resistance capability that their root base be wide, not deep.

What would you expect to find, block of "sequestered" CO2 twenty feet down? Bah. Trees *are* mostly carbon - that's where they store it; in themselves. Biological carbon "sink" is fact, not idea. Bark and wood are carbon storage. Hint: why do you think burning wood releases CO2?

The ultimate fallacy in a lot of people's minds is that we are making carbon. In truth we are not. We only convert it from one form of carbon to another. Your notion that because sand sits a few feet down from the base of a rain forest (I'll assume you are right for sake of discussion) that trees and forests do not "sink carbon" is so fallacious as to be bordering on ridiculous.

I would say that most of the carbon 'sinking' is done by algae that dies and falls to the bottom of the ocean, where it is cold and oxygen is limited.

And you base this on what evidence? Or is it just more random assertion in an attempt to make yourself look smarter than your username indicates?

Cloud-generating barges

[ericdujardin]

There's a simple way to reflect the Sun's light: clouds. So how about putting a large number of barges in the sea: their bottom would be reflective and insulated, they would hold a small depth of water inside, so that the Sun's rays would be used 100% to produce clouds instead of heating the ocean, and the extra clouds would reflect the Sun's rays, and if we're smart enough, some desert areas would get some rain.

Re:Cloud-generating barges

[maxume]

Water vapor is a major greenhouse gas. I wonder what the actual implications would be.

Re:Cloud-generating barges

[ericdujardin]

However it's generally colder under clouds than under blue skies, and there's little greenhouse effect under clouds. For example, if we could manage to completely cover the skies with clouds, we should cool the planet quiet well.

I have an idea! Modify the plants!

[Karganeth]

Since the earth is green from orbit due to plants, I got dibs on genetically engineering grass so that it is white! That, and tree leaves too. I'll be rich and famous!

No consensus?

[benhocking]

anyone saying there is consensus for man-caused global climate change (warming or cooloing)

Do you think there is not consensus amongst climatologists? Can you name one climatologist who still disputes this? (A climate scientist with a Ph.D., that is.) Just one, but keep in mind that the people you're probably thinking of have recently written articles that suggest they do not dispute that basic fact. (Lindzen, in fact, recently wonders why anyone thinks that it was ever "contested". His words: "At some level, it has never been widely contested.")

Re:No consensus?

[gfxguy]

I agree there are very few people left who doubt that man has an influence on the environment, including warming (or cooling, as the case may be), but what is debated is how much influence, and whether or not the planet would still be warming without us.

If you're looking for a consensus, I recently found this interesting petition.

From the site (not the page I linked to; click on "explanation" under "signers of petition" on the left):

During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition.

Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.

The petition doesn't deny global warming, nor does it deny that mankind has been responsible for large amounts of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. What it questions, as do I, is the fear the media has created over it. I don't fear global warming any more than I fear dihydrogen monoxide.

Re:No consensus?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are all those MD's and DDS's doing in there? What exactly do dentists know about climate change, and what do they belong in a petition about it?

Huge potential for screwup

[Anonymous Coward]

The HUGE potential for screwing this up reminds me of something from one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books...

One guy got himself totally plastered, so they went to fetch some super-strong coffee. But they gave him too much, and he went over the edge. So they had to get more alcohol to bring him back to the right level.

The planet is auto-correcting the mistakes we make, at its own pace. We need to make fewer mistakes, rather than try to push the planet to make faster corrections. If you don't screw up, you don't need to fix it.

-M

Er... huh?

[brunes69]

Inputs ARE WHAT CAUSE THE OUTPUTS.

CO2 emimssions don't come from nowhere. The majority come from power plants (yes... this figure dwarfs automobile emissions).

As long as the majority of our power still comes from coal and oil, less power used == less emissions. It's not rocket science.

Re:Er... huh?

[UbuntuDupe]

Based on your response, and your apparent level of confusion, it appears you've never seriously thought about this issue or done anything like a cost-benefit analysis. I don't say that to insult you, just to suggest how much you're missing.

Inputs ARE WHAT CAUSE THE OUTPUTS.

Yes, but, to extend the metaphor some more, outputs are caused by *all* of the inputs. When you ban one input, without penalizing the output, you simply change one input into another. So I can't use incandescents? Then I can't relax at home. So, I'll drive around -- which isn't punished -- to other places and increase the energy load there -- which isn't punished. Since CFL's use less, I'll be less persistent about turning them off when not in use -- which isn't punished -- and end up using the same energy for light -- which isn't punished. So I'll move out of my apartment into a larger home that requires more energy to regulate its temperature -- which isn't punished -- and take up more land -- which isn't punished.

If using CFL's makes me less productive -- as they do -- that's a loss to the labor pool. That's labor that can't be used to research better energy-related technologies or abate the consequences. (It doesn't matter that I can't personally do those things; on the macro scale, labor is ultimately fungible. Labor I can't do has to be filled by someone else, which cascades down the line until that stuff is affected.)

All that banning individual inputs does is shift to other, unbanned inputs, while forgoing the tax revenues people would have gladly paid for the extra energy the original input would have used. Sure, you could ban or regulate *all* inputs that you judge as wasteful, but why not just regulate the outputs and let people figure out for themselves what inputs they can do without?

It's not rocket science.

Are we really sure the SUVs are a problem?

[emil]

It appears that we are well within tolerances of atmospheric co2:

When dinosaurs walked the earth (about 70 to 130 million years ago), there was from five to ten times more CO2 in the atmosphere than today. The resulting abundant plant life allowed the huge creatures to thrive. . . . Based on nearly 800 scientific observations around the world, a doubling of CO2 from present levels would improve plant productivity on average by 32 percent across species.

However, this does not obviate the need for research into emergency cooling of the earth and much greater research into the behavior of the sun. It is well agreed that, even before the end of the main sequence (and expansion into a red giant), the sun will burn off our oceans:

As Earth's Sun has a mass of one solar mass, it is expected to become a red giant in about five billion years. It will become sufficiently large enough to engulf the current orbits of some of the solar system's inner planets, including Earth.[5][6][7] However, the gravitational pull of the Sun will have weakened by then due to its loss of mass, and all planets but Mercury will escape to a wider orbit. On the other hand, Earth's ability to carry life will be gone before the Sun gets brighter as its hydrogen supply becomes depleted. The extra solar energy will cause the oceans to evaporate to space, causing the Earth's atmosphere to become similar to Venus'.[8]

Eventually, cooling technology will be required. Exactly when this will be is anybody's guess (because our understanding of Solar processes is so poor - we spend all our money driving toy cars around on Mars). We should start on it now.

Re:Are we really sure the SUVs are a problem?

[MustardMan]

I wish there was a way I could mod the linked blog -1, troll. What a ridiculous steaming pile of partisan political horse shit.

Re:Are we really sure the SUVs are a problem?

[emil]

Scientific facts remain facts, whether published in a peer-reviewed journal, or on the back of a box of Lucky Charms.

If you can disprove the assertion, please do so. I don't want to advocate an erroneous position.

Re:Are we really sure the SUVs are a problem?

[ArcherB]

Typical Slashdot bullshit. If they don't agree with me, they must be a troll. Well, troll, flamebait or my favorite... overrated.

Re:Are we really sure the SUVs are a problem?

[MustardMan]

And where's the evidence that these are actually facts? You're advocating a position which has no supporting evidence beyond an insanely biased political mouthpiece. The source DOES matter, and all this slashdot bullshit cockwaving about how any source is valid is nonsense. Scientific facts remain facts, indeed, but I have absolutely ZERO reason to believe anything on that piece of crap blog has anything to do with facts. If you can provide real evidence to back up your assertion, please do - as it stands now there's nothing to discredit because there's no reputable, peer-reviewed source.

When will slashdotters get over their internet fantasy that a blog is just as good as a peer-reviewed journal?

Re:Are we really sure the SUVs are a problem?

[emil]

The "insanely biased political mouthpiece" points at an article on the Center for Global Food Issues. This appears to be an agricultural research journal. It does appear to have a conservative bias ("Claims of Atrazine Harm to Frogs Remain Unsupported"), but I really have no reason to doubt its claim that "there was from five to ten times more CO2 in the atmosphere than today" in the distant past (making the "runaway Venus" effect somewhat unlikely).

Do you find some reason to distrust this journal?

Re:Are we really sure the SUVs are a problem?

[MustardMan]

That is most certainly NOT a scientific journal. There is no mention of a peer review process, and more importantly, NO SCITATATIONS WHATSOEVER in any of the articles. Yet another political mouthpiece.

In our times...

[toolz]

...they used to call it terraforming.

They renamed it when it stopped being Star Trek and started becoming real life.

Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[brunes69]

Well you must have a bad batch, I have had every light on my house running on CFLs for over 2 years now, not a single burnout. They should have had a 5 year warranty on them - why didn't you pursue it?

As far as mercury content - I suggest you read up. Not only is the amount 1/5 of that found in a common watch battery, because you only replace the bulbs every 5-6 years you're using less mercury than someone who buys one AA battery in 5 years :

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/energystar/english/consumer s/questions-answers.cfm?attr=4#mercury

Re:Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[mcd7756]

Great link! I've started using CFLs and the site answered some lingering questions.

BTW, I haven't noticed any difference in how the light looks from CFLs. Also, our kitchen ceiling fixture holds four bulbs. With incandescents, it got pretty hot, so much so that I believe the bulbs' life times were shortened. With the CFLs in place, it's just as bright and the heat is way down. As a matter of fact, you can touch a CFL when it's on. Try that with an incandescent and enjoy the resulting blisters.

Re:Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[SaDan]

It does sound like he had a bad batch. I have a pile of no-name CFLs in my house, and even one for my front porch light. The front porch light has been on for over four years now (they last longer if you don't turn them off and on all the time, and the 7W bulb that replaced the 100W bulb doesn't make me feel bad about leaving it on 24 hours). I've only had two bulbs last less than two years, and they were in locations that were switched on and off frequently by family members.

CFLs are the way to go, 100%.

Re:Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't noticed any difference in how the light looks from CFLs

I don't notice a difference in the light color, but the CFLs I have take a good long while to warm up, and while they're doing it, I get the feeling that I'm going blind (already did in one eye, don't want to do it again). Plus, in the bathroom I gave up and used a low-wattage incandescent bulb, simply because I'd be done with my business and gone by the time the lights warmed up.

Re:Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[Mercedes308]

I'm a semi-pro photographer and one odd thing I found about the CFL's after I converted my house to them was that the recorded colour temperature from them was much consistently closer to 5000K than most incandescents. So as an unenclosed bulb they are more whiter than normal bulbs. Wish I knew that earlier.

Re:Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[dr_db]

Nope, I have had many burn out as well. I live in a rental, and all the fixtures are enclosed, which leads to rapid failure. In fact, I had a couple regular filament bulbs that outlasted the cf's. Some cf's are even fussy if they are bulb up/down in terms of life.

Re:Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[Anonymous Coward]

True, the mercury from flourescent lights is not a problem for the environment as a whole (a heck of a lot more is released from coal), but you don't want mercury vapor in your house.... breaking a bulb, especially while it's on, is bad.

      A standard 60W 42' flourescent tube contains about 13 milligrams nowadays and I suppose the small ones for replacing incandescents are about the same (they are about the same power, and that is more important w/regards to how much mercury they contain than their size.) It's not in a special holder or anything in there either, as you might think. It's just liquid mercury, and if the tube breaks most of the mercury *will* spill out to evaporate and poison anyone who inhales the fumes.... Which you will certainly do if you live in the house it's spilt in. It does *not* sink to the ground. No you won't be able to clean it up, so don't break the tubes!

A toxic quantity of mercury is on the order of a few *micro*grams per day.

Re:Mercury is as much a non-issue as it can be

[Anonymous Coward]

oops, okay, so it's only 5 milligrams, not 13. But you should know that list is pretty wacked up and involve products that no one would use anymore because they contain so much mercury. It is a very misleading list, as 5 milligrams is still a decent bit of mercury to have in your house.... As a Canadian I find it a bit embarassing that these guys seem to have been toking on the job again....
Product Amount of Mercury Number of Equivalent CFLS
Compact
fluorescent lamp 5 milligrams 1
Okay.
Watch battery 25 milligrams 5
No, alkaline batteries don't have that much anymore..... I have a package of no-name decent sized cells here (slr 43) that weigh 6g each, according to my digital jewelry scale. The package says they are 99.995% mercury-free, so that's 0.3 milligrams. Hm. Maybe they were reffering to MERCURY watch batteries, which have been illegal for quite some time now. Also, the stuff in batteries is not available to evaporate and could only possibly be an issue if you ingest it.
Dental amalgams 500 milligrams 100
Yep, those are definitely a problem, though, so it's not such a good thing to compare to if you're trying to say something's safe....
Home thermometer 500 milligrams - 2 grams 100 - 400
  Well, you can't buy those anymore, can you now?(A: No)
Float switches in sump pumps 2 grams 400
"float switches" don't containt mercury anymore. Mercury tilt switches have been illegal here since some time in the 1980s. That is, they cannot be manufactured for other than special purposes.
Tilt thermostat 3 grams 600
Same kind of switch, again, no longer used and illegal.
Electrical tilt switches and relays 3.5 grams
WTF? These are all the same things.

"For a basis of comparison, there are about 500 milligrams to two grams of mercury in your average home thermometer. It would take between 100 to 400 CFLs to equal that same amount of mercury!"

WTF? That's no excuse, come on sheeple. Try looking at the facts by yourself for once instead; just because something is everywhere doesn't mean it's not poisonous. In the past it was used because it was the only option for some things. The maximum allowable dose of mercury vapor, as set by the epa, is less than 10 micrograms per day. Besides, if A is hazardous, but B is less hazardous, it does not neccesarily follow that B is not a hazard.

True, mercury isn't really a problem (lead, which is the same sort of hazard, is MUCH worse), but be careful not to break a flourescent lamp. Also, you have to remember that weed is legal in Canada for some people......

Stop trying to fix the problem!

[Autonomous Crowhard]

The key is to stop adding to the problem. The planet will level things out over time if we give it a chance. If we actively try to fix the problem we'll be facing an ice age in a few centuries.

Yes, I said centuries. Look how quickly we started the whole global warming mess. I think we can reverse it even faster, but I doubt we're good enough to decelerate it and bring things bad to where they belong.

Re:Stop trying to fix the problem!

[gfxguy]

There's an ice age in our future whether we do anything or not. There'd be an ice age even if man didn't exist. It will happen again. We need to live with the changing planet, not try to preserve some status quo simply because we've grown accustomed to it. The reason man is the dominant species on earth is because we adapt.

Re:Stop trying to fix the problem!

[digitrev]

While I think you have a good point, part of our major adaptation has been the ability to adapt the environment to fit our purposes. And even if we continue to muck around with the environment, the conditions that follow that will allow us to adapt even more. It's a cycle. We fuck with the system, the system fucks with us, and eventually, we have a set of humans better equipped to deal with the circumstances.

Control Chaos?

[thethibs]

The problem with this and all the other dingbat proposals is that climate is of its essence chaotic; there's no way to predict what any particular action will end up doing. That's why past climate models have been so far off the mark (of course, the next one will be bang-on!). That's how it is with dynamic systems: Even God can't predict climate, and humans certainly can't control it.

When we can control the flow of water down a mountain with a little push here and a nudge there instead of digging a ditch, we might be ready to start thinking about controlling climate.

Re:Control Chaos?

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no way to predict what any particular action will end up doing

Exactly. Including releasing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Having read the article....let's review, shall we?

[StressGuy]

1. Pumping sulphur into the atmosphere. Injecting millions of tonnes of sulphur into the upper atmosphere would reflect 1% of sunlight back into space to keep the Earth cool, an idea proposed by Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen. On the downside, it would increase acid rain and might cause respiratory problems, too.

and Earth will smell like egg-farting ass....NEXT!!!

2. Trillions of little sunshades in space (pictured). More like lenses than shades, these would bend sunlight away from Earth, reducing the light hitting the planet by about 2%. Although the shades would be simple and lightweight, it would still cost trillions of dollars to build and launch so many of them, according to astronomer Roger Angel of the University of Arizona, who is championing the idea.

and, if we put enough small objects in orbit, we won't be able to orbit anything else for fear of impact....NEXT!!!

3. A giant orbiting dust cloud. Vast quantities of dust obtained by vaporising a comet - or collecting lunar dust - could be injected into an orbit similar to the Moon's. The dust cloud would eclipse the Sun for several hours each month, cutting the total amount of sunlight reaching Earth per month by more than 1%, according to a proposal by astronomer Curtis Struck of Iowa State University. On the downside, the particles making up the cloud would eventually spiral towards Earth in huge numbers, hitting and possibly destroying satellites.

Wasn't this one of the plot elements in the MATRIX? and hey, why stop at tweaking our own planet's eco-system when we can tweak the entire solar system....NEXT!!!

4. Painting the ground white. We could cover roads, oceans, deserts or other surfaces with reflective material, thereby increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back into space. On the downside, changing the amount of solar energy absorbed by the ground or oceans could have unanticipated effects on the weather.

Reminds me of THX1138. Oh and, I did an experiment in elementary school where we had shoe-boxes that were painted different colors on the inside with glass tops and thermometers inside. We left them out in the sun and, guess what? THEY ALL REACHED ABOUT THE SAME TEMPERATURE!!!...yes, the dark ones may have heated up faster, but they all peaked about the same....NEXT!!!

I sure hope this is just a science-fluff piece....like Omni Magazine.

Democratization of Climate Change Science

[HoneyBeeSpace]

The EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). Our goal is to 'democratize' climate change science by allowing anyone to run a global climate model. If you can attach some numbers to these geo-engineering techniques you can study their effects yourself.

For example, to simulate the sun-shade, you can just turn down the sun a few percent with a checkbox and a slider!. Painting roofs would be equivalent to increasing albedo slightly, and I don't think the model would let you pump sulfur into the atmosphere (that is hard-coded, not exposed to the GUI interface), but you can change the amount of all the greenhouse gasses via the UI.

Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.

Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

Re:Democratization of Climate Change Science

[Shadowlore]

And what about the reality of assumptions? All models are based on a set of assumptions. The question at hand is not whether the math is correct or "ordinary people" can run models, but about the underlying assumptions. As you state in your post, certain things are hard coded. These are assumptions. When the assumptions are wrong, so are the results. The invalidity of assumptions is the key problem with all models to date.

In order to get the assumptions right means doing a lot of work. Work that does not involve running simulations. It's called science. Hypothesis, experimentation, review, reformulate hypothesis. Repeat until all inconsistencies have been correctly resolved, and all observed phenomena have been accounted for and explained. Note that "running a model" does count as experimentation.

Those who run models do so based on assumptions they believe to be true, most of which have had no real work done to produce them (hence they are assumptions). For example, there is the assumption that CO2 is the cause of warming, not a result of it; the assumption that rates of CO2 growth will double, the assumption that humans are the cause.

And this last one is perhaps the most significant assumption. It is not proven, and I further submit that it can not be proven scientifically. This is the single largest problem with the Anthropogenic Human Warming "theory": it does not meet scientific criteria because it is not falsifiable. Falsifiable means that the means to prove it false do not exist. A significant test of models that purport to be accurate mus tbe able to correctly "predict the past". Yet none seem to try, and those that do tend to sweep their failure sunder the rug.

The underlying assumption to all "global warming" models is the exact effects of various gases and matter, the exact effect of which is not known, merely assumed. Each piece in isolation may have a known effect, but as nature shows us time and again what works in isolation rarely works "in the wild".

Running models based on unproven assumptions is not science. "Enabling" non-scientists to run models based on specific assumptions is not going to contribute to a better understanding anymore than writing cracker scripts for non-coders to run improves computer code.

Re:Democratization of Climate Change Science

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to the site, but it seems all I can find is a nice binary blob for windows. No thanks.

How about releasing the source? Then we can see all your hard coded assumptions. Giving people a nice black box, where they can enter some input and receive some nice output without the mechanism being visible, is as good as useless. It's a toy. If I can't see exactly how it arrives at the output, including all assumptions, then it's not a lot more useful to me than a visit to my local psychic.

For that matter, why should I trust the results just because some guy in a white coat is entering those inputs instead of me? In my opinion anybody making climate predictions based on a model ought to provide full source code alongside their pretty graphs they generated.

Show your working please. :)

Re:Democratization of Climate Change Science

[HoneyBeeSpace]

Runs on Mac too, not just Windows. Click on the "Development" link on the main menu and you'd go to our dev site where you can have your source.

Another one

[rbarreira]

Another example:

Caulerpa Algae spreading wildly in the Mediterranean sea.

Stupid question from a non-scientist

[faloi]

Ok... People can put bricks in their ovens to force temperature variations to be minimal over the on-off cycle of a typical oven. At what point do we stop building roads and crap that (seemingly) have the potential to do the same damn thing? Maybe I'm too uneducated on the whole mess, but it seems like city after city of giant thermal capacitors can't be helping.

Semi-offtopic, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the great insanities of the modern age is the fact that environmental problems get treated like sins, for which humanity (Western civilization in particular) is expected to pay penance and sacrifice exactly the essense of the civilization that we worked so hard to built in the first place. What is sorely needed - and what I push in my class - is a rational look at things that would treat environmental issues as engineering problems: what (if anything) can be done at the cost the clients are willing to pay? And,no, "humanity" is not the client here; those who push for action on climate change, whatever their reasons might be, are.

On the last subject here, I would take climate change alarmists a whole lot more serious if they, expecting the rest of the world to make sacrifices, were willing to make some sacrifices themselves. No, giving up cars on their part wouldn't cut it, as they already regard cars as evil - it has to be something of a value. Let's see... I value personal transportation, they value... let's say, old-growth forests. As old-growth forests are essentially carbon-neutral, and tree farms remove carbon from the atmosphere, are climate change action proponents willing to sacrifice some of those to mitigate global warming? Until I hear an honest "yes" from the "global change is bad" camp, I'll remain unconvinced as to the severety of the problem and opposed to any action that diminished my quality of life.

Re:Semi-offtopic, but...

[drix]

Hello AC,

I would like to challenge you to a physical fight. I am serious. Every time I read people like you carping about your "quality of life," which is entirely the fruit of 200 years of unsustainable raping and pillaging of our natural resources, I just want to reach out and beat the everliving shit out of you. I am a six foot white male, 190 lbs, no martial arts training but I box. Once again, this is completely serious. I am on the east coast but would be willing to travel to meet you. Write me back here so we can work out the details. Hope to hear from you soon.

Re:Semi-offtopic, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, drix, I won't accept your challenge. I'm only a 155 lbs weakling, but, should you choose to challenge me in person, I just might have to draw on my ability to operate certain products of civilization that are built to propel particles of metal at supersonic speed. Ingenuity, m'friend, beats brute force every time. Thanks for providing an illustration to prove my point.

...but your kind of mentality (solving philosophical problems in a fistfight?) scares the living shit out of me. I kinda hope (without much evidence to back said hope up, to be sure) that you are not truly representative of the environmental movement?

to START "screwing around with its Biosphere"?

[FooAtWFU]

We know WAY too little about the planet to start screwing around with its Biosphere.

Quick, everyone, stop breathing!

Desperate measures

[mdsolar]

The motivation for this kind of scheme is that we are already messing with the ecosystem in a big way. That said, the space based things seem very expensive and looking at alternative desperate measures first, or more seriously makes sense. The first thing we could do is stop messing with the ecosystem. It is already clear that this costs much less than continuing to do so. But, what if that is not enough because we've gone too far already? Thinking about these kinds of options is important just to show how truely desperate they are.
--
Solar:http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/sl ashdot-users-selling-solar.html

What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's use all those AOL and Ubuntu marketing CDs to deflect the sunlight?

Re:What about this one?

[wiz31337]

How about launching a couple of those CO2 collecting umbrellas over DC and everyone else babbling about global warming. That will collect enough hot air to save us all.

sim-climate

[NokX]

humans wanting to play God again and it's gonna turn out bad, i believe.

What a waist, all we need is more marijuana

[Anon-Admin]

I am telling you all we need to do is plant more marijuana.

I put the major events of the "War on Drugs" into a global temperature chart. It is plane as day, just look at it!

Click HERE

As you can see, the more we fight it the worse the planet gets! Look at the way the temp dropped when the government pushed for farmers to grow it during WWII!

Re:What a waist, all we need is more marijuana

[mutterc]

Also, people would not be as worried about the climate change anymore...

Re:What a waist, all we need is more marijuana

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds Great!

Just remember - you can't burn it, or otherwise allow it to be oxidized (digested).

Hmmmm...

Re:What a waist, all we need is more marijuana

[maxume]

Some people might end up more worried though.

You Cant Fool Mother Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

You 20 somethings wouldn't remember that timless bit of sage wisdom and so of course you "buy into" all of the alarmist rhetoric and foolhardy "solutions" which would probably result in some truly realized natural calamity to earths systems than alleged man made GW ever could.

Man made GW ala SUV's, human industrial output is bunk since the earth produces the same pollutants in quantitites that dwarf human activity (enough to shape earth ecology over billions of years) via natural process which are then emanated via terrestrial and undersea vents.

      Natural GW is due to an uber complex geologic dynamic feeble human brains simply refuse to embrace and citing CO2 as the sole indicator or cause is STUPID... translation its (GW) out of our hands just short of initiating massive nuclear winter via nuclear war of which the earth would ultimately recover with a new dominant species would then arise from since humans are too stupid to even understand the big picture.

      Put the Kool Aid down and get back to real science, leave the alarmism for the Al Gore Legions of Doom for Dummies.

Oh fucking christ

[drix]

Repeat after me: no no no NO

It's precisely this sort of dominion-over-nature mentality that got us into this mess in the first place. The (annoyingly American) idea that we can solve any problem by simply throwing enough money and ingenuity at it needs to be extinguished, and fast. If we can't even figure out the precise extent of the damage we've already done to our ailingplanet, I shudder to think what nth-order unseen repercussions would result from reducing the level of solar radiation reaching the atmosphere by any meaningful amount. This "fix" is a complete nonstarter and every moment we waste discussing it as if it were a serious option just digs us further into the already deep hole we're in.

Re:Oh fucking christ

[Anonymous Coward]

The (annoyingly American) idea that we can solve any problem by simply throwing enough money and ingenuity at it needs to be extinguished, and fast.

As an American let me ask you this. How much would it cost to get you to stop slighting Americans?

I kid. I kid.

Re:Oh fucking christ

[rrkap]

It's precisely this sort of dominion-over-nature mentality that got us into this mess in the first place. The (annoyingly American) idea that we can solve any problem by simply throwing enough money and ingenuity at it needs to be extinguished, and fast. If we can't even figure out the precise extent of the damage we've already done to our ailingplanet, I shudder to think what nth-order unseen repercussions would result from reducing the level of solar radiation reaching the atmosphere by any meaningful amount. This "fix" is a complete nonstarter and every moment we waste discussing it as if it were a serious option just digs us further into the already deep hole we're in.

Here's the deal, in case you haven't been paying attention. Since about the time that our ancestors figured out how to grow crops and build cities we, as a species, have been living by modifying our environment. Since the beginning of civilization, humans have existed by modifying their environments substantially. This means building dams to irrigate land, draining swamps, clearing forests (either for cropland or for grazing land). It's amazing how relentlessly this process has continued with very few reversals until you realize that its continuation is literally a matter of life and death. Even during the Dark Ages, the land under cultivation in Europe is said to have doubled and to have moved into more intensive farming.

Of course, things really started heating up when we figured out how to burn coal and make it do work in the 19th century and then in the 20th century started using antibiotics, pesticides and effective chemical fertilizers. These are the technologies that have allowed us to largely escape starvation and have allowed our population to increase to 6 billion or so. If you want to give up our dominion over nature, that's fine, but realize we'd have to kill off billions of people to cut the population down to 100 million or so and give up such things as indoor pluming and electric light. This isn't a future I want, so I, for one, will continue doing my best to extend our dominion over nature.

Re:Oh fucking christ

[Shadowlore]

The (annoyingly American) idea that we can solve any problem by simply throwing enough money and ingenuity at it needs to be extinguished, and fast.

You mean like the "annoyingly-European" notion that you can "solve poverty" by taking money from others and throwing it at the problem. Or the idea that you can "solve the education problem" by throwing more money at it. And of course the decidedly anti-American thought that only the Americans come up with such silly notions.

But let us examine your assertion directly. You assert that the "problem of Global Warming" can not be "solved" by money and ingenuity. What do you propose be done to "solve it" (we'll assume for sake of discussion that it is a problem)? No money and lack of ingenuity?

Do you believe that more efficient and clean means of power generation, power consumption, transportation, medicine, food, etc. require no money and no ingenuity? Will the mythological "Hydrogen Economy" spring into existence without money and ingenuity? How will people get around, how will goods get transported?

Whether you like it or not, it would take money and ingenuity to "solve the problem of Anthropogenic Global Warming".

The largest threat in the arena of global climate change is that the belief that it is anthropogenic takes hold and it is incorrect. While we play around with models that assume it to be true and thus concentrate the "money and ingenuity" on changing human activities, the global climate can be changing without us and we will get nowhere and be entirely unprepared for it. AGW conjecture proponents adamantly refuse to consider the possibility that they are completely wrong about the cause, and that the Earth may warm and cause trouble for our infrastructure without us having any impact on it. By assuming we can control it via "greenhouse gas emissions" we consign ourselves to working at that angle instead of preparing for the effects.

Historically, man has survived and flourishing by adapting more than anything else. We've apparently previously adapted to climatological changes far greater than we are allegedly facing, it stands to reason we can and should adapt to those in the future rather than believing we can change the world by spending our collective energy believing in unproven models and conjecture.

Something that is decidedly human is the ability to take a looming or extant tragedy or crisis and turn it into a positive. And yes, doing so is an example of ingenuity, and often it does take money.

Fools!

[Fist! Of! Death!]

Have they learnt NOTHING from the Matrix? We should only scorch the sky as a last resort if the machines rise against us and harvest our unborn babies!

Change the Environment First

[InsertCleverUsername]

There's a truism from the body of psychological research that it's easier to alter behavior by changing environmental factors than the by directly trying to modify the behavior of an individual. If you want to eliminate a behavior, just remove the facilitating elements.
For example, if was difficult or expensive to acquire petroleum products, people would be much more likely to avoid them compared to voluntarily avoiding them due to moral reasons or seemingly intangible future effects. Unfortunately, a rational 10-20% of the population willing to change won't fix the problem; change will have to be externally forced upon everyone.

Re:Change the Environment First

[UpnAtom]

Unfortunately, you're absolutely right. A few people will curb their own emissions but the vast majority of Westerners are too damn self-important to do anything that will make their life more difficult.

BTW, it doesn't help that the main country not to sign up to Kyoto is the one which produces 1/3rd more CO2 per person than any other country.

Massive tax hikes on fuel are the only way.

Good news, nobody!

[RyoShin]

If we're going to spend a billion dollars, how about doing something that not only helps the planet but also has a longer effect. The main thing we need to focus on is travel. Aside from the pollution that millions of cars spew, the lack of good public transportation is causing quite a few other problems- road repair, obesity, tearing up land to put in more roads, etc. Spend those billions of dollars on the larger cities (and some of the medium ones) to install good bus and/or subway systems (trollies are pretty spiffy, too). This will have the added side effect of creating more jobs (driving the buses, setting up schedules, maintainence, etc.) and making life easier for those who can't afford a vehicle of their own. ...Oh, but the CAR-tel (haha) won't allow that, will they? Anyone know how much it costs to buy a senator? We could use one for this, and I wouldn't mind owning a few of my own.

And, because I couldn't resist:

These can range from sun-shades orbiting the Earth

Brilliant idea! In fact, let's take that one step further and make it a giant mirror to not only block the sun, but deflect the rays back. There's no possible way this will go wrong.

Hail the New Man!

[gd23ka]

Obviously citizen you enjoy life in Lenin Prospekt, our new sustainable human habitat.
Please be assured that the excess and unsustainable lifestyle of the American masses
will soon cease.

fat americans pigging oil again

[peter303]

All it took was about a 30% price drop in the price of gasoline and the hybrid companies have vehicle surplus. Even Prius has a marketing incentive now after years of dealer premiums.

It took a sustained oil price increase like 1973-1983, to reduce oil usage. US consumption actually declined throughout the 80s until the invention of SUV which bypassed mileage contraints because they were trucks.

Re:fat americans pigging oil again

[geeche suede]

Or perhaps the demand for cars like the Prius has been satiated for the moment. For many of those buyers, the value of owning a prius was not in the car per se, but in the identity that comes with owning that car.

They want to make a social statement so they bought a Prius. Most of those people now have their Prius, the cars sit on the lot longer, so Toyota offers incentives.

As for the oil price increase of 73-83, it created an opportunity in the marketplace that Japanese manufacturers brilliantly exploited by building smaller, more reliable cars than the Big 3.

If you really want people to buy the kind of cars you prefer, find a way besides politics, guilt, insults and whining to persuade them. The best way is to be an entrepreneur, and build or retrofit them a better car.

Re:fat americans pigging oil again

[coredog64]

The SUV was not invented in the 80s. The classic American SUV, the Chevy Suburban, has essentially been in continuous production since 1935 (GM didn't create any 'new' models during WW2).

What created the SUV craze was this crazy idea that you could enact a patchwork quilt of laws that would simultaneously reduce dependence on foreign oil and protect blue-collar jobs in Detroit from foreign (read: Japanese) competition while ignoring the laws of thermodynamics.
The end result was that congress, via CAFE, created a loophole large enough to drive an H1 through. SUVs were regulated as trucks for the purposes of taxes, fuel economy, and safety standards. This made them cheaper than the equivalently sized car. The cars that people want to buy (moderately sized, multirole vehicles with some additional power) are now called trucks. And that's how we have such an awful collective fleet economy.

Sun shades to block the sun?

[HerculesMO]

SIMPSONS DID IT!

Mind the time scale ....

[foobsr]

Terraforming Earth

The clones intend to save planet Earth, no matter how many million years it takes them

CC.

Obligatory Simpsons quote...

[rasmusneckelmann]

Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

you're a little too late

[circletimessquare]

i'd say a couple of thousand years too late

homo sapiens is the first creature to evolve on this planet that, instead of adapting its needs to its environment, adapts its environment to homo sapiens needs

in other words, your words fly against human nature itself

face it: we are the stewards of this planet. for better or for worse. we obviously have a big impact, but right now we have an irresponsible impact

your line of thought seems to imply we should have less of an impact. that's absurd

how about the obviously far superior argument: to have a RESPONSIBLE impact instead of an irresponsible one

Re:you're a little too late

[drix]

your line of thought seems to imply we should have less of an impact. that's absurd

How the hell is that an absurdity? It's lines like that that make me and a lot of other conservationists just sputter with rage. None of this was put here for our amusement and how dare you treat it like it was. Yes, I am saying we should have less of an impact on the world around us. I've spent years searching for some philosophical, moral, or logical justification for living in any other manner and have come up short. Because guess what? Absent humans, everything was running just fine! Isn't obvious that the safest way to restore the planetary organism back to equilibrium is to simply stop fucking with it? How can you deny such a simple truth?

It's this notion--as if we could really conceptualize an infinite-order system, infinite levels of cause and effect, and then "tweak" it to do what to want--that I was alluding to in the above post. More abstractly, this idea that we're somehow "different"--it's laughable. You, me, everyone writing things here, were just primates with slightly larger brains. We're not outsiders looking in, we don't exist outside the rules of the system. We're not special. (Any primate zoologist could tell you your claim that "homo sapiens is the first creature to evolve on this planet that, instead of adapting its needs to its environment, adapts its environment to homo sapiens needs" is ludicrous.) Laughable. All of it.

Re:you're a little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Absent humans, everything was running just fine!

uh... before humans 99.9% of all species on this planet, plant and animal, went extinct. pull your head out, man!
face it, earth is merely the first planet that we humans will eventually completely and utterly master. But it will take huge amounts of fusion energy to do it.
btw you sound like an eco-terrorist.

Re:you're a little too late

[QuasiEvil]

We're not special. (Any primate zoologist could tell you your claim that "homo sapiens is the first creature to evolve on this planet that, instead of adapting its needs to its environment, adapts its environment to homo sapiens needs" is ludicrous.) Laughable. All of it. Laughable? Name me another creature that literally reforms the planet in front of it, adapting to each unique situation and providing unique solutions derived using abstract thought about how the universe works (physics, chemistry, mathemathics to model these systems, etc.) We can adapt to virtually any environment because we are a step beyond - space, deserts, the arctic, the depths of the oceans, etc. We model, we design, we build, we go. Sometimes we screw up, in which case it's back to the modeling stage. Name another creature that understands the universe adequately to consciously change the very nature of matter (nuclear fission/fusion). Face it, we're smart enough to eventually engineer damn near anything we want. Whether we're wise enough to use that power in non-detrimental ways, well...

We're special in the same way every other creature is special - they're unique classes with unique traits. The point here being that we're the brightest and most versatile of the bunch.

So-called stealing of the Geo-Engineering term

[qdaku]

So-called Geo-engineering, bah. Could they at least find a better word to use, possibly something more astrophysics/planetary sciences. I only take offense as I am a geological engineer and we typically do entirely different work related to stability in rock/soil, earth embankments and dams, foundations, subsurface contamination, and geophysical sensing techniques. Go steal a different descriptor.

This kind of crap amazes me

[dino213b]

This kind of crap just amazes me. People think up a million ways to save the environment but we can't get them to share computers or use low power text-only terminals. No, instead they have to buy their own computers and even monitors! I've never owned one, and I'm not really convinced that I ever want to. There's only a couple of instances where I would really want a computer, like ordering groceries to be delivered but they have a telephone order service anyway. Going away for the weekend isn't too much of a problem. Using an internet cafe costs less than most people's internet access fees.

If I was a jerk, I'd call you a hypocrite, and here is why (hypothetically of course): you are using a computer to write this neat little commentary. Can you imagine how much energy it took to produce the computer, or how much pollution it created, or how much you are contributing to CO2 emissions by using predominantly coal-generated electricity? Or do you care- ?

Your convenient weekend car rental depends on the existence of the current car culture. In a hypothetical world where everyone did as you, the car rental company would not be there for you. Why? Because their profit margins are slim - and directly depend on the car world to purchase the rental cars after they've been used. Therefore you not owning a car but renting one doesn't really impact anything. Not even a thousand of people like you would make an impact (at least in USA). A hundred thousand might show up on a back-room graph somewhere -BUT- millions of you would put a dent somewhere. However, by then, the dynamics will have changed dramatically.

I am not saying that the car rental industry can't evolve into something more convenient and friendlier if circumstances change, but, what I am pointing at is the simple declensionist approach that you exhibit toward a complex issue. So what have you accomplished at the end of the day? You FEEL better about yourself and your impact on the environment. I guess that's as good as it will get.

A simple answer to a complex issue is arguably as bad as the issue itself.

Global warming solution: Socialism

[Elwar123]

The only way we can save the environment is by having a socialist economy. It's time we stop beating around the bush and just show our true intentions.

Re:Global warming solution: Socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way we can save the environment is by having a socialist economy. It's time we stop beating around the bush and just show our true intentions.

Because the soviet union had such a sparkling environmental record...

Before they start mucking up the earth

[night_flyer]

shouldn't they be trying to figure out why MARS is experiencing Global Warming as well?

go into your room

[circletimessquare]

lock the door, pull the blinds, and cover your head with your pillow

meanwhile, the rest of us will continue doing what humanity has always done and always will do: take our best predictions and our best theories and apply our best guess about how to do the best thing

of course there are no guarantees. of course we can make things worse. this is the nature of progress: baby steps forward, one back, two ahead, into the unknown. is risk a valid argument against trying in good faith? never has been, never will be. for most us anyways

so it always was with humanity, so it always will be

if your best intelligence tells you you will do good by doing action x, there is no argument you can make against trying said action x

in other words, most of us don't have the paralyzing fear of the unknown that you do

Test your sun-shades on Venus please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Test your sun-shades on Venus please.

i knew it

[circletimessquare]

global warming is a conspiracy by canadians to become the new california and the scandinavians to become the new riviera

fight the canuck/ nordic global consiracy theory! let the truth come out!

On living in city is more expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

well how do you think they are going to fund trillion-dollar projects like the sunshades? Tax you. That makes living in the US more expensive. Which you could have avoided by living in town...

Concensus

[perrin5]

"Hardcore scientists?"

"(())"?

You have failed to raise any points directly or indirectly disputing the science. The fact is that there has been a global increase in carbon levels correlating directly to increases in human consumption of carbon fuels from fossilized deposits. Temperature change is a modelable, direct result of increased carbon levels in the atmosphere.

Please stop playing Ad Hoc Attacker (TM), and look at the issues.

We are *already* Geo-engineering the planet

[Horza66]

I think a lot of people have missed the point.

We have already Geo-engineered the planet - we have injected massive quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, and continue to do so. Attempts to alter the behaviour of human beings to reduce these effects have run into the quicksand of global politics and vested interests. We should keep trying to find ways to reduce the input, but so far we've failed even to agree to reduce the rate of growth of the CO2 injection.

We'll continue to fail to get agreement on reducing emissions until such time that all countries are losing thousands of people and billions of dollars annually to weather disasters (when do we stop calling them 'natural' disasters). By this point the feedback loops of massive forest fires and melting permafrost will render the agreements moot. We'll be at the stage where we need to do *something*, even if it's half-assed, and poorly understood in its effects.

Right now we are doing geo-engineering - blindly and stupidly we're increasing the temperature, "anti-terraforming" if you will, and we'll need to find a way to reverse this once it starts causing mega-deaths. Let's hope we work out a way to reverse the process that doesn't do the same.

good idea

[circletimessquare]

when faced with climate change, some people just stick their head in the sand and do nothing

that just means your ass gets sunburnt

Resiliency

[RealProgrammer]

That the ecology of Earth is resilient implies that we should wait to see what it comes up with. The climate models have built in assumptions for variables that are constants, or have linear or other "known" relationships to each other. What if some, or even one, of those variables only appears constant, because we've been looking at a flat part of its curve for the last gillion years? The resiliency is due as much to the balance of factors as to the slow rate of change.

Geo-Engineering = Technological Insanity

[sgage]

The notion that we understand atmospheric chemistry, the relationship of the solar budget to the global ecosystem, and the dynamics of ocean ecosystems of our planet to the point where we can glibly talk about spewing sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere, orbiting mirrors, and dumping iron in the oceans is lunacy of the highest order. It is insanity. It is wack-job techno-hubris of laughable proportions.

Have we learned nothing about complexity, feedbacks, unintended consequences? Searing acid rain, gigantic mid-ocean dead zones, massive ecosystem disequilibrium...

In any case, who would have authority to implement this idiocy?

Sorry, we need to finally face reality, not jerk off to these techno-fantasies. This kind of thinking is a very dangerous distraction...

What Kills the Most People the Fastest?

[BoRegardless]

Global Warming or Global Cooling? Varying solar input is going to cause climate variation, and then what? My reading of the science is we are not going to stop solar induced change or even minimize it much, regardless of what politicians say (because they want election and then to give jobs to flunkies in their "Global Warming Department").

The geological record from Ice cores, human dna & tree rings and the written documents of the eras that have suffered through FAST global cooling show that Global cooling is the WORST of the WORST problems man can have, and it is a recurring event.

In short periods of decades or centuries we have had 'mini-ice ages' and caused millions to perish of starvation, because crops failed (little ice age after the Renaissance).

But the REALLY BAD ERAS are about every 1500 years when a massive volcano blows and we have multiple years of failed crops. When that happens again probably hundreds of millions of people will die of freezing and hunger, and governments & citizens will not be able to do ANYTHING rational about it.

Krakatoa blew in a massive way in 535 A.D. and then followed several years of crop failures world wide. We don't know how many people died.

A super massive volcano in Irian Jaya in Indonesia blew about 74,000 years ago that nearly wiped out the human population (maternal dna analysis and ocean volcanic ash deposits confirm this).

Iron is bad, science is good, and stop pretending.

[perrin5]

Just my meta thoughts on the comments I have read so far:

1) To the camp who feel that we are acting "irresponsibly" to engineer drastic changes in the earth's atmosphere:
We, over the course of the last 150 years have been progressively, accidentally, altering the atmospheric content of the earth. This has had two main results, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increased acidity of the ocean. Subsequent effects of these man-made changes in the atmosphere are believed (note the lack of claims that cannot be proven) to include increased temperature in both water and air temperatures, increased growth of plants and trees (unfortunately mostly the fast growing, less functionally useful plants) and potentially alterations in the ocean microbial and macrobiological populations. To claim that this is less dangerous or harmful to the environment than those changes that are engineered deliberately by humans is irresponsible and dangerous.

2) To those of you who are attacking the scientific consensus, I challenge you to do a complete, or semicomplete review of scientific literature, starting with those statements released last week, and attempt to argue those specific points, rather than the media talking points. I believe you will find highly convincing arguments for the contribution of CO2 to global warming and the influence of human consumption on the levels of CO2

let me stop attacking users and move on to things I agree with:

1) our solutions tend to be shortsighted and not useful. This is mostly the fault of scoping. It is true, for example that Iron will increase biological activity in the oceans. It is not likely that this will have a long term effect, as the subsequent sinking of dead cyanobacteria will fix carbon for the short term, but the alteration in the community of bacteria in those areas of the ocean may be forever altered to fix less carbon. There are a multitude of other suggestions that are equally shortsighted. We need to find good, quick ways to fix carbon while altering as few biological or geological processes as possible.

Big problem with your tenet

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans weren't alive then. Nothing lived in fixed built communities and the density of life was a lot lower.

We are 6 billion. Mostly partitioned (are you looking forward to millions of refugees flooding north or south to avoid the new dessert?) so we don't move people across national borders. We have homes that we invest time money and effort in and we pack in close in coastal areas, flood plains, etc.

Getting a climate similar to when the dino's ruled could butt-fuck us big time.

Payment plan

[narsiman]

Just ask the proponents of this plan, if they would like to pay by gold or other commodities for a trillion dollars. As long as we can print a green colored 100 on a trillion/100 sheets of paper and circulate it in a dumb world, you will keep seeing such intelligent solutions.

I have a new hero...

[thoth99]

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic.
A head of state who actually reads scientific climate studies, and openly questions Al Gore's sanity...

Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?
A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists.
...
Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?
A: It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.
Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?
A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/02/vclav-klaus-abou t-ipcc-panel.html

Re:I have a new hero...

[Anonymous Coward]

As the US has proved, being a head of state does not preclude being a crackpot.

Stop Recycling Paper

[Time_Ngler]

Would canceling all paper recycling programs help prevent global warming? By using and throwing away more paper, more trees are grown which suck the carbon dioxide out of the air. The resulting carbon trapped in paper is then trapped in landfills, which is obviously better than having it floating around in the air.

What about canceling plastic recycling as well? If you are sucking oil out of the ground from a limited supply, then by converting more of that limited supply to plastic rather then burning it would mean that a lower percentage of the total oil available in the earth would be burned and then released into the air.

(BTW, any and all replies to this comment will be printed individually on single side, non-recycled, legal size paper, and then immediately tossed...)

Re:Stop Recycling Paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Any comparison needs to look at the entire process. If paper recycling required more use of other resources than making new paper, then you would probably be correct. However, cutting down, transporting and pulping trees requires expending far more in resources than would be saved by sequestering the carbon in the resulting paper. Also, growing young trees converts less carbon than that taken by mature trees. Recycling is still a net win.

Re:Stop Recycling Paper

[Time_Ngler]

If paper recycling required more use of other resources than making new paper, then you would probably be correct. Not true, I would still be correct if the amount of carbon thrown into the air making paper is more then the amount of carbon that is not be released into the atmosphere when the paper decomposes. By recycling a piece of paper, and reusing it, you've still just got one piece of paper's worth of carbon not floating around in the air. By manufacturing and using two pieces of paper, now you've got twice as much carbon, that would otherwise be floating around in the air!(that is, not sucked up by the trees to produce the carbon).

Also, growing young trees converts less carbon than that taken by mature trees. If you say so, but that is besides the point. Either the carbon is taken from the air and converted to paper (through the use of trees) or it isn't. If its not, then its still floating in the air.

Two pieces of paper worth of carbon out of the atmosphere is a net win over one piece of paper's worth of carbon out of the atmosphere.

Re:Stop Recycling Paper

[Time_Ngler]

Oops, I meant to say "I would still be correct if the amount of carbon thrown into the air making paper is less then the amount of carbon that is not be released into the atmosphere when the paper decomposes."

Risky commitment

[Ambitwistor]

Some have pointed out that we already are geoengineering the planet with our greenhouse gas emissions, so we might as well geoengineer more intelligently. Others have pointed out the negative side effects of geoengineering (e.g., more atmospheric pollutants), or the unpredictability of side effects.

One point I have not seen raised is the long-term commitment necessary for geoengineering to combat global warming.

Suppose we continue emitting CO2 at a great rate, but we cancel its warming effects out with, say, the cooling effects of aerosol emissions. Suppose we do that for a century. What happens if, for some reason — lack of political will, economic crisis, etc. — we happen to stop the aerosol emissions? Aerosols drop out of the atmosphere within a few years, but in the meantime we've been building up CO2, which takes decades or centuries to be removed.

Without a guaranteed sustained commitment to geoengineering, we could potentially get a century's worth of global warming in the span of a few years, once the system is unbalanced and there's nothing left canceling the CO2. That would be much, much worse than even the worst-case warming scenarios currently under consideration; that rate of warming is probably totally unprecedented in the known history of the planet.

Re:not driving SUVs

[GanjaManja]

you CAN get people to not drive SUVs, just not if your government absolutely loves the revenue it gets from SUV drivers! The government is the entity with the ability to curb that sort of behaviour (similar to how they engineer people's driving habits in London using the tolls on the motorways). However, the government first has to care enough to do something about it, and then must actually spring into action (which the US gov't only does for monetary gain, never environmental reasons).

These idiots are going to destroy the world ...

[brainchill]

The earth has been going through and endless cycle of warming and cooling, super heating and ice age phases FOREVER. I'm not saying that people are helping contribute to the change but it would be happening even if we were NOT HERE as it has for millions of years. This is just the next thing to get the world freaked out about and distract us from our real problems like global hunger, war etc ... it's rediculous and a waste of time money and breath!!!! again for the cheap seats ... IF THERE WERE NO HUMANS ThE GLOBE WOULD STILL WARM AND THEN COOL DOWN AGAIN INTO AN ICE AGE AFTER!!!!!

people

[Anonymous Coward]

What about just reducing (or at least containing) the number of humans on the planet? We don't have any natural enemies anymore; we're literally eating the whole planet.

Re:Two problems with your argument

[vertinox]

In short, just keep in mind that your particular circumstance (i.e. being able to walk to the store and carry your groceries home) isn't necessarily everyone else's (like the mother of 4 with the SUV...imagine her carrying those groceries when the nearest store is 7 miles away)

1. Buy a Sedan, Station Wagon, Toyota van or something less like an SUV.
2. Have less kids. I know this is a lot to ask of society, but people don't need more than two kids. Anything more is most likely the most unfriendly thing you can do to the earth and limited resources due to the fact it exponentially increases the amount of resources being used when your kids have kids in 20-30 years.

Although, no one has the right to tell you to not have kids and in the short term the effects of having 3 or 4 kids isn't apparent, it is just the responsible thing to do for the long term.

Of course technology like the article says might work out and we won't have to worry in 50 years, but otherwise your 20 or so odd grandchildren who now all have cars of their own have exponentially complicated the global warming problem.

Power Generation and Co2

[Overkill Nbuta]

Really Saying that if your using electricty its bas bad as having a car is just plain wrong. If you look at the efficentcy of the power plants that are being constructed now a days compared to your car they are Way better. A turbine that provides power for a whole town is way more efficent what it gets out of its oil and gas use than your car will Ever get. So before you go saying **% of Co2 is from power plants think that its alteast alot more efficent than your car will ever be.

The petition is bogus

[benhocking]

• First of all, it's old.
• Secondly, many of the scientists who supposedly signed it have claimed that they did not sign it.
• Thirdly, "advanced degree" does not mean Ph.D.
• Finally, combining "physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists" into one group suggests that they don't want to tell you how many of those were actually climatologists.

If you haven't already read the Wikipedia article on this petition, I suggest you do so:

Scientific American took a sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition --- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers - a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.

So, in 2005, there was at least one active climate researcher who agreed with this petition. I suspect that is no longer the case. Those that might sign it, would focus on phrases such as "catastrophic".

They might say, "sure, I know that most global warming is anthropogenic, but I don't think it will be catastrophic." The reasons might have nothing to do with climatology, either. For example, take Pat Michael's logic:

Well, since the human warming got initiated, or began--which most people would view somewhere around the mid-1970s--the rate of global temperature rise has been remarkably constant. It's uncanny how constant it is. And it's about .17 degrees Celsius per decade, or about 1.7 degrees per century. That number is significantly low, and it suggests to me that this becomes a self-limiting issue in the following way: 100 years from now, the technology that runs our society, and powers our society, is going to be radically different than it is today. It will almost certainly be a more efficient, maybe not even a carbon-based fuel society.

Pat Michaels, by the way, is the climatologist recently in the news for taking all that money from coal companies. Notice his tactic here. He talks about what has happened, rather than what is projected to happen if CO2 concentrations continue to rise. Secondly, he invokes technological progress that has not yet happened as the solution to this problem. I.e., in order to solve the problem he goes outside of his domain of knowledge.

you're compounding your absurdity

[circletimessquare]

Absent humans, everything was running just fine!

that's 100% correct. except that... drum roll please... there are a lot of humans, and even more, every day. how could you miss that rather significant issue when framing your worldview?

but you wouldn't be the first to engage in a little self-realized doomsday making. so get to it: start building your radiological dirty bombs or manufacturing your nerve gas or growing your smallpox to get rid of the human problem. you have plenty of wackjobs out there just like you who think just like you: the solution is to kill a lot of people. but short of killing off the species, you're going to have to get used to the idea of humans have a huge impact on this planet and it is only getting larger every day. you decide: mass murder or acceptance. but make your choice, there is no other

We're not outsiders looking in, we don't exist outside the rules of the system.

yes, 100% correct. except these words of yours justifies my point of view, it doesn't refute it. remember, i'm arguing for responsible versus irresponsible influence. you're the one arguing for a couple of billion technophilic humans to magically have little or no impact on their environment

so you've compounded absurdity in the previous post with yet more absurdity here. because you fail to preceive an obvious fact about human existence and influence which is pretty much written in stone, and is not going to change: we have an impact. its growing. get used to that fact and incorporate it into your world view or remain an absurd denier of the obvious

Re:you're compounding your absurdity

[cdrguru]

Wow. Someone who really gets it.

There are two ways of a running a planet. One is a closed system - nothing in, nothing out. The people have to figure out a way to have zero impact. Why zero? Because over a long period of time any impact is going to build up. We see it right now with CO2. We are going to see it with waste heat eventually.

The other way is to treat the planet as an open system with a universe of resources out there that Earth is just a very, very small part of.

If you favor a closed system, you need to think about how many people can actually survive in such a closed system with zero impact. Every human over that limit is one too many. And believe me, we are way, way past that level. To return to a sustainable level of resource use the planet can support maybe 200 million people, probably somewhat less. It would take years of killing just to reduce the population to that level, even if everyone thought it was their duty to die for the future of the planet.

And, have you thought about what it would be like living after that? Knowing you and your 2.1 replacement-level-only children were just a few of the really, really lucky ones that made it while everyone else you knew, had ever known or ever might know was now dead?

"Sustainable." Remember that word. Remember what it really means.

Re:you're compounding your absurdity

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sustainable." Remember that word. Remember what it really means.

Your notion of "sustainable" is simply a false notion. The number of people the world can support depends on technology, and as technology improves that number can grow -- perhaps dramatically. It is probably eventually possible to extrapolate it without bound by moving to other planets.

Czech President Questions Gores Sanity

[chromozone]

Vaclav Klaus has a pretty fair view of things. He recognises how whacky this has all been. Paint the earth white indeed..

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm

President of Czech Republic Calls Man-Made Global Warming a 'Myth' - Questions Gore's Sanity
Mon Feb 12 2007 09:10:09 ET

Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis.

In an interview with "Hospodárské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions:

Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?

A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses. This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.

Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...

A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.

Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?

A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite. Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change. Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.

Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?

A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.

Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right ...

A: ...I am right...

Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?

A: It

Might as well.

[Telastyn]

I don't find the umbrella idea to be too far fetched. Add to that the fact that they don't merely need to provide shade. Toss some photocells on the sunny side an use the power to help space endeavors (or reduce coal power plants back home). Such ideas have been around since photovoltaics.

As for "why don't people just drive less?!?" posts... what makes you think that will revert already done damage?

Still, I'm all for local teraforming; after all, we'll need the experience when we inevitably ruin Earth and the technological solution to future problems is martian colonization.

Highlander 2

[ClubStew]

Why don't we just put up a shield like Conner MacLeod did in Highlander II: The Quickening? People seemed to love that and it magically did wonders for the economy.

We don't know who struck first...

[MatrixCubed]

"We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky."

Terraforming starts here

[huckamania]

I think we should practice terraforming here on terra. Specifically, we should start with transforming the mojave desert.

My idea is simple, drop a pipeline into the pacific and start pumping salt water into death valley (below sea level). Once the water actually starts flowing, you can turn the pumps into electricity generators (think of a huge siphon). Using glass pipes, you can desalinate the water either on the way or after it gets to the desert (lots of sunlight to do the job). Use the electricity to pump the fresh water east.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

California is one of the few places something like this could work and they have the resources and environmental guilt to do it. After all, there are few environments as radically changed as California. The SF bay used to be fresh water until they damned all the rivers.

Nuclear Economy???

[RexRhino]

The CO2 emission problem has been solved. Nuclear power is safe, it is cheap (when political forces aren't intentionally making it expensive), it has been proven to work (see countries like France). Waste is not an issue when recycling is legal. Pebble Bed reactors and non-weapons-grade fuels can eliminate the threat of meltdown and weapons proliferation.

Global Warming? Problem solved!

The trouble is that enviornmentalists are not only concerned about eliminating CO2, they also have a political and social agenda. They want to see a government run economy, and an end to consumer capitalism. A solution to global warming that allows people to keep current "evil" consumption levels, and doesn't involve total economic control by the government, is politically undesirable. Leftists see global warming as the issue that will prove to all the "evil and destructiveness of capitalism", and will bring us into a totalitarian government run utopia, free of "greed and materialistic desires".

Now, in reality of course, social enlightenment tends to come from technological development and economic plenty. Slavery ends in each society at around the time of their industrial revolution. When industrial productivity gets to a certain level, the labor of children is no longer needed to produce vital goods and services, and child labor disapears. The conversion of the labor force from tasks that require brute strength to mental tasks, along with the availability of packaged goods and foods that don't require a family member to make bread or soap or clothing themselves, and the wide spread availability of birth control technology, leads to sexual equality. When mass-media and global communications come into place, provincialism and racism begins to break down as people are exposed to people of different races and cultures through television, movies, pop music, etc.. So in reality, the socialist utopia envisioned by the enviornmentalists will most likely regress into the level of social progress of the pre-industrial age (wide spread racism, sexism, lots of blatent exploitation and maybe even slavery).

For there to be any progress on Global Warming, the enviornmental movement is going to have to adopt nuclear power as a solution, and abandon their lunatic fringe that tells us that the solution to global warming is everyone living in pre-industrial centrally planned communes.

Fat Pill

[Anonymous Coward]

When it isnt nature, but Man causing these things action must be taken to correct our own mistakes.

But yes, I agree, these 'adjustments' proposed in the OP seem ridiculous.

Much like inventing a magic Fat Killing Pill for people too stupid and lazy to get up and exercise and stop inhaling Krispy Kremes.

Increase efficiency, reduce use and emissions, switch to sustainable and low emission sources wherever possible as fast as is realistic (biofuels, etc). These are what will work, not the magic pill.

Re:Fat Pill

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are creatures of nature. Our actions on this planet are no more "unnatural" than the actions of any other form of life.

why paint the ground?

[drew]

Why paint the ground white? In any decent size city, you'll see thousands of buildings with black tar roofs. For a little extra money, paint those white instead of black. No one will see it, it would have the same effect on global warming, and it will save the building owners a decent amount of money on their air conditioning costs as well. (Whether this would really have any effect on global warming, I have no idea, but it would definitely have an affect on local warming.) Better yet, put a couple planter boxes of hardy plants up there, and you can help take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere while alleviating your storm water runoff load.

Along the same lines, finding something other than black asphalt to surface our gajillion miles of streets and highways with might help too.

Real steps to eliminating excessive CO2 emissions

[cdrguru]

1. Stop all air travel now! Nobody actually needs to fly anywhere when they can take a train or ship instead.
   
2. Begin phasing out personal automobiles. Decrease the number of licenses by 10% each year. Make it so that if you want a car you have to fill out 50 page government forms in triplicate.
3. Cease all power plant construction. Close one plant every year to force conservation.

Gasoline would then be used by farm vehicles, diesel oil would be used by trucks, buses, trains and ships. It would force a reforming of the cities gradually so that people could use some kind of public transportation because there would be no other way. Companies would have to initially have their own buses to pick up employees. The idea of the "two car family" would end within a year or two.

It would be a different world, very quickly. How come nobody is talking about these kind of measures? Probably because this is a far more realistic assessment of what it would take to have an effect and nobody would put up with it. It would be like putting the entire planet at the standard of living of Bangledesh. The economic crash would be incredible but we would all - all those that were left - not have to worry about climate change. We would have bigger worries.

Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post has to be the silliest, most asinine, pathetic and pitiful post I have EVER seen on slashdot, including the worst of GNAA trolls.

Having read a few other of your posts in this thread, you appear to be a true luddite and a fundamentalist environmentalist bully who repeatedly fails to convince clueful people of the supremacy of your religion. So what do you do? In true jihadist fashion you try to intimidate a free and practical thinker by resorting to threatening him with a fistfight.

Grow up.

You have a serious psychological problem. Perhaps it's too many hours on the Internet, or a lack of experience with a diversity of people or viewpoints. In any case you need to get help.

I've followed debates on environmental issues with a modest interest, but often it's striking to me how skepticism and tolerance are no longer tolerable whilst alarmism and groupthink and intimidation rule the day.

You are polluting slashdot with your poisonous posts, effectively shitting in the pool the rest of us are swimming in, yet argue for environmental responsibility. Indeed! What a colossal hypocrite.

Iron Enrichment

[ProfessionalCookie]

Hey- quit dumping iron in the ocean! It's already been done (Lookup Mesoscale Iron Enrichment- there's a pretty dang popular article in science). The idea is that only one nutrient will limit growth (in this case of phytoplankton) and iron happens to be the limiting factor. So we dump a bunch of iron and get phytoplankton blooms which pull down CO2 and can be used as biofuel, simple right? Not so fast. There are LOTS of problems with this idea, not the least of which is depletion of other micronutrients in the environment (read dead ocean). I'm sure you can think of several more right now without even reading the literature (hey this is /. right?).

The side effects are huge- and there's not real evidence that any substantial carbon sequestering (into ocean sediments) will really happen. Thanks for your prepatent post though. It's actually appropriate because there's people out there trying to get funding to do this kind of thing right now, presumably as a commercial endeavor to profit from a panic response to "Global Climate Change". Don't panic.

BTW, IAAM [Microbiologist]

inconvenient data

[ElectricRook]

To back this up, there is a large body of "inconvenient data" available at http://www.scholar.google.com./

Search for global warming. Don't bother with the political analysis, look for the actual data, and more importantly consider the source of the data... Well, actually some of the political papers give good insight into the political intent of the authors.

The source of the historical data (before the "age of instrumentation" before 1900) is "Proxy data". This is proxy data is from the age of early instruments, which were hand made by the slashdot crowd of the day, and home calibrated. This sparse data set is then correlated to tree rings, ice cores, and so on. The Authors state, "little weight should be placed on the accuracy of the proxy data". Of course that does not stop the Politicians from inferring tenths of degrees C on this proxy data.

Here is another tidbit I found in one paper, the averages by seasons indicate that currently warm season averages are lower, and cool season averages are higher than before 1950. This doesn't fit with the major weather influencing gas being CO2, but instead by H2O. If you've ever compared the daily differences of a desert, and a humid area, you will understand.

I have a problem with some of the data from the "age of instrumentation", in that early instruments were located at what were then called aerodromes, where nerdy mechanical types played at their aeroplane hobby. These were cow pastures with the cows driven off for a bit. Currently instrumentation is located at air-ports which are huge heat islands of concrete and asphalt. But all the studies I've seen, do not attempt to correct for the difference in instrument environments.

A lot of anecdotal data is placed on current Glacier retreat, but little emphasis is placed on the fact that many of the glaciers noted are in fact located on active volcanoes. Glacial growth/retreat is a function of glacial mechanics, not the weather.

If you use all the alge for fuel...

[Overzeetop]

How are we going to make soylent green?

The Marsh of Camerina

[Dashing Leech]

This sort of thinking reminds me of Carl Sagan's lesson of the Marsh of Camerina in Pale Blue Dot. For those who haven't read this brilliant book, it's a metaphor (technically, and analogy I suppose) for creating worse problems in your attempt to solve a problem. In this case, the inhabitants of Camerina drained a nearby marsh to halt the spread of disease that was killing many of them. And it worked. Except that the marsh was also an effective barrier to keep out their enemies, who subsequently attached through the now empty marsh and slaughtered them all.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Fatalist moment

[Larus]

In one hypothesis, our world population is directly proportional to the amount of energy it can harvest. Would you prefer a drastic shrinking of population, thus reverse the ecological depletion, the energy uncertainty, the urban sprawl, the increasing socioeconomic gap, the unemployment, the global outsourcing, the war on terror, and practically every self-afflicted wound by humankind?

No single altruistic individual can save the world. Deal.

oh MY

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people just cannot see themselves without their big smelly SUVs, can they?

And as a side effect...

[3seas]

...google earth will show at the white painted stuff as.... well a white nothingness.
Great for military and secure locations...

As for the rest of us, I'd imagine there are numerous things we can do and so long as we don't over do it on any one thing I'me sure it'll help.

But I do wonder if we are to far past the state of no return to make it matter.

Wonderful Ideas

[AyCarumba]

Everyone is full of such great ideas. Where are you bastards when politicians are in town, stumping for votes, and holding open-forum, or town-hall meetings? Where are you with these questions to them when it can be shown to everyone that they haven't even thought about it and are just looking for what is more popular right now, to get elected? Oh, that's right...you're pissing and moaning on /.

Black and White, running out of options fast!

[gd23ka]

--"This issue has now progressed to the point where the majority of people on the planet believe that there is no scientific doubt whatsoever about human influence and more precisely carbon dioxide."

Not to mention the rapidly growing number of people who question the carbon theories.

--"As a believer in the importance of science in all of our lives, I am now getting very nervous about the future reputation of science."

Organized science is about to slam rock hard into religion: it's taking the same fall. People are
indeed getting wise to the politics in and around science. Those of us limited to black and white
are in serious trouble though, because they're running out of colors fast. Up to maybe 250 years
ago you could fool people by wearing a black priest robe. Then came the Age of Enlightenment. After
that you had to put on the white lab coat to fool people.

exactly

[circletimessquare]

the choice between having an impact and having no impact is completely absurd. its a choice that doesn't exist in reality. we have an impact, we always will. nothing we could ever possibly do could make our impact small or nothing

the real choice is between having a negative impact and having a positive impact. we have a range of choices and behaviors. we can enact new behaviors and modify existing ones so that our impact begins to help the planet, and us, btw, in the long run

it's a psychological problem people have with a lot of problems: they believe that retiring from the problem is an option. that if we just step away form it, the problem will solve itself. bullshit. it's an illusion. retiring from a problem is not an option. you are already part of the problem, you are already responsible. you can never extricate yourself

every single problem that has ever existed that anyone has ever faced was solved by getting more involved, not less

people who believe that solutions to problems involve getting less involved only reveal their own maladaptive psychology, their own malformed approach to life

it's called learned helplessness. it's called the ivory tower. and a lot of people suffer from this useless and self-defeating attitude towards life

Actually, we don't need to be right

[Overzeetop]

I agree with you, but the great thing about climactic change is that if humans arent' causing most it, and we follow the recommendations that suggest we minimize our impact on the climate, we still come out ahead. More specifically, if the climate is heating up by Some Other Means (TM), then there is nothing we can do to stop it (really, on a global scale we're pretty ineffective). It doesn't matter if we curb greenhouse gasses or not. However, if we are a major cause of the climate change, then by curbing our CO2 output we may slow that process and the end result (hopefully) will be a less severe globale temperature shift. A backup bonus is a diversification of energy sources, and a reduced total energy comsumption.

Etiher way...we win. Oh, sure, there are dollars involved - but it's a closed system - nobody is magically creating wealth, we are just moving it around to different places.

Re:Actually, we don't need to be right

[jmorris42]

> Oh, sure, there are dollars involved - but it's a closed system - nobody is magically creating wealth,
> we are just moving it around to different places.

And there is the flaw in your argument. Wealth is NOT a closed system, it can be created and destroyed. Just to use an example everyone reading slashdot should be familiar with, the founders of Google created a metric assload of wealth without diminishing anyone else's wealth by an equal amount.

But don't feel too bad, almost all of the failed *isms of the 20th Century were based on same logic flaw so you have plenty of company. Lack of personal liberty is a bad thing, but widespread ignorance of basic economics seems to be at least as big an indicator of mass graves to come.

Re:Actually, we don't need to be right

[Overly Critical Guy]

Etiher way...we win. Oh, sure, there are dollars involved - but it's a closed system - nobody is magically creating wealth, we are just moving it around to different places.

Running around like the sky is falling isn't living. What's worse, politicians will use it to scare people and justify higher taxes for the government to "fix" the problem.

Re:We are *already* Geo-engineering the planet

[mdsolar]

Hear! Hear!

These are desperate measures under discussion, but they only come up because of the huge impact we've already had. We need to be much more deliberate about how we harmonize with the ecosystem. To get there, we may need to take some pretty drastic steps. We should be taking the simple steps of reducing our impact now in hopes that the more complex and costly measures won't be needed.

Painting roofs white good, grass roofs better

[jordandeamattson]

The parent of this post says, "Let's reduce our emissions now, before I have to go and paint my roof bright white."

Actually, painting your roof bright white is a great idea on a number of front. The most common roof color - black or extremely dark - makes your roof a wonderful heat sink. It gathers heat which it radiates at night both into the surrounding environment (keeping temperatures up) and into your house.

A bright white roof will improve your household comfort, reduce "urban hot spots", and reduce energy spent on heating and cooling. All of these are net positives no matter where you stand on global warming. If you believe in global warming having man made causes, they are double net positives. There is a reason that the traditional "Mediterranean" house and roof color is white!

Even better than the white roof, would be a grass roof similar to what you see on the new Chicago City Hall. It gives you everything the white roof does in spades plus it gives you great winter benefits and is a "carbon" sink.

Yours,

Jordan

Climate adjustment and vulcanisim

[dopamine5ht]

It is the case that life will find a way of adjusting the temperature accordingly, like in the daisyworld model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld I had an idea that would be cheep and less expensive, detonte some explosives at key Volcano's to cause an erruption. Do it in the ring of fire to not effect populated areas. Erruptions have been known to cool the planet. Like Pinatubo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pinatubo http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/VolcWeather/des cription_volcanoes_and_weather.html There might be some problematic issues with regard to ozone, but it would keep things cooler :-)

Unbelievable

[Linux_ho]

I'm disappointed at the thoughtlessness of some of these schemes. Reducing the amount of energy that enters our atmosphere? Those can't be serious proposals by intelligent people. Amazing that they've made Slashdot more than once. Some of the others are interesting, but still involve experimenting with our critical life-support systems which we don't understand yet. Let me spell this out, for those of you who like the idea of giant orbiting dust clouds, or pumping sulfur into the atmosphere, or trillions of sunshades in space, A) The cause of the problem is a dramatic increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases. B) The most significant means of removing these gases from our atmosphere is PHOTOSYNTHESIS. C) Photosynthesis requires solar energy, and lots of it. D) Photosynthesis also provides atmospheric oxygen and food E) DURRRRR!

Here we have it in a nutshell

[The Monster]

Threatening to beat the crap out of someone who disagrees with you is the moral equivalent of using political power to take away licenses of weather forecasters who don't toe the party line. Science doesn't need to coerce compliance. Reality is what it is.

Wow, way to over-engineer a problem

[Phoenix666]

This reminds me of the story about how Mao woke up one day in Beijing and decided he didn't like birds. So he commanded the comrades to go outside and beat pots and pans to scare all the birds into flying around and around until they died of exhaustion and dropped out of the sky. Bird problem solved. Then the insect population exploded because there were no longer any birds to eat them. Rather than recognize that the birds had performed an important role, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) decided that the reason there were so many insects was that there was too much grass around collecting moisture and providing the insects a place to breed. So they tore up all the grass. They suddenly found themselves experiencing tremendous dust storms, because there was no more grass to fix the topsoil. And the insects still didn't abate all that much. So rather than bring back the grass and the birds, they decided to soak down every possible surface in the capital with great quantities of DDT sprayed once a week from giant blue tanker trucks. Now today's Beijinger suffers from exceptionally poor air quality from all the dust and DDT (and various other things related to CCP policies) and even non-smokers cough up coffee-colored chunks. The happy end to the story, however, is that the CCP wrapped the whole thing in a cover story about how the air problems are really Russia's fault, since the the jetstream goes West to East. Problem explained, if not solved.

So rather than change the behaviours that are screwing up the climate, let's engineer a series of quixotic and costly solutions like painting everything white and wrap the whole thing up by blaming everything on the guys living upwind.

A different approach

[therblig]

An interesting column in Newsweek International by Fahreed Zakaria http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17080934/site/newsweek /?from=rss/ says that since the problem of warming won't be solved anyway (and he gives his reasons why), we should begin making plans now for an earth that is warmer. This will be much cheaper and easier to accomplish than will attempting to reduce greenhouse gases, which when you look at projections from China and India alone, seems to be a hopeless task.

I also have a proposal...

[Pinkfud]

Tinkering with the environment may not be all that wise because we really don't understand the full mechanism of global warming. However, everyone seems to agree that it would be worthwhile to reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere. So think about this:

First, we need a hell of a lot of electric power. That kind of dictates the location for the plant, because a nuclear power station is the only answer with present technology. So I suggest Midway Island. It's so far from mainland continents that no possible nuclear catastrophe could happen.

Okay, so we build a big power station there. Then we build an air liquefaction plant. Same technology that currently produces liquid oxygen and nitrogen, but on a massive scale. In that process, you also liquefy CO2, which is effectively scrubbed from the atmosphere. The plant pays for its operation with the commercially valuable liquid oxygen and nitrogen. (Yes, I realize transport of the product is a problem. But that's just a matter of technology, we can solve it).

Now what do we do with the CO2? There are several conversion processes, but they usually lead to CO and/or CH4, neither of which are what we want. So research needs to be done there. Ideally, we want solid carbon-black and O2 from it. But if that can't be done, then maybe it can be used to synthesize a commercially useful hydrocarbon. With the ocean and plenty of power available, getting hydrogen for the synthesis would be no problem.

This plan, admittedly, is expensive to implement. But it would work, scrubbing CO2 at a large rate and paying for itself over time without any risk of doing more environmental damage by tinkering with little-understood processes. Paint the ground white?? FFS!!

do both

[Goldsmith]

We do need to cut emmissions, but we also need to find a way to also either remove the excess CO2 in atmosphere or otherwise deal with the consequenses of climate change. We've been hearing people come in to talk about "crazy ideas" for this for a few years in my department. The bottom line is, no one is willing to do anything personally about it. Schemes such as carbon sequesterization seem to make sense because they're the sort of industrial, someone-else's-problem solution which may actually get done. Putting a shade between the earth and the sun was originally meant as a joke to shock people into seeing this as a serious problem, no scientist wants to be known as the real life Mr. Burns.

Paint your roof white?

[jhw539]

I would suggest you simply spec a roofing with appropriate radiative characteristics, aka a 'cool roof'. That's basically a no-brainer for commercial buildings at this point - do you want a 120F roof or a 100F roof on the peak load cooling day?

It's a matter of time scale

[alispguru]

All of the examples of natural (non-human-driven) change you mentioned happened on time scales that are vastly different from the apparent time scale of global warming, deforestation, and the current rate of species loss.

There are no doubt environmentalists who want to preserve everything, and some of what they want is written into US law (Endangered Species Act). However, on the human time scale, there is little difference between preserving everything and the natural rate of change.

Re:It's a matter of time scale

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a lot of scientific evidence out there to indicate that very swift and radical, yet completely natural, upheavals and sweeping global changes have taken place on this planet over and over again prior to man's meddling with the planet. Ice ages, vast floods, volcanic upheavals, massive meteor collisions, etc. I would argue that, as man is a part of nature, what is taking place now is no more than another form of these quite natural changes.

Re:Iron is bad, science is good, and stop pretendi

[mdsolar]

I'm not sure I understand your objections to ocean sequestration. The sinking of bacterial is an input into the geological carbon cycle, which is long term. The bacteria respond to that availability of iron, so they are not sequestering carbon now. How could that be reduced?

I don't really like the idea of doing anything more than eliminating the use of fossil fuels, but a case can be made that we should look at the possibility of feedback as a result of what we have already done. The geological cycle is what we have tampered with so returning carbon to the geological cycle is the fix we need if we are heading for, or in, a feedback involving large natural carbon pools such as melting trundra or insect infestation of boreal forests owing to warming.

The situation could be very desperate and we are just not able to measure it yet.

Geo-Engineer this

[Anonymous Coward]

First, paitning your roof white is one of the stupidest things you could do.

      Where do you think all of that reflected radiation ends up? Its does not end up back in space, it ends up heating the surrounding air molecules, hence the atmosphere. So if you do want to heat the atmosphere even faster and more efficiently, reflect more radiated solar energy back into it.

      Instead what you want is a heat sink. Materials that absorb and release heat over long periods of time to affect a gradual dissapation of this acquired heat or maybe materials that can convert this energy to some useful energy in addition to that. Absorption not reflection would be the way since reflected solar radiation is not going to escape the atmosphere once its penetrated it, only facilitate in its heating.

      Now that we have that out of the way, forget all of that nonsense and realize this, Global Warming is due to a host of natural and dynamic earth process and here is just one of them demonstrated and anyone with a lick of sense can understand, weaker magnetic field around earth = increased solar radiation penetrating the lower layers of the atmosphere so forget Al Gore and the New World Order known as the UN, here is one piece in a mega-complex collection of climate affecting factors and it has not even flipped yet and when it does, how long does it take, how much of the earth will be left unprotected etc-

  "Instabilities such as this, Olson added, are causing Earth's magnetic field to weaken. Today the field is about 10 percent weaker than it was when German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss first began measuring it in 1845. Some scientists speculate the field is headed for a reversal."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/09 27_040927_field_flip.html

Copy & Paste!

[a4r6]

Why don't you just provide a link to the article, or one of the articles, rather?

Here's a few copies.

Is this astroturfing or something? Who do you work for?

A combination of technologies could do it

[naasking]

My personal fave are wind farms. Essentially you're converting the higher average kinetic energy circulating in the atmosphere into useful electrical energy thereby actively cooling the climate, while simultaneously reducing our dependency on fossil fuels via a renewable energy source. Wind farms also have the added benefit that the technology is here, unlike more speculative measures like plankton and sulfur. In fact, as cited in my mini-essay above, some research to this very end has already been conducted.

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[doctorcisco]

1) Wind turns windmill.

2) The resulting electricity powers your PC, toaster oven, and alarm clock.

3) The PC, toaster oven, and alarm clock turn the electricity back into heat.

This process cannot cool the environment. It simply moves the heat energy to a different location, which the wind was doing in the first place. It does let you stay up too late playing Halo, cook a pizza, and set your alarm clock in the meantime.

The energy required to manufacture the windmill puts the (small) reduction in atmospheric CO2 compared to burning coal many years into the future. If you want energy without generating CO2, nuclear gives you a lot more bang for the buck, kills fewer birds, and is a lot less ugly.

doc

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[naasking]

This process cannot cool the environment. It simply moves the heat energy to a different location, which the wind was doing in the first place.

1. The inefficiencies leading to heat dissipation are nowhere near 100%. The rest of the converted energy is "useful work", ie. movement of elevators, illumination of rooms and screens, etc. How much of the energy used to write your post was converted to heat? Perhaps 25%, the rest is useful work. If you expended 1kW, then 750 W were extracted from the climate.
2. The energy used in these appliances would have been used anyway, which means that the heat you refer to would have been generated before instead of recycled. With power from wind farms, it would have first been subtracted from the climate, then re-radiated at much lower levels for a net gain.

Any way you slice it, the climate is cooled, we reduce emissions, and we get renewable energy. I also agree with your assertion that nuclear will help, but it does not actively cool the climate, it merely reduces emissions. I won't address the wind turbine myths you mention, as I'm sure you can correct yourself with some research.

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[doctorcisco]

Umm, no. 100% of the energy is dissipated as heat. Some of it does useful work first -- runs your PC for instance. But the PC dissipates the electricty as waste heat -- every last bit of it. Cf. Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Law of Conservation of Energy. The windmill does not cool off the environment.

The windmill may displace electricity that would otherwise be generated by fossil fuels, and therefore your hour of playing Halo would not increase CO2 levels in the atmosphere. If that's the goal, as I said, nuclear will get you a lot more CO2 reduction than windmills in the real world, especially if you assume that the energy used to make the windmill in the first place (mine the ores, refine the metals, manufacturing, etc. etc.) comes from fossil fuels.

For the greatest environmental advantage, turn off the PC and read a book that's illuminated by sunlight. :-)

doc

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[naasking]

Umm, no. 100% of the energy is dissipated as heat. Some of it does useful work first -- runs your PC for instance. But the PC dissipates the electricty as waste heat -- every last bit of it.

100% is eventually dissipated as heat. The photons emitted from your monitor are not heat, though they are eventually dispersed sufficiently to never be re-emitted and thus impart the random kinetic energy characterized as heat. 100% of the energy is not converted to heat until much, much later, just like every other process in the universe. If it were all immediate, we wouldn't be here.

The windmill may displace electricity that would otherwise be generated by fossil fuels, and therefore your hour of playing Halo would not increase CO2 levels in the atmosphere. If that's the goal, as I said, nuclear will get you a lot more CO2 reduction than windmills in the real world

That is not the only goal. Let me break it down for you:

E_i: Energy input to climate
E_h: Energy generated by humans
E_s: Energy input from sun

E_i = E_h + E_s

We have two scenarios:

1. E_h is independent of E_s: this constitutes the situation where all generation is via nuclear, fossil fuels, etc.
2. E_h is dependent on E_s: we use some of the sun's energy so E_h is instead also a function of E_s

For instance, assuming 60% generated by ordinary means, E_g, and 40% by sun-based means (solar, wind, etc.)

E_h = (0.6 E_g + 0.4 E_s) + E_s

This results in:

E_i = (0.6 E_g + 0.4 E_s) + E_s = 0.6 E_g + 1.4 E_s

Since the energy from the sun is fixed at 1 E_s, we normalize based on E_s:

0.71 E_i = 0.43 E_g + E_s

Thus, if we switch to 40% renewable sources, the total energy input into the climate is only 71% of what it would be with traditional power generation. And this is completely disregarding impact of reduced C02 emissions. So it does cool the climate.

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[mdsolar]

The Sun is responsible for the energy input, the atmosphere is responsible for keeping the surface of the planet warmer than it would be without an atmosphere. You could use wind energy to convert electricity to light in the optical passband and shine that out into space since it can escape the atmosphere, but the effect would be completely negligible. You other correspondent is correct, just about all of the wind energy turns into heat, but that is basically the just tail end of the solar heating. None of the nuclear, fossil or tidal power we use is of any importance to the heat input, but fossil energy is important in the way it changes the way light passes through the atmosphere at infrared wavelengths.
--
The Sun, ti's what's for energy http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[naasking]

Regarding:

You could use wind energy to convert electricity to light in the optical passband and shine that out into space since it can escape the atmosphere, but the effect would be completely negligible.

AND

You other correspondent is correct, just about all of the wind energy turns into heat

An assertion is not a valid argument. With the requisite number of wind farms as indicated in my calculations, I demonstrated that the effect is quite noticeable and comparable to the forcing driving global warming. Where is your argument that it is negligible? Pointing out a flaw in mine would suffice in this regard. An assertion is neither.

There are losses dissipated as heat, as I acknowledged, but dispersed kinetic energy is much better than directed kinetic energy; dispersed energy does not produce storms, and the data that wind farms affect local climates is right there.

None of the nuclear, fossil or tidal power we use is of any importance to the heat input

Another unqualified assertion. The estimated energy consumption of the world is 15 TW, or 1.5 x 10^13 W in 2004 [1]. The energy driving global warming is 8.38 x 10^13 [2]. If, as you say, we should consider all human produced energy as immediately converted to heat, then the energy driving global warming is only 5.6x the energy produced by humans, which is hardly negligible. That means that more than a 1/6th of global warming is caused purely by heat losses from energy use! I'm skeptical, but this is the inevitable conclusion of your assertions. Given the acceleration of energy consumption, I think this will be a growing concern however.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=World_en ergy_resources_and_consumption&oldid=107301570
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earth's_ energy_budget&oldid=105407800

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[mdsolar]

Check and I think you'll find that you've made an error. The number I think you want to compare is the equivilent solar forcing since 1750 (2.4 W/m^2) which as a fraction of solar input is about 0.7%, but that is 0.7% of 174 petawatts, so 1.2e15 watts, not 8.4e13 watts. So, you see you can't beat the Sun. Something I try to tell everyone these days.

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[naasking]

2.4 W/m^2 is exactly the value I used, but you're right that I misplaced a decimal in my original calculations (now corrected) [1]. It increased the number of wind farms needed by 1.4x. There's almost two orders of magnitude difference between the heat generated by human energy production and use, and the forcing behind global warming; it's a gap that will continue to narrow quite quickly as worldwide energy consumption increases. Still not a negligible effect for that reason alone, and any efforts to reap the ambient energies is well worth it, whether it be solar directly, or indirectly, like wind.

[1] https://www2897.ssldomain.com/higherlogics/www/Wik i.ashx/Wind_Farms_Against_Global_Warming

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[mdsolar]

The strongest argument though for wind (with regard to golbal warming) is that it displaces fossil fuel use and thus greenhouse gas emissions. Your argument about direct energy input is a less important effect. Had it been important it would have been included in Fig. 2 here http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf though the number is getting to be a little bit like the value for the change in the solar irradiance so that at a finer level of detail you are correct that it probably should be included. If so, it is important to subtract the contribution of hydro, biofuels, tidal, solar and wind from the total energy use because, while your previous correspondent was correct that all of it degrades to heat anyway so that there is no real cooling from using these sources, what you are getting at is that there is no additional heating.

I think it makes sense to bring in additional arguments in this debate but when they are physical arguments they need to be kept in a physical perspective. There are philosophical arguments as well for renewable energy use that can be taken as independent of the global warming problem though I'd guess that the warming has had something to do with their application. Have a look at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-is-real-e nergy.html to see how William McDonough's thinking might work into this.

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[naasking]

while your previous correspondent was correct that all of it degrades to heat anyway so that there is no real cooling from using these sources, what you are getting at is that there is no additional heating.

Yes, that is one side of it, but not the only argument. My problem with your argument, is that it considers the full life cycle of the process as instantaneous. Ultimately, the entire universe's energy will be reduced to heat, but so what? That has little bearing on the comparatively instantaneous timescale of our lives.

I will augment my essay in this regard soon, but it comes down to a simple argument: kinetic energy is converted to electrical energy on the order of Ek over timescale Tk->0, providing an instantaneous cooling effect. The inevitable conversion back to heat is delayed significantly, Ek -> Eh over timescale Th >>> Tk, as energy is stored or converted to sound, light, and other intermediate energy forms before it's inevitably reduced to completely unusable heat energy. In the meantime, the Earth is constantly radiating energy out into space, Er, which means over timescale Th, the Earth's temperature drops even lower while Ek is still in useful intermediate forms of energy.

Perhaps you have an argument why this is not a valid approach?

Re:A combination of technologies could do it

[mdsolar]

Perhaps, yes, I think if you look at this in terms of power rather than energy you'll see that a delay in degradation is not important. It surely is in terms of chemical energy stored though photosynthesis and subsequently entered into the geological cabon cycle but once you've biult you wind farm, you only get a one time advantage which becomes frationally less and less important as you continue to operate. You've introduced a time delay which you want to ratio to the amount of time it would ordinarily take the wind to blow itself out (which may be less than unity) but once your period of operation exceeds the time delay, you're basically in steady state and there is no further advantage. Once you stop operating, the advantage is lost.

It is worth thinking about how wind normally loses energy. For the most part it runs into other systems and disipates that way, but with regard to the ground, it loses energy by say bending the stem of a leave, which heats the stem. In a system without storage, the wind immediately lights a lightbulb and that light immediately degrades to heat when it hits a wall, so if it might have taken a little more time for the wind to blow through a tree and make heat that way, then you've actually produced heat sooner. That is pretty normal for extracting useful work.

Re:Two problems with your argument

[maxume]

As long as life expectancy keeps increasing, zero population growth depends on some people not having 'replacement' kids.

Why these types of ideas are worth consideration

[optevo]

There are a small number of countries that contribute to the majority of greenhouse gas emissions - China, India, the USA are all major contributors.

Developing countries like China and India are likely to increase their emissions at a greater pace than developed countries to continue their faster economic growth.

Politicians are loath to make unilateral cuts in emissions because it undermines their international economic competitiveness - and in many cases what impact would country "X" cutting its emissions have globally if nobody else follows along?

Politicians are loath to take effective economic measures (eg carbon tax) not only for the reason above, but also because many people are more concerned about their jobs and how much money they have to spend and this is, has and always will be a major political motivator.

Getting an effective global agreement that requires *all* countries to co-ordinate their efforts for a greater good (be it the environment or economy) while making significant economic sacrifices at home that are politically unpalatable is *extremely* difficult. I believe the Kyoto agreement and the last global trade round (which is almost dead) are good examples of this type of failure. (Neither the WTO nor Kyoto are total failures but on the balance they fall far short of what they ultimately wanted to achieve).

If you accept all of this, a technological solution to counter global warming, if it is economically viable has one great advantage: it would be simple to implement (politically speaking). For that reason alone, it is worth continuing research for the day if (when?) other solutions fail.

Is it chaotic?

[snowwrestler]

I'm not sure it is. I'd be interested to see citations. Local or regional weather is definitely chaotic, because studying it requires cutting it out of the larger system of which it is an integral part. The global climate on the other hand is a relatively closed system. Speaking in global averages it should be possible to study it deterministically, at least grossly.

Re:Is it chaotic?

[thethibs]

Global climate is not even approximately closed. Solar radiation levels are a significant source of randomness. Given that it's also the product of fluid dynamics and that all past climate models have been absurdly wrong, the onus is those whose faith is in the predictability of climate to demonstrate the rightness of their position. First, show me that you can predict climate, then I might pay attention to what your prediction is. I won't lie awake waiting.

The most common mis-reaction to chaos is a conviction that somehow, with enough science, more and more accurate data, smarter analysis, we can tame it. Evolution planted cause-and-effect determinism deep and strong in the human psyche and it's hard to let go. We once had the same problem with Heisenberg.

Someone else suggested that we should just go with our best guess. The problem with that is there is no way to qualify the guesses. Climate models give wildly different results if you make small changes to wild-assed guesses about seemingly minor input parameters. Your best guess and worst guess are equally valid.

We may not be able to predict climate, but climate can predict climate. The best thing to do about climate change is to recognize that we're coming away from a cold, dry extreme of the normal variation since the last ice age; warmer and wetter is a distinct possibility, so let's be ready for it. Me, I'm buying recreational land in Labrador.

Re:Is it chaotic?

[snowwrestler]

First, show me that you can predict climate, then I might pay attention to what your prediction is. I won't lie awake waiting.

No need to lie awake, here's a climate prediction that was proven out by observation.

Evolution planted cause-and-effect determinism deep and strong in the human psyche and it's hard to let go. We once had the same problem with Heisenberg.

Maybe you should read up on quantum electrodynamics--it's the most tested and accurate physical theory we have. In other words the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle does not imply that highly accurate predictions of any kind are impossible.

Re:Is it chaotic?

[thethibs]

In the first instance: Taking a large-scale event with short term predictable results is like spotting a bus hurtling down the road and predicting it won't stop for the intersection. The GISS model is loaded with best-guess parameters that, with small changes, could produce very different results. Even a broken clock is right twice a day and the GISS model is far from having proven itself. This is a trivial result whose relevance is exaggerated because it produces orthodox predictions.

In the second instance: I don't need to read up on quantum electrodynamics, having spent a few years studying it. You should read what I actually wrote. The problem was with people resisting the idea of intrinsic uncertainty, just as with chaos they resist the idea of intrinsic unpredictability. Hmmm. I hadn't thought of it that way before: in the former case we can't tell what it's been, in the latter case we can't tell what it will be.

One of the problems with models is that they create the illusion of determinism; put the same numbers in, the same numbers come out, even if you are modeling a chaotic system. But with a real-life chaotic system, put the same numbers in, different numbers come out—every time. It just takes your breath away! Doesn't it?

If this was only an organised discussion :(

[PermanentMarker]

How sad if this was only a bit more organized discussion.
Now its a forum and you say something and next day no-one puts attention to it.
If people could bring in points and parties could discus it.
For and against, or explain why against, or why it wouldn't work and then others solving so something would work, but none of that :(

The internet has become like TV its drugs for the mind of the mass.

Sounds like me...

[rrohbeck]

at age 10 trying to repair a TV that I had screwed up.
No, I never got it fixed, but I got zapped big time.

Given that the earth is way more complex than a TV, and we understand way less about it, this scares the hell out of me. Yeah, I love SF too, and all those stories about terraforming and large scale engineering are really cool, but please can we try them out with some other planet first, or at least make sure we have a backup?

Orbiting Solar Power Satelites/Sun Shades

[doom]

There isn't in fact, anything particularly ridiculous about the concept of Orbiting Solar Power Satelites/Sun Shades -- it might not actually work, but on the other hand there might be ways to get it to work, and you can get a clean power source out of it as well as a possible global warming amelioration strategy:

• solar power satellite
• Space Sunshade Might Be Feasible In Global Warming Emergency
• Bright Future for Solar Power Satellites

I realize it bugs environmentalist-types to think about amelioration, but it's looking like we need to do pretty much everything we can think of at this point. The skeptics seem to miss the fact that while it's at least possible that the consensus could be wrong, that includes the possibility that things are even worse than they say they are... e.g. it appears that the arctic ice is melting much faster than expected. It'll be, uh, interesting to see if the influx of fresh water manages to deflect the gulf stream and plunges Europe into another little ice age, eh?

(Why is it so hard to convince people to replace coal power with nuclear? Coal burning is killing something like 20,000 people a year in the United States... you can't come up with a nuclear accident scenario that gets anywhere near that level, and that's without putting fears of green house gasses on the table.)

easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one simple solution to the whole global warming problem, and it requires following Al Gore's plan, and the massive reduction of emissions. And we can't stop soon enough. Now there are various ways to curb emissions, but the most logical method is to tax fuel to the point where people actually reduce their energy consumption. Now it's been shown that people's energy demand curve is not very elastic, and so if the price doubles, the amount of energy used will not reduce accordingly. We need to therefore price it so that people can't use it. We might require taxes to the point of making fossil fuels 10x more expensive than they currently are. This may seem steep, but it would start to reduce emissions.

Of course such a drastic increase in fuel costs would mean the poor and middle class couldn't afford such luxuries as heating, but, who really needs that anyways? The rich of course would be okay, but there would also be rampant inflation. All goods would increase in price due to their dependence on fossil fuels (transportation, etc), and it's doubtful wages would keep up anywhere close to inflation. Fact of the matter is, to reduce consumption to the levels needed to reverse global warming we'd need to cut the size of the world's economy drastically. Now, of course there'd be some hardships associated with this shrinking of the economy, but who really cares about that. We have an over populated world that only exists due to the health of the worlds economy. Besides, the majority of the people who'd be "killed" off by starvation, lack of medicine etc don't really matter as they're poor, or live in third world countries.

There's also the problem that if only a single country attempted to initiate such changes, other countries would quickly pick up the slack. The US can enact a law making fossil fuels 10x more expensive than they currently are, but that would just outsource most of the factories in our country into less efficient factories in third world countries, and even if the production of them is cut dramatically, the fossil fuel consumption may not get cut as dramatically. We'd have to stop that, but we can! All we need to do is threaten every country that doesn't enact such high taxation policies with thermonuclear war. Hopefully we don't have to resort to it, but after-all, how else can we save the earth?

Re:Two problems with your argument

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends when you want to stabilise the population by and at what level. Long term, assuming that Ray Kurzweil is wrong and we won't develop the technology to be able to live forever in the near future, then a figure of just over 1 child per adult (averaged out over those willing and able to breed) will lead to stability eventually. But if we want to achieve stability sooner then much less than 1 per adult on average would be required. Even with 0.5 per child (roughly that for a while in China) it takes a while to stabilise. World population is likely to hit around 9 billion in 2050, and stabilise at a little more than this, assuming no huge natural disasters or radical new technologies, and so on.

Might be scary if we weren't so incompetent

[Kaikopere]

I had the same sort of thought. It's really frightening to think about making global climate changes when we don't understand enough about weather to accurately predict where a hurricane is going to make landfall far enough in advance to evacuate. I'm fairly sure that the world isn't going to end by humans blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons. I think it's far more likely that we're going to "fix" ourselves to death. The only thing that lets me sleep at night is the fact that we're unlikely to actually ever put together something that works on a global scale because any project where that much money is involved is going to fall victim to corruption, graft, and general power mongering.

Take the eruption of St. Helen - over 20 years later scientists are still learning about ecosystems and how they survive and recover from devastating disturbances. The ecosystem didn't respond at all the way scientists thought it might and they discovered natural mechanisms that they hadn't imagined could exist. Hell it wasn't that long ago that we thought putting out forest fires was a universally good thing. Regardless of whether or not man is responsible for global warming, we still don't understand the implications of trying to reverse it. We really don't know that the seas are going to rise, or that anything catastrophic is actually going to come to pass if global warming isn't stopped. The ecosystem is responding to a change to keep things functional (in the planetary sense), so maybe we shouldn't be going off half cocked trying to prevent the adjustment by introducing another change rather than gradually reversing the change we think is causing it (Hurry up and start increasing the pirate population people!). Maybe we should save our money for when the magnetic poles flip - that's probably going to be far more catastrophic from a human perspective. Everyone seems very concerned about the temperature rising, but not a lot of folks seem worried that our magnetic field is weakening which is potentially much worse.

I tell you what, why don't you climate scientists go learn how to "fix" droughts, ice storms, hurricanes, and other localized weather disasters that cause so much human suffering in the here and now and then we'll talk about letting you play with the entire planet for a disaster that may or may not happen sometime in the next 100 to 10000 years.

Wow

[AoT]

Well, I did as you suggested.

Pretty much every single paper that I saw confirmed global warming.

Good job taking parts of them out of context.

Re:Wow

[ElectricRook]

Of course they did, now see how much is attributed to Solar energy, and how much is attributed to CO2. For the currently sighted 1.2C increase in the last 250 years, Solar activity accounts for 1.0, CO2 0.2. Volcanism is about 50% of the atmospheric CO2, Human activity is responsible for the other 50%. So you can blame human activity for about 0.1C increase in temperature in the last 250 years. Since the environmental organizations killed off most of the nuclear energy programs in the west, I guess we can lay some of the blame at their feet.

Re: You put up a black solar panel and you just th

[coolsnowmen]

You have completely obfuscated the point. If you are using solar collectors for hot water etc., you are reducing your energy usage, which reduces the energy demand on power plants, which reduces the amount of crap dumped into the atmosphere. Please Mod parent post "King of FUD".

Re:anything - Dynamic Earth

[Rhuken]

Being a student of geology, I agree with you completely. It's interesting that most of the data being used in studies and *ahem* certain slideshows/movies only deal with the last several thousand or more years of our planet. Look back in the millions of years and you will find that the average global temperature is warmer than we are now.http://www.blinkdrive.net/idaho/Climate_vs_co2 .jpg

Life was thriving on the warmer temperatures that peaked around the Triassic and Jurassic. Warmer temperatures, more CO2, more plant life, more animals and larger ones, too. This is where the dinosaurs enter and leave. For whatever reason, the climate cooled and CO2 levels dropped during the Cretaceous preceding the mass extinction event of the dinosaurs. The climate of the dinosaurs was much warmer than today's.

Anyway, so what? 2 million years BP, North America was covered by about 10 million km^2 of ice. The Tetons in eastern Wyoming were nearly covered with about 610 meters of ice around them. Even Kansas had a huge amount of ice covering it. That was the Pleistocene. Then about 12,000 years BP it all started to melt away. And we are still warming. We are currently in an inter-glacial period. It could get warmer, it cool back down.

So what's my point anyway... Our climate has changed, will change, and is changing. Carl Sagan was once heard to say something similar to "Global warming started with the first caveman's campfire." What about lightning strikes in the forest? Sorry Carl. Al Gore wants to warn us all about impending doom. It's a good way to get money behind an issue. But is it science? Is it even fact? I don't believe we caused global warming (...you can strip my weather anchor certificate now, not that I have one...), but I do believe we can do better with what we have. We've used resources that pollute in the past because that was what we had. We have a lot of budding alternatives now. (that's a whole different can of worms. Ethanol is supposed to burn cleaner in our cars, but is less efficient which means we would have to burn more, we are using food crop land to make fuel, and the machinery that converts corn or other crops to burnable ethanol produce more emissions from the extra load, all for a small perceived boost in climate cleanliness from the public when it could end up causing more emmissions anyway and someone gets a fat bank account for the idea. (Did I say that out loud?...)) But our reason to switch over shouldn't be to "stop global warming," that's nearly impossible. I do agree that we pollute too much for what we know. We should do what we can, but we shouldn't start a witch hunt.
(...SUVs, industry, China, Canada, Microsoft...well, maybe Microsoft, but definitely not those others...)

More Denier Sp@m

[catchblue22]

Global warming is a bunch of hooey. Cosmic rays are causing it all. Increased cosmic rays act as cloud condensation nuclei over the ocean, increasing low cloud cover and cooling the ocean. End of story. When cosmic rays are reduced, we get less cloud formation, and so it gets warmer. So, fewer cosmic rays equals more warming. Period. And forget what you've heard, about the number of cosmic rays being rather constant over the last few years even though the Earth got warmer. Just a bunch of hooey from those stoopid scientists.

Forget what you've heard about those other cloud condensation nuclei over the ocean, like sea salt particles from ocean spray. There aren't many of those! What a load of hooey. Cosmic rays are really the only important condensation nuclei. Without cosmic rays, we wouldn't have clouds at all.

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I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the conversation herself. "Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to impose on Mr. Brocklehurst."

1 2 punch

[deadlock911]

First, most people live in a major metropolitan area. Also if people spent the money they currently spend on petrol on buses then your little piece of suburban bliss would have a bus route.
If you live in the country and own a farm or whatever then you SHOULD own a car, also a tractor and all those other gas consuming machines that farming needs. NOONE ever said you shouldn't! Know why? cause farmers grow CROPS. Those magical types of plant that we can not only eat but while growing turn CO2 into O2!
Second, a family with 4 kids can have an SUV. The problem is that most SUV/4x4 owners don't have 4 kids. It has always made me laugh that people actually go out and buy a vehicle that: 1) looks lame 2) accelerates much slower than a car and 3) is MUCH more likely to be involved in a fatal accident due to bad design. (maybe people should read the crash tests before buying a vehicle, just a thought)
In conclusion, no one is attacking you for using petrol. They are talking about OVER using it, there is a difference

Summary of the article

[UpnAtom]

... and half the posts:

I don't care if a billion people die, I'm not giving up my car. Somebody else is going to have to fix the problem.

Your vision sounds nice, but I don't see it.

[Fantastic Lad]

When industrial productivity gets to a certain level, the labor of children is no longer needed to produce vital goods and services, and child labor disapears.

Your vision is very nice, and I wish I lived in a world where such a thing could happen. Unfortunately, child and slave labor continues today at a more advanced level than ever before. It needn't, but the rich nations which have all the technology have decided that it's cheaper and easier to sabotage budding democracies and economies through the judicial use of the CIA and similar secret services thus reducing certain countries into third-world status in order to provide the West with lots of desperate slaves to build all the things which cannot be easily built through automated factories. Running shoes and dish racks come to mind.

Also on the agenda is the deliberate promotion of illiteracy, conformity and ignorance among the general populace; you need unthinking slaves to perform all those silly little jobs on the home front. --Like consuming gasoline and foods and running shoes and dish racks. Also carrying guns for the military is important apparently, and just generally maintaining the status quo so that the rich and powerful stay that way.

Greed and Evil at the top of the food chain are the cause of our current distress. It's got nothing to do with hippies thinking that love and healthy community living might be good ideas. I've yet to meet a hippie who is opposed to the idea of global communication and who supports the idea of racism. They do not teach their children to hate or to act like Ludites. Why should they? It's not a motion to go back to simpler times; it's a motion to evolve into something which works better using the best current knowledge available.

And finally, your claim that nuclear power is safe is false. --I have a friend who lived in a community which had a serious problem in that the local Candu reactor was leaking radioactive toxins into the surrounding land. --Not through any fault in the reactor design, but simply because the owners of the plant were too greedy and negligent and uncaring to bother replacing twenty-year-old parts when the expiry dates started coming up.

I'll trust in nuclear technology when I can trust faceless people with lots of money. Small communities, however, designed mindfully with specific goals, are easier to keep healthy because you can know everybody and can keep each other on track.

-FL

The Gulfstream. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

Too bad the Gulfstream isn't listening to the Czech president.

Satellites have been recording the Relative Gulf Stream velocity fields since 2003. --The Envisat, Jason-1, TOPEX/Poseidon, and GFO.

When the page loads, scroll to the bottom and click the link to see the animations. Select the animation for Jan 2003 to present. After the gif loads and the animation plays, please note the week between Dec 11th and 19th of 2006 only a couple of months ago when the Gulfstream actually stopped flowing toward Europe and flowed back South without completing its normal circuit.

Keep in mind that the Gulfstream is what keeps most of Europe out of the deep freeze. With all the non-saline melt water from shrinking ice packs due to Global Warming being introduced into the oceans, the saline-heavy Gulfstream is verging on sinking.

It's not fear-mongering. Times really are a-changing regardless of what the president from a deeply screwed-up old Warsaw Pact country has to say on the matter.

-FL

Re:The Gulfstream. . .

[chromozone]

Thanks that's interesting, I like graphics like that. I have read climatologists who say the melting of ice would cool the gulf stream and also the UK. They say the warming tend is what will preceed a cooling trend. A retreating Gulfstream is not anything I would consider a warming trend (in UK at least). Climate fluctuates a lot over many years. Where I live is temperate but used to be under a glacier. Obvioulsy some natural warming went on. I am sure warming is going on now I just don't think humans cause it all. I also don't see any real solutions posited. It will snow here tomorrow and not a person or government can stop it. Stopping or reversing any global weather is not possible. Even Kyoto supporters admit that any real effect would be miniscule.

In the 1930's people got carried away with eugenics for political purposes. I see the same thing going on with science now. This week I was reading a writer equate denial of anthropogenic warming with the denial of the holocaust. This is not objective. It seems like any article I read about warming turns into a diatribe against Bush or the US or corportaions etc. I am sure you are sincere in your research and your ideas but I am not as sure with many others. Even the UN decree last week had no new science according to the NY Times. The actual study is not even being released until May. So they all got to make these sweeping claims with no presentaion of any studies. They have more/better "models" they say. But they once used the Mann hockey stick to support the warming crisis and yet that model has been proven flawed and was wriutten about in MIT journals. But the people creating the rush to hysteria dismiss those things without a second thought and move on to another "model" they say "everyone acgrees on".

I would say the world is about to come apart in ways that will make the 30's and 40's look like practice run and the weather won't be at the heart of it. Thanks for reply.

Hybrid efficiency

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>the difference in efficiency between a hybrid and any other very light car is not all that large.

Regenerative braking is a big win. In stop and go traffic, each stop provides much of the energy needed for the next go.

My Prius is half again as heavy as my Rabbit and gets half again the gas mileage.

Fission

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Planning to commissioning of a nuclear powerplant takes about 15 years,

That depends on where you live and how the government handles nuclear power. France or Japan will get a job like that done faster than anyone could in the US.

This ain't Star Trek.

[Fantastic Lad]

Whatever we do, we'd better hurry it up.

Satellites have been recording the Relative Gulf Stream velocity fields since 2003. --The Envisat, Jason-1, TOPEX/Poseidon, and GFO.

When the page loads, scroll to the bottom and click the link to see the animations. Select the animation for Jan 2003 to present. After the gif loads and the animation plays, please note the week between Dec 11th and 19th of 2006 only a couple of months ago when the Gulfstream actually stopped flowing toward Europe and flowed back South without completing its normal circuit.

Keep in mind that the Gulfstream is what keeps most of Europe out of the deep freeze. With all the non-saline melt water from shrinking ice packs due to Global Warming being introduced into the oceans, the saline-heavy Gulfstream is verging on sinking.

This is not fear-mongering. Times really are a-changing, and I'm betting that some wishful, 11th hour Star Trek solution is not likely going to save the human race from facing the consequences of its actions.

At least there will be good sledding on top of all that pack ice soon to be covering central Europe and the Northern U.S. --And remember; you don't have to wait a century for glaciers to crawl up to your front door. You just need a solid month or two of heavy snowfall to get the same net effect. Ice ages arrive WAY-faster than many think!

Instead, what we ought to be focusing on is internal work; get your personal baggage dealt with, root out your fears, raise your awareness and get powerful. Glaciers and comet showers are small-change compared to the other stuff on the way. Big opportunities await those who can get past their programming and embrace their higher selves. Look into it. Your instincts will guide you!

-FL

But you are a denier!

[Capsaicin]

It might have been interesting to have a back-and-forth with you, but when somebody calls me a "denier," suggesting that my skepticism about AGW can in any way be compared with holocaust denial

You are no skeptic! Just look at the uncritical way you lapped up Svensmark's work along with the claim that this somehow invalidated the (by now well-established) role of human activity in GW! Was your skepticism on holidays?

Skeptics are more likely to accept scientific orthodoxy while rejecting pseudo=science, fringe science and conspiracy theories. GW denialists do the exact opposite.

I wouldn't accuse you of holocaust denial though. More like being in denial when you've just been told you have terminal cancer, and you are willing to grasp at any pseudo=scientific cure which promises complete remission.

BTW you did check out OP's link re cosmic rays (or the response the the Calder article), didn't you.

haha averages mean nothing dude... get over it

[cheekyboy]

So one fusion test lab with 300million degrees can affect the global tempterature average, because that one spike in 10000 locations will skew the data.

Averages tell you little. Its like using a 8x8 pixel camera, very little information.

exactly...

[cheekyboy]

1000 million data points are better than just 1000 testing stations.

I mean, look at mars, constant sat photos and IR maps etc... thats more accurate than just 2 robots taking temps.

Those scientists are damn lazy to not design more remote weather stations powered by solar and sat comms. ohhh is it too expensive? then get SOME OTHER scientists to
design a cheap system, rather than out sourcing it to a supplier at 100x build cost. Oh the uni dean wont let you? you have protocols and procedures?

yes it is ocean farming

[nietsch]

And like all farming, it has a serious impact on the environment. But we have a pretty massive impact on the environment now anyway, in a way that is not sustainable. So if this ocean farming technique harms part of the ocean, you have to balance that with the benefits of sustainable fuel production.
And like all farming, there are enough handles to measure and tweak the amount of added nutrients to minimise adverse effects.
And lastly: it is the whole environment that gets extra nutrients, so the whole food chain will potentially profit from it.

You are mixing models

[WindBourne]

The issue that you bring up occurs occurs when you get Algae to absorb CO2 by adding iron to the oceans. That strikes me as delaying the problem.

What I am suggesting is that Algae will be grown in land-lock lakes and their waste product will be used for their oil (which we all have). Totally different issues from yours.

Re:You are mixing models

[P_11]

Sorry, I did not see any mention of fresh water systems. The lead-in talked about algae from seeding the Southern oceans with iron. See post http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/1 2/1141222
Such a course would be somewhat dangerous if we don't know the consequences, and even with some research, ocean currents and different biospheres in large areas of open ocean would make any generalization questionable. The idea of using algae ponds in a land-locked situation seems feasible. I would expect that an artificial lake would be needed since any natural lake would be killed by such a process. It could be an interesting sewage treatment option as well.

another source

[emil]

How about this? I realize that this is just an interview, but this guy seems pretty smart.

We are talking about carbon dioxide levels 6 to 10 times the present carbon dioxide level. When you have high amounts of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere up to a certain limit, which is considerably higher than it is now, the result is green plants grow very much better... And it is precisely at this time that the recovery from the first dinosaur extinction takes place. When the super plumes come and carbon dioxide increases, and the oxygen correspondingly increases as a result of photosynthesis... And yet the super plumes did not last forever and they started to die at the end of Cretaceous.... In any event, large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28. And so this suggested to me that this was perhaps a significant reason for the first dinosaur extinction, and probably one of the major factors in the second, the terminal dinosaur extinction, other than the birds. It also neatly tied together all of the really bizarre features about the Cretaceous... The Cretaceous is clearly a green house period as opposed to the present ice house that we have... Well, the rich carbon dioxide of course provides for a much greater biogenic diversity.

If only

[YouTookMyStapler]

we could get every global tin-foil hat crowd member to *actually* wear the tin-foil hats- imagine the amount of solar energy that could be reflected back into space.
Or maybe we could geo-engineer another Krakatoa size volcanic eruption to help drop the global temperatures by a degree or so and increase cloud cover, but then again the acid rain side effect would be a downside.

forgot the link

[emil]

It is here.

Re:forgot the link

[MustardMan]

several points -

1.) This is still an interview, and not a peer-reviewed journal. It nowhere mentions the "800 measurements around the world" and MORE IMPORTANTLY it doesn't show any kind of independent verification of these statements.

2.) You've take a whole lot of choice wordings out of context and arranged them to try to fit your "well within tolerances" conclusion. Remember this is a PALEONTOLOGIST talking - right in this very interview he describes a "rapid change" as a quarter of a million years. In the long term, large amounts of CO2 may (big may here, coming from a single transcribed interview with one man) have lead to an abundance of plant life and a corresponding increase in large animals. However, the timescales of human civilation are orders of magnitude shorter than the million-year time scale paleontologists think about. Just because it might have allowed dinosaurs to thrive for some period of time does NOT mean it's "well within tolerances" for human life and civilization to continue as we know it. You're making a massive jump here without any justification.

3.)The argument this man makes is essentially that the entire earth was really warm, and there were dinosaurs everywhere - so you could just as easily use this entire interview as an argument in FAVOR of CO2 in the atmosphere really screwing us over. I personally would never use such a weak source to try to justify my arguments, especially given the abundance of peer-reviewed research out there.

4.)The interview was conducted in 1996, a full decade ago - a lot has changed since then, including the amount of CO2 in our air. Using decade-old data and assumptions to talk about modern global warming debate is dangerous at best.

Re:forgot the link

[emil]

Let's step back and frame your original argument:

I wish there was a way I could mod the linked blog -1, troll. What a ridiculous steaming pile of partisan political horse shit... And where's the evidence that these are actually facts? You're advocating a position which has no supporting evidence beyond an insanely biased political mouthpiece. The source DOES matter, and all this slashdot bullshit cockwaving about how any source is valid is nonsense. Scientific facts remain facts, indeed, but I have absolutely ZERO reason to believe anything on that piece of crap blog has anything to do with facts. If you can provide real evidence to back up your assertion, please do - as it stands now there's nothing to discredit because there's no reputable, peer-reviewed source.

Your dispute was not with my conclusions, but with the facts from which they were drawn. My conclusions may be fallacious, but we will leave that discussion for another time.

Now, we have Professor Robert E. Sloan, Department of Geology, University of Minnesota making the statement that "We are talking about carbon dioxide levels 6 to 10 times the present carbon dioxide level.".

Now, this statement is not exact, and it does not originate in a peer-reviewed journal with supporting experimental evidence. However, if we follow your advice and eschew all science that does not originate in a peer-reviewed journal, we must dispense with textbooks, newspapers, television commentary, trade journals, and all other manner of useful and productive documentation. This is clearly fallacious reasoning, in the most emphatic terms.

Now, at this point, I think you will agree that "We are talking about carbon dioxide levels 6 to 10 times the present carbon dioxide level." seems to be closer to truth than deception.

There comes a time when the weight of fact overwhelms vigorous argument. Especially in view of your (to put it tactfully) "descent into the vernacular," this would seem to be one of those times when "point taken" would be the most appropriate response.

In any case, thanks for making me check my facts.

Re:forgot the link

[MustardMan]

You didn't check your facts, you found a transcribed audio interview from ten years ago. Your position was not simply that the CO2 levels were a certain amount, it was that this concept was fine and dandy - as far as my "where are the fact" statement? That was more a criticism of the entire bullshit political blog you linked to, which was full of ridiculous conclusions, most of which, like your argument, have just enough of a grain of possible validity to confuse people into believing the blog's lies.

Either way, nothing I say is going to convince you, and I've about run out of breath on this conversation, so please keep spouting partisan politics instead of reasonable science. You fit right in on the internets. Perhaps you could start your own blog, and keep that one devoid of rational conclusions as well.