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More Climate Scientists Now Support Geoengineering
ofcourseyouare writes "The Independent is a UK newspaper which has been pushing hard for cuts in CO2 emissions for years. It recently polled a group of 'the world's leading climate scientists,' revealing a 'growing support for geoengineering' in addition to cutting CO2 — not as a substitute. For example, Jim Lovelock, author of The Gaia Theory, comments: 'I disagree that geoengineering the climate is a dangerous distraction and I disagree that on no account should it ever be considered. I strongly agree that we now need a "plan B" where a geoengineering strategy is drawn up in parallel with other measures to curb CO2 emissions.' Professor Kerry Emanuel of MIT said, 'While a geoengineering solution is bound to be less than desirable, the probability of getting global agreement on emissions reductions before it is too late is very small.'"
Great. Geoengineering. Us trying to "solve" a natural problem. Can you say "rabbits in Australia?" Everytime we try one of these "solutions" the result is trouble. I would be agreeable to letting the scientists play geoengineers if they agree to let us violently kill them WHEN it fucks things up even worse.
If attempted this will likely turn out to be as stupid a decision as it was to introduce western predators to Australia in the hope that they would help fix the problem caused by introducing rats and rabbits. When it comes to nature and our ecosystem the rule of thumb ought to be "leave it the fuck alone".
Because you should be wary of a law... the one that talks about unintended consequences.
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Why shouldn't geoengineering climate (dumping Fe in the India ocean, for example) be a substitute for cutting CO2?
You know, when I was a kid they found out that aerosol spray cans (spray cans!) had eaten a huge hole in the ozone layer. Who could have anticipated that? But obviously nothing like that will happen this time.
Something tells me that if you do the math, cutting CO2 emissions will be way cheaper and safer than any of the options listed in the article. Seeding the oceans with iron, one of the more reasonable sounding ideas... OK, but how much iron would have to be mixed into the oceans to get rid of billions of tons of atmospheric carbon? At what cost?
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Terraforming other planets first have the advantage that if we mess things up, we still have this world to live on.
Now, if "fixing" this we mess things up a lot, we wouldnt be able to run nowhere. How much safety margin we have for playing a bit with the system before it runs wildly out of control? And... how better will be the measures they will take over, i.e. breeding butterflies?
Or did you perhaps think that the amount of CO2 in the air the last ten thousand years is the "correct" amount, and the CO2 levels at other points in history (it's been both higher and lower than it is now) are somehow wrong?
Yes, as far as current civilization is concerned, which has adapted itself to a particular climate over the last ten thousand years. We can re-adapt to a new climate, but it's going to be expensive if the change happens within a century or two, and there are very long-term consequences (e.g. sea level rise) that we may or may not prefer to commit future generations to.
Sheesh, do you get all your climate science off skeptic web sites? Your whole post is nothing but a laundry list of long-debunked talking points.
There is some evidence that suggests carbon FOLLOWS warming buy several hundreds of years.
You're talking about the glacial-interglacial cycle. That's long been a prediction of Milaknovitch theory, well before any such lag was actually measured. It doesn't mean that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, or that it doesn't cause warming. It means that there are feedbacks between the climate and the carbon cycle. When glacial temperatures rise, CO2 levels increase (due to, e.g., outgassing from the oceans), as predicted by theory. Increased CO2 levels, in turn, add to the temperature rise. If you leave out the CO2 greenhouse effect, you can't reproduce the amount of warming observed in the glacial-interglacial cycle.
There seems to be a small but growing group of people that feel the sun's activities are far more responsible for warming and cooling that carbon.
If you're talking about the modern warming period, there isn't a growing group of climate scientists who believe that; far fewer believe that now than they did 10 or 20 years ago. The evidence is strongly against it, since the Sun's activities during that period don't actually agree with the warming which is observed.
In the past, solar activity has indeed had significant effects on climate. It can explain a substantial amount (but by no means all) of the warming in the early 20th century. However, solar irradiance simply hasn't changed very much since the 1950s, and can't explain the warming since then, even if you appeal to speculative indirect effects like cosmic ray modulation of cloud cover (as comic rays also haven't changed in a way to explain the observed warming).
Additionally, Methane and water vapor are far more potent as greenhouse gases than carbon.
Once again, that has nothing to do with the fact that CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, and we're adding a lot of it to the atmosphere.
Finally, I just read that temperatures peaked in '98 and have actually cooled by about a half degree or so.
That's wrong. January 2008 was 0.5 degrees cooler than 2007 on average, but a monthly fluctuation in temperature does not mean the Earth is experiencing a cooling trend.
It seems that the earth has always warmed and cooled in cycles.
The Earth has natural cycles, but there isn't any natural cycle which predicts what we've observed in the modern warming period.
I think it is far more effective to effect local solutions than to risk geo-engineering with processes that we don't understand and really can't control.
Global solutions may be required to global problems, but geoengineering is indeed riskier than other alternatives.
We do not have to , global warming is not proven.
It's rather well established by now.
Even if the oceans rise and all of the poles melt, humans will still survive and thrive.
We'll survive, but that doesn't mean that there won't be economic, social, or geopolitical impacts that we'd prefer to have avoided.
Sure, polar bears might go extinct, but so did dinosaurs millions of years before we were even around driving our SUVs.
Again, a non-argument. Just because species have gone extinct in the past doesn't mean we'd prefer to accelerate the extinction rate. I mean, sure, if you place zero value on ecosystems, maybe, but not everyone does.
And then what happens when we get plunged into another ice age because of something?
Then we'll probably wish we'd have saved our fossil fuels to counteract that, instead of using them up now when we don't need the warming.
Would you abolish medicine because it sometimes has side effects? Meanwhile, we have a raving addiction to crack (coal and gasoline) which definitely do have known negative effects, which we are not treating at all. I doubt the unintended consequences will be nearly as bad as completely uncontrolled consequences we are headed for.
With over 6.5 billion people on the planet, we DO have an environmental impact, so opting out is simply not an option. The only choice is whether to (1) run headlong into disaster (which I predict is a good description of mankind will actually do); (2) minimize the impact; or (3) counterbalance the impact. You can't simply rule out (3) on a vague generality.
Oh right, I forgot about all those times in history when innovation completely ceased and everything stayed where it was for ~200 years. Sure, we can't assume that there will be some miracle, but you can assume that in 200 years we will have enough technology to deal with the problem,
No, you can't. Economists who study this problem include technological innovation in their models (mostly in terms of reduced costs of abatement, but also sometimes in adaptation), but that still doesn't get rid of economic damages either now or in the future or the need for abatement as a risk management option.
The fact is, we don't know what will be possible in 200 years. It's even possible that the world will be poorer, more war torn, or otherwise in LESS of a position to deal with the problem.
Even if technological improvements exist, that still doesn't mean that we want to commit to a certain level of climate change. Suppose we can build artificial islands to replace lost shorelines. Hell, we can probably do that with existing technology. And for the sake of argument, even assume that they cost nothing. That still doesn't mean we want to have to build them. Maybe we want to keep our existing coastal cities. By committing to, say, sea level rise now, we eliminate options for future generations. There are a whole host of ethical questions and impacts that can't be waved away with technology, the dreams of utopian technophiles notwithstanding.
Climate change has large global impacts. 200 years ago we didn't have the technology to avert those impacts. In 200 years we may not either. The climate system is huge, has huge inertia, and affects everything on Earth. It's not easy to control, nor are its changes easy to adapt to, even with high technology. And, my main point, just because we can introduce technological "fixes" doesn't mean that those "fixes" are more desirable than just mitigating the problem in the first place.
It is rather shifting to "climate change".
Oh please. I hope this isn't one of those claims that "global warming was re-branded `climate change' because it hasn't been proven". The term "climate change" was used by scientists well before global warming ever became an issue, and is still used.
And "well established" != "proven".
Nothing is ever proven in science. Sadly, we don't have the luxury of making decisions in the presence of perfect certainty. "Well established" is what we have to work with.
Adapting is probably a lot cheaper than trying to reverse or to compensate any supposed effect,
Some adaptation will be necessary. Mainstream economists find that a combination of mitigation and adaptation is cheaper and less risky than adaptation alone.
And change means opportunity! not disaster: some changes are good, some are bad.
Some changes are good, some are bad, but change which is too large/fast is usually bad since it's harder to adapt to. CO2 emissions abatement is insurance: we don't know things will be bad, but there's a serious possibility they will be, and the damages could be very large. Maybe they won't be, but it's worth slowing down.
Because that money doesn't disappear from the economy, it circulates? And more money circulated means a stronger economy? Especially since oil profits leave the country, while wind or solar profits wouldn't?
Because more expensive energy means more researching to energy efficiency, driving industry forward, leading to a stronger economy?
Because energy sources don't have static costs, but depend heavily on the amount of utilization and research and development put into them?
Yes, we are addicted to coal and gasoline... just as I am addicted to food and water. We need energy to have a modern civilized society. I am not convinced that eliminating the use of coal and oil is such a great idea. That is because that cheap energy derived from coal and oil has brought about the lifestyle that we (in "western" society) enjoy and other nations tend to want to have.
Those of us with the luxury of nuclear technology, silicon refining capability, and computer controlled manufacturing can experiment with things like wind, solar, and nuclear sources of power. Those that are living in grass huts and have primitive (by our standards) metal working capability do not have the luxury to experiment. If they have coal and oil in the ground they are going to use it. Telling them that they cannot have internal combustion engines because of some distant threat of global warming, sea levels rising, and the terrific storms that tend to follow will fall on deaf ears. The global temperature rising by one degree and sea levels rising by one foot in the next decade does not compare to the next meal.
The unintended consequence of the efforts to save humanity through reducing CO2 induced global warming is that people will die because they do not have access to electricity, heat, transportation, and refrigeration.
I have a better idea than experimenting with geoengineering, deal with the climate change regardless of the cause. The reason I say that is not only because I am not convinced of human induced global warming but because even if we stop producing CO2 (outside of actually breathing) today the effects of that CO2 will be with us for a very long time.
Sea level rise could be because of increased insolation melting glaciers, or increased greenhouse gasses, or because the Earth's core is cooling (and therefore shrinking). The solution in my mind is the same, move inland.
The same with climatic temperature rise, adapt the crops grown in the area, get air conditioning if you don't already, etc.
If we want geoengineering to be successful we will need the cooperation of many nations. Some nations will not participate because of the cost. Some nations will not participate because they want global warming. (Take Canada or Russia for example, large areas of land could turn from frozen wastelands into fertile cropland.) Some may not participate because of the principle of national sovereignty, they don't want some outside influence telling them how to run their country.
I'm OK with reducing our use of coal and oil but not at the cost of reducing our standard of living. I was just hearing on the radio this week about how the coal waste is threatening municipal water supplies. (I don't recall where.) If we can move to solar, wind, and nuclear power then we will no longer have the threat to our water quality. Problem is determining the cost of moving to another energy source vs. dealing with the coal waste in a more responsible manner. It may make more sense to just dispose of the waste elsewhere.
Importing something on the order of one TRILLION dollars of oil per year is an economic disaster for the USA. Solutions to that problem include domestic sources of oil, electric transport (cars and/or light rail), synthetic fuel (which would require another energy source such as nuclear), conservation and efficiency improvements, and probably more I cannot come up with right now.
(Corn ethanol and soybean diesel fuel is just trading one economic and environmental disaster for another.)
I agree that burning coal and oil have known negative effects. NOT burning coal and oil has known negative effects. In my mind the negative effects of burning the coal and oil is nothing compared to the negative effects of not burning coal and oil.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Its not about money. Its about resources. It takes more of them to build solar & wind farms than it costs to burn more coal and oil. To actually stop global warming, we would have to pretty much stop using fossil fuels entirely. We would also have to do it before the planet heats up to a point at which what we are doing is pointless anyways.
As minds and materials are diverted to this project, there would be less to go around everywhere else. There would be no immediate help (until fossil fuels are actually as costly as alternative energy sources) so people would be less well off. On average, individual standard of living would drop, probably by quite a bit. Since pretty much any business is effected by energy costs, they would all have to increase prices (or fail). As prices increase, and salaries don't (I don't see why they would increase), people would be forced to buy fewer things. Many poorer people wouldn't be able to get by. Many businesses that are more dependent on energy costs would fail.
It might even be worse than doing nothing and just dealing with the costs of global warming later. Eventually we are going to run out of fossil fuels and will need to utilize nuclear, solar, and wind power anyways. Might as well let those technologies continue to develop and get cheaper as the price of oil rises. At some point they will be competitive on their own.
Now, I'm not saying that the solution is to do nothing. I think its important to remember that this is not going to be easy. There is no ideal solution. However, the idea that forcing people to use something that is more expensive would actually help the economy is insane.
What is this 'global average temperature' of which you speak?
The surface temperature averaged over the Earth's surface.
Temperature is an intensive thermodynamic property and as such cannot be averaged meaningfully in an inhomogeneous medium like the atmosphere.
You can average it. It's not conserved or anything like that, so it's not really a fundamental physical quantity like heat is. It's still useful as a climatic indicator: it's not going to directly tell you what the planetary radiation balance is (which is what you really want to know), but it's a starting point in inferring it.
Global atmospheric heat content is meaningful.
It's more meaningful than average temperature, but it's also not measured. That's why people use temperature.
It is perfectly possible for the temperature to fall everywhere on Earth and the heat content of the atmosphere to increase.
It's possible, but please note that what we mostly care about in terms of impacts is the surface temperature, not the total atmospheric heat content.
Global ocean temperature, now... that's meaningful, and increasing, but I would take global warming a lot more seriously if the people who are all het up about it showed an even rudimentary grasp of basic physics,
My Ph.D. was in statistical thermodynamics. I stand by my statements.
A sceptic about the magnitude of the effect of CO2 on global heat content may be reasonable. A person who puts there argument in terms of a problematic quality such as global average temperature is not.
That's nonsense. It is perfectly possible to compare hypothetical forcing mechanisms on the basis of their observed influence on globally averaged temperature, if they give different predictions for that quantity. It's not nearly as useful as heat content, but that quantity is also not known. Certainly ocean temperature changes are one line of evidence, but so are surface temperatures, as well as tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures.
Furthermore, since every single story we have seen recently about global warming has announced loudly and clearly that climate scientists have no clue whatsoever about what is actually happening in the climate,
That's false. "Arctic ice melting faster than expected" doesn't mean "scientists have no clue whatsoever about what is actually happening in the climate".
Each of these stories, if read by someone who hadn't bought into a religious belief in the infallibility of climate scientists, would be taken as clear-cut evidence that climate science as a whole is terrible at predicting anything to do with climate,
Climate science is reasonably good at predicting radiation balance, heat budgets, and surface temperatures over large scales and decadal time periods. They're still bad at predicting regional climate, and precipitation is mediocre. Weather events like hurricanes are still terrible.
The side effect of not geoengineering will kill everything.
Geoengineering is a skill we will need to master sooner or later. One day, whether we're the cause or not, this planet will not be inhabitable. We have three options: 1) direct our planet towards a consistently inhabitable state, 2) create an inhabitable world elsewhere, 3) die.
I don't really consider (3) to be much of an option, and (2) is so far beyond our current capabilities even experimentation is not a consideration. That leaves option (1).
Personally I'd rather we start our apprenticeship now by correcting our own effects on the environment rather than waiting until the planet makes it an unavoidable necessity regardless.
It's sad that you think this might not be the case. We've spilled far worse into the oceans than iron, so try not to be offended when people that know what they're doing dismiss out of hand this hysteria over small scale experimentation.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.