How Close Are We To Engineering the Climate?
merbs writes The scientists had whipped themselves into a frenzy. Gathered in a stuffy conference room in the bowels of a hotel in Berlin, scores of respected climate researchers were arguing about a one-page document that had tentatively been christened the "Berlin Declaration." It proposed ground rules for conducting experiments to explore how we might artificially cool the Earth—planet hacking, basically. This is the story of scientists' first major international meeting to tackle geoengineering. It’s most commonly called geoengineering. Think Bond-villain-caliber schemes but with better intentions. It’s a highly controversial field that studies ideas like launching high-flying jets to dust the skies with sulfur in order to block out a small fraction of the solar rays entering the atmosphere, or sending a fleet of drones across the ocean to spray seawater into clouds to make them brighter and thus reflect more sunlight. Those are two of the most discussed proposals for using technology to chill the planet and combat climate change, and each would ostensibly cost a few billion dollars a year—peanuts in the scheme of the global economy. We’re about to see the dawn of the first real-world experiments designed to test ideas like these, but first, the scientists wanted to agree on a code of ethics—how to move forward without alarming the public or breaking any laws.
We'll be chasing it back and forth like crazy, every time a storm pops up.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Imagine the lawsuits if we start tinkering with the climate? Not just crop failures or floods or hurricanes, but when are we to do when little Suzy's party gets washed out? Litigate, of course.
more than climate change ever will.
That's what Global Warming is.
How much effort does that require? Now, do you think some magic sprinkle will reverse it? That's like sitting on a couch for 40 years, then expecting 5-min of effort, one time, and a pill to become a competitive long distance runner.
Global Warming will require a larger effort to reverse than the one that created it.
So by shunting the extra energy causing global warming into the power grid, would it be possible to recapture some of the "global warming" into a green energy production thus lowering the "global warming" to previous levels and reducing CO2 output of traditional energy production methods?
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
When these "scientists" "change things" and some climate is altered, I can guarantee more than a billion people are going to complain about the change and the legal charges in the Hague against those that foisted off the plan and carried it out will be a circus.
I'm old enough to remember (and read) the book - Weather War . Forget the lawsuits, look at the next level of targeting for political advantage.
"Software is the difference between hardware and reality"
Trying to actively control a massive, chaotic system is not going to end well. The only stable configurations that pop out of computer models of the climate are the snowball Earth and the Venus 2.0 scenario. The only right way to play is to stop applying massive perturbations to the system and realize that even then the climate will change.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
It seems a bit frightening to start out on the planet we actually have to live on. This is not good engineering practice. If we make mistakes, it would be nice to do it on a planet where the consequences aren't quite as critical
My proposal is that we should start out by gaining experience by modifying another planet. Let's work on terraforming Venus.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
and Captain America knows this can only end badly!
Can we find a way off this rock before we mess it up too badly, please? No throwing the basket around while it holds all the eggs, mkay?
The mere fact that we seem to be using out ability engineer the earth like a mad scientist intent on doing as much harm as possible does not change the fact that we are already engineering the planet.
Just not in a GOOD way.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Spraying sulphur in the atmosphere in a warmed up Earth? Are they trying to recreate Hell?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
"We are now able to engineer the climate. Weather in Florida will be even nicer year round.....North Dakota...sorry...but you are fucked"
The panel posted a quick summary of their results and findings.
Isn't global warming [from greenhouse gases] an exponential system? When the planet gets warmer, doesn't that release more greenhouse gases from clathrates under the ocean, causing more warming?
Isn't offsetting an exponential response by using another exponential curve difficult? I thought that was what made nuclear reactor regulation difficult.
Any control theorists in the audience who can shed light on this?
Sounds like a sure fire way to bring on the next ice age.
I've always liked the idea of seeding the ocean to create enormous blooms of plankton (both the animal and plant kind). If we widened the base of that enormous food chain a lot of carbon could be both sequestered in their dead tiny bodies at the bottom of the sea OR in a new wave of fish. Considering how much we fish globally if we artifically increased the supply (instead of wank-ass fish farming) we could be solving a few problems with one concerted effort. Let's start by trying to make the ocean's deadzones...undead.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Oh, you mean pictures like these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
I guess all that is still cheaper than desalination. Eh, another scam by the people who brought you the bearded lady snake, thing, whatever..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I just modified my local micro-climate.
mmmm, chili for lunch....
also, ib4 "chemtrails!" and "HAARP!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Here, hold my beer ...
I am not sure desalinization is not viable due to the cost of the technology, or due to the infrastructure required to get the water from the coast, up over the mountains and into the Central Valley where all of the farmland is.
How old are you?
How long have you been looking at contrails?
Go test it in the staging environment and get back with us before you plan to put it into production.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Stories like these give people too much hope that our problems can or will be solved by engineering/science breakthroughs and hurt motivation to actually use the tools and knowledge that we have to solve our problems (which generally are sufficient, assuming that there aren't influential groups working to prevent it). Rather than cut carbon emissions and increase sustainable sources, which could be done right away and with the technology we have (even if it wouldn't be simple or cheap), people will hope for breakthroughs because those with the most influence are going to continue to ring the last drops of profit out of the power sources that are dooming the planet in some a game of human extinction chicken.
Chemtrails are a complete hoax. The technology isn't there yet and anyone who believes in this chemtrail stuff is an idiot.
After describing their solution to global warming, dropping a giant chunk of ice in the water ever few years:
Man: "Thus solving the problem of global warming once and for all!"
Little Girl: "But-"
Man: "I SAID ONCE AND FOR ALL!"
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
yup P.T. Barnum was right....
Desalinization is simply expensive, the technology isn't the problem, the infrastructure is.
Not to mention the problem of salt disposal.
I suppose if you come up with a way to desalinate say 100 cubic miles of water in a handwave, then we can deal with all that salt, but absent that...yeah, it's still a pig in a poke.
that's all climate science has been all this time, it's just white knighting.
like we sooo need them to save us all.
How about we spend that time and energy adapting to any changes that do occur and stop worrying so much about it. Humans adapt tremendously well. If you fear extreme weather, design better living spaces, build tunnels, etc. Here in Minnesota, some of our major cities are connected by skyways between buildings throughout the downtown. Why? Because the climate is not so pleasant for half the year. We engineered solutions to our issues without deciding to solve everybody else's perceived issues.
We should take a lesson from Australia. They introduced Cane toads to solve beetle problems. It was not the savior they hoped for and ended up being a bigger problem then they sought to solve. Too many well meaning and intelligent people think that their engineering of a problem will work, so they propose a huge experiment the size of a region or planet. I think one of our greatest weaknesses as humans is that we refuse to say no. It can be a strength in the right context, but it can be a means of unintended destruction as well.
A famous quote of CS Lewis was "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive... those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." I tend to agree. If we engineer climate and hurt people in the process, the powers that be are hardly likely to stop because they will think the overall good will even out in the end.
Besides the "do-gooders" who genuinely care, there will be others involved in the process. The people who make these decisions (politicians) want results to show off come election time. The engineers who execute the decisions want to get paid. Nobody will be there to stop a "botched climate experiment" until it is too late. Once that ball is in motion, it is not likely to stop. We cannot assume everything will always be the same. In fact, trying to change the weather for everybody is probably one great way to start a world war. Instead, focus on adapting. Focus on using technology, common sense, and natural abilities to adapt into whatever climate may exist.
The only problem with desalination is the politics and greed that is impeding it. Technology is not an issue. It's about the market. Scarcity is its life blood.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Honestly, if these people start fucking with the climate, all they are going to end up doing is kickstarting the next ice age.
The climate is stupidly delicate. Changing it on a large scale is even worse.
This process has been happening quite literally for billions of years.
Funnily enough, our industrial revolution has essentially prevented an ice age, as well the secondary one with all these new countries coming along in to the industrialized age. (hopefully with help from us since it would be a shame to see so many die the same way that many millions did through our industrialization efforts, needless death is needless)
This planet will get much hotter. The average temperatures of this planet were far higher back in the days of the dinos. And it is the reason the lizards were so successful and varied because they could take it.
A lot of life will die. Mammals are more capable of surviving hot temperatures compared to those times, especially humans.
There was also far FAR more plant life across the planet back then as well. A lot of that has been cleared and built over with heat absorbing materials which has an even larger effect on the local weather. (large concrete jungles raise the average temperature for many many miles around it)
One major issue that is of concern is if the planet does indeed get much hotter again, there is a good chance some of those igneous provinces to spring back to life. These things helped wipe out the majority of life on the planet. Several times. These things are evolution-reset buttons.
The higher temperatures, while seemingly not much, could have an effect on the crust in sensitive areas. (not to mention yellowstone could get more unstable. Goodbye half the north American continent and hello extra long winter)
So there is a good cause for cooling the planet.
For all we know, slowing it down could very well do severe damage UNDER the ground.
We don't fully understand how the flows of liquid under our crust fully work. We won't fully understand how the core works for many many years. We are getting better at understanding it, but it is still too early to full understand what effects slowing the climate would have on the planet as a whole.
Geoengineering should not be done until we at least have a slight clue.
Cities are bad enough.
We know the planet is based on many feedback cycles, all bouncing off each other. But we know they aren't perfect, and Earths definitely isn't, despite what is commonly thought. This Earth isn't and has never been a stable place for life, we are just extremely lucky.
Screw Venus up first, build colonies that float on the surface of the clouds on Venus, that would work very well, you could make huge floating cities on there, protected from radiation and have plenty of energy.
Scramjets would be even more capable on that planet as well.
I'd rather not have Earth get screwed up before we had another place to go to.
And by colony, I mean full on colony, none of those space station and some hanging gardens crap.
Our bodies, hell, all life, is based on infection. If you put life in sterile environments, they get ill, horribly ill. This is the reason so much autoimmune is coming about because of sterile food, antibiotics and anti-bacterials abuse, our bodies are freaking the fuck out because it can't detect any infection so it dials up the sensitivity until it finds something: your gut bacteria, your skin bacteria, harmless stuff just sitting around and even helping you.
Getting a stable colony going will require large gardens and if you expect there to be transfer between Earth and the colonies, will also require sharing cultured bacteria from all environments in question or you are going to get people end up dying the instant they walk on to this alien world because their immune system has had zero exposure to said environment.
Bit of a tangent there, but the topic is sort of related.
tl;dr DUN DO IT MAYN, WE ALL GON' DIE. BRUCE WILLIE CAN'T SAVE US FROM HEAT.
As soon as some advantage can be gained by using climate
manipulation against an adversary, this will be done.
Don't believe me ?
Google Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden.
The human race are the most destructive and violent creatures
on earth, and to believe otherwise is so unrealistic it borders on
psychosis.
It was christened? It's a Christian thing then? Or do you mean 'named', it was named The Berlin Declaration, but you just want to push your religion onto it?
whipped themselves into a frenzy
. That was quickly followed by a classic editing fail:
major international meeting to tackle geoengineering. Itâ(TM)s most commonly called geoengineering
The final statement with the cheesy summary of ethics:
the scientists wanted to agree on a code of ethicsâ"how to move forward without alarming the public or breaking any laws.
Well summarized whose side of the conspiracy theory Samzenpus is on.
Although considering the overwhelming conservative vocal majority here on slashdot, it really doesn't surprise me at all that this crap made the front page. If you can't disprove the science, why not attack the scientists themselves, right? Make them look as crooked and juvenile as possible so nobody will want to have anything to do with them? Maybe we can swift boat them while we're at it.
(yeah, I know I will be moderated down into oblivion for this. but we all know there is no "-1 disagree" moderation so they'll have to use "flamebait" or "overrated" as a substitute. that doesn't chance the fact - as much as they would want it to)
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
that can magically filter out carbon and methane from the atmosphere in broad swaths
Carbon has been proven not to be a significant contributor to warming, otherwise instead of global temperatures holding pretty much flat for ever a decade the temperature would have gone up a lot in response to continued large increases in atmospheric CO2.
Methane probably would be more of an issue but we really aren't putting enough of that into the atmosphere to matter (or if we are, then again the stable temperatures point to it not having a real effect)..
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The main tenet of the anthropogenic climate change is that this climate change was engineered by human activity.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I predict that your prediction will be as spectacularly wrong as the predictions made on the first Earth Day http://www.aei.org/publication...
Do you have any data to back up those assertions?
For reference, see Kudzu in the United States and think Law of Unintended Consequences on a global scale.
As a first step how about we stop pumping gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere every year! It seems like the LOGICAL place to start!
What, that greed is the biggest impediment to progress? I don't understand the question..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Seriously, you believe in that nonsense? I'm trying to detect some sort of sarcasm in your post, but you seem to be the real deal. But don't worry, keep that tinfoil hat on nice and tight, and it will all be ok...
It has to start with discontinuing dumping shit into the atmosphere that's screwing everything up, and we can't get everyone to do it. Then it comes out that a large pecentage of the problem is jet airliners and cattle of all things. No, we're not anywhere close to being able to 'engineer' this, we can't even stop fouling our own nest.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Some data where desalinization projects did not go through due to greed on the part of the incumbent water utility.
I am curious because I used to live in a city that used desalinization. I always wondered why it was not more widely adopted. Everything that I found led me to believe that the root cause was due to the cost of energy required to make the process work.
Man made CO2 might be able to raise global temperature by 2 degrees in the next 400 years after which time we'd probably have switch to other means of producing energy. This would still leave the planet with a level of CO2 lower than is has been in the past 10,000 years, during man's ascent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSVI-EdgLr4&list=PLgnnPnL9OL7H1_hH-MeHeLCZY1J3oFkBJ&index=40
time stamp 28:20
20K ppm of CO2 is dangerous
10K ppm of CO2 is not. In fact, that's what you breath out
400 ppm is in the atmosphere
150 ppm is the minimum for plant survival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnEoQmHrPCY&list=PLgnnPnL9OL7H1_hH-MeHeLCZY1J3oFkBJ&index=85
I see the geo-engineering deniers are out in force today with their mod points.
Go ahead and ignore what is hanging above your heads. I have made my peace with it already.
I am not sure why people get so defensive whens someone points out that they are trying to make it rain over California, a state that is experiencing its worst drought in decades.
One would think that I was touting conspiracy theories about the Illuminati trying to poison the masses with aerial bombardments of bacteriological agents.
Not by a long shot. Short term answer, not very close. Long term answer, we'll never get there.
LOL, "Data" for Mr Chemtrails! Bahahahahahaahahaah!!! You wouldn't know Data if he had yellow eyes and did not use contractions!
So we're already engineering the climate, and doing it without a clue as to what the changes we've been making (and are still making) will ultimately end in. Do we really know enough to try adding yet more crap to the original pile of crap in order to cancel out the whole pile?
Yikes.
Step out from behind your fear, AC. It is easy to sling mud when nobody knows who you are.
The mere fact that we seem to be using out ability engineer the earth like a mad scientist intent on doing as much harm as possible does not change the fact that we are already engineering the planet.
1. That movie was making a very obvious satirical statement.
2. Stumbling around blindly and arriving at an end is not "engineering". Engineering is planning and execution, analyzing and revising the plan while the implementation is in progress to react to changes and unforeseen obstacles. It has method, rationale, and logic.
We are already 'engineering the climate' - we're just doing it randomly and without plan.
If the price of oil goes down and everybody starts burning more of it, we're engineering the climate with more CO2.
If we chop down hundreds of square miles of amazon rain forest and replace it with cattle ranches we're engineering the climate with more methane.
If we want to start engineering the climate in a more directed manner, we MUST control these activities as well. Trying to control some of the strings while others are being yanked in a haphazard manner is not a practical approach.
The Kyoto Protocol has many critics - and with reason. It is clumsy, largely ineffectual and tainted by accusations of corruption. But real practical climate engineering will only be achieved by some sort international cooperation along these lines.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
Yes, because bean counters make policy. Energy is just another commodity under very tight controls by government protected industries. At the foundation is plain old greed of very class conscious people.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How much effort does that require?
Well technically none at all - absolutely no effort was put into changing the climate whatsoever it was just a byproduct of doing something else. While I would tend to agree that I think that the environment is particularly stable and will be very hard to affect I would expect that if we deliberately set out to change it we will probably find it an order of magnitude or two easier to do than changing it inadvertently.
Cloud Seeding Hurricanes
Scientists that had their lives dedicated to the study of climate and consequences still getting surprised by some of the newly discovered consequences of global warming. Tinkering with a very complex system that you don't understand could have even worse or more urgent consequences than the original problem you were trying to solve. And if you make big mistakes there you not only lose the future of mankind, but also all the past.
Whats wrong with solving it in the plain, simple, ordered and pretty studied solution of diminishing our influence in the change?
I can't believe that after all that we done and that has happened anybody is this stupid. Especially not so called respected scientists.
I'm getting kind of concerned. While I agree strenuously that intentionally messing with the climate is likely to end as badly as unintentionally messing with the climate, the scary part is that the cost estimates for doing so aren't really that high.
It is at least plausible that a Buffet, Zuckerberg, Allen, or Musk might just go ahead and start seeding the upper atmosphere with sulphur dioxide. The cost estimates are low enough (and I suspect that you could do it for a lot less) to make it plausible for non-state actors to do exactly that -- without asking anyone's permission. I kind of doubt anyone would be able to stop them, either. And once they had managed to get away with it for a decade or so, my understanding is that we'd almost have to keep seeding the stratosphere or we'd have a very rapid, very scary climate shift in a very few years.
For that matter, I could see the Russians or the Saudis quietly pursuing a geoengineering program just so they can keep selling oil. It isn't that much of a stretch to imagine a consortium of hedge-fund billionaires with large holdings of Florida real estate doing exactly the same thing.
The heck of it is, if someone quietly did a sneaky climate hack, people would forget about the whole global warming thing in a very short time. Politicians, either ones who had pressed for action or who had pushed for doing nothing at all, would not pay very much attention to the issue if it appeared to be going away. And scientists who claim that someone is messing with the climate would be just as easily ignored as they are now.
You have no idea what you're talking about. You can prove AGW in your basement — that is, depending on what parts of empirical reality you take issue with. Proving that CO2 absorbs IR is trivial. Proving that CO2 levels are rising is less trivial, but possible, and hopefully not in dispute. Proving that Earth is surrounded by vacuum is would be difficult but again hopefully not in dispute. Determining the variation (negligible) of solar irradiance is best done from space, but you might be able to get a good enough measurement from Earth.
The above would be sufficient to prove the fundamentals of global warming. There's only one major heat input, and only one way for heat to escape Earth. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere must correspond to a rise in temperature; it's very simple physics. Attributing the rise in CO2 to humans is pretty simple and two-pronged: one, we know pretty much how much fossil fuels are being consumed, and two, there's a huge difference in oxygen isotope ratios.
That's not all though. Unless everything that is known about radiation is wrong, as previously mentioned, a rise in CO2 means a rise in temperature. This can actually be calculated fairly exactly: 3.7 W/m^2 per doubling, corresponding to about 1 degree C change in global temperature. No one cares about this. However, we have lots of this "water" stuff lying around, and it's a way better greenhouse gas than CO2, and the amount of water that can be in the air increases exponentially with temperature. At first glance, this leads to a runaway positive feedback cycle. At second glance, there are reasons why it does not do that, but despite years of research, there does not seem to be any factors that can lead to a negative feedback cycle. The exact degree of forcing is a matter of research.
Realize that science started investigating this problem at least a hundred years before computer modeling existed. If computers were the only evidence people would be more skeptical. In point of fact, they were more skeptical; it has taken more than a century to muster convincing evidence that humans could affect the climate at all. At this point arguing against AGW is equivalent to arguing against evolution or heliocentrism; literally everything we know about atmospheric and radiative physics would have to be wrong in order for it to be untrue. It's actually a lot easier to prove the fundamentals of the theory than it would be to try to prove evolution.
Talking about computer modeling in the context of proving AGW is like talking about epidemiological models in the context of proving the germ theory of disease. You have the relationship backwards, and you're missing the actual evidence entirely.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
As we can't seem to convince people that we are in trouble how are we going to convince people we have a solution?
The scientific method says
a) control subject that will not be messed with
b) experiment subject that will be messed with in only the controlled scenario
We can get neither alternate earth for study.
Whatever we do will be influenced by our ongoing activities so the situation will be even murkier than our current one where a lot of the public don't think we are in trouble. So how on earth are we going to convince people we have a solution?
I don't know about the GP, but I'm 48, and I've been looking at contrails since I was big enough to lift my head.
They haven't changed much. There are more of them than there used to be in the 70s, but that's about it.
See: http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...
This method is great because ships are already making bubbles in their wake. We just make it whiter with smaller bubbles. Basically raising the ocean albedo.
In the "What can possibly go wrong?" department, this method is far better than any of the other geoengineering proposals. And it's cheap.
Simply retrofitting existing large ships to produce smaller bubbles could reduce global temperature by 0.5C. If we want more cooling, we could float dedicated solar-powered bot ships that do nothing but cruise the equitorial seas making wake.
The other day I was trying to imagine living in a world war II type scenario. The idea of air strikes or food rations seems absurd to modern Americans. But it could happen. Was anyone predicting the collapse of the ruble in Russia recently and laughed at? Bad things can and will still happen.
Why the hell are we waiting? We have like a dozen volcanic eruptions worth of climate change data just from the last 200 years or so to prove it works. If a mountain and arbitrarily launch dust into the atmosphere and we record worldwide temperature drops, that's all the experimenting I need. The miscalculation risk repercussions of any method would be what, wild climate changes? Oh no! That's almost like the exact same thing that will happen if we do nothing.
I think these scientists should stop watching Snowpiercer, which wouldn't happen in reality unless we launched the entire Hawaiian island into the atmosphere, and start spraying something up there.
It's influencing the climate. Not hacking.
Why is everything must relate to some underground, or hipster, or urban meaning. It's just influencing the climate. Weather is not a system in CS definition, it is phenomena.
Oh, forgot this is /. ... hipsters, continue discussion...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We already have, can we engineer our way out of it, no.
Just ask the Maya, the Egyptians, survivors of the dark ages.
We really AREN'T smart enough to play god, after all.
We can't even reign in in the oil companies so that are the odds?
Come back to us after you look up what percentage of the earths atmosphere is CO2, and look at the increase over the last decade where warming has flatlined while CO2 substantially increased.
The fact that CO2 absorbs IR under controlled conditions in your basement means essentially nothing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh you mean the obvious lies in the wikipedia pages?
Chemtrails and contrails are completely different animals.
Contrails dissapear in a couple of minutes.
Chemtrails go on for hours after hours or even days, if you track them.
Do you know, how much energy the saudi arabian seawater desalination factories use?
Technology being a non issue at required quantity the farmland irrigation needs? Dont make me laugh. Are you going to pay for it?
And you think, that you are mister right, becouse you think that you "know" something, so you are always right?
If we are to go to court becouse the chemtrails.
Are you able to disprove or prove the chemtrails in a honest court?
I sincerely hope that they wait to do this until after I am dead. Honestly, I believe that they want to tinker with things that they barely understand.
Coming up with a code of ethics first means you've hamstrung yourself before you've started. If you don't DO before you handwring, you'll never get past the handwringing.
The trouble is that nautical engineering attempts to minimize these bubbles. They literally eat away at the propellers. more smaller bubbles, turns into less efficient boats, and higher costs in keeping them afloat. And those props are expensive. At least with other approaches, the investment can be calculated, and made by a single agency. This one, if you mandate that, you externalize the costs to hundreds of shipping lines, millions of consumers (on tickets, shipping costs, and on personal watercraft, if we take it that far), and unless an exception is made for navies, we then further balloon defense spending, and put servicemen at risk. Especially submariners, who already have hellish jobs, and we then have more ships, laid up more of the time, getting propellers replaced. No thanks.
...unless the taste of human flesh and cockroaches appeals to you, that is.
The fact that CO2 absorbs IR under controlled conditions in your basement means essentially nothing.
Why? Propose a mechanism. If what you're saying is true, there has to be an effect to counter the CO2+H2O forcing. It has to be a large effect since the positive feedback is strong. That should make it easy to find. Go ahead, find the evidence, show us what we're missing.
... look at the increase over the last decade where warming has flatlined while CO2 substantially increased.
I am not aware that the warming has done any such thing, and most of the warmest years on record fall in the last decade. The multi-decadal trend is upwards, in close agreement with theoretical predictions.
Come back to us after you look up what percentage of the earths atmosphere is CO2...
Now here's a fact in search of an argument. Either you're disputing easily-observed facts about CO2, solar irradiance, and radiative physics, or you have to admit that CO2 causes warming. Specifically, all other things being equal, a doubling of CO2 results in about 4 W/m^2 of warming. Since I know you're not going to dispute basic laws of physics, we're back to the top of this post, where you find the term that makes a bunch of positive feedbacks go negative, but only on this planet, and only when it's convenient, and contrary to observations.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
We've had plenty of practice at manipulating the environment successfully, just look at the introduction of cane toads into Australia. Worked a treat :)
Isn't global warming [from greenhouse gases] an exponential system?
The opposite, it's a logarithmic system. Every ounce of CO2 released produces less warming than the previous ounce. This is why climate scientists talk about warming in terms of "a doubling of CO2", because if it causes 1 degree of warming with one doubling, the next doubling will also cause a degree of warming.
Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Great response!
....in this where something goes horribly wrong and we crash the planet into a new Ice Age......
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
I believe that they are doing everything that they can to keep the state's agricultural economy from cratering. Too much of the Western United States is dependent on California's agriculture.
If that were true, they would have already built salt-water purifiers so they could reroute the water to agriculture. If they were really worried, they would not dump as much water for the delta smelt. If either of those things happened, there would be plenty of water for agriculture.
The drought has the powers that be more worried than they are letting on to.
Conspiracy theories become mundane when you stop using vague words like "powers that be" and do the actual work of figuring out who those powers are. It's not the illuminati.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
YET. Time will tell.
Yeah, everyone knows that condensed water vapor in the atmosphere always fades in a few minutes. That's why clouds aren't real!
What makes anyone so sure that we need cooling? What if they go over the edge and trigger irreversible Ice Age conditions? I should think we'd find that a more difficult problem to rectify! I don't think Earth can warm faster than our technology to stop it, at current rates.
We could stand a warmer climate -- dare I say it, a much warmer climate if you ask North Dakotans -- so long as we address the issue of desertification.
I promise it's much more complicated, but it should be sufficient to say that more ground cover planetwide will bring more atmospheric moisture, which leads to more ground cover, which, yadda yadda, prevents things from getting too warm. I'm told there is a period of history in which the global climate was much warmer -- and more importantly, wetter -- than it is now, and remained stably so for several hundred million years. I don't think the matter of stability is being addressed by these folks.
It's not really warming that we should be going all Chicken Little for; it's desertification. Overall stability of the climate should be the priority over desperately trying to stabilize the current conditions, which may or may not be optimum for human use.
It is my country bumpkin opinion that we should be concerning ourselves with how to make our climate wetter, not colder. I think city folks who live in more tropical locales lose sight of that fact, but those of us who live in the deserts are keenly aware of it.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
The Freon has already been staged in the upper atmosphere. You can find most of it around the poles so one of your problems is already solved!
We can't even create a functioning biosphere. Check out the Biosphere 2 failed project. Has anyone created a self sustaining biosphere? Sure, lets just jump in and start "fixing" the real thing. We need to change our behavior, but we don't like hearing that.
1) Spray aluminum particles in the sky to seed clouds which gets into the soil and kills plants
2) Develop and sell aluminum resistant seeds (they already have this) because farmers will have no other choice.
3) Profit.
Seems like a cover for stuff going on more than a decade (or more!). Thanks for finally letting us know.
How the fuck old are YOU? YOU are the one imagining secret gubmint conspiracies about those dumbass contrails. I bet you have a problem with fluorinated water too. HAARP on stupid stuff much?
So the obvious solution to solve that particular problem is to stop tracking them. Then they will disappear in a couple minutes. Sounds like your ilk are the cause of the trails because you just can't stop believing in them.
Firstly, this is exactly the kind of solution the climate change and energy crisis deniers have in mind when they say that science will one day solve their problems. that way we will continue to burn fossil fuels until earth is a smoldering smoke stack. and for our energy needs, while the last drops of oil is pumpwed up, the densiers will say cold fusion is going to happen any day now.
energy conservation, renewable energy, reuse and recycling, population control, sustainable food production etc. etc. are by far the cheapest ways to solve all these problems.
climate engineering will be too little too late, akin to peeeing your pants to stay warm. an net longterm side effects likely to be much worse than any short term gains.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I thought that was the whole problem behind AGW.
Yeah good idea. Let's start messing with this incredibly complex system on which all our lives depend and for which we have no validated model to predict what will be the outcome because we are seeing some measurements results lately that surprise us a bit because we don't have a clue of how it all works in the first place! Grand idea!
Create a satellite the size of an 18 wheeler tire, with a clear window in the middle of the hub, that can be tinted electronically. Put it in orbit far enough out, that it sits between the Earth and the Sun, and all of the light that reaches the earth has to pass through that window. Then, you idiotic scientists can adjust the amount of light that actually reaches the Earth, and we can take away your remote control when we get tired of it. This way, anything that is done to "modify the climate", isn't permanent, and if you screw something up, we can shut it off. You're welcome.
Its been going on for the better part of 40 years, with the spraying and all.
We have been noticing the effects of this the last 15...
Proponents of AGW and Climate Engineering are one in the same.
They're using AGW to push their agenda in deploying climate engineering technologies which is no better than playing with nukes...
What a stupid fucking time we live.
It's not a conspiracy theory that climate engineering tech could become militarized and have the potential to send our planet into a death spiral.
Ignorant fool.
"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
-J. Robert Oppenheimer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac
It should be called the Global Genocide Declaration to be more descriptive of what it will effectively do.
Then again given the amount of batshit crazy greenies in Berlin and Germany overall it's a pretty fitting one still.
If you are truly to experiment, what is the control group? Without a control is this really Science?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
This upcoming failure of science will lead to a religious backlash that will put all further scientific progress on hold for centuries.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
There is no such thing as 'catastrophic man-made global warming', which is why they renamed it 'climate change'.
www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com
Nuke the middle-east and the global cooling will stabalise the climate
... Right up until someone invents fembots in an effort to steal the weather control devices.
This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...
Calm down everybody.
There is a perfectly safe alternative to put extra stuff into the atmosphere (sulphur) or use mirrors need active maintenance.
Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo (STEP) Carbon Capture Process
http://technologies.research.gwu.edu/technologies/09-000x-licht_solar-thermal-electrochemical-photo-step-carbon-capture-process
It is cheaper to build a STEP chemical plant that takes CO2 out of the atmosphere than to launch a bazillion mirrors into space.
Or have a giant sulphur spraying boondoggle that will ask a yearly payment for eternity!!!
The necessary process has already been discovered.
Calculations to assess how big you have to build it are done.
The process avoids:
- putting stuff into the atmosphere
- planting trees or other area efficient and other forms of inefficient solution
- putting stuff into space
- active maintenance after the change
The process can store carbon as solid carbon, you can just leave it in the desert where the chemical plant is built.
The process is efficient in terms of area, capital, material and labor required compared to other alternatives.
Furthermore the process is very safe, no hidden, difficult to predict or unpredictable effects can happen.
Does not need active maintenance after being applied, further increases how cheap this approach is.
When the next ice age begins, change some of the carbon to achieve a stable, ice ageless climate!!
Solar-powered process could decrease carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels in 10 years
http://phys.org/news199005915.html
Researchers Demonstrate New Solar Carbon Capture Process; STEP
Converts CO2 to Solid Carbon or CO for Use in Fuels and Chemicals
Synthesis
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/07/researchers-demonstrate-new-solar-carbon-capture-process-step-converts-co2-to-solid-carbon-or-co-for.html
The process can also do production of iron and cement without carbon dioxide emissions.
Carbon Dioxide Free Production of Iron
http://technologies.research.gwu.edu/technologies/10-006-licht_carbon-dioxide-free-production-of-iron
Solar-powered cement production without carbon dioxide emissions
http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=24883.php
"I am running two stories today, one on carbon capture the other on making fuel from carbon. Is it possible to join the dots ? I am not a big fan of carbon capture, however story really has some merit."
http://revolution-green.com/carbon-capture-breakthrough/
"Rice University scientists have created an Earth-friendly way to separate carbon dioxide from natural gas at wellheads. A porous material invented by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour sequesters carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, at ambient temperature"
Like any such large-scale effort, climate engineering will produce both winners and losers (including, of course, many non-human species). How will we decide which people and other creatures will enjoy the benefits, and which will bear the costs?
No need. Warming stopped. They must have missed the memo.
All 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 14 and 18+ years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.
A question for everyone who thinks that CO2 controls the climate. How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit your theory is wrong? 20 years? 30? Never?
As to geo-eng the weather well if you want to stop another glaciation then open up the Panama - South America channel again like it was 3 million years ago. That change in the ocean current has put us into an ice age that we are about to go back into. Sadly our little inter-glacial is about done.
If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all the other problems with climate science by Dr Brown of Duke university
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/
I might believe it if they had any real Engineers in the group.
Scientists make theories, Engineers do engineering. The tasks are -very- different.
Scientists doing small experiments is good. Scientists trying to do large Engineering is very dangerous. What they are talking about, is like doing flammability testing on your house while you are sleeping in it...
See subject-line & see you here where I dusted your "so-called 'points'" point-by-point -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... throughout that ENTIRE exchange!
* 1 single file you natively already in hosts being run & used by kernelmode subsystems does more with less with something you already have natively not needing to "pile on more" needlessly!
1.) Hosts are faster than usermode slower ones in local dnscache client which breaks down on larger hosts files
2.) Same as #1 above with browser addons layering on more messagepassing overheads + memory & cpu bloat https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth...
3.) Hosts omit the complexity of DNS with an easily texteditor 2 column easily understood file.
4.) Hosts overcome security issues of DNS too by avoiding it for your fav sites @ the top of hosts cached by the kernelmode diskcaching subsystem into RAM! Folks hit finite #'s of sites, & this works for that, up to 2-3 million indexed remote SLOWER dns queries returning (minus security risks in DNS hosts overcome).
5.) Hosts lighten DNS server request loads too complimenting DNS again (multiple bonuses)).
APK
P.S.=> You failed man - bigtime! How so? Ok, in general summary:
1.) You overlooked hosts being cached by the local kernelmode diskcache
2.) Hosts are in operation LONG BEFORE addons (IP stack & diskcache operate before browsers) & addons' greater messagepassing overheads + memory bloating & cpu hogging inefficiencies in browser addons, with hosts doing MORE with LESS by far http://it.slashdot.org/comment... vs.addons .
3.) Same as #2 above on DNS: Same on DNS usage too (adding on more parts that in DNS' case has massive SECURITY ISSUES in redirect poisonings, amplification attacks, & adding on more parts for higher power bills + more RAM & CPU cycles + other forms of I/O consumption, needlessly vs. hosts - a SINGLE native part you already have vs. layering on "more" for NO good reasons)... apk
See subject-line & see you here where I dusted your "so-called 'points'" point-by-point -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... throughout that ENTIRE exchange!
* 1 single file you natively already in hosts being run & used by kernelmode subsystems does more with less with something you already have natively not needing to "pile on more" needlessly!
1.) Hosts are faster than usermode slower ones in local dnscache client which breaks down on larger hosts files
2.) Same as #1 above with browser addons layering on more messagepassing overheads + memory & cpu bloat https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth...
3.) Hosts omit the complexity of DNS with an easily texteditor 2 column easily understood file.
4.) Hosts overcome security issues of DNS too by avoiding it for your fav sites @ the top of hosts cached by the kernelmode diskcaching subsystem into RAM! Folks hit finite #'s of sites, & this works for that, up to 2-3 million indexed remote SLOWER dns queries returning (minus security risks in DNS hosts overcome).
5.) Hosts lighten DNS server request loads too complimenting DNS again (multiple bonuses)).
APK
P.S.=> You failed man - bigtime! How so? Ok, in general summary:
1.) You overlooked hosts being cached by the local kernelmode diskcache
2.) Hosts are in operation LONG BEFORE addons (IP stack & diskcache operate before browsers) & addons' greater messagepassing overheads + memory bloating & cpu hogging inefficiencies in browser addons, with hosts doing MORE with LESS by far http://it.slashdot.org/comment... vs.addons .
3.) Same as #2 above on DNS: Same on DNS usage too (adding on more parts that in DNS' case has massive SECURITY ISSUES in redirect poisonings, amplification attacks, & adding on more parts for higher power bills + more RAM & CPU cycles + other forms of I/O consumption, needlessly vs. hosts - a SINGLE native part you already have vs. layering on "more" for NO good reasons)... apk
See subject-line & see you here where I dusted your "so-called 'points'" point-by-point -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... throughout that ENTIRE exchange!
* 1 single file you natively already in hosts being run & used by kernelmode subsystems does more with less with something you already have natively not needing to "pile on more" needlessly!
1.) Hosts are faster than usermode slower ones in local dnscache client which breaks down on larger hosts files
2.) Same as #1 above with browser addons layering on more messagepassing overheads + memory & cpu bloat https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth...
3.) Hosts omit the complexity of DNS with an easily texteditor 2 column easily understood file.
4.) Hosts overcome security issues of DNS too by avoiding it for your fav sites @ the top of hosts cached by the kernelmode diskcaching subsystem into RAM! Folks hit finite #'s of sites, & this works for that, up to 2-3 million indexed remote SLOWER dns queries returning (minus security risks in DNS hosts overcome).
5.) Hosts lighten DNS server request loads too complimenting DNS again (multiple bonuses)).
APK
P.S.=> You failed man - bigtime! How so? Ok, in general summary:
1.) You overlooked hosts being cached by the local kernelmode diskcache
2.) Hosts are in operation LONG BEFORE addons (IP stack & diskcache operate before browsers) & addons' greater messagepassing overheads + memory bloating & cpu hogging inefficiencies in browser addons, with hosts doing MORE with LESS by far http://it.slashdot.org/comment... vs.addons .
3.) Same as #2 above on DNS: Same on DNS usage too (adding on more parts that in DNS' case has massive SECURITY ISSUES in redirect poisonings, amplification attacks, & adding on more parts for higher power bills + more RAM & CPU cycles + other forms of I/O consumption, needlessly vs. hosts - a SINGLE native part you already have vs. layering on "more" for NO good reasons)... apk
See subject-line & see you here where I dusted your "so-called 'points'" point-by-point -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... throughout that ENTIRE exchange!
* 1 single file you natively already in hosts being run & used by kernelmode subsystems does more with less with something you already have natively not needing to "pile on more" needlessly!
1.) Hosts are faster than usermode slower ones in local dnscache client which breaks down on larger hosts files
2.) Same as #1 above with browser addons layering on more messagepassing overheads + memory & cpu bloat https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth...
3.) Hosts omit the complexity of DNS with an easily texteditor 2 column easily understood file.
4.) Hosts overcome security issues of DNS too by avoiding it for your fav sites @ the top of hosts cached by the kernelmode diskcaching subsystem into RAM! Folks hit finite #'s of sites, & this works for that, up to 2-3 million indexed remote SLOWER dns queries returning (minus security risks in DNS hosts overcome).
5.) Hosts lighten DNS server request loads too complimenting DNS again (multiple bonuses)).
APK
P.S.=> You failed man - bigtime! How so? Ok, in general summary:
1.) You overlooked hosts being cached by the local kernelmode diskcache
2.) Hosts are in operation LONG BEFORE addons (IP stack & diskcache operate before browsers) & addons' greater messagepassing overheads + memory bloating & cpu hogging inefficiencies in browser addons, with hosts doing MORE with LESS by far http://it.slashdot.org/comment... vs.addons .
3.) Same as #2 above on DNS: Same on DNS usage too (adding on more parts that in DNS' case has massive SECURITY ISSUES in redirect poisonings, amplification attacks, & adding on more parts for higher power bills + more RAM & CPU cycles + other forms of I/O consumption, needlessly vs. hosts - a SINGLE native part you already have vs. layering on "more" for NO good reasons)... apk
Was meant to get your attention - & it "got to you" what-with your "FoaMiNg-@-TeH-MouTh" raging reply laced with illogical ad hominem attacks directed my way, lol!
(It shows how easily I crushed you based on your "ReAcTioN", hahaha, & on your single largest blunder there (diskcaching of hosts into memory using fav. sites @ the top of hosts) which led to the rest of your demise, easily, with facts...)
APK
P.S.=> Your reaction (priceless by the way) "gives me your tell" you're pissed - don't be @ me: YOU DID IT ALL, TO YOURSELF, *trying* to "take me on", but failing miserably on your part... lol! The "bitter taste of SELF-DEFEAT"'s your drink tonite, Tenebrousedge - enjoy it (you brewed it up & NOW you MUST "drink it"... lol!)...apk
See reply here — Slashdot doesn't like that "DNS" is repeated so many times.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I block pastebin: No delusion. I question your competency Pastebin: A remote backdoor server http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
THAT & *IF* You're going to reply, deal with it here where it started on /. where you started up with me & I finished you -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... since you're delusional IF you *think* I'll even visit pastebin due to the link above and its points on it!
You were blasted to pieces for it, with facts, by "yours truly": So, quit crying: /.'s far worse on restrictions on posts for us ac users (in length of posts especially)
Besides: I finished you with facts, here, point-vs.-your-"so-called 'points'" already -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
* Keep it here - NOT SOMEPLACE ELSE THAT PRESENTS RISKS TO ME WHATSOEVER, like pastebin...
APK
P.S.=> "Man Up", & you're no psychiatric pro so, I'd cut the attempts @ being a pseudo one ala "The 'SiDeWaLk-ShRiNk of /.", ok...? Didn't work out too well for you last time you tried that, & your illogical off-topic attempts @ an adhominem attack that failed on me using the word 'delusional' -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... now did it? NOPE! Especially since I tore you apart, piece by piece before it...
... apk
Everything he did fails vs. apk so out came tenebrousedge's ad hominem attacks http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
You're doubly crazy. First, did you read that article? Pastebin was being used as an attack vector for wordpress sites. It poses no risk to you, except maybe to your worldview. Second, it requires no professional ability to tell that you are obsessive and irrational. I am hardly the first person to say so. Seek help. It's not a bad thing to have to do, we all need a little help sometimes.
TBH I'm a bit surprised to be hit by the lameness filter. I think I'll write to Dice and see about getting it replaced by an APK filter, that should do all of us a load of good. My response is on pastebin, if you find the time to read it.
See subject: Why's that Tenebrousedge? Keep it where you started it w/ me http://slashdot.org/comments.p... OR, do a "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" (The latter's all I see).
* Sorry - I don't go where there's risks involved like pastebin, so... there you are.
(Too bad - I really was having fun ripping you up & the best part is, you're the one who started it - anyone can see that much in the link above, easily!)
APK
P.S.=> Either you're confident enough in your words to let me dismantle them (again) point-by-"so-called 'point'" of yours, or you're not - &, you're not... apk
2) What makes you think we are stumbling around blindly? Interesting proposition. Can I see some evidence. Because honestly, we appear to have our eyes wide open and know full well what the effects of our actions will result in. If we know what will happen but refuse to change our behavior, that is not stumbling around blindly. That is full speed charging at the wall, with our eyes wide open, clearly seeing what we are doing.
We plan, execute, analyze and revise the plan, while reacting into changes and unforeseen obstacles. Some of those obstacles include people pretesting against those environmental actions. All the things we are doing have method, rationale and logic. It's just not good logic
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com