We Had All Better Hope These Scientists Are Wrong About the Planet's Future (washingtonpost.com)

Less than 24 hours since we read this dire climate study, an anonymous reader writes from a Washington Post report about several more concerning things: James Hansen, a former NASA scientist, says his new study suggests the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than generally envisioned. The research invokes collapsing ice sheets, violent megastorms and even the hurling of boulders by giant waves in its quest to suggest that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels would be far too much. Hansen has called it the most important work he has ever done. "I think almost everybody who is really familiar with both paleo and modern is now very concerned that we are approaching, if we have not passed, the points at which we have locked in really big changes for young people and future generations," Hansen said.

Comments

I don't understand the deniers

[SecurityGuy]

I tend to be a skeptic myself, so my reaction is far from panic, but this seems like something we should be studying very objectively. It's a shame so few people are capable of doing it.

Re:I don't understand the deniers

[SecurityGuy]

It's only effectively impossible for laypeople to study it objectively. Ideally, people who don't know anything about the subject would just remain silent.

This is further compounded by the fact that our modern science system is not based on the pursuit of truth, but the pursuit of funding.

No, it's both. I worked in cancer research for a long time. Yes, we wrote grants because we wanted to have a job next year. We also saw the patients in the clinic and were also motivated by hopefully keeping some people alive, or at least alive longer. Some of the people I worked with got into the field because cancer killed a family member. They weren't doing it for the just for the money.

We once got a grant from a corporation to see if $SUBSTANCE had a particular effect that would be useful in treating tumors. This was a while back, but the result was basically no. Nobody fudged the data. We just reported the results back. I don't think that particular study got published, not because there's a disincentive, but because journals aren't interested. The vast majority of substances at the vast majority of doses don't have any therapeutic effect on cancer. It's just not interesting or novel to announce that you've found substance #3,647,927,671 that also doesn't work.

Some people have made a good argument that negative studies should be made available, and I agree with that, but if they're not published, it's not because the researchers don't want them published. Most researchers want anything and everything publishable to be published, and they're disappointed when a study ends without a "publishable result".

Screwed

[AntEater]

Seriously. If Slashdot, of all places, can't have a reasonable conversation about the science behind this topic without the deniers dominating the discussion then there really is no hope. We should just defund any climate research and put all that money into coal and oil discovery and extraction research. Game over. Why delay the end point? It's not like there's any political will to do anything serious about it anyway.

Re:Screwed

[a_mari_usque_ad_mare]

Slashdot has more scientifically literate people than alot of other sites, but its been dominated by American right-wing grievance politics for a awhile now, and its only getting more extreme.

These global warming threads have been a bell weather for the site's decline. If you read one for each year going back, you see would see more intelligent comments and less denial the further back you go.

This place used to be for college-age computer geeks and STEM majors, now its for middle-aged Trump voters.

Re:What else is new?

[blindseer]

I disagree, we can easily replace a large part of our carbon output by switching from coal power to nuclear power. We can make a further dent in this by using electric and natural gas for transportation. Only then does the problem become hard and returns diminish.

The hard part would be the relatively minor carbon output from aircraft and watercraft. Large ships could be powered from nuclear power plants on board like military ships are now. Smaller ships and aircraft could be powered by synthesized fuel (ammonia, liquid hydrogen, synthetic hydrocarbons, etc.) or we merely agree that the carbon output from these is worth the cost to the environment.

If natural gas is problematic in the long run then at least we can used natural gas as a transition and compromise since the carbon output compared to oil and coal is preferable to the status quo. The US Navy has shown that we can close the carbon loop with nuclear power and synthesizing aviation fuel (also suitable for turbine engines and diesel cycle engines) from sea water. When the fuel is burned it enters the atmosphere as CO2 and H2O, the same molecules from which the fuel was derived. No net carbon added.

Just like the transition away from CFCs and acid rain producing power plants this will take a long time. I suggest we start this transition with a speed and determination like we've never seen before. This nonsense of subsidies for ethanol, wind power, and solar panels is just feel good greenwashing, they don't hit the heart of the matter with any real results.

Re:What else is new?

[rockmuelle]

Ignore peak oil, you've hit the real problem: large intelligent, underemployed, and underfunded populations.

Thanks to basic math, it's happening already with the royal family in Saudi Arabia. Up to a point, populations grow exponentially (S-curves rather than real exponential curves). When the Sauds took over, they were essentially a small tribe with a leader and a few princes. Fast forward a number of generations, and guess what, now you still have one leader but tens of thousands of princes (ever wonder why so many people have met Saudi princes? there happen to be many of them).

I had the privilege of working with a prince during a stint in the Kingdom. This was his biggest concern for their future: the royal family was too large and budget could not keep up with the cost of the entitlements. And, unlike welfare recipients in America, these really were entitled people. They all saw the previous generations living like, well, kings. They still do OK, but must live more modestly and are encouraged to work to supplement their income.

My friend was very concerned that most of the other princes would have difficulty transitioning and that the next generations (which, thanks again math, will be even larger) will have no social or economic system to fall back on.

Regardless of when peak oil happens, peak prince has already occurred.

-Chris

Re:What else is new?

[AchilleTalon]

I don't know any of these titles, however, the American peak oil did actually occur in the 70s, as expected and predicted. The world peak oil has probably occured few years ago. You seem to think the peak oil is the point where no more oil is available. You can look at the World Energy Outlook 2013 (this is the lastest free report) from the International Energy Agency and look at the section on fossil fuel. http://www.worldenergyoutlook....

You will see for gas and oil, there is a bit more than half century of oil and gas left in proven reserves. Yes, there is still new oil and gas to discover, however, these reserves are expensive, difficult, not energy efficient to exploit.

Re:leftist universities

[Grishnakh]

I suspect that most others on the right also cringe at these remarks.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, are you kidding? Everyone on the right believes what that guy said. It's not just some small portion of the American population that believes in climate change denialism, it's probably about half, maybe more.

One of the big problems I see with liberals (and I say this as someone who generally agrees with most liberal ideas) is that they frequently refuse to see and believe just how prevalent certain beliefs are among certain populations. They have an almost religious belief that most people are good, peaceful people who are interested in the welfare of all, and they tend to ignore humanity's darker sides, and not see how many people really aren't good or peaceful and who are entirely selfish, sociopathic, or intent on doing harm.