Can Problems From Climate Change Be Addressed With Science? (scientificamerican.com)

Slashdot reader bricko shares an article from Scientific American about two "ecomodernists" who argue that the problems of climate change can be addressed through science and technology. In his Breakthrough essay, Steven Pinker spells out a key assumption of ecomodernism. Industrialization "has been good for humanity. It has fed billions, doubled lifespans, slashed extreme poverty, and, by replacing muscle with machinery, made it easier to end slavery, emancipate women, and educate children. It has allowed people to read at night, live where they want, stay warm in winter, see the world, and multiply human contact. Any costs in pollution and habitat loss have to be weighed against these gifts...."

We can solve problems related to climate change, Pinker argues, "if we sustain the benevolent forces of modernity that have allowed us to solve problems so far, including societal prosperity, wisely regulated markets, international governance, and investments in science and technology... Since 1970, when the Environmental Protection Agency was established, the United States has slashed its emissions of five air pollutants by almost two-thirds. Over the same period, the population grew by more than 40 percent, and those people drove twice as many miles and became two and a half times richer. Energy use has leveled off, and even carbon dioxide emissions have turned a corner."
The essay also cites ecomodernist Will Boisvert, who believes climate change will be cataclysmic but not apocalyptic, bringing large upheaval but a small impact on human well-being. "Global warming won't wipe us out or even stall our progress, it will just marginally slow ordinary economic development that will still outpace the negative effects of warming and make life steadily better in the future, under every climate scenario.... Our logistic and technical capacities are burgeoning, and they give us ample means of addressing these problems."

Comments

A you kidding me?

[wellingj]

Is it super natural? No? Then yes science can eventually get there.

Re:A you kidding me?

[jellomizer]

Well it is possible, as this is a Man Made problem. We have technology that can scrub carbon and other green house gasses from the atmosphere. There is alternative energy sources which we can use for a lot of cases.
The problem right now isn't that we don't know how to do it. It is the fact we lack the leadership to do it. Not enough politicians are willing to anger people who will just flat out not believe the problem exists or place it as part of some conspiracy of the other side. And such actions will come at a cost, that we currently don't want to stand up and pay it.

Re:A you kidding me?

[pots]

Isn't science already there? Science has already identified the problem and provided a solution: stop doing it. It's just not an easy answers, no-sacrifices, we-don't-have-to-do-anything-differently-because-we-are-perfect-just-the-way-we-are, solution.

What the title is hoping for is a, "Can't someone else do it?" solution, and it's invoking science like a magic wand in order to get there.

If it can

[Anonymous Coward]

If climate change can be avoided, it won't be without technological advances. It certainty isn't going to come from some politician living it up and telling the rest of us to accept a lower quality of life. This means we can't keep cutting science & education, and we can't oppose new technology when it gets here, as is the case with nuclear power and genetically engineered crops.

Too Simplistic

[Giant Electronic Bra]

This is an overly simplistic analysis. We wouldn't have the severe ecological problems we have today if it were not for advanced technology. While earlier civilizations had, sometimes locally catastrophic, impacts on the environment they were never anywhere close to drastically altering the overall carbon budget or nitrogen budget of the biosphere as we are today. Nor did they pose anything like the challenges represented by biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.

While its not crazy to suggest that technical progress can solve many of the issues we have today, FUNDAMENTALLY the problems aren't technical or scientific and so these kinds of solutions can have but a limited impact. Its MORE reasonable to imagine that the march of technology will present ever greater challenges and that the pace of these challenges will increase, whilst our ability to advance socially and morally has not really changed at all (I think there is such progress, but it is fundamentally unaffected by technology).

Thus it would be far more rational to argue that we are increasingly losing control of our impact on the world and that these conditions are likely to spiral out of control, or else be replaced with even MORE intractable problems we may not even be fully capable of imagining today. People 200 years ago couldn't even really imagine air pollution or global warming for example.

Re:Too Simplistic

[ShanghaiBill]

FUNDAMENTALLY the problems aren't technical or scientific

Nonsense. Technology is the solution, and it is the ONLY solution. People are not going to accept lower living standards, nor are billions of people in the 3rd World even going to accept staying at their current level. So we need to find ways for people to live better lives with less energy, and that energy can't be carbon based.

Better solar panels, better batteries, better wind turbines, better lighting, better cars, better telecommuting and telepresence infrastructure, better transport systems, better delivery services, better structural materials. We need all of these things, and we are making progress. This is happening because of science and engineering.

Nerds will save the world, not politicians.

Re:Too Simplistic

[MangoCats]

Since 1970, when the Environmental Protection Agency was established, the United States has slashed its emissions of five air pollutants by almost two-thirds. Over the same period, the population grew by more than 40 percent, and those people drove twice as many miles and became two and a half times richer. Energy use has leveled off, and even carbon dioxide emissions have turned a corner."

How much pollution and CO2 emissions have been exported during this same period via globalization?

How is that a question?

[Tailhook]

Do people really believe that everyone else is going to adopt some great downsizing to yurts and kale? It's not going to happen folks. Grow up. If climate change get addressed it will be through the creation of cheaper, cleaner alternatives. Nothing else is feasible. It never was.

He knows jack shit

[plopez]

He has no clue about the complexities of the environment. We already have unleashed diseases by accident when we modified the environment, AIDS and ebola are examples.

Only cataclysmic? Gee that makes me feel better. Obviously he is assuming he and/ children and/or grandchildren will survive. I always get a kick out of zombie flick fans. They always ID with the survivors, no one ever goes "See puss filled zombie #3? That's me! I really want to be a puss filled zombie."

Now FTFA:
"Simply moving water where it’s needed will continue as the mainstay of water management. Here California is the leader. The California Aqueduct, running 400 miles up and down mountain ranges to take water from the wetter north to the drier south, is just part of a colossal irrigation system that has made the state’s arid landscape an agricultural powerhouse. "

I hope he realizes that climate change will destroy both this source and the Colorado River as a source of water as snow pack shrinks over the years. CA won't be the only place. The man is clueless.

He also cites huge infrastructure which costs billions to maintain. Not economically efficient.

FTFA:
"Meanwhile, countervailing developments that increase yields will outrun the effects of climate change and dramatically raise farm output. "
not without water.

FTFA:
"less mechanized farms could set up battery-powered tents with AC and cold water to cool over-heated laborers."

1) you need water which is disappearing. 2) most farms are too large to cover entire crops. You are talking about building green houses. As any green house operator how much effort it takes to keep blights and infestations out of green houses.

FTFA:
"But as apocalyptic as it seems, sea-rise poses little risk to human well-being. " Ask New Orleans how that's working out for them.

FTFA:
"Anti-fracking movements would make gas-fired electricity, indispensable for balancing wind and solar, scarcer and more expensive than it needs to be. The green jihad against nuclear power, a safe and generally cheap source of reliable low-carbon energy, is especially counterproductive. "

I think I know where he gets his money.

Re:He knows jack shit

[johannesg]

He has no clue about the complexities of the environment. We already have unleashed diseases by accident when we modified the environment, AIDS and ebola are examples.

AIDS probably jumped from monkeys to humans when people were eating bushmeat. Ebola was probably transmitted from bats. Neither event has anything to do with modifying the environment.

The green jihad against nuclear power, a safe and generally cheap source of reliable low-carbon energy, is especially counterproductive.

This is true, you know. We could solve our energy problems effectively, cheaply, and without huge cost to our landscape. If we were to replace all of our existing coal powered reactors by modern, reliable nuclear reactors, the world would be far better off. Moreover, abundant energy would make it possible to desalinate water on a very large scale as well.

Is there a risk? Yes, there is a risk. Is the risk beyond our ability to contain? No, it isn't. Safe, modern reactor designs exist. By and large we don't need the ability to create plutonium for nuclear weapons; most countries would be well-served by thorium reactors that produce far less radioactivity, and simply fizzle out in case of accident. And the only reason we aren't doing that is because of constant, utterly unnecessary scaremongering from so-called 'green groups'. Funny name, that: by opposing further development of safe nuclear energy they have probably done more to harm the environment than any other group on the planet...

Maybe

[gweihir]

The problem is actually applying Science and Engineering to the situation. So far, the human race has managed to do basically nothing since the problem is known, which it has been for a few decades. Instead, most effort was channeled into denial and quite a few people still do that as their problem solving strategy. With that track record, I am not hopeful. When the effects become impossible to ignore, the problem may be too large so that the human race is completely incapable of dealing with it.

Science did its job in the 1970's and 1980's.

[evanh]

It has always been a political solution since then. We just have to decide to act.

Only Climate Change?

[MrKaos]

It seems to me we are producing an enormous volume of environmental damage in plenty of other ways as well. Consider the sheer scope of industrial activity on our planet, just the list is huge.

If you then you consider the impact of each industrial activity, like the amount of plastics that end up in the seas, or the environmental impact of CRTs becoming obsolete, or even planned obsolescence as an example and the whole discussion about Climate Change and the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is just a part of the larger argument about the sheer amount of waste that this consumer economy creates. Carbon is one externality, not all externalities.

It's difficult to escape the very nature of media is used to create this false reality of ourselves and sell it back to us. The consequence of believing this false reality is it triggers behaviors in us that cause us to consume. How much carbon does our consumer economy drive into the atmosphere just powering unnecessary consumption, let alone the waste stream it created.

I think advertisements try to mold me into an "individual" with desires to buy buy buy. I just look to the waste and crap in my own life that I can't avoid making just interacting with our civilization and I wonder if it is right to suggest that maybe this is the consequence of the human mind being manipulated by advertising in the western world for 50 years or more?

Seems to me we're trapped in this never ending quest for the production of more items by having out unconscious desires manipulated and that's what's destroying the planet.

Maybe the science isn't just about the planet, maybe it's also about us?

Re:Can't Even Ask A Proper Question

[q_e_t]

The question isn't can science address the mechanisms of climate, of course it can.

The question is will people who have their incomes and careers bound up in advocating for particular results actually do science

The climate scientists I know would much rather climate change wasn't happening.

One of the issues that many climate change research groups face is financial institutions offering those skilled with large models and how to run them on large computers much higher salaries than a climate research organisation can offer. Many stay in climate science despite this, though.