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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."
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."
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
--Albert Einstein
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
So assuming science can. How long will it take and how much it cost? As Keynes said, "In the long run we are all dead".
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The answer is yes and math will get you there.
Math is the foundation of the other sciences so they to come into play.
I built a house for about $7,000 in materials that does not require artificial heating nor cooling. We live in a cold climate so the heating end of the season is the more challenging one here in the central mountains of northern Vermont.
The same technology can be applied to keep houses cool in hot climates. It is based on thermodynamics, large thermal mass built into the structure of the house, good but not fantastic insulation, no fancy 'smart-home' electronic gadgets. I just works. It floats down into the 40's or 50's F in the winter so put on a sweater or alternatively light a very small fire. 0.75 cord of wood keeps the house toasty warm all through long winter when it my be below -25ÂF for extended periods and some periods to -45ÂF with high winds.
Yet all of this technology is solid state, easy for the average Jane or Joe to build without even a complete high school education. Doing the design does take a lot more skill with math but here are people like myself who do it for fun and freely share their results.
I built my house, called my tiny cottage where I've been living for over a decade with a family of two adults and three kids. It worked. We loved it. As a nice bonus the town assesses the value of the house very low so our real estate taxes are low.
Low cost of construction.
Low maintenance costs.
Low operating costs (electric, other fuels).
Long life (figure 400 to 1,000 year life span for building)
Beautiful interior and exterior designs.
We use masonry, stone, concrete generally from local sources These are materials that are beautiful, durable and last hundreds to thousands of years.
After the cottage came our on-farm USDA/State inspected butcher shop or meat processing facility as they call them in the lingo.
People told me we crazy to try build our own on-farm butcher shop. But it's doable. It's been done. And now we've one it once more with a super lower energy efficient design and operation. Our butcher shop is about 40' x 35' x roughly two stores or 25' high.
Currently we have on-farm progressing which is paying our bill and generating additional need to fund the research and construction of the next step. It is very much a boot strap projected. We keep building bigger boots.
It's repeatable. Every family could be building a low cost, low resource, low maintenance, long lived home. This would save trillions of dollars and the associated energy and reduction in pollution.
This week I just got informed that our on-farm Vermont state inspected meat processing facility has passed the USDA head of regional operations Walk Through. Normally they find problems that you must then fix and get rescheduled with them to come back to review the fixes. To our surprise and delight we obtained a score of 100% right! We aced the test. Now we'll be upgrading from doing Vermont State inspection to USDA inspection in about two weeks to a month. Pretty wild!!!
We got there with perseverance and math.
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
Seems like the Law of unintended consequences is going to kick in sooner or later if we start expensive engineering projects to counteract climate change. At some point we're going to get a massive volcanic eruption that will cause a nuclear-winter like cooling event anyway. The supervolcano off the coast of Japan has been growing rapidly lately.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That can be achieved without Nerds. All you need is a big enough war...
Wars tend to increase population growth. The highest birthrate in the world is in Niger, followed by Somalia and Mali. The highest birthrate outside of Africa is Afghanistan.
What do all these countries have in common? Answer: Civil war.
When people feel insecure about their children surviving, then tend to hedge their bets by having more and investing fewer resources in each child.
Reduced population growth results in less global warming. So one of the best remedies for AGW is peacekeeping operations, vaccinations, nutritional supplements, and wells for clean water, which all reduce infant and child mortality, and encourage people to have fewer kids.
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...
I beg to agree but only technically. I am confident that with proper engineering, design and manageme... Oh fuck. That's the problem right there. It is ALWAYS management, isn't it? Answering my own rhetorical question: It is indeed. The problem with any technology is not the technology, it's the rabid greed-soaked fuckheads that "manage" it. And they have an essentially perfect record of going on the cheap now and fuck the future or anyone that is not empowered to hold their balls to the fire.
So I'll disagree: The greenies, the hippies, all those SJWs have had it with shitheads fucking over the lives of anyone not in their god damned club. And the result is the sort of irresposibility that sets rivers on fire. And kills children. I am old enough to remember the Cuyahoga river, my father took a clean shirt to change into over lunch (Pittsburgh) and was given dogtags in second grade (Pittsburgh being a first or second strike target), largely because people with power are sick fucks who could not give one good goddamn about the people in their countries.
Nuclear could be safe. But not in their hands. And they are very grabby.