Bush needs to hang Rove out to dry -- let a special prosecutor send that guy to a Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, can Gonzalez and seal the door to Cheney's office.
Don't worry. "Sarcophagus" isn't the easiest word to spell correctly.
Simply put, we can't reverse climate change, and of course we'll have to spend money mitigating the damage we've already done. But ever heard the expression, "When you find yourself in a deep hole, the first thing is to stop digging?" The changes that will come if we don't start reducing our emissions will be far more disruptive, destructive, and expensive than the ones we're incapable of stopping.
Don't be so quick to buy into the "global warming on other planets" talking point. Mars isn't exhibiting "global warming," merely the possible warming of the southern pole. I think Pluto is expected to be warming at the moment simply because it recently passed as close to the sun as it ever gets. Other planets and moons I've seen trotted out as examples are usually the result of AGW skeptics wandering way outside their fields of expertise, cherry picking "interesting" news reports, then tottering off.
I agree that the whole "corn ethanol" idea is one that needs to be taken out behind the chemical shed and shot.
So they have a number. That number is less than the number of people on the planet now. Substantially less.
While the website screams crazy crazy crazy, the number itself proves nothing. Without knowing why they selected it, and -- more important -- how they plan to get rid of the surplus, I would hold back judgment.
Hint: 500,000,000 people by 2200? I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. 500,000,000 people by this autumn? Put down the kool-aid and back away slowly.
If a significantly smaller population increases each individual's overall quality of life, while increasing the lifespan of our species, then the result over time is simply "more people, each living happier lives."
These are problems that need to be considered, but they're not as hopeless as you portray.
The "winter" argument isn't really a big concern. The most important thing is to always have the solar panels pointed approximately perpendicular to the path of the sun. So every six months, someone has to go out and re-angle them from "summer" to "winter" mode. At high latitudes, this means spacing rows of panels really far apart (so they don't block each other in winter months), but for most latitudes summer versus winter isn't a big deal.
Also, different forms of alternative energy (wind, solar, geothermal) vary in very different ways, so with a good mix a shortfall in one can be compensated for by a surplus in another. Solar should be a big part of the mix, because it happens to produce the most when demand is highest. We also have natural gas plants with very short spin-up times, which can be used if everything else is underperforming.
Last thing: we need to make the energy grid much smarter, so that appliances can know when it's a good time to use energy, and when it might be time to return energy to the grid. Refrigerators and air conditioners have a lot of leeway in when they can run. Big meat lockers can even act as batteries of sorts, by overcooling when energy is plentiful, and then shutting down during peak demand. Best of all would be electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, whose massive battery arrays could act as a huge buffer.
In short, we have the potential to vastly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, with technology that either exists or could easily be rolled out within a few years. The technical problems are relatively small at this point. The political will is what is most lacking.
The current price of oil doesn't reflect the reality of the situation very well, because (to a first approximation) it only reflects how quickly we can extract it relative to demand. If you look at the situation from far enough back, the oil and coal represents a temporary subsidy that we can spend as quickly or as slowly as we choose. Of course, since there is no way for our great great grandchildren to bid in the current market, our needs -- and even our most trivial wants -- outweigh their needs.
We've designed our whole economy around the idea that oil will last "forever", when what we should have been doing was using that temporary subsidy to build up our capacity for extracting from sustainable sources (building wind and solar collectors).
If I were Supreme Dictator for Life, I'd phase in a tax on every barrel imported or extracted, amounting to the difference between the current selling price and $150/barrel. Every cent from the tax would be spent on building renewable capacity or promoting R&D for renewable sources. It wouldn't just be supporting renewables, it would also squelch the idea of trying to extract from tar sands. I object to the approach, because would burn about a barrel of oil for each barrel it extracted, effectively doubling the amount of CO2 each barrel releases into the atmosphere.
Yes, people have objected to electric cars for that reason. But they're wrong.
Overall efficiency of an electric car (BTUs spent to miles driven) is about twice that of gasoline-powered cars, even under the worst-case scenario of a coal-fired plant. IIRC, the big losses in efficiency are "burning the coal at the plant" (30% efficient) versus "burning the oil in an internal combustion engine" (about 10-20% efficient). So if we did nothing to our energy mix, every electric car on the road would get twice the "energy mileage" and release far less CO2 per mile driven.
They also score big on other pollutants, since it's much easier to design a well-maintained, single power plant to be less polluting than it is to design a combustion engine to do the same. Most engines are supervised by people who don't know their dipstick from their carburetor, and don't really monitor what's spewing out of their tailpipes.
As an internal combustion engine gets older, it wears out, gets less efficient. As an electric car gets older, the batteries might suffer some loss in efficiency, but this isn't a big issue because the grid itself is expected to deliver more power per unit of pollution (including CO2). As our energy mix skews more heavily towards non-CO2 alternatives (solar, wind, geo, hydro, nuclear), the pollution efficiency of the entire transportation infrastructure continues to climb.
Electric cars (plus new energy grid technologies) actually make alternative energy sources more attractive. It's possible to use electric cars as an energy storage system, which suck up power when (for example) a windfarm is overproducing, and release it when the farm is idle. By building that sort of slack into the system, you can get more out of smaller, less consistent alternative energy rigs.
First, the $200 laptop of the article is not the OLPC laptop. It's a separate laptop that will be sold by Quanta, and based on the OLPC's design. The OLPC laptop is currently being sold to governments for $150, and that price will continue to drop as hardware gets cheaper.
Second, it doesn't matter much if you can get the sort of hardware that suits your needs for the same price, because OLPC laptops are trying to solve a different problem. Normal low-end laptops are bigger, less rugged, have more moving parts and higher maintenance costs, and are more power hungry. They also require an AC outlet to charge.
Lastly, before OLPC came along, nobody was really thinking about totally redesigning the laptop to hit the $100-$200 price point. Once OLPC showed that it might be possible, major manufacturers tried to hit a comparable price point, but using the "same laptop we've always built, but less so" approach. I think Quanta is going to have some real success here, and everyone else will struggle to keep up.
First defense: The governments in question are buying the machines, not receiving them as gifts. They're putting some real money into the hardware, and that gives them some incentive to make sure they don't fall off the back of a truck.
Second defense: They look, smell, and taste like toys for children. Everyone will know that a business exec using an OLPC as his primary laptop did not come by it honorably.
Third defense: It's not exactly high-powered hardware. The OS is weird and the applications are weird and you're really constrained as to the OSes that can run on it. So it won't be as useful outside its target demographic as you seem to think.
Fourth defense: The hardware is designed to be most useful when sitting among a bunch of other laptops of the same model. Mesh networks, collaborative applications, Internet connectivity, etc. Taking it away from the network hobbles it somewhat.
Your suggestion amounts to "sell them to rich people rather than giving them to poor people." Certainly, that would reduce the incentive for the owners to hock them, but doesn't that defeat the whole idea?
Why are you calling it "the $200 laptop?" The OLPC project has always had a target of $100/laptop. If you're using the phrase to refer to the OLPC's laptops, you're wrong. If you're using it simply to refer to $200 laptops in general, then you're being tautological. A $200 laptop is a $200 laptop because it's a laptop that is selling for $200.
Read the article. Or the summary at the very least. The manufacturer tasked with building the laptops for the OLPC project has simply decided that it can use its experience to offer a very similar piece of hardware to the public at a low price. It's not the OLPC laptop, and it's not the much hoped for "buy one for $200 and a kid in Rwanda gets one free" deal that's been suggested. There's no reason to think that these laptops will be sold in bulk to governments.
Why did your expert debunker get the regional per-square-foot energy usage by taking the regional per household energy usage and divide it into the national average square footage? The guy is trying to prove statistically that Al Gore's mansion is using a shocking amount of energy even for its size, but doing that really shows that he doesn't know what he's doing.
So, your main argument is that Bush is the better environmentalist than Gore, because he owns the smaller, more energy efficient home? This, despite the fact that President Bush--who is actually in a position to make a huge dent in climate change--has stonewalled on fuel economy standards, employs a vice president who has basically dismissed the idea of conservation, has loosened all manner of environmental standards and gutted enforcement, and whose administration has pressured government scientists to avoid talking about their climate research? Compared to the climate-wrecking effects of Bush's policies, the difference between the houses of these two is vastly less than a rounding error.
Now, if Bush is actually a Green at heart, but has swallowed the free market kool-aid, then he can hardly be called a hypocrite. But let's face it, the policies Bush and Gore are pushing on a national level will have results that dwarf any personal consumption choices they will make.
Now, I'm actually annoyed by Gore's consumption. I don't think the personal choices he's made are the sorts that will really solve our impending environmental crises. But from the 30,000 foot view (you know, the lofty hight from which you can see how much of Baghdad is not on fire), this entire Gore mansion story is about promoting one single idea: Al Gore uses a lot of electricity, so Al Gore is a hypocrite. Let's ignore the unstated subtext of "therefore global warming isn't real". If Al believes that green energy offset programs actually work (which he would be right to do), and he's buying enough green energy to make up for his own energy usage, then that is an absolute, ironclad defense against any charges of hypocrisy.
You're wrong about the study. The study was by geologist Naomi Oreskes, not the IPCC. The study divided all the papers written between 1993 and 2003 which included the phrase "global climate change" in their abstracts. 75% fell into one of three categories: endorsement of the "consensus" (anthropogenic global warming), evaluation of the impacts of global warming, and mitigation proposals. 25% either discussed methodology or paleoclimate (climate millions of years ago). Oreskes did not imply that these 25% actively supported, or even agreed with the consensus position; she just said that they didn't try to call the consensus into question.
The more important question is, how many of the papers called into question the very idea that humans were the primary contributor to global warming? None. Not one, out of 928 papers, mentioned any doubts the authors may have had.
That's certainly not enough to prove that there aren't climate researchers harboring doubts. There are (though I question the qualifications and competence of the most outspoken of them). But there is certainly consensus within the published literature. That's surprising, since a well-researched dissent against any scientific consensus can bring the dissenter fame, and there isn't a shortage of scientists with the courage to go against the grain when they believe the consensus is wrong. So the question is, does the publishing consensus exist because journals are stonewalling the publication of all the great skeptical science? Or is it because there is little actually attempting to get published, and most of it is crap? I'm on the latter side, but I'd like to see evidence of the former.
Let's take your objection to its extreme: If an astrophysicist failed to mention in an abstract to his paper that the Earth was round, would you take this as evidence that he dissents from the "scientific consensus on global sphericity?"
Now, on to your 0.28% statistic. It's bogus, and misleading, and a whole bunch of other things which mean it's really really crappy and you should never, ever bring it up in respectable company[*]. First, you have to remember that what's being talked about (here's where the big slate of hand happens) is the TOTAL greenhouse effect. The effect that keeps nighttime temperatures from falling to -150C. But if a change of 1% in the total greenhouse effect can mean a difference in overall global temperature of 5C, then a 0.28% change is a Pretty Big Deal.
The other thing you have to remember is that water vapor (the primary contributor to the overall effect) is not a driver of global temperature change. There is a lag between an increase the amount of a GHG in the atmosphere and the rise in temperature needed to restore equillibrium. Basically, it's for the same reason that you take a few minutes to warm up after wrapping yourself in a blanket. Water vapor doesn't stay in the atmosphere long enough to make that temperature rise happen, unless it's being continuously regenerated by some outside force that keeps the overall humidity elevated. For example, a warmer ocean. For example, a warmer ocean caused by increased CO2 emissions.
Think about that: the primary greenhouse gas is a responder to changes in temperature, not a causative agent. That means that any effect caused directly by CO2 could easily be less important than the indirect effects that the first effect spawns.
... or anyone else who isn't knee-jerk hostile to the idea that governments can improve things by meddling with their Holy Free Market.
It's not about the Socialist Party per se. There is a subset of people out there who have an almost religious devotion to the primacy of consumption, as well as a belief that there is no problem that the "Free Market" cannot solve, and no problems that government intervention is capable of solving. Anyone who disagrees with these principles is automatically a "socialist" in their minds.
Further, anyone who criticizes the fundamental structure of modern, globalized, corporate capitalism is automatically trying to weaken or hurt America.
In my mind, anyone ranting about "socialists trying to hurt America" immediately discredits himself as a source of valid information, as they're stuck in this unrealistic mindset. Plus, they don't actually know what a socialist is.
I'm sorry you're so busy, and I do appreciate the time you took to respond. I'm more than a little pissed that you think I've been intentionally dishonest with you, but I'll try to set that aside. If you think I'm scientifically illiterate, or just a little slow, I can handle that. But I'm looking and looking for this point that I "intentionally" missed, and I can't find it. I wrote my response under the assumption that you've played with a number of models over the course of decades, so you're either reading something into it that isn't there, or I'm confused about which point I'm missing.
Maybe I'm just bullheaded, but I still believe that there is a consensus among active climate researchers (I'm aware of both Peiser's paper and Oreskes' attempt to refute it). Fallible as humans and institutions are, I do not find it likely that such agreement could develop if the models were nearly as bad as you portray.
[Note: the preceding is known as an "argument from authority." Useless in forming a rigorous logical proof, but critical for people who cannot be an expert at everything.]
At any rate, the models today are still not fundamentally different than they were two decades ago. They are gross simplifications based on a set of assumptions.
That's a bit like saying that computer graphics aren't fundamentally different than they were two decades ago. Sure, modern graphics cards push around a few more triangles, and maybe the physics models have improved a bit. But the output is still a far cry from the real world, so are the results really any more useful now?
[Note: the preceding is an "argument from analogy," and a sucky one at that.]
That said, in order for someone to "plug in" their data, they would need access to the precise program that ran the model. To my knowledge none of the code behind these simulations has been published as open source.
Technically, you don't need the source to know that you have the exact program that ran the model. More important, having the same program and the same data allows for a great deal of outside verification. It means others can perform the trivial check of ensuring that data set X does produce result Y, but also that they can see how dependent the results are on that data set. Finally, the data can also be run on other models, which presumably shouldn't share all the same assumptions. I agree that open models would be a vast improvement, but I don't consider it the fatal flaw that you do.
EdGCM is based on NASA's GCM models, which is public domain. But it's written in FORTRAN, so it's dead to me.
But let us assume they [global temperature reconstructions] are reasonably close, say accurate to within a few degrees C. I think that's generally reasonable. What are the modelers predicting? A change of a few degrees C....
Personally I have not seen any reasonable certainty that the margin of error is less than a degree or two.
And yet this graph (to my untrained eye, at least) shows several reconstructions all agreeing to within about a half degree (usually less). If each of the individual reconstructions has a margin of error of +/- 1.5C, that level of agreement would be absolutely stunning, even if there were assumptions in each that allowed you to move the whole graph up and down.
Based on that, I'm choosing to doubt your claim that predicted warning trends lie within the reconstructions' margin of error.
Perhaps you take biodiversity increase to mean new life forms. If so, you are entirely incorrect. Biodiversity is specifically the amount of different species of life (plants, insects, bacteria, animals) in a given area.
The evidence you put forth for the arbitrariness of models:
The first model I played with was in the 1980's. The model can output pretty much what you want it to. Any halfway decent programmer knows that. They area gross simplification built upon a chosen set of rules. All of them. ANyone that tries to tell you otherwise is ignorant of the sheer complexity of our climate.
What am I to draw from this paragraph, other than:
1) The models of the 1980's were such that you could achieve any result you liked.
2) More recent models invariably suffer from the same gross flaw.
What you fail to disclose is that, as computational power became more available, the high-level assumptions made by early models have been replaced with simulation of the underlying mechanisms. Hypothetical example: an early model might simply assume that a change in average ocean temperature changed the overall amount of water vapor in the atmosphere according so some formula. A later model might make each cell of the model responsible for its own water vapor contributions.
When you write a pathetically simple model that says, "When CO2 concentration is Xppm, temperature will be Y degrees Celsius" then obviously you've simply embodied your conclusions into the code. But every time you replace an assumption with a model of the underlying processes, and still achieve similar results, you've not only provided evidence for the assumption, but also made the model more resistant to researcher bias. It's easy to change a high level assumption, but much harder to change low level assumptions to deliver the same results. If the IR reflectivity of CO2 is x, and your model uses bogus value y to get output sufficiently scary to justify your next research grant, then it's obvious you're using the model wrong.
That's why I don't believe your anti-modelling spiel. I've read you, and I've read the link I sent you earlier, and frankly the other guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and you sound like you're just echoing some nonsense you heard in third grade about computers only doing what people tell them to. According to him, there are several instances where the models didn't match the data, and reevaluation demonstrated that the problem was with the data, not the model. Further, the models have successfully predicted the effects of large-scale climate incidents (the author cites the Pinatubo eruption as an example).
Let me ask you this: If the currently available "gold standard" climate models are as prone to experimenter bias as you suggest, why haven't the AGW skeptics gone in, plugged in their own reasonable assumptions and data, and proven as much? If they could cast such clear, specific doubts upon climatology's most important tools, why haven't they?
The main problem is that "climatologists"[2] do not use real world data to correct and hone the models. They merely come up with new facets of assumptions.
That is a flat out lie.
... we genuinely don't have real, hard data on what the temperature globally were 500 years ago.
So, do you believe that the current ice core reconstructions are 95% certain? 90% certain? 50% certain? Simply wrong? Are you simply dismissing any temperature data that wasn't recorded by human thermometers?
My understanding is that, while the current reconstructions aren't perfect, we've gotten to the point that new data usually confirms the current understanding, rather than upsetting it.
More plants does not mean more biodiversity. It just means more plants. Even under your "global warming => garden paradise" scenario, there are going to be species that win and species that lose. The losers will, of course, be primarily cold-resistant plants. This is actually a loss of biodiversity, with the result being that the remaining species will be less adaptable to future climate changes.
You sound so very, very convincing and knowledgeable. But then you dismiss the accuracy of current climate models based entirely on your experiences with a model you toyed with back in the 1980's.
So, in summary, the model results are compared to data, and if there is a mismatch, both the data and the models are re-examined. Sometimes the models can be improved, sometimes the data was mis-interpreted. Every time this happens and we get improved matches between them, we have a little more confidence in their projections for the future, and we go out and look for better tests. That is in fact pretty close to the textbook definition of science.
The models of today are vastly more reliable than the one you played with decades ago. To say otherwise is like comparing a Lexus to a tricycle, since both attempt to do basically the same thing.
I was going to say "Ferarri", but I think the climate scientists would be annoyed. They'd probably say that the models are good, but not that good.
Assumption 1 is correct. We've only had reliable (read: satellite) measurements of solar output since the early eighties, but solar output has been fairly constant (sunspot cycles notwithstanding) since then. Now, there are attempts to reconstruct solar activity historically. If I understand correctly, there are two different isotopes that people can look at. But their implications diverge wildly at some points in the record, and until we understand why, those reconstructions should be considered tentative.
Assumption 2 (water vapor)... well, I had to run over to realclimate.org to get the story on that. The basic response is "water is a feedback, not a forcer". Water enters and exits the atmosphere very quickly (on the order of weeks), whereas you have years between changing atmospheric greenhouse gases and the globe returning to thermal equilibrium.
From realclimate:
When surface temperatures change (whether from CO2 or solar forcing or volcanos etc.), you can therefore expect water vapour to adjust quickly to reflect that. To first approximation, the water vapour adjusts to maintain constant relative humidity. It's important to point out that this is a result of the models, not a built-in assumption.
Another thing to remember is that the atmosphere only has a certain maximum carrying capacity for water vapor. You can't get too far above 100% humidity before the water comes back down. CO2, on the other hand, stays in the atmosphere at any concentration.
Assumption 3 is hard to say. Here is a graph of methane concentrations over the last twenty years. While concentrations are certainly higher than they've been in the last 400,000 years, I'm not sure why the increase has ground to a halt over the last decade. It's not as though we stopped raising cows.
All I can say for sure is that, since the rate of temperature increase is still accelerating (which you wouldn't expect when the primary driver of the change reaches stasis) methane cannot be the whole story. Somebody more familiar with the best available climate models could probably say something far more specific, and far more damning to the "blame methane" counterargument.
Assumption 4 is correct. Basically all of the CO2 increase over the last fifty years is ours. Because natural CO2 and (the bulk of) manmade CO2 derive from different sources, they have different isotope ratios. As the CO2 in the atmosphere rises, the isotope ratio has changed, skewing more heavily towards our isotopes.
I believe it's safe to say that climate scientists have investigated the foundations of all the assumptions you've outlined, and a great many more besides. In my mind, the case is indeed closed, in the sense that the results are unambiguous enough that it would be irresponsible to delay policy changes while awaiting further research. Of course, more research should always be done, to narrow the limits of our uncertainty. But there are so many things we could be doing right now--most of which would be beneficial even without global warming as a motivator--that it should be obvious that the risks of inaction far outweigh the rewards.
Paper is not a renewable resource, given the rates we're currently using wood and paper products at. Most of the forests of the world are being harvested faster than they can replenish themselves. We need to reduce, reuse, or recycle. Take your pick.
Perhaps paper recycling is unfairly subsidized. But how much of the value of trees harvested on federal lands makes it directly back to the taxpayer? Very little (just like most resources harvested on public lands). If recycling doesn't have a dollars-and-cents business case, that is certainly in part because of direct and indirect subsidies to the logging and paper industries.
Can you believe the nerve of all those people who want you to go back to seventeenth century technology? They're idiots. Maybe reading by the light of a CFL powered by a wind turbine was good enough for Abraham Lincoln, but how can these modern-day Luddites really expect us to endure such harsh, demeaning conditions? Especially now that we have those wonderfully modern incandescent bulbs and coal-fired power plants.
Next thing you know, the bastards will be telling us that we should be driving electric cars across the Potomac, like Washington did.
[Hints: Don't confuse "exponential growth" with "exponential technological progress". Don't confuse "reduction in greenhouse gas emissions" with "reduction in economic activity".]
Don't worry about it. The young kids are still hep to that groovy overpopulation vibe, dig?
Really, every environmental problem we have goes back to overpopulation. We're trying to provide too much to too many, and not even bothering to be fair about it. As a result, we're stressing the system to the breaking point.
What is "global warming" other than our attempt to shove a certain class of economic waste products into the atmosphere at a faster rate than the overall system can remove it?
I think the situation is even better than that. If HP sells a Linux box, they can really pound on the idea that not all hardware is compatible with Linux, so we really really really really recommend buying ONLY HP's Linux-certified peripherals. Not our fault if your computer blows up because of some flaky third party printer.
Sure, Dell won't see their sales skyrocket. But there are people who would buy a Linux desktop from them. The fact that the market is "ridiculously small" (let's say in the 1% range) isn't going to stop a big company from going after it. In fact, if you're looking to grab a niche market, having a huge existing distribution system can be a tremendous help.
I don't think the article does a good job explaining anything. It's basically claiming that everyone who uses Linux does so because they're cheapskates who are looking to save $40 by ditching the Windows Tax. The author suggests that Linux users are incapable of being upsold despite draws like a bigger hard drive, more RAM, or a guaranteed-compatible peripheral (printers, cameras, etc.). According to this guy, the only market really worth pursuing are high-end gamers.
He uses the same reasoning to dismiss the idea of selling third party customer support. Linux users? Pay money? Puh-shaw! Frankly, if their marketing department lacks the creativity needed to get across the simple message ("This isn't for everyone, but if it's for you then it's worth paying a premium for") then it's time to let the pink slips rain down in a mighty torrent. Tell me that you haven't seen marketers gamely try to sell you on worse ideas.
Small market, true. Not worth bending over backwards for, probably. But the article (and you) have failed to convince me that it would be extremely burdensome or harmful for a company like Dell to go after the Linux market. I'm going back to my wild conspiracy theories about Dell avoiding the Linux desktop market because they fear incurring Microsoft's squirrelly wrath.
'g' google search (which sort of makes the search engine box in the upper right corner redundant) 'gcc' Google search for CC-licensed material. 'loc' Search local.google.com 'news' google news search 'quot' stock quotes (as in 'quot msft' or 'quot goog') 'amazon' Amazon search 'wiki' Search wikipedia (through Google) 'wikil' Search wikipedia, but using "I'm feeling lucky" (usually works) 'pydoc' Takes me to Python documentation for the required module (such as "pydoc os" or "pydoc random") 'flickr' Should be obvious 'yt' Youtube search 'bom' Search the Book of Mormon (yeah, there was a time when I did such things) 'spell' Search m-w.com (I use it as a sort of spell checker, for when I'm not sure I remember how to spell "occasion" or whatnot)
Shortcuts:
'bb' takes me to boingboing.net '/.' takes me to slashdot 'pwot' pointlesswasteoftime.com 'ok' okcupid.com (I'm not lame! I'm not!) 'wwdn' Wil Wheaton's blog 'blog' Takes me to my bloggin' place. 'mail' Takes me to yahoo mail
I might set up a couple for Google Calendar eventually.
Slashdot Mirror
Simply put, we can't reverse climate change, and of course we'll have to spend money mitigating the damage we've already done. But ever heard the expression, "When you find yourself in a deep hole, the first thing is to stop digging?" The changes that will come if we don't start reducing our emissions will be far more disruptive, destructive, and expensive than the ones we're incapable of stopping.
Don't be so quick to buy into the "global warming on other planets" talking point. Mars isn't exhibiting "global warming," merely the possible warming of the southern pole. I think Pluto is expected to be warming at the moment simply because it recently passed as close to the sun as it ever gets. Other planets and moons I've seen trotted out as examples are usually the result of AGW skeptics wandering way outside their fields of expertise, cherry picking "interesting" news reports, then tottering off.
I agree that the whole "corn ethanol" idea is one that needs to be taken out behind the chemical shed and shot.
So they have a number. That number is less than the number of people on the planet now.
Substantially less.
While the website screams crazy crazy crazy, the number itself proves nothing. Without knowing why they selected it, and -- more important -- how they plan to get rid of the surplus, I would hold back judgment.
Hint: 500,000,000 people by 2200? I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. 500,000,000 people by this autumn? Put down the kool-aid and back away slowly.
If a significantly smaller population increases each individual's overall quality of life, while increasing the lifespan of our species, then the result over time is simply "more people, each living happier lives."
These are problems that need to be considered, but they're not as hopeless as you portray.
The "winter" argument isn't really a big concern. The most important thing is to always have the solar panels pointed approximately perpendicular to the path of the sun. So every six months, someone has to go out and re-angle them from "summer" to "winter" mode. At high latitudes, this means spacing rows of panels really far apart (so they don't block each other in winter months), but for most latitudes summer versus winter isn't a big deal.
Also, different forms of alternative energy (wind, solar, geothermal) vary in very different ways, so with a good mix a shortfall in one can be compensated for by a surplus in another. Solar should be a big part of the mix, because it happens to produce the most when demand is highest. We also have natural gas plants with very short spin-up times, which can be used if everything else is underperforming.
Last thing: we need to make the energy grid much smarter, so that appliances can know when it's a good time to use energy, and when it might be time to return energy to the grid. Refrigerators and air conditioners have a lot of leeway in when they can run. Big meat lockers can even act as batteries of sorts, by overcooling when energy is plentiful, and then shutting down during peak demand. Best of all would be electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, whose massive battery arrays could act as a huge buffer.
In short, we have the potential to vastly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, with technology that either exists or could easily be rolled out within a few years. The technical problems are relatively small at this point. The political will is what is most lacking.
The current price of oil doesn't reflect the reality of the situation very well, because (to a first approximation) it only reflects how quickly we can extract it relative to demand. If you look at the situation from far enough back, the oil and coal represents a temporary subsidy that we can spend as quickly or as slowly as we choose. Of course, since there is no way for our great great grandchildren to bid in the current market, our needs -- and even our most trivial wants -- outweigh their needs.
We've designed our whole economy around the idea that oil will last "forever", when what we should have been doing was using that temporary subsidy to build up our capacity for extracting from sustainable sources (building wind and solar collectors).
If I were Supreme Dictator for Life, I'd phase in a tax on every barrel imported or extracted, amounting to the difference between the current selling price and $150/barrel. Every cent from the tax would be spent on building renewable capacity or promoting R&D for renewable sources. It wouldn't just be supporting renewables, it would also squelch the idea of trying to extract from tar sands. I object to the approach, because would burn about a barrel of oil for each barrel it extracted, effectively doubling the amount of CO2 each barrel releases into the atmosphere.
Yes, people have objected to electric cars for that reason. But they're wrong.
Overall efficiency of an electric car (BTUs spent to miles driven) is about twice that of gasoline-powered cars, even under the worst-case scenario of a coal-fired plant. IIRC, the big losses in efficiency are "burning the coal at the plant" (30% efficient) versus "burning the oil in an internal combustion engine" (about 10-20% efficient). So if we did nothing to our energy mix, every electric car on the road would get twice the "energy mileage" and release far less CO2 per mile driven.
They also score big on other pollutants, since it's much easier to design a well-maintained, single power plant to be less polluting than it is to design a combustion engine to do the same. Most engines are supervised by people who don't know their dipstick from their carburetor, and don't really monitor what's spewing out of their tailpipes.
As an internal combustion engine gets older, it wears out, gets less efficient. As an electric car gets older, the batteries might suffer some loss in efficiency, but this isn't a big issue because the grid itself is expected to deliver more power per unit of pollution (including CO2). As our energy mix skews more heavily towards non-CO2 alternatives (solar, wind, geo, hydro, nuclear), the pollution efficiency of the entire transportation infrastructure continues to climb.
Electric cars (plus new energy grid technologies) actually make alternative energy sources more attractive. It's possible to use electric cars as an energy storage system, which suck up power when (for example) a windfarm is overproducing, and release it when the farm is idle. By building that sort of slack into the system, you can get more out of smaller, less consistent alternative energy rigs.
First, the $200 laptop of the article is not the OLPC laptop. It's a separate laptop that will be sold by Quanta, and based on the OLPC's design. The OLPC laptop is currently being sold to governments for $150, and that price will continue to drop as hardware gets cheaper.
Second, it doesn't matter much if you can get the sort of hardware that suits your needs for the same price, because OLPC laptops are trying to solve a different problem. Normal low-end laptops are bigger, less rugged, have more moving parts and higher maintenance costs, and are more power hungry. They also require an AC outlet to charge.
Lastly, before OLPC came along, nobody was really thinking about totally redesigning the laptop to hit the $100-$200 price point. Once OLPC showed that it might be possible, major manufacturers tried to hit a comparable price point, but using the "same laptop we've always built, but less so" approach. I think Quanta is going to have some real success here, and everyone else will struggle to keep up.
I'm having a hard time imagining these laptops running OpenOffice. Eclipse? Simply no way. Nano seems user-friendly enough.
First defense: The governments in question are buying the machines, not receiving them as gifts. They're putting some real money into the hardware, and that gives them some incentive to make sure they don't fall off the back of a truck.
Second defense: They look, smell, and taste like toys for children. Everyone will know that a business exec using an OLPC as his primary laptop did not come by it honorably.
Third defense: It's not exactly high-powered hardware. The OS is weird and the applications are weird and you're really constrained as to the OSes that can run on it. So it won't be as useful outside its target demographic as you seem to think.
Fourth defense: The hardware is designed to be most useful when sitting among a bunch of other laptops of the same model. Mesh networks, collaborative applications, Internet connectivity, etc. Taking it away from the network hobbles it somewhat.
Your suggestion amounts to "sell them to rich people rather than giving them to poor people." Certainly, that would reduce the incentive for the owners to hock them, but doesn't that defeat the whole idea?
Why are you calling it "the $200 laptop?" The OLPC project has always had a target of $100/laptop. If you're using the phrase to refer to the OLPC's laptops, you're wrong. If you're using it simply to refer to $200 laptops in general, then you're being tautological. A $200 laptop is a $200 laptop because it's a laptop that is selling for $200.
Read the article. Or the summary at the very least. The manufacturer tasked with building the laptops for the OLPC project has simply decided that it can use its experience to offer a very similar piece of hardware to the public at a low price. It's not the OLPC laptop, and it's not the much hoped for "buy one for $200 and a kid in Rwanda gets one free" deal that's been suggested. There's no reason to think that these laptops will be sold in bulk to governments.
Why did your expert debunker get the regional per-square-foot energy usage by taking the regional per household energy usage and divide it into the national average square footage? The guy is trying to prove statistically that Al Gore's mansion is using a shocking amount of energy even for its size, but doing that really shows that he doesn't know what he's doing.
So, your main argument is that Bush is the better environmentalist than Gore, because he owns the smaller, more energy efficient home? This, despite the fact that President Bush--who is actually in a position to make a huge dent in climate change--has stonewalled on fuel economy standards, employs a vice president who has basically dismissed the idea of conservation, has loosened all manner of environmental standards and gutted enforcement, and whose administration has pressured government scientists to avoid talking about their climate research? Compared to the climate-wrecking effects of Bush's policies, the difference between the houses of these two is vastly less than a rounding error.
Now, if Bush is actually a Green at heart, but has swallowed the free market kool-aid, then he can hardly be called a hypocrite. But let's face it, the policies Bush and Gore are pushing on a national level will have results that dwarf any personal consumption choices they will make.
Now, I'm actually annoyed by Gore's consumption. I don't think the personal choices he's made are the sorts that will really solve our impending environmental crises. But from the 30,000 foot view (you know, the lofty hight from which you can see how much of Baghdad is not on fire), this entire Gore mansion story is about promoting one single idea: Al Gore uses a lot of electricity, so Al Gore is a hypocrite. Let's ignore the unstated subtext of "therefore global warming isn't real". If Al believes that green energy offset programs actually work (which he would be right to do), and he's buying enough green energy to make up for his own energy usage, then that is an absolute, ironclad defense against any charges of hypocrisy.
You're wrong about the study. The study was by geologist Naomi Oreskes, not the IPCC. The study divided all the papers written between 1993 and 2003 which included the phrase "global climate change" in their abstracts. 75% fell into one of three categories: endorsement of the "consensus" (anthropogenic global warming), evaluation of the impacts of global warming, and mitigation proposals. 25% either discussed methodology or paleoclimate (climate millions of years ago). Oreskes did not imply that these 25% actively supported, or even agreed with the consensus position; she just said that they didn't try to call the consensus into question.
The more important question is, how many of the papers called into question the very idea that humans were the primary contributor to global warming? None. Not one, out of 928 papers, mentioned any doubts the authors may have had.
That's certainly not enough to prove that there aren't climate researchers harboring doubts. There are (though I question the qualifications and competence of the most outspoken of them). But there is certainly consensus within the published literature. That's surprising, since a well-researched dissent against any scientific consensus can bring the dissenter fame, and there isn't a shortage of scientists with the courage to go against the grain when they believe the consensus is wrong. So the question is, does the publishing consensus exist because journals are stonewalling the publication of all the great skeptical science? Or is it because there is little actually attempting to get published, and most of it is crap? I'm on the latter side, but I'd like to see evidence of the former.
Let's take your objection to its extreme: If an astrophysicist failed to mention in an abstract to his paper that the Earth was round, would you take this as evidence that he dissents from the "scientific consensus on global sphericity?"
Now, on to your 0.28% statistic. It's bogus, and misleading, and a whole bunch of other things which mean it's really really crappy and you should never, ever bring it up in respectable company[*]. First, you have to remember that what's being talked about (here's where the big slate of hand happens) is the TOTAL greenhouse effect. The effect that keeps nighttime temperatures from falling to -150C. But if a change of 1% in the total greenhouse effect can mean a difference in overall global temperature of 5C, then a 0.28% change is a Pretty Big Deal.
The other thing you have to remember is that water vapor (the primary contributor to the overall effect) is not a driver of global temperature change. There is a lag between an increase the amount of a GHG in the atmosphere and the rise in temperature needed to restore equillibrium. Basically, it's for the same reason that you take a few minutes to warm up after wrapping yourself in a blanket. Water vapor doesn't stay in the atmosphere long enough to make that temperature rise happen, unless it's being continuously regenerated by some outside force that keeps the overall humidity elevated. For example, a warmer ocean. For example, a warmer ocean caused by increased CO2 emissions.
Think about that: the primary greenhouse gas is a responder to changes in temperature, not a causative agent. That means that any effect caused directly by CO2 could easily be less important than the indirect effects that the first effect spawns.
* But feel free to use it here on Slashdot.
... or anyone else who isn't knee-jerk hostile to the idea that governments can improve things by meddling with their Holy Free Market.
It's not about the Socialist Party per se. There is a subset of people out there who have an almost religious devotion to the primacy of consumption, as well as a belief that there is no problem that the "Free Market" cannot solve, and no problems that government intervention is capable of solving. Anyone who disagrees with these principles is automatically a "socialist" in their minds.
Further, anyone who criticizes the fundamental structure of modern, globalized, corporate capitalism is automatically trying to weaken or hurt America.
In my mind, anyone ranting about "socialists trying to hurt America" immediately discredits himself as a source of valid information, as they're stuck in this unrealistic mindset. Plus, they don't actually know what a socialist is.
Maybe I'm just bullheaded, but I still believe that there is a consensus among active climate researchers (I'm aware of both Peiser's paper and Oreskes' attempt to refute it). Fallible as humans and institutions are, I do not find it likely that such agreement could develop if the models were nearly as bad as you portray.
[Note: the preceding is known as an "argument from authority." Useless in forming a rigorous logical proof, but critical for people who cannot be an expert at everything.]
That's a bit like saying that computer graphics aren't fundamentally different than they were two decades ago. Sure, modern graphics cards push around a few more triangles, and maybe the physics models have improved a bit. But the output is still a far cry from the real world, so are the results really any more useful now?
[Note: the preceding is an "argument from analogy," and a sucky one at that.]
Technically, you don't need the source to know that you have the exact program that ran the model. More important, having the same program and the same data allows for a great deal of outside verification. It means others can perform the trivial check of ensuring that data set X does produce result Y, but also that they can see how dependent the results are on that data set. Finally, the data can also be run on other models, which presumably shouldn't share all the same assumptions. I agree that open models would be a vast improvement, but I don't consider it the fatal flaw that you do.
EdGCM is based on NASA's GCM models, which is public domain. But it's written in FORTRAN, so it's dead to me.
And yet this graph (to my untrained eye, at least) shows several reconstructions all agreeing to within about a half degree (usually less). If each of the individual reconstructions has a margin of error of +/- 1.5C, that level of agreement would be absolutely stunning, even if there were assumptions in each that allowed you to move the whole graph up and down.
Based on that, I'm choosing to doubt your claim that predicted warning trends lie within the reconstructions' margin of error.
When I said "biodiversity," I was (corre
1) The models of the 1980's were such that you could achieve any result you liked.
2) More recent models invariably suffer from the same gross flaw.
What you fail to disclose is that, as computational power became more available, the high-level assumptions made by early models have been replaced with simulation of the underlying mechanisms. Hypothetical example: an early model might simply assume that a change in average ocean temperature changed the overall amount of water vapor in the atmosphere according so some formula. A later model might make each cell of the model responsible for its own water vapor contributions.
When you write a pathetically simple model that says, "When CO2 concentration is Xppm, temperature will be Y degrees Celsius" then obviously you've simply embodied your conclusions into the code. But every time you replace an assumption with a model of the underlying processes, and still achieve similar results, you've not only provided evidence for the assumption, but also made the model more resistant to researcher bias. It's easy to change a high level assumption, but much harder to change low level assumptions to deliver the same results. If the IR reflectivity of CO2 is x, and your model uses bogus value y to get output sufficiently scary to justify your next research grant, then it's obvious you're using the model wrong.
That's why I don't believe your anti-modelling spiel. I've read you, and I've read the link I sent you earlier, and frankly the other guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and you sound like you're just echoing some nonsense you heard in third grade about computers only doing what people tell them to. According to him, there are several instances where the models didn't match the data, and reevaluation demonstrated that the problem was with the data, not the model. Further, the models have successfully predicted the effects of large-scale climate incidents (the author cites the Pinatubo eruption as an example).
Let me ask you this: If the currently available "gold standard" climate models are as prone to experimenter bias as you suggest, why haven't the AGW skeptics gone in, plugged in their own reasonable assumptions and data, and proven as much? If they could cast such clear, specific doubts upon climatology's most important tools, why haven't they?That is a flat out lie.So, do you believe that the current ice core reconstructions are 95% certain? 90% certain? 50% certain? Simply wrong? Are you simply dismissing any temperature data that wasn't recorded by human thermometers?
My understanding is that, while the current reconstructions aren't perfect, we've gotten to the point that new data usually confirms the current understanding, rather than upsetting it.
More plants does not mean more biodiversity. It just means more plants. Even under your "global warming => garden paradise" scenario, there are going to be species that win and species that lose. The losers will, of course, be primarily cold-resistant plants. This is actually a loss of biodiversity, with the result being that the remaining species will be less adaptable to future climate changes.
That's just sad.
From the usual suspect:The models of today are vastly more reliable than the one you played with decades ago. To say otherwise is like comparing a Lexus to a tricycle, since both attempt to do basically the same thing.
I was going to say "Ferarri", but I think the climate scientists would be annoyed. They'd probably say that the models are good, but not that good.
Assumption 2 (water vapor)... well, I had to run over to realclimate.org to get the story on that. The basic response is "water is a feedback, not a forcer". Water enters and exits the atmosphere very quickly (on the order of weeks), whereas you have years between changing atmospheric greenhouse gases and the globe returning to thermal equilibrium.
From realclimate: More here.
Another thing to remember is that the atmosphere only has a certain maximum carrying capacity for water vapor. You can't get too far above 100% humidity before the water comes back down. CO2, on the other hand, stays in the atmosphere at any concentration.
Assumption 3 is hard to say. Here is a graph of methane concentrations over the last twenty years. While concentrations are certainly higher than they've been in the last 400,000 years, I'm not sure why the increase has ground to a halt over the last decade. It's not as though we stopped raising cows.
All I can say for sure is that, since the rate of temperature increase is still accelerating (which you wouldn't expect when the primary driver of the change reaches stasis) methane cannot be the whole story. Somebody more familiar with the best available climate models could probably say something far more specific, and far more damning to the "blame methane" counterargument.
Assumption 4 is correct. Basically all of the CO2 increase over the last fifty years is ours. Because natural CO2 and (the bulk of) manmade CO2 derive from different sources, they have different isotope ratios. As the CO2 in the atmosphere rises, the isotope ratio has changed, skewing more heavily towards our isotopes.
I believe it's safe to say that climate scientists have investigated the foundations of all the assumptions you've outlined, and a great many more besides. In my mind, the case is indeed closed, in the sense that the results are unambiguous enough that it would be irresponsible to delay policy changes while awaiting further research. Of course, more research should always be done, to narrow the limits of our uncertainty. But there are so many things we could be doing right now--most of which would be beneficial even without global warming as a motivator--that it should be obvious that the risks of inaction far outweigh the rewards.
You're in denial, and it's people like you who are going to destroy the planet.
Yep. Keepin' the streak alive.
Paper is not a renewable resource, given the rates we're currently using wood and paper products at. Most of the forests of the world are being harvested faster than they can replenish themselves. We need to reduce, reuse, or recycle. Take your pick.
Perhaps paper recycling is unfairly subsidized. But how much of the value of trees harvested on federal lands makes it directly back to the taxpayer? Very little (just like most resources harvested on public lands). If recycling doesn't have a dollars-and-cents business case, that is certainly in part because of direct and indirect subsidies to the logging and paper industries.
Can you believe the nerve of all those people who want you to go back to seventeenth century technology? They're idiots. Maybe reading by the light of a CFL powered by a wind turbine was good enough for Abraham Lincoln, but how can these modern-day Luddites really expect us to endure such harsh, demeaning conditions? Especially now that we have those wonderfully modern incandescent bulbs and coal-fired power plants.
Next thing you know, the bastards will be telling us that we should be driving electric cars across the Potomac, like Washington did.
[Hints: Don't confuse "exponential growth" with "exponential technological progress". Don't confuse "reduction in greenhouse gas emissions" with "reduction in economic activity".]
Don't worry about it. The young kids are still hep to that groovy overpopulation vibe, dig?
Really, every environmental problem we have goes back to overpopulation. We're trying to provide too much to too many, and not even bothering to be fair about it. As a result, we're stressing the system to the breaking point.
What is "global warming" other than our attempt to shove a certain class of economic waste products into the atmosphere at a faster rate than the overall system can remove it?
I think the situation is even better than that. If HP sells a Linux box, they can really pound on the idea that not all hardware is compatible with Linux, so we really really really really recommend buying ONLY HP's Linux-certified peripherals. Not our fault if your computer blows up because of some flaky third party printer.
Sure, Dell won't see their sales skyrocket. But there are people who would buy a Linux desktop from them. The fact that the market is "ridiculously small" (let's say in the 1% range) isn't going to stop a big company from going after it. In fact, if you're looking to grab a niche market, having a huge existing distribution system can be a tremendous help.
I don't think the article does a good job explaining anything. It's basically claiming that everyone who uses Linux does so because they're cheapskates who are looking to save $40 by ditching the Windows Tax. The author suggests that Linux users are incapable of being upsold despite draws like a bigger hard drive, more RAM, or a guaranteed-compatible peripheral (printers, cameras, etc.). According to this guy, the only market really worth pursuing are high-end gamers.
He uses the same reasoning to dismiss the idea of selling third party customer support. Linux users? Pay money? Puh-shaw! Frankly, if their marketing department lacks the creativity needed to get across the simple message ("This isn't for everyone, but if it's for you then it's worth paying a premium for") then it's time
to let the pink slips rain down in a mighty torrent. Tell me that you haven't seen marketers gamely try to sell you on worse ideas.
Small market, true. Not worth bending over backwards for, probably. But the article (and you) have failed to convince me that it would be extremely burdensome or harmful for a company like Dell to go after the Linux market. I'm going back to my wild conspiracy theories about Dell avoiding the Linux desktop market because they fear incurring Microsoft's squirrelly wrath.
"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them." -- Dave Barry
Searches:
'g' google search (which sort of makes the search engine box in the upper right corner redundant)
'gcc' Google search for CC-licensed material.
'loc' Search local.google.com
'news' google news search
'quot' stock quotes (as in 'quot msft' or 'quot goog')
'amazon' Amazon search
'wiki' Search wikipedia (through Google)
'wikil' Search wikipedia, but using "I'm feeling lucky" (usually works)
'pydoc' Takes me to Python documentation for the required module (such as "pydoc os" or "pydoc random")
'flickr' Should be obvious
'yt' Youtube search
'bom' Search the Book of Mormon (yeah, there was a time when I did such things)
'spell' Search m-w.com (I use it as a sort of spell checker, for when I'm not sure I remember how to spell "occasion" or whatnot)
Shortcuts:
'bb' takes me to boingboing.net
'/.' takes me to slashdot
'pwot' pointlesswasteoftime.com
'ok' okcupid.com (I'm not lame! I'm not!)
'wwdn' Wil Wheaton's blog
'blog' Takes me to my bloggin' place.
'mail' Takes me to yahoo mail
I might set up a couple for Google Calendar eventually.