Geoengineering To Cool the Earth Becoming Thinkable 419
johkir writes "As early as 1965, when Al Gore was a freshman in college, a panel of distinguished environmental scientists warned President Lyndon B. Johnson that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels might cause 'marked changes in climate' that 'could be deleterious.' Yet the scientists did not so much as mention the possibility of reducing emissions. Instead they considered one idea: 'spreading very small reflective particles' over about five million square miles of ocean, so as to bounce about 1 percent more sunlight back to space — 'a wacky geoengineering solution.' In the decades since, geoengineering ideas never died, but they did get pushed to the fringe — they were widely perceived by scientists and environmentalists alike as silly and even immoral attempts to avoid addressing the root of the problem of global warming. Three recent developments have brought them back into the mainstream." We've discussed some
pretty
strange
ideas
in the geoengineering line over the last few years.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:5, Informative)
There was an excellent TED Lecture [ted.com] on the topic of geoengineering, given by David Keith. It's a little over 15 minutes but well worth the time, and it skips all the sci-fi platitudes.
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nice in a science fiction story but in the real world hurricane modification research was curtailed because of the fear that unsuspected interactions would result in more damage not less.
It seems to me that we shouldn't tinker with the entire atmosphere if we don't have a good deal of confidence we can control one of the constituent phenomena.
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is the business of the process.
There is too great an incentive for companies to dream up potentially damaging and idiotic ideas in order to secure lucrative government contracts to carry them out. The company then makes a large profit from screwing with the environment in a big way.
It's the same mechanism that results in companies having an incentive to push the country into war; massive mega-contracts that result in huge gains to that company at the severe detriment of everyone else.
Huge dollars going into mega projects like carbon sequestering attract morally bankrupt companies like Bechtel, companies who would strip mine the entire Amazon if they could make it profitable. They put together a reasonable sounding proposal, submit it to the bumbling idiots who call themselves our leaders along with a fat bribe and then go about reaping enormous profit using our tax dollars to fuck up the planet.
There are few things that anger me more than the privatization of social responsibility.
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Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't know for sure the effects of anything we do to try and combat climate change. Even just reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses to what they were at some arbitrary time in the past does not guarantee that the climate will just go directly back to how it was, it's a lot more complicated than that.
Taking the attitude you express would therefore lead to simply doing nothing, which seems to be a pretty close-minded view. You do what you can via modelling etc to try and predict the effects of any potential intervention. Then you try it on a limited scale, and try to confirm your models. If it seems good, you scale it up. Sure you can't 100% guarantee that you won't cause a disaster, but doing nothing is even more likely to cause a disaster, so the "do nothing" approach is pretty obviously silly.
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:5, Insightful)
We've already done geo-engineering by putting the greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere in the first place. It requires less creative engineering to stop putting them up there, and we know that greenhouse gasses from (whatever) source raise ambient temperature. Therefore, not putting greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is a generally plausible solution, even if it means we have to change our lifestyle.
Stuff like sprinkling the ocean with reflective material doesn't have a very well known effect because we haven't tinkered with the planet in that way. I'm just a lowly ex-Biologist, but immediately after reading the description, alarm bells are going off like wild.
These particles will be exposed to one of the world's largest food chains, possibly poisoning one of the greatest stores of bio-mass in existence. Life will probably manage to struggle on, but even a reduction in bio-mass in the ocean has a very profound impact on the land dwelling population of the world.
We already have significant problems with mercury content of many types of edible marine life. They don't eat a lethal dose at any given time, but their bodies accumulate the poison until it presents problems for their predators. Such systems of poison storage causes collapses of the predators first, which then cause blooms of the prey, which then cause mass extinctions of the prey due to starvation. In this respect, animals are like humans, willing to watch the whole species go to hell in a hand bucket as long as they can exploit the environment for everything its got.
Even if they're plastic particles, plastics leech phenols which seem to cause some health problems. Even if they're 100% inert (perhaps ceramic?) small particles are deadly in their own right. Particular atmospheric pollution does it's damage whether you get it from living in a city or other means, some people can't get enough of particular pollution so they take up smoking ;)
I wonder if the researchers have considered how easy it would be to live, work, sleep, and eat in a house where every interior surface was covered with a fine layer of glitter.
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It's very libertarian to expect you to pay for the harm you cause to others. If dumping excess CO2 into the atmosphere is a problem then it's reasonable to hand you a bill for your portion.
The problem is that of a government, who can arrest you if you refuse to pay, rather than voluntary trade organizations who could choose not to deal with you.
Of course the benefit to a government, for everyone else, is that they could make you stop/pay even if you didn't want to.
The reality of government though is that th
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:4, Funny)
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Try to combat, or try not. There is no try and.
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It seems to me that we shouldn't tinker with the entire atmosphere if we don't have a good deal of confidence we can control one of the constituent phenomena.
Excellent. Stop using cars and electricity, the rest of us will be right behind you, I promise...
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Just look at how our attempts to control forest fires have backfired. If you stop forest fires, where's all that fuel going to go. If you stop hurricanes, where's all that energy going to go?
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:4, Insightful)
So we let in a bunch of mice so we got a cat, then we got a dog to get rid of the cat, but then we got a lion to get rid of the dog, but then we got an elephant to get rid of the lion, then we got a mouse to get rid of the elephant...
You just have to set it up right:
Skinner: ahh, but as it turns out the lizards where a god send since they've eaten all the pigeons.
Lisa: Isn't that a little short sighted, what happens when where up to our ears with lizards?
Skinner: Ah, well we shall simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes.
Lisa: then what about the snakes?
Skinner: We simply import gorillas who will eat all the snakes.
Lisa: Well what happens when where up to our ears in gorilla's!
Skinner: Ah that's the beauty of the thing, come winter the gorillas will freeze to death.
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Immoral? Immoral? Geoengineering is a moral issue? Since when did Global Warming become a relig--
Oh, wait...
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Never a more apt tag in the whole of the internet.
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A particularly apt tag for Slashdot, as the article clearly lists many specific things that could go wrong, but to realize that people would actually have to read the article. And we know that isn't going to happen when there's a chance to post snarky memes.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at how successful the cane toad was in taking care of the cane beetle problem in Australia. Oh wait...
Arrogance! (Score:2)
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God help us. Nothing of this sort ought ever be attempted. If CO2 causes global warning, then cut back CO2. There's enough argument about THAT without introducing a whole new variable the mix. Whacky untestable schemes have no place outside of science fiction. Anyone with aspirations toward geoengineering needs to be shot for the greater good of humanity.
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The concern is that we won't cut back CO2 enough (and looking at the current state of things, this is quite likely), and we need a backup plan.
But gee, maybe you're right, that kind of thinking sure makes you deserving of nothing but death, doesn't it?
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Whenever we do anything on this large a scale, it's always completely by accident and totally without a plan and with no facts at all. How could anyone suggest that we actually start applying a few facts and a plan to something we are already doing?
I'm in favor of a space shield (Score:5, Funny)
To act like sunglasses... or moving the Earth back from the Sun a little bit.
Paging Dr. Kynes... (Score:5, Interesting)
Who knows what will happen to important sea-life species if we go spreading reflective dust in the oceans?
This is Earth; we have more than Shai-Hulud to preserve.
Not usually one to agree with the tag... (Score:5, Insightful)
But what could possibly go wrong?
It seems that a lot of our problems are caused by the introduction of small particulates into the air and water. And once we figure out how to reflect 1% of the sunlight and eventually reduce our own greenhouse emissions I have to wonder one thing.
How do you turn it off when we are 'cooler'?
In actuality, I'm wondering a lot of things, but I'm fairly confident that dumping millions of barrels of reflective particles into the ocean is something that will not be high on a popularity poll.
Of course, I'm one of those evil people who isn't as concerned about global warming. Not because I don't believe it exists, but because a lot of the cure appears to be worse than the symptoms. How much will it cost to relocate costal communities over a 50-100 year timeframe, and how much will it cost so that we won't have to do that. Those are some of the answers I want addressed.
I could spend 3 million dollars to make my home hurricane proof, or I could move to Montana.
Re:Not usually one to agree with the tag... (Score:5, Insightful)
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I dunno why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd, to swallow a bird!
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
Perhaps she'll die
There was an old lady who swallowed a cat. ...
Imagine that, she swallowed a cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die
There was an old lady who swallowed a dog. ...
What a hog! To swallow a dog!
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat...
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a goat. ... ...
Just opened her throat and swallowed a goat!
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a cow. ...
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat... She swallowed the goat to catch the dog...
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat...
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse -
She's dead, of course.
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Gee, you could try actually reading the article and seeing if it answers any of those questions for you.
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Personally however, our climate models need to be a lot better before we go dumping Gigajoules of perturbations into the system.
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If it's stratospheric aerosol injection, you turn it off by stopping the injection. All the aerosols will precipitate out within a few years. That's actually the problem with it: it's too easy to turn off. If we fail to keep it going (bad side effects, lack of political will, economic crisis, militarization, etc.), then the counter-cooling rapidly disappears and we abruptly get all the warming we'd have otherwise seen, all compressed into a very short period of time. That's potentially far worse than e
Another reason to do nothing (Score:4, Informative)
> they considered one idea: 'spreading very small reflective particles' over about five million square miles of ocean, so as to bounce about 1 percent more sunlight back to space
Or we could just pollute less? It's less risky than turning the Earth into a big science experiment.
There's another risk: That the same same people promoting "Clean Coal" (a big hello to you Australia) hop on this bandwagon as another reason not to do anything?
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And West Virginia here in the states. I am presuming that "being green" and "clean" with coal means simply removing the toxic chemicals which would normally be spewed into the atmosphere as part of the burning process. I haven't quite figured out how they are claiming to be "carbon neutral." That one must have required some pretty creative accounting.
If we put as much thought into addressing the problem rather than the symptoms, we'd be a good deal further along. And although I'm happy to be paying less at
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Who is "we" anyways? Everything you purchase has an environmental cost. The system and electricity you used to post on /. has an environmental cost.
So it's a choice, enjoy life now and make it as comfortable as possible, or stress your life away because of 'global warming' and other natural events that scientists have little understanding about. Life on Earth will end. Will humans be here when that takes place. I seriously doubt it. If we eek out a 100 million years, I'll be surprised. A nice sized caldera
Genius! (Score:2)
It's my opinion, after considerable research, that we don't yet know enough to make long-term climate predictions, MUCH LESS BASE POLICY ON THOSE PREDICTIONS!
It's disheartening that both US Presidential candidates have bought into the CAGW hype for the time being...
Tin Foil Hat? (Score:2)
Rather than putting reflective particles in the Oceans, why not put reflective sheets on land? Giving the world's least hospitable deserts a tin foil hat would do a lot less damage to the ecosystem (since there isn't much of one there), and would be a lot eaiser to reverse if things go wrong.
A Solution to Ocean Levels (Score:2)
Here is a geoengineering idea meant to address the concern of ocean levels. In the USA, we have death valley. Death Valley is huge. Check it out on a map sometime. My idea is to dig a trench/pipe from the ocean to death valley (the wacky part of this idea) and beginning filling it up. Eventually, we would have death valley lake and a new rush for lake front property.
It is wacky, it is silly...its mad science!
Geo-engineering a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
As has been noted [blogspot.com], geo-engineering requires massive amounts of hubris and luck.
Geo-engineering is the act of fighting pollution... with yet more pollution!
And when you intentionally try to change a planet-wide system, all manner of unintended consequences will occur.
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Since the dawn of agriculture we have been doing geoengineering whether we called it that or not.
Fake snow (Score:2)
How about just laying down huge fields of white stuff... like styrofoam only that doesn't get dirty as fast. There's probably some inert-ish byproduct from things we're making anyway that could be used. Seems like that could reflect a couple % back pretty easy, and if something went wrong we could always fix it.
Amazing that we are forgetting the simple ones (Score:2)
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Im a little skeptical of this solution. The percent of the earth that is parking lots and building tops is actually incredibly tiny. Once you start leaving the developed areas its nothing but nature and ocean.
Im sure you can reflect some light, but assuming that this little amount of light will translate into anything that affects global warming seems like a big assumption to me.
Not to mention the cost of digging up the earth and extracting all the white pigments and producing various amount of white paint.
Iron is being used to reduce CO2 emmisions... (Score:3, Insightful)
The company Planktos [planktos-science.com] was showcased on modern marvels that claims they can have a tangible impact on global warming by mixing iron dust into ocean water then spreading it over plankton blooms.
The iron draws plankton to the surface to feed on the iron dust, and the plankton also absorbs the CO2 out of the air. They claimed 1ton of iron could take tens of thousands tons CO2 out of the atmosphere. Not directly related to the article, but its on topic.
You can watch the story on modern marvels [youtube.com]
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Surface blooms that create low-oxygen zones
Toxic algae blooms
Starvation of coral beds
Disporportional stimulation of diatom growth (diatoms are not as good a food source for copepods as algae, and in high concetrations cause gill problems in fish)
Some of these issues can probably be resolved (e.g., blooms
Population (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the number of humans on this planet has more than doubled in my lifetime! And we wonder why we are affecting the global climate??
The solutions are obvious. Up to now no one, including me, has had the balls to seriously consider implementing them. Eventually somebody is going to seriously consider implementing them and probably sooner than we expect. Interesting times, indeed.
The Great Floating Garbage Patch didn't work? (Score:5, Interesting)
the island is almost entirely comprises human-made trash. [google.ca] It currently weighs approximately 3.5 million tons with a concentration of 3.34 million pieces of garbage per square kilometer, 80 per cent of which is plastic.
Due to the Patch's location in the North Pacific Gyre, its growth is guaranteed to continue as this Africa-sized section of ocean spins in a vortex that effectively traps flotsam.
The protocol for terraforming experiments (Score:3, Funny)
This in from the future of an alternate timeline: The standard protocol for terraforming experiments such as these is to always have a backup planet, with complete infrastructure in place, in case something goes wrong.
I don't think we're going to meet that requirement for many decades to come. Experimenting with global systems is ill advised at best until we have somewhere else to go in the event of a failure.
--
Toro
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Re:Perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, we will have to address a myriad of issues before we are able to effect any real change in the US.
One of my biggest gripes is the lack of community planning since the 1950s. Everyone wanted to live in the suburbs, and now, thanks to the housing construction boom, local governments drunk on property tax revenue, and a complete lack of traffic planning we have broken the back of many of our communities.
I've seen so much of the countryside consumed in this glut of home building it sickens me. I'm not even 30 and I have seen some historical areas and homes purchased by development companies and turned into sales offices. 5000 sq ft homes on 1 acre plots are built while nothing is added to the existing communities. Watching people reward this blight by purchasing or renting these homes and commuting 30-50 miles boggles the mind.
It is a culture of the car. Shops are spaced out almost as much as the homes. The expectation is that you will drive to one business, get back in your car and drive to the next.
The design of our communities is so freaking wasteful it really marks the 'green' movement as a cute fad for people that really don't understand the problems that exist. 'greening' your less than 10 year old subdivision or condo is spending more money for less solution. Save the money and work to bring your community back to one where you don't have to get into your car to perform any sort of activity and you will see a much greater return.
(Now where's my coffee, thats too much of a rant for this early in the morning)
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Boo hoo, it's the cry of the urban planner who wants everyone in urban ratholes. No thanks.
Re:Perhaps? (Score:5, Interesting)
Boo hoo, it's the cry of the urban planner who wants everyone in urban ratholes. No thanks.
That is quite the false dichotomy isn't it? I want to design communities that don't force you into urban ratholes, and you respond with 'boo hoo'? I want to see us develop the urban areas we have, to make them livable to more people so that we don't require everyone to move 50 miles from their jobs just to find a decent place to live.
Trust me when I say this, the last place I want to live is in a city. But the last thing i want to see happen is all of our contryside turned into generic urban fill. The problem is that the planning that existed to date was not part of a long term sustainable strategy. It banked on increasing the home-count and thus increased property tax revenue for governments, and not for the eventual collapse that will occur in 20-30 years when the cost of living in such a manner results in stagnating economies.
If you don't plan for that, then an urban rathole is what you will get.
I grew up in a rust-belt town. When you rely on a single industry to drive your local economy its foolish.
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One of my biggest gripes is the lack of community planning since the 1950s.
Bingo. What a lot of the people responding to you are failing to recognize is that "community planning" doesn't necessarily mean that everyone has to live in completely urban areas.
For example, you could have suburbs that well planned, where you have commercial property and residential property well spaced out, and you have a yard *and* you can walk a couple blocks to your grocery store. You can have a garage and a car *and* have the option of living a complete life relying on public transportation, in t
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If you think living in a concrete jungle is the greatest thing, you live there
And that's why assumptions and jumping to conclusions is a bad thing. I live on a 40+ acres in upstate NY in a cedar log cabin. The first time I met my neighbor was when he drove up on his tractor so we could discuss hunting access routes.
Back on topic, I'm not advocating a concrete jungle, in fact, I'm advocating an increase to green space.
The problem is, a lot of people WANT a simple apartment where they can live less than 10 miles from work. Unfortunately that is not what is being built in the United
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Fuck you, you don't know me or my beliefs. The REAL problem with the world is people like you - people who lump broad groups of other people that they don't understand or are afraid of into narrow categories and focus all of their bitterness and hatred onto them
This could be the most ironic post evaaaaaar!
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Frankly, if they all moved away and I was the only person for a mile in any direction I'd be a lot happier. That's why they don't get a "hello".
I'm sure your first question is why don't I? I can only ask, why should I?
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Reminds of an old WWII PSA poster [andsuchandsuch.com].
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Reminds me of the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle.
Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing, Acceptance
This is part of the "Bargaining" phase.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/bargaining_stage.htm [changingminds.org]
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Here's a crazy idea - let's burn less gasoline! Give me a nobel prize!
There is no Nobel prize for stupidity. Otherwise, you're a shoe-in!
The call of "just use less" rings empty in the ears of the people who have no choice but to drive to work, insist on heating their home, or, God forbid, actually like cold air from their AC.
I have a better idea. How about we improve our technology that so that what we do consume, is consumed more efficiently? Don't design my car to get optimal MPG at 55...target 65, because that is highway speed.
Trains use less fuel than trucks, but there
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I'm sure you'd be way in line before him. Nothing he said indicates that he wants to ban people driving or heating their homes, just that they consume less fuel doing so.
And most people don't NEED to drive to work. They choose to live and work in places that aren't convenient for transportation. You could restructure your life such that you didn't have to drive to work. I did, and I'm happier for it - if only because I don't have to spen
No they didn't (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article: "I should clarify that I'm talking about predictions in the scientific press. There were some regrettable things published in the popular press (e.g. Newsweek; though National Geographic did better)."
I remember the popular press reporting that we were in a global cooling spell. The lesson to be learned is that you do not rely on the popular media for scientific reporting. The press did a good job of convincing me and others that we were going into a cooling period that could be catastrophic. It mad me leery of the global warming crowd, but a couple decades of solid evidence has 95% convinced me otherwise.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
It mad me leery of the global warming crowd, but a couple decades of solid evidence has 95% convinced me otherwise.
The evidence for global cooling was just as strong. About 25 years ago we really were going to be frozen into a big ball of ice by 2025.
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No, it wasn't. No, we weren't.
Read the goddamn linked article, will you?
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Informative)
I read the article, but I was also ALIVE at that time. I remember folks like Carl Sagan rallying the troops to stop the cooling of the planet (from suspended pollution). No article can erase the memory of the people watching their televisions during the 70s and early 80s.
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Sagan did predict global cooling because of the Iraq oil fires. He was wrong. So, I would tend to put this is in "respected scientific opinion" column. I am not sure how this qualifies as anecdotal evidence.
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A good summary [youtube.com] highlighting Time and Newsweek articles on Ice Age fears in the 70s.
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So that's "evidence" to you?
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About 25 years ago we really were going to be frozen into a big ball of ice by 2025.
Actually, it was more like 35 years ago. The best climate models available at that time (and using the measurements available at that time) predicted that we were near or perhaps past the maximum of the current interglacial. The exact time of return of glacial conditions depended on how the model was tweaked, and could be centuries to millennia.
The popularizations which followed about 25 years ago exaggerated the rapidity and severity of the projected outcome, of course.
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Global cooling is real. So is global warming. It's just that both happened at the same time, global cooling was stronger in the 70s, global warming is stronger now. In fact, global cooling has somewhat mitigated the effect of global warming, so we've underestimated how serious a problem it is. It's even possible that decreasing [guardian.co.uk] the amount of particulate pollutants in the atmosphere would decrease the effect of global cooling, and exacerbate the problem of global warming.
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The lesson to be learned is that you do not rely on the popular media for scientific reporting.
Agreed. That's why I always get my scientific reporting from more reliable non-mainstream sources like this one [weeklyworldnews.com].
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Global warming happened twice before (during the period of the Ancient Egyptians, circa 3000 B.C.) (and again from the mid-Roman Empire through the Dark Ages), but it certainly wasn't caused by cars, or air conditioners, or oil burners.
Unless those Egyptians and Romans had some secret technology we have not yet discovered.
Maybe it was the city of Atlantis (cue Stargate music).
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or burning a HECK of a lot of wood ?
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You have any other strawmen you want to attack?
Natural global warming and global cooling have happened throughout the Earth's history, which is far more than "twice". (Look at the ice age cycles, for instance.) Climatologists know this. It has nothing to do with the evidence that the current warming is not primarily natural, which is based on comparing modern sources of warming and cooling (both natural and manmade) to the spatial and time trend behavior of the climate.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Informative)
I was in school in the 1980s and that was all they were talking about, so it may have been a "myth", but they sure were pushing it for some reason...
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What part of sun cycles and sun weather don't you guys get? How ignorant does one have to be in order to look at 100 or 200 years of monitored weather and then decide that the planet is heading towards a global meltdown...all the while in the same breath admitting that this already happened over and over again millions of years ago, telling us that global warming killed the dinosaurs?
This is madness. The big burning ball in the skies warms up the planet. When it doesn't burn as hot, the planet cools down
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the motives of researchers are pure and faultless, and their predictive abilities on climate change have been accurate so far, we should trust them blindly?
Nope. Sorry. Scientists want funding, influence, and respect as much as every other human being. It's a lot sexier (and more profitable) to claim the world is going to end than it is to say that every thing is okay, really.
I'm a member of the generation that was sold "Global Cooling" by the same scientists in the 1970's. I remember the papers, the articles, and the dire warnings about impending glacial advance. The calls for research grants and a government agency were incessant.
Let's apply Sagan's Skeptic's Toolkit to anthropogenic global warming in 2008, shall we?
Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the "facts." The "facts" are sparse, and still coming in. We are applying precise measurements to modern conditions, and using indirect observation to extrapolate (what we hope) are just as precise measurements from centuries ago. Smells a little of baloney, but plausible.
Arguments from authority carry little weight. But "an entire field of science" says so, smells of this.
Prepare more than one hypothesis. Global warming can only be anthropogenic. And if it's only partly mankind's fault, it's impossible to quantify. FAIL. This is 100% laced-with fillers and hog knuckles baloney.
Apply Occam's Razor where two arguments explain the data equally well.Fails here too. Solar activity has been a bit odd lately, and the sun sure in the hell has a lot more control over the climate than mankind ever will. Baloney.
Always ask if the hypothesis is falsifiable, at least in principle.This isn't the first time this kind of climate change has happened, but the first time we can blame SUV's. More baloney.
Skepticism and political inertia need to always serve as flywheels to science going off and doing something half-cocked.
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Because the motives of researchers are pure and faultless, and their predictive abilities on climate change have been accurate so far, we should trust them blindly?
Are you claiming an entire field of science is corrupt, then?
Nope. Sorry. Scientists want funding, influence, and respect as much as every other human being. It's a lot sexier (and more profitable) to claim the world is going to end than it is to say that every thing is okay, really.
No, it's sexy to challenge conventional wisdom. Really. That's where the fame is.
I'm a member of the generation that was sold "Global Cooling" by the same scientists in the 1970's.
There was already a link posted to debunk that myth. Once again, no, the "same scientists" did not "sell" global cooling.
But if you still want to claim that, how about you give us some names of those "same scientists"? Or some papers they published on the topic?
Prepare more than one hypothesis. Global warming can only be anthropogenic.
Are you implying that climate scientists haven't exhaustively studied the different possible causes of globa
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"Others who may be ignorant", like (once again) an entire field of science?
It's a shame scientists don't have the internet so they can go to that website and realize everything they've ever done is wrong!
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30,000 "scientists", meaning "anybody with a scientific degree". Certainly not 30,000 climate scientists.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article you mention:
The state of the science at the time (say, the mid 1970's), based on reading the papers is, in summary: "â¦we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climateâ¦" (which is taken directly from NAS, 1975). In a bit more detail, people were aware of various forcing mechanisms - the ice age cycle; CO2 warming; aerosol cooling - but didn't know which would be dominant in the near future. By the end of the 1970's, though, it had become clear that CO2 warming would probably be dominant; that conclusion has subsequently strengthened.
There is a part that bears repeating: with slight modification:
The state of the science is: "â¦we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climateâ¦".
We just launched space probes to try to figure out why the Sun seems so quiet and cool. This was not predicted, nor is it understood. The many and varied factors that affect our global climate are thought of but not known. I say known in the way that we KNOW why some babies are boys and some are girls. We know that and can do little to affect the outcome of birth. We KNOW about cancer, or think we do, and yet people die every day from it. We KNOW about diet and food based health problems yet people die of starvation every fucking day.
What is my point? It's simple. We do NOT know enough about the problem to clearly and unequivocally state that reducing CO2 will stop global warming or even control it. We do NOT know enough to even begin to know what the problem is caused by. Sure, man's contribution to greenhouse gases obviously has some impact, but we do NOT know enough to say that reduction of man made greenhouse gases would reduce or even affect global warming, never mind saying it would control global climate.
I'm all for energy efficient appliances and so called 'green' buildings and so forth. I'm all for reducing CO2 emissions. I'm all for 'green' coal burning, if there is such a thing in reality. These are all things that put less pollutants into the air. I'm all for doing many of the things that global warming alarmists warn that we should stop doing, or start doing. What I am against is thinking that this is magically going to solve a problem that we have barely any idea it exists never mind how it is caused.
I'm all for doing the things we know are bad for us in the fucking short term, never mind their long term effects. That smog in L.A. - bad idea. Lead in paint and toys and such - bad idea. Ozone emissions - bad idea. Fluoridation of the water - bad idea. Inefficient Internal combustion engines spewing filth into the ecosystem - bad idea. There are literally millions of things that are BAD IDEAS and have immediate consequences to life on this planet that are bad enough to justify the stopping of such things. We do NOT need to cry global warming to have reason to stop them.
Please please please, would someone take the lead and do so with common sense. Lets understand how the Earth's climate machinery works before thinking we can control that machinery. The chances that shifting magnetosphere and solar heating changes have 99.999% of the blame here is as great or greater than the idea that humans have caused this current climate situation. The position of this planet and solar system in relation to the surrounding galaxy has an effect on climate. There are many factors that affect climate or can, that just won't fit inside the 'standard' activist's head. Do these activist go to sleep at night praying that there will be a solar flare tomorrow? Oh god, please help our Sun be normal again?
I'm just asking for common sense. Understand the problem before you begin thinking you can fix it. This is hardly something that governments are good at. Scientists have had to use buzzy sound bites to get any attention for their particular concerns, so the real picture has not been exposed, nor all the players in this game we call the global climate machine of Earth.
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Before you ever, and I mean EVER think that science has come up with a golden bullet to cure something that requires constant exposure to a material, you need to sit down and get some help, start looking at it to see just how much it looks like Pandora's Box. Remember thalidomide, asbestos, DDT, or any of the millions of other substances that are supposed to be good for us? Here are a few items with regard to fluoridation:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&btnG=Search+our+site [google.com]
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The state of the science is: "â¦we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climateâ¦".
Believe it or not, we have learned considerably more about our climate in the last 40 years.
We just launched space probes to try to figure out why the Sun seems so quiet and cool. This was not predicted, nor is it understood.
Since even a return of solar activity to Maunder Minimum levels isn't sufficient to counteract the greenhouse effect over the next century, it's somewhat moot in the long term, barring changes in solar activity that are totally unprecedented in the paleontological record.
The many and varied factors that affect our global climate are thought of but not known.
We know what the major players are (solar irradiance, volcanism, greenhouse gases, industrial aerosols, black carbon, land use changes, the major at
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Uhmmm links please. If we have a true understanding of how the global climate machine works and it's being hidden from the general populace, please provide links to that information. I've not seen it, heard of it, not even the conspiracy you seem to be indicating. Links please. Oh, did I forget to mention: please provide some links to this work of 'real scientists' who know how the global climate machine works.
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This is a complete myth.
Like the complete myth that all respectable climatologists are on board with man made global warming?
Like Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC) at the University of Colorado.
He has created a power point on climate change.
Read this and be enlightened
http://climatesci.org/2008/10/14/dr-richard-keens-global-warming-quiz/ [climatesci.org]
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Scientific consensus does not automatically equal truth and politics has no place in science.
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No, lies are rarely tolerated.
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A long live myth [wikipedia.org]...
This hypothesis never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understandings of ice age cycles; and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s
In his 1968 book "The Population Bomb", Paul R. Ehrlich wrote "The greenhouse effect is being enhanced now by the greatly increased level of carbon dioxide... [this] is being countered by low-level clouds generated by contrails, dust, and other contaminants... At the moment we cannot predict what the overall climatic results will be of our using the atmosphere as a garbage dump."
Sigh. (Score:2)
Re:It was Global COOLING in the 70s. (Score:4, Informative)
In 1965 and through the 1970s and early 80s, virtually all scientists were Not discussing global warming. They were discussing Global Cooling.
I'm sorry, but the scientific literature disproves your claim. If you don't believe me, go look for yourself at the papers published back then. Web of Knowledge will find them for you. Or just read [isiknowledge.com]this paper [allenpress.com], written by a group of scientists who got fed up with claim and did a full literature review from 1965-1979. See, in particular, Figure 1. During that period, there was only one year in which cooling papers than warming papers were published (1971), and more warming papers than cooling papers were published in every year after 1971.
In another comment you respond,
I read the article, but I was also ALIVE at that time.
That's nice. Did you read scientific journals back then? Or go to climate conferences? Somehow I doubt it.
The mainstream media isn't the scientific community, and neither was Carl Sagan. Yes, back then some scientists did think that cooling was going to win out. Most of them didn't. The fact is, throughout the 1970s and certainly into the 80s, the scientific community — as measured by the papers they published on the subject — was definitely projecting warming more than cooling.
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So funny, on RevLeft there is a "socialist" who argues the opposite. That the "Green movement" is a capitalist plot.
I guess crazy people exist on all sides of the political spectrum.
Some examples of the brillient mind of "VanGuard1917" can be found in the thread Recession = good for the environment? [revleft.com].
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Aerosol geoengineering has a fast response time. We already have a pretty good idea of how strong the cooling effect is, because volcanoes do it all the time. We can gradually dial it up or down, because the climate responds quickly to changes in aerosol optical depth. If the effect is too large, we can dial it down within a few years before anything lasting happens. Accidentally plunging ourselves into an ice age is not a serious risk.
That being said, it's still a bad idea for reasons discussed in TFA,
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...this is much ado about nothing, and can be attributed simply to natural cycles in the weather system.
So which "natural cycle" is it? We've looked at the ones which have caused past climate change (e.g., solar variations, volcanoes, changes in ocean circulation), and ruled them out as the cause of the current warming.
People are so damn self-centered they think anything that happens is a direct result of something they did.
It's not self centered, it's physics. The fact is that we are ramping atmospheric CO2 up to levels not seen in millions of years, its effect on the climate is not negligible.
but seeing how I'm experiencing almost record cold temperatures now for this time of year in my area,
Global warming doesn't predict that every location on Earth gets monotonically hotter every year.