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.
It was Global COOLING in the 70s. (Score:1, Insightful)
>>>As early as 1965, a panel of distinguished environmental scientists warned CO2 emissions...
In 1965 and through the 1970s and early 80s, virtually all scientists were Not discussing global warming. They were discussing Global Cooling. I remember sitting in elementary school while the teacher made us read a scary article about "the darkening of the earth" due to increased clouds.
The scientists later admitting they were wrong.
Don't be surprised if in another twenty years scientists again admit they were wrong about global warming. "It's not humans; it's just a natural process. We will now start cooling again."
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Never a more apt tag in the whole of the internet.
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.
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: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)
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No they didn't (Score:2, Insightful)
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. That is not a myth...I can see it every day I go outside.
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.
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.
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:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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.
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...
Re:Arrogance! (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:3, Insightful)
Immoral? Immoral? Geoengineering is a moral issue? Since when did Global Warming become a relig--
Oh, wait...
Re:No they didn't (Score:3, Insightful)
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).
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]
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No they didn't (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another reason to do nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
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 or asteroid could end things much quicker.
Makes the problem worse (Score:2, Insightful)
Sunlight powers photosynthesis, and cutting down on sunlight reaching the surface will reduce the rate at which plants are pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Some portion of the carbon that plants remove from the atmosphere is replaced when the plants die and rot, but not a hundred percent-- some ends up sequestered.
Re:Perhaps? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not all about the car. Some of us actually want to have a yard and some room to do things like operate power tools or grow vegetables. Urban property is very scarce and unaffordable for most Americans, unless they want to forgo the yard and live in a 600 sq. foot coffin that cost them $250k. You keep your coffin, and I'll keep my commute. This is still America, for a few more months.
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.
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.
Re:Perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
Boo hoo, it's the cry of the urban planner who wants everyone in urban ratholes. No thanks.
Re:Perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 States. You end up with suburban sprawl for nearly 100 miles in every direction from a major city. With more longterm thought placed into zoning we could see the suburban sprawl greatly reduced. Existing urban areas (I'm including small cities in this area) have been ignored because it was cheaper to buy up some farms, sub-divide them into 1 acre plots and build mass-produced homes that were riding on the housing bubble.
The problem is that we have been building the most profitable, but not the most sustainable communities. With even the slightest planning, we could help people like you and I who like our open space and trees, while still housing the people who want their short commutes.
Re:Geo-engineering a bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the dawn of agriculture we have been doing geoengineering whether we called it that or not.
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:No they didn't (Score:3, 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?
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 global warming? Because claiming that would be an outright lie, you know.
Re:Amazing that we are forgetting the simple ones (Score:3, Insightful)
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. That could have real negative environment effects.
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:1, Insightful)
Ya know, oil came from ocean life in the first place... So the amounts are not "piddling". If we drill and burn the stuff in 200 years, stuff that took millions of years to accumulate, you see no problem with that? You inflate a balloon for a week, and popping it in a millisecond is the same thing for you? Really?
Re:Population (Score:2, Insightful)
The way to relieve the population problem is not to kill people, just to stop breeding. Slashdotters are definately doing their part there...
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:3, Insightful)
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:No they didn't (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Like something out of Robinson's work (Score:3, Insightful)
Try to combat, or try not. There is no try and.
Re:No they didn't (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
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!
Re:No they didn't (Score:3, Insightful)
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 atmospohere-ocean circulation patterns, snow/ice albedo, clouds). We have a pretty good idea of the relative strengths of each of those effects, too.
We do NOT know enough about the problem to clearly and unequivocally state that reducing CO2 will stop global warming or even control it.
What is the scientific basis for that claim? You embark on a length paen to our ignorance, but as far as I can tell it's a naked assertion. If you read through the latest IPCC report and the literature it cites, you will find we know a great deal about how the climate system operates, and how much various natural and manmade factors contribute to what we observe.
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.
Sounds like you're not singing our ignorance of the climate anymore. It sounds like you're quite sure what's causing the current warming. Kind of hypocritical if you ask me. If it's manmade, all of a sudden we don't understand anything at all about the climate. If it's natural, then why there's a 99.999% (sure you don't need an extra few 9's there) chance of that being the cause.
That's a pretty bold claim. So, tell me, what is the scientific evidence that "shifting magnetosphere and solar heating changes" are responsible for modern global warming. Please reconcile this with the actual changes in solar irradiance, which on average haven't budged more than a few tenths of a W/m^2 since the 1950s. Explain how this accounts for the observed warming of 0.5 C. Please, be quantitative.
You might want to start by reading, e.g., Foukal et al.'s 2006 review article in Nature on the subject.
The position of this planet and solar system in relation to the surrounding galaxy has an effect on climate.
That's also a pretty bold claim which you failed to support. But that notwithstanding, how much do you think "the position of this planet in relation to the surrounding galaxy" has changed in the last century or so?
There are many factors that affect climate or can, that just won't fit inside the 'standard' activist's head.
"Activists", huh. I see. You want to make this about politics.
Please, tell me, what is the scientific support for your claims?
Understand the problem before you begin thinking you can fix it.
We already understand many of the main aspects of the problem. We don't understand everything, and never will, but that doesn't mean that we know nothing. We know that CO2 has a significant influence on climate, and will have an even larger influence in the future as emissions continue. Solar trends disagree in rate, timing, magnitude, and frequently even in the sign of the effect with the
Re:Not usually one to agree with the tag... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 even the worst-case warming scenarios currently being floated.
Re:Stop. Fools. Don't do this. Sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
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, most notably the scenario where we counterbalance the warming for some time and then fail to do it, leading to a large abrupt warming once the cancellation stops.
Re:Perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
reflective oceans. i hope not (Score:2, Insightful)