Can Problems From Climate Change Be Addressed With Science? (scientificamerican.com) 295
Slashdot reader bricko shares an article from Scientific American about two "ecomodernists" who argue that the problems of climate change can be addressed through science and technology.
In his Breakthrough essay, Steven Pinker spells out a key assumption of ecomodernism. Industrialization "has been good for humanity. It has fed billions, doubled lifespans, slashed extreme poverty, and, by replacing muscle with machinery, made it easier to end slavery, emancipate women, and educate children. It has allowed people to read at night, live where they want, stay warm in winter, see the world, and multiply human contact. Any costs in pollution and habitat loss have to be weighed against these gifts...."
We can solve problems related to climate change, Pinker argues, "if we sustain the benevolent forces of modernity that have allowed us to solve problems so far, including societal prosperity, wisely regulated markets, international governance, and investments in science and technology... Since 1970, when the Environmental Protection Agency was established, the United States has slashed its emissions of five air pollutants by almost two-thirds. Over the same period, the population grew by more than 40 percent, and those people drove twice as many miles and became two and a half times richer. Energy use has leveled off, and even carbon dioxide emissions have turned a corner."
The essay also cites ecomodernist Will Boisvert, who believes climate change will be cataclysmic but not apocalyptic, bringing large upheaval but a small impact on human well-being. "Global warming won't wipe us out or even stall our progress, it will just marginally slow ordinary economic development that will still outpace the negative effects of warming and make life steadily better in the future, under every climate scenario.... Our logistic and technical capacities are burgeoning, and they give us ample means of addressing these problems."
We can solve problems related to climate change, Pinker argues, "if we sustain the benevolent forces of modernity that have allowed us to solve problems so far, including societal prosperity, wisely regulated markets, international governance, and investments in science and technology... Since 1970, when the Environmental Protection Agency was established, the United States has slashed its emissions of five air pollutants by almost two-thirds. Over the same period, the population grew by more than 40 percent, and those people drove twice as many miles and became two and a half times richer. Energy use has leveled off, and even carbon dioxide emissions have turned a corner."
The essay also cites ecomodernist Will Boisvert, who believes climate change will be cataclysmic but not apocalyptic, bringing large upheaval but a small impact on human well-being. "Global warming won't wipe us out or even stall our progress, it will just marginally slow ordinary economic development that will still outpace the negative effects of warming and make life steadily better in the future, under every climate scenario.... Our logistic and technical capacities are burgeoning, and they give us ample means of addressing these problems."
A you kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A you kidding me? (Score:5, Interesting)
So assuming science can. How long will it take and how much it cost? As Keynes said, "In the long run we are all dead".
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, "eventually" could be a very long time, perhaps .... too long?
Never mind the plethora of unintended consequences our efforts to "fix the problems with science" will bring and likely kill us all off in some other way.
Can it be solved with science, absolutely.
Will it? Unlikely.
The joke is on us. (Score:5, Informative)
You ask a fundamental question, that is How much time do we have as a species to prevent fossil=fuel combustion from making planet Earth unihabitablefor humans?
Unfortunately, there are several considerations that make things more dire than many might expect:.
1) in many parts of the world we are rapidly approaching wet-bulb temperatures that are lethal to humans. During the most recent El Nino, temperatues in the region of he Persian Gulf rose to above 140 F for hours at a time. The next El Nino, coupled with additonal warming due to carbon dioxide pollution, will greatly expand this region of temperature lethality and temperatures in excess of 145- 150 Fshould be expected within the next 10 years. Since we are in the early phase of a warming that is exponential in nature given its cause (greenhouse gas accumulation), temperatures will rise far more dramatically than they have up till now in human history
2) the geology and chronology of earlier extreme warming periods indicate that massive sea level rises will occur over the next few centuries, perhpas as much as 5-6 m over the course of 200-400 years time. Given that about 80% of world populations live in or near coastlines, the disruption to human activities will be far larger than most imagine.
3) at the current rate of ocean acidification, most organims that deposit calcium in their exoskeletons will go extinct in the next 200-400 years. This is a big deal, since many of these species such as pteropods, whose popoulations are dramatically declining worldwide are the foudations of marine food chains. Humans rely on between 30-50% of all their protein from the oceans (including meals for growing cattle, pigs, and poultry, growing crops, etc.)., with most fisheries in rapid decline worldwide.
4) with the unexpectedly rapid warming of the Arctic a huge reservoir of carbon currently locked in permafrost is about to be rapidly released. Even though only a fraction of this store may enter the asmosphere or the oceans, the reserve does have the potential to double the current rate of warming within a few hundreds of years time, independent of what humans do in the future to curb their own greenhouse gas production..
Now if you carefully look over all the slashdot comments, made by the presumably techically literate among us, and their likely impact on or relevance to any of he 4 considerations just mentkoned, you can see humanity has a major challenge ahead, if it has any chance of survival beyond the relatively near future.
Re: (Score:2)
The Venus scenario would require more carbon than we have to burn, forminb an atmosphere that is as thick as our ocean depths:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20... [wattsupwiththat.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Even if your argument had any merit, which in no way I believe it does, you pretty much discredited it from the onset.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:A you kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it is possible, as this is a Man Made problem. We have technology that can scrub carbon and other green house gasses from the atmosphere. There is alternative energy sources which we can use for a lot of cases.
The problem right now isn't that we don't know how to do it. It is the fact we lack the leadership to do it. Not enough politicians are willing to anger people who will just flat out not believe the problem exists or place it as part of some conspiracy of the other side. And such actions will come at a cost, that we currently don't want to stand up and pay it.
Re: (Score:2)
We do know how to do it, just make it the economically best choice and let capitalism fix the problem. Doesn't matter if some voters don't believe in climate change, as long as wind energy is cheapest that's what the power company will invest in.
What we have not completely figured out is how to make it happen quickly enough. Subsidies do help, certainly, and can be sold to voters as jobs programmes. But we also really need to push new tech.
The US government deserves some big credit for investing in Tesla. W
Re: (Score:2)
Let capitalism fix the problem? Oh, you mean when the problem gets worse enough to kill off parts of the food chain, poor people living withing sea reach are floating, and desertification becomes beyond merely evident? Oh, yes, let's let capitalism fix the problem after it's consigned humanity and the world's critters to a fresh eruption from hell.
Re: (Score:2)
EVs eliminate the need to change millions of engines every time one energy technology succeeds another. Electricity is the currency in which energy is denominated.
Re: A you kidding me? (Score:2)
You mean like poverty? Cause capitalism has done wonders to fight poverty throughout the world. Just in the last coupe of decades, the poorest half of the world has seen huge gains in earnings and independence.
The West's current dominant economies are also direct results of capitalism, so you can also thank capitalism for things like European health care, human rights courts, etc.
Re:A you kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)
What the title is hoping for is a, "Can't someone else do it?" solution, and it's invoking science like a magic wand in order to get there.
Re: (Score:3)
Can science help us alter things outside of our light cone?
No, not without breaking causality, in which nothing matters because consequences have no actions and actions have no consequences.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Like most of these "climate change is nothing to worry about " types, they know virtually nothing about biology and natural systems and just how sensitive they are to even the smallest perturbations. To get an appreciation of this fact, consider the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Aside from the modern era, it is the period of most rapid warming in planet Earth's history.
Although it was much less than 1/10 as rapid as the warming being forced by human-induced carbon dioxide pollution caused by the burni
Re: (Score:2)
I just checked and it's up to 405 now.
If it can (Score:4, Insightful)
Too Simplistic (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an overly simplistic analysis. We wouldn't have the severe ecological problems we have today if it were not for advanced technology. While earlier civilizations had, sometimes locally catastrophic, impacts on the environment they were never anywhere close to drastically altering the overall carbon budget or nitrogen budget of the biosphere as we are today. Nor did they pose anything like the challenges represented by biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.
While its not crazy to suggest that technical progress can solve many of the issues we have today, FUNDAMENTALLY the problems aren't technical or scientific and so these kinds of solutions can have but a limited impact. Its MORE reasonable to imagine that the march of technology will present ever greater challenges and that the pace of these challenges will increase, whilst our ability to advance socially and morally has not really changed at all (I think there is such progress, but it is fundamentally unaffected by technology).
Thus it would be far more rational to argue that we are increasingly losing control of our impact on the world and that these conditions are likely to spiral out of control, or else be replaced with even MORE intractable problems we may not even be fully capable of imagining today. People 200 years ago couldn't even really imagine air pollution or global warming for example.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
--Albert Einstein
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too Simplistic (Score:5, Insightful)
FUNDAMENTALLY the problems aren't technical or scientific
Nonsense. Technology is the solution, and it is the ONLY solution. People are not going to accept lower living standards, nor are billions of people in the 3rd World even going to accept staying at their current level. So we need to find ways for people to live better lives with less energy, and that energy can't be carbon based.
Better solar panels, better batteries, better wind turbines, better lighting, better cars, better telecommuting and telepresence infrastructure, better transport systems, better delivery services, better structural materials. We need all of these things, and we are making progress. This is happening because of science and engineering.
Nerds will save the world, not politicians.
Re: (Score:2)
Nerds will save the world
Only if Nerds manage to reverse population growth.
Re: (Score:2)
That can be achieved without Nerds. All you need is a big enough war...
Re:Too Simplistic (Score:5, Interesting)
That can be achieved without Nerds. All you need is a big enough war...
Wars tend to increase population growth. The highest birthrate in the world is in Niger, followed by Somalia and Mali. The highest birthrate outside of Africa is Afghanistan.
What do all these countries have in common? Answer: Civil war.
When people feel insecure about their children surviving, then tend to hedge their bets by having more and investing fewer resources in each child.
Reduced population growth results in less global warming. So one of the best remedies for AGW is peacekeeping operations, vaccinations, nutritional supplements, and wells for clean water, which all reduce infant and child mortality, and encourage people to have fewer kids.
Re: (Score:2)
"When people feel insecure about their children surviving, then tend to hedge their bets by having more and investing fewer resources in each child."
Gotta say this is bullshit. It happens in nature but these places and populations are far from natural.
The reality is that we, Republican America, pay them to have more children. We send aid to these countries contingent upon their NOT using birth control, NOT allowing abortions, NOT educating citizens about family planning. If they distribute condoms, they los
Re: (Score:2)
War does mean lots of people die
No it doesn't. Since 2001, there have been roughly 100,000 killed in Afghanistan. That is less than 0.5% of the population. The other wars are even less intense. These are sputtering insurgencies, not armies fighting set piece battles. That is only happening in Syria.
Re: (Score:2)
Nerds, for some values of "nerd" actually do change population growth trends. There is a direct correlation between smaller families and economic growth. There are plenty of examples, but a quick search led me to this: https://www.livescience.com/43... [livescience.com]
According to most census estimates, an American woman had on average seven to eight children in 1800. By 1900 the number dropped to about 3.5. That has fallen to slightly more than two today.
It is also worth considering that technology allows people to live in higher density. If the entire population of the world were to live in one area at the same density as people do in New York, then the entire world population could live in a space the size
Re: (Score:2)
Nerds will save the world
Only if Nerds manage to reverse population growth.
What population growth? What we keep fearing would be exponential growth whenever people feel the need to replace a population lost to war always turns into an S-curve, flattening out with industrial prosperity. The US is at zero native growth. So is Europe, and so are the wealthy parts of Asia, most recently China.
High population growth persists in places where people are too poor to feed themselves, which is a self-limiting problem. When Western liberal activists convinced Zambia to reject food aid becaus
Re: (Score:3)
No, the problems are social and political. Case in point, immunizations. We have the technology, yet there is a social issue as we have anti-vexers. That is nerds always lose.
Re: (Score:2)
Case in point, immunizations. We have the technology, yet there is a social issue as we have anti-vexers.
The anti-vaxers are a fringe group that are having near zero effect on worldwide vaccination rates.
Same with climate change deniers. They make noise, but have little effect on progress. Red states are way ahead of blue on alternative energy (excluding hydro).
The horns of the dilemma (Score:2)
And you have stated the other hand. Now, in the gripping hand, its inevitable that we will do something bad to ourselves, so where exactly is the out? One one hand technological progress is vital, and on the other it dooms us utterly.
Again, the solution MUST BE social and 'spiritual' in nature. Mankind, as constituted, cannot simply continue to 'progress'. We either grow up, or we die. There ARE no other choices.
Re: (Score:2)
the solution MUST BE social and 'spiritual' in nature.
When has "spiritualism" ever solved a problem?
99% of progress comes from nerds. Even the social changes are driven by technology. We abolished slavery and child labor because steam engines and automation replaced their labor and gave us enough prosperity without them.
Re: (Score:2)
During the time of the steam engines child labour was extremely common, in Europe.
When I say 'spiritual' (Score:2)
I do not mean 'hand wavy new age mumbo-jumbo'. I mean moral maturity and what are truly defined by the words 'virtue' and 'wisdom' in their most fundamental forms. Not the laughable pap sold to the masses by cheap preachermen, but a real deep and abiding thoughtfulness.
You may call this impossible, and who will really refute that judgment, but to do so is to declare the issue of humanity's future closed, and not in a good way.
Re: (Score:2)
Technology is important, very important, but it is not the *only* solution. Resources other than solar PV, wind, hydro and some other geo-based sources are finite in our timeframe, even if we find better and more efficient ways to exploit them (as we should).
Better education, ESPECIALLY for girls and women, will make a big difference.
"You don't need to have 8 children, or even birth 8 babies, to have a decent life."
Of course, using technology to deliver that education is important, too.
Getting 3rd-world pop
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, "3rd-world" isn't quite what I meant to say - it's a bit stupid to refer to some developing nations as "3rd-world". I hope you know what I mean.
Re:Too Simplistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Since 1970, when the Environmental Protection Agency was established, the United States has slashed its emissions of five air pollutants by almost two-thirds. Over the same period, the population grew by more than 40 percent, and those people drove twice as many miles and became two and a half times richer. Energy use has leveled off, and even carbon dioxide emissions have turned a corner."
How much pollution and CO2 emissions have been exported during this same period via globalization?
Re: (Score:2)
How much pollution and CO2 emissions have been exported during this same period via globalization?
Not much. Most CO2 emissions come from cars and electricity generation for residential use. Industrial emissions peaked at about 10%.
Re: (Score:2)
While earlier civilizations had, sometimes locally catastrophic, impacts on the environment they were never anywhere close to drastically altering the overall carbon budget or nitrogen budget of the biosphere as we are today. Nor did they pose anything like the challenges represented by biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.
The only thing earlier civilisations had going for them was their small numbers. It was not technology that deforested Easter Island; it was people armed with nothing more than primitive hand axes. The only reason people didn't do so much damage in earlier times was because there just weren't enough of them to do any signicant damage.
Re: (Score:2)
But it was primitive agricultural tech, supported only be primitive manufacturing, materials, etc. which fundamentally created those population limits (along with a lack of sanitation and the technology to achieve that). It is telling that the greatest ecological catastrophes were the result of high population densities. Iraq was once a fertile land, but is now mostly desert. Once populations reach a certain level, bad things happen. Technology, particularly in its modern form, is quite good at generating t
Re: (Score:2)
" People 200 years ago couldn't even really imagine air pollution"
Oh, yes they could.
https://www.londonair.org.uk/L... [londonair.org.uk]
Human activities' effects on ecology isn't new at all. Swathes of forests were clear-felled from medieval times onward - for farmland mostly, but also ship-building. We've been on this path for a long time. I'll grant ignorance to my forbears, up until the industrial revolution. Surely someone saw all that smoke, the industrial air and water pollution and thought "Maybe that's not a good thi
Re: (Score:2)
They never believed it could be a general problem which would threaten all people. They never imagined that ALL THE FORESTS OF THE EARTH could be stripped away; yet in 100 years that will be the case, no forest will remain. No, they could not imagine such a future. Nor is it likely we can really imagine the future which awaits us either, that arises from the path we are on. Good or bad, it is largely beyond our experience or appreciation.
We can fall back on basic wisdom though, "waste not, want not" and kee
How is that a question? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do people really believe that everyone else is going to adopt some great downsizing to yurts and kale? It's not going to happen folks. Grow up. If climate change get addressed it will be through the creation of cheaper, cleaner alternatives. Nothing else is feasible. It never was.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, perhaps you could look at financial incentives to encourage people to stop building houses that vastly exceed their needs.
Yurts and Kale, no - but stop building McMansions. There's an environmental cost to all of that construction, let alone the ongoing costs to provide heating and cooling.
Answer every question the same! (Score:2)
Maybe.
Re: (Score:2)
Is psychology a science? Then definitely maybe.
He knows jack shit (Score:5, Insightful)
He has no clue about the complexities of the environment. We already have unleashed diseases by accident when we modified the environment, AIDS and ebola are examples.
Only cataclysmic? Gee that makes me feel better. Obviously he is assuming he and/ children and/or grandchildren will survive. I always get a kick out of zombie flick fans. They always ID with the survivors, no one ever goes "See puss filled zombie #3? That's me! I really want to be a puss filled zombie."
Now FTFA:
"Simply moving water where it’s needed will continue as the mainstay of water management. Here California is the leader. The California Aqueduct, running 400 miles up and down mountain ranges to take water from the wetter north to the drier south, is just part of a colossal irrigation system that has made the state’s arid landscape an agricultural powerhouse. "
I hope he realizes that climate change will destroy both this source and the Colorado River as a source of water as snow pack shrinks over the years. CA won't be the only place. The man is clueless.
He also cites huge infrastructure which costs billions to maintain. Not economically efficient.
FTFA:
"Meanwhile, countervailing developments that increase yields will outrun the effects of climate change and dramatically raise farm output. "
not without water.
FTFA:
"less mechanized farms could set up battery-powered tents with AC and cold water to cool over-heated laborers."
1) you need water which is disappearing. 2) most farms are too large to cover entire crops. You are talking about building green houses. As any green house operator how much effort it takes to keep blights and infestations out of green houses.
FTFA:
"But as apocalyptic as it seems, sea-rise poses little risk to human well-being. " Ask New Orleans how that's working out for them.
FTFA:
"Anti-fracking movements would make gas-fired electricity, indispensable for balancing wind and solar, scarcer and more expensive than it needs to be. The green jihad against nuclear power, a safe and generally cheap source of reliable low-carbon energy, is especially counterproductive. "
I think I know where he gets his money.
Re: (Score:2)
> "But as apocalyptic as it seems, sea-rise poses little risk to human well-being. " Ask New Orleans how that's working out for them.
This one sticks out as intentionally misleading. You actually highlighted that it's a local problem and not a problem for humanity, reinforcing the premise.
How to fix your sig: s/Often/Always/ (Score:2)
If sea levels rise everywhere, then it's hardly local any more, is it? Even if it happens gradually, the people from the lowlands are going to migrate to higher ground. The slight problem with that is that there are already people there and they might not like it.
Re:He knows jack shit (Score:4, Insightful)
He has no clue about the complexities of the environment. We already have unleashed diseases by accident when we modified the environment, AIDS and ebola are examples.
AIDS probably jumped from monkeys to humans when people were eating bushmeat. Ebola was probably transmitted from bats. Neither event has anything to do with modifying the environment.
The green jihad against nuclear power, a safe and generally cheap source of reliable low-carbon energy, is especially counterproductive.
This is true, you know. We could solve our energy problems effectively, cheaply, and without huge cost to our landscape. If we were to replace all of our existing coal powered reactors by modern, reliable nuclear reactors, the world would be far better off. Moreover, abundant energy would make it possible to desalinate water on a very large scale as well.
Is there a risk? Yes, there is a risk. Is the risk beyond our ability to contain? No, it isn't. Safe, modern reactor designs exist. By and large we don't need the ability to create plutonium for nuclear weapons; most countries would be well-served by thorium reactors that produce far less radioactivity, and simply fizzle out in case of accident. And the only reason we aren't doing that is because of constant, utterly unnecessary scaremongering from so-called 'green groups'. Funny name, that: by opposing further development of safe nuclear energy they have probably done more to harm the environment than any other group on the planet...
Re:He knows jack shit (Score:4, Interesting)
The green jihad against nuclear power, a safe and generally cheap source of reliable low-carbon energy, is especially counterproductive.
This is true, you know. We could solve our energy problems effectively, cheaply, and without huge cost to our landscape. If we were to replace all of our existing coal powered reactors by modern, reliable nuclear reactors, the world would be far better off. Moreover, abundant energy would make it possible to desalinate water on a very large scale as well.
Is there a risk? Yes, there is a risk. Is the risk beyond our ability to contain? No, it isn't. Safe, modern reactor designs exist. By and large we don't need the ability to create plutonium for nuclear weapons; most countries would be well-served by thorium reactors that produce far less radioactivity, and simply fizzle out in case of accident. And the only reason we aren't doing that is because of constant, utterly unnecessary scaremongering from so-called 'green groups'. Funny name, that: by opposing further development of safe nuclear energy they have probably done more to harm the environment than any other group on the planet...
I beg to agree but only technically. I am confident that with proper engineering, design and manageme... Oh fuck. That's the problem right there. It is ALWAYS management, isn't it? Answering my own rhetorical question: It is indeed. The problem with any technology is not the technology, it's the rabid greed-soaked fuckheads that "manage" it. And they have an essentially perfect record of going on the cheap now and fuck the future or anyone that is not empowered to hold their balls to the fire.
So I'll disagree: The greenies, the hippies, all those SJWs have had it with shitheads fucking over the lives of anyone not in their god damned club. And the result is the sort of irresposibility that sets rivers on fire. And kills children. I am old enough to remember the Cuyahoga river, my father took a clean shirt to change into over lunch (Pittsburgh) and was given dogtags in second grade (Pittsburgh being a first or second strike target), largely because people with power are sick fucks who could not give one good goddamn about the people in their countries.
Nuclear could be safe. But not in their hands. And they are very grabby.
Re: (Score:2)
Caifornia will have no choice but to end run around its drought by desalinating city water. Without the massive offtake of 14 million Angelenos, there is plenty of water in the Colorado for inland users. Arizona will gladly supply the nuclear energy that so much desalination will require.
Re:He knows jack shit - you know less. (Score:2)
The Katrina example is great: Arou
Re: (Score:3)
How much will it cost? My argument is we will never be able to desalinate enough water to meet even CAs needs. If we had the capability, we would be building huge plants to do so right now. We can only serve 300 million people at this time, maximum. While not a small number the effort would be very expensive in terms of energy, infrastructure, and money. In addition you would be changing the chemical balance of the water meaning you may have to rebuild water delivery delivery systems, as distilled water h
Re: (Score:2)
links http://america.aljazeera.com/a... [aljazeera.com]
http://www.newsweek.com/climat... [newsweek.com]
there are more.
it has already started to address the problem (Score:3)
Post on his site too. (Score:2)
Follow the link and post comments. Go right to the source.
Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is actually applying Science and Engineering to the situation. So far, the human race has managed to do basically nothing since the problem is known, which it has been for a few decades. Instead, most effort was channeled into denial and quite a few people still do that as their problem solving strategy. With that track record, I am not hopeful. When the effects become impossible to ignore, the problem may be too large so that the human race is completely incapable of dealing with it.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps, but tampering with a sufficiently advanced system with an insufficient amount of information normally does not lead to good things.
Re: (Score:3)
If you put a democratic vote to a sufficiently high carbon tax to actually make a dent (and not just create a giant corrupt machine full of perverse incentives which does nothing of consequence) the vote would be no. No campaign contributors needed. If we had electricity storage tech worth a damn we could accelerate a bit away from fossil fuels, but as it stands it's just not an option without a massive drop in standard of living ... it's not going to happen.
Either technology saves us, reality massively und
The Answer is in the Math (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer is yes and math will get you there.
Math is the foundation of the other sciences so they to come into play.
I built a house for about $7,000 in materials that does not require artificial heating nor cooling. We live in a cold climate so the heating end of the season is the more challenging one here in the central mountains of northern Vermont.
The same technology can be applied to keep houses cool in hot climates. It is based on thermodynamics, large thermal mass built into the structure of the house, good but not fantastic insulation, no fancy 'smart-home' electronic gadgets. I just works. It floats down into the 40's or 50's F in the winter so put on a sweater or alternatively light a very small fire. 0.75 cord of wood keeps the house toasty warm all through long winter when it my be below -25ÂF for extended periods and some periods to -45ÂF with high winds.
Yet all of this technology is solid state, easy for the average Jane or Joe to build without even a complete high school education. Doing the design does take a lot more skill with math but here are people like myself who do it for fun and freely share their results.
I built my house, called my tiny cottage where I've been living for over a decade with a family of two adults and three kids. It worked. We loved it. As a nice bonus the town assesses the value of the house very low so our real estate taxes are low.
Low cost of construction.
Low maintenance costs.
Low operating costs (electric, other fuels).
Long life (figure 400 to 1,000 year life span for building)
Beautiful interior and exterior designs.
We use masonry, stone, concrete generally from local sources These are materials that are beautiful, durable and last hundreds to thousands of years.
After the cottage came our on-farm USDA/State inspected butcher shop or meat processing facility as they call them in the lingo.
People told me we crazy to try build our own on-farm butcher shop. But it's doable. It's been done. And now we've one it once more with a super lower energy efficient design and operation. Our butcher shop is about 40' x 35' x roughly two stores or 25' high.
Currently we have on-farm progressing which is paying our bill and generating additional need to fund the research and construction of the next step. It is very much a boot strap projected. We keep building bigger boots.
It's repeatable. Every family could be building a low cost, low resource, low maintenance, long lived home. This would save trillions of dollars and the associated energy and reduction in pollution.
This week I just got informed that our on-farm Vermont state inspected meat processing facility has passed the USDA head of regional operations Walk Through. Normally they find problems that you must then fix and get rescheduled with them to come back to review the fixes. To our surprise and delight we obtained a score of 100% right! We aced the test. Now we'll be upgrading from doing Vermont State inspection to USDA inspection in about two weeks to a month. Pretty wild!!!
We got there with perseverance and math.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are large 3d printers actually being used experimentally to churn out single family homes for ~4k right now, so in some ways this idea is not that impractical at all. A good base design around the specific climate/location needs could do much as well, and could be built right into the structure itself as its being printed, whether explicit air gaps to insulate, well placed vents based on modelled airflow, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
See this for our house:
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/cottag... [sugarmtnfarm.com]
and this for the butcher shop:
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/butche... [sugarmtnfarm.com]
Neither is a kit plan but rather many articles discussing the various aspects. There are floor plans in some of the articles. The exact floor plan is less relevant than the basic concept: put a large mass inside an envelope and control how the natural environment heats and cools it in a relatively passive manner.
Can't Even Ask A Proper Question (Score:3, Interesting)
The question isn't can science address the mechanisms of climate, of course it can.
The question is will people who have their incomes and careers bound up in advocating for particular results actually do science
Re:Can't Even Ask A Proper Question (Score:4, Insightful)
The question isn't can science address the mechanisms of climate, of course it can.
The question is will people who have their incomes and careers bound up in advocating for particular results actually do science
The climate scientists I know would much rather climate change wasn't happening.
One of the issues that many climate change research groups face is financial institutions offering those skilled with large models and how to run them on large computers much higher salaries than a climate research organisation can offer. Many stay in climate science despite this, though.
Pay No Mind List (Score:3)
Just for the record here, Steven Pinker is a psychologist. He's making pronouncements on science.
That's rich.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember when the Scientific American used to publish articles about science.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, me too.
Try https://quantamagazine.org/ [quantamagazine.org] for some nice reading. Interestingly, they are supported by a Foundation that largely depends on contributions, and are not profit-making.
Science did its job in the 1970's and 1980's. (Score:5, Insightful)
It has always been a political solution since then. We just have to decide to act.
Only Climate Change? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me we are producing an enormous volume of environmental damage in plenty of other ways as well. Consider the sheer scope of industrial activity on our planet, just the list is huge.
If you then you consider the impact of each industrial activity, like the amount of plastics that end up in the seas, or the environmental impact of CRTs becoming obsolete, or even planned obsolescence as an example and the whole discussion about Climate Change and the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is just a part of the larger argument about the sheer amount of waste that this consumer economy creates. Carbon is one externality, not all externalities.
It's difficult to escape the very nature of media is used to create this false reality of ourselves and sell it back to us. The consequence of believing this false reality is it triggers behaviors in us that cause us to consume. How much carbon does our consumer economy drive into the atmosphere just powering unnecessary consumption, let alone the waste stream it created.
I think advertisements try to mold me into an "individual" with desires to buy buy buy. I just look to the waste and crap in my own life that I can't avoid making just interacting with our civilization and I wonder if it is right to suggest that maybe this is the consequence of the human mind being manipulated by advertising in the western world for 50 years or more?
Seems to me we're trapped in this never ending quest for the production of more items by having out unconscious desires manipulated and that's what's destroying the planet.
Maybe the science isn't just about the planet, maybe it's also about us?
Re: (Score:2)
The planet is fine. No matter what we do, the planet is likely to be here for millions, probably billions of years. (Approximately 7.5 billion [wikipedia.org] to be inexact.) I know that's not what you meant, but maybe be a little more exact with your language.
Actually I agree with the ideas you're presenting, but I have trouble imagining all the ways we can get from where we are a species to where we survive as a species in a thousand years. Changing people is hard. Changing technology, well that seems to happen daily. Th
Probably not (Score:4, Interesting)
If we can't terraform earth, (Score:2)
How can we even talk about doing it on mars? Might as well get earth back firmly in the perfect zone to lock down the tech for playing with other planets. Good ol foundational tech.
science already gave an answer. You refuse it. (Score:2)
The real question is (Score:2)
Can you make actually combating the climate change profitable?
The best i think would be a huge monopolistic megacorporation that lives off having a franchise of repair shops that can repair pretty much everything, thus lowering the demand for new devices and products.
Tall that to the dinosaurs (Score:2)
"We can overcome any new problem with dinosaurology, because it has always helped us overcome problems in the past. Oh wait ... whats is that flaming thing I see on the sky ..."
Thoughts and prayers (Score:2)
work magic, I hear.
Technology (Score:2)
It's the acting arm of science.
Mainstream, rebranded (Score:2)
What these guys are talking about essentially sounds like the mainstream proposed solutions to climate change. Congrats on reinventing what the scientific community has been saying since forever! Their ideas seem to be a response to the right-wing false dichotomy of technology/scientific progress vs. climate change mitigation (AKA "we'll all have to live in mud huts to stop climate change!") rather than any real problem.
Re: (Score:2)
He cites this guy. http://progressandperil.com/20... [progressandperil.com]
Doesn't sound rational to me.
Pinker nails it! (Score:2)
The reason for much "denialism" on climate is not because all the skeptics are oil investors. After all, investors trade, switching at any given time to whatever technologies are doing well. It's because climate activists insist that their favored brand of apocalyptic nonsense is the only response to the problem.
Just like all the other environmental problems we have ever faced: plague, urban smoke, deforestation, overpopulation, resource depletion, unsustainable farm practices - the science that is detectin
No Way ! (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: Yes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That won't work. How about:
1) Select sperm from genetically healthy males.
2) Slaughter all males
3) Ration out the sperm
4) Male children will be allowed to reach puberty after which they get slaughtered. Some of them might ave their sperm saved
5) Compost the males bodies.
Fewer humans, more food! A win-win! /s
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like fun, but remember, it's the females who get pregnant, not the males. Why leave things up to chance?
Re: (Score:2)
It's my plan. I would make sure I wasn't slaughtered. Then as the last man on earth I might finally get a date :)
Re: (Score:2)
I approve of this plan.
Re: (Score:2)
Come on! Don't be posting the secret plan on a public forum! At least when it was a Penthouse story, they made it so that men could imagine themselves as one of the select lucky few.
It actually reminds me of the form used to explain why nobody's plan to fix spam email would work. I don't know where to find a copy to satirize, but it feels like a very similar situation. There are a hundred reasons why population control won't ever be a viable solution, just as technical solutions to email spam were never goi
Re: (Score:2)
didn't you catch /s ?
The universal sarcasm marker?
Re: (Score:2)
The limiting factor to growth is not sperm availability. A single man easily generates enough sperm to impregnate countless women if distributed evenly.
Talk about this not being news for nerds...
Re: (Score:2)
This was Pol Pot's solution. Look how successful it was!
Re: (Score:2)
This kills the human race.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
"Ecology... Nature is only model we have that has survived climate change with shear, total, utter, neglect..." @RestorationAgD http://bit.ly/1ohVqpE [bit.ly]
Certainly, but the results can at times not be very conducive for the species causing the changes. For instance today we have the popular hypothesis put forward by the crowd that claims exponentially increasing CO2 will quickly do in geologic time to the permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere is a wonderful outcome of climate change. Whether or not this rapid change can very quickly be turned into habitable and arable land is highly dubious.
This crowd thinks nothing of buying a Dodge Ram Diesel and chipping
Re: (Score:2)
Not to put a fine point on it... Truth Hating Freaks breed. And unfortunately, the evolutionary definition of fitness is about reproduction, not quality of life.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that these "Ecomodernist" are lying about what their "solutions" can achieve. They are basically a false-flag operation. I am pointing that out. You , on the other hand, are regurgitating propaganda.