Bradley J. Fikes, again, courtesy of the Dr. Capt.
I’ve long accepted Bjorn Lomborg’s approach to global warming: He accepts the scientific evidence that man is involved, but opposes the hugely costly proposals to combat it. We have far more pressing problems that can be dealt with immediately, such as fighting malaria, for much less money than the astronomical sums it would take to roll back carbon emissions.
Lomborg also points out that the anti-global warming programs governments are mandating will only have marginal effects on reducing global warming, and these would take decades to have even such a slight effect.
Now that common sense is slowly percolating through the AGW community. Some mainstream scientists are considering the use of technology to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth. This is called “geoengineering”, and was long dismisssed by mainstream scientists as pie-in-the-sky, vastly expensive and unworkable.
The picture looks different today, after years of considering the pie-in-the-sky, vastly expensive and unworkable programs that are being imposed without much thought on America and other industrialized countries.
Science writer Chris Mooney discussed geoengineering in a Wired magazine article in 2007. One fascinating proposal is to pump particles into the stratosphere to block enough light to begin reducing global warming. The estimated cost: $1 billion a year. That is utterly trivial compared to the cost of current anti-global warming measures — not to mention our various ill-considered financial bailouts. So even AGW skeptics should welcome the proposal.
I’ve advocated geoengineering for years as the best way to deal with global warming. It’s nice to see some validation.
Another benefit is that if certain AGW skeptics are right and we are on the verge of a new Ice Age, we can use geoengineering to fight it. Just stop spraying particles into the stratosphere and start releasing as much carbon dioxide as possible.
Since our industrial society grew up in the current climate, it makes sense to keep it from changing too much. If geoengineering works, we’ll get a planetary thermostat.
Bradley, Yellowstone may solve the problem with another eruption. It is 40,000 years overdue. Big eruptions do quite well at cooling the planet
The problem with geoengineering is the sheer level of hubris involved. We do NOT understand climate. So dumping iron into the ocean to lead to carbon sequestering plankton blooms, or dusting the upper atmosphere….well….I sure hope that the modeling is correct.
Since we don’t know how those things work very well, ecologically and over the long term, I am very, very hesitant about it. The pro-AGW folks talk about unstable “tipping points” that could lead to extremely rapid and irreversible warming.
The reverse is just as likely.
What we do need to have are computer models that can be used to predict past actual conditions—versus, say, increasing carbon dioxide levels. A particular level of carbon dioxide should be related to a particular amount of warming. If, as we have been told, that carbon dioxide drives the process. Once such models work predictively (and they don’t, at present), we can make solid plans for the future…and think about how to alter our actions.
I have watched very alarmist comments from pro-AGW for years. Now, when the global climate is not cooperating with the dire predictions, there is a an awful lot of restatement of issues and reframing of arguments (like the “lack of any polar ice” predictions, for example).
Is global warming happening? Maybe, though it is a hypercomplex situation that—sorry to repeat myself—cannot be accurately modeled. And the last two years…well…have not fit the narrative. Is there more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Yep.
Me? I think we need to push for more nuclear. It’s better all around. And anyone who is interested in Kyoto style agreements (and that isn’t you, Bradley, I know) ought to ask how the signatories to the Kyoto accords have been doing.
Versus how we have done, without spending untold billions.
You see, I am very suspicious of all this, because Paul Ehrlich was one of my professors in graduate school. And I quickly learned that, despite all the fawning by the press, his concerns were purely political, and his limitations…well…did not apply to his own lifestyle.
Eric,
Thanks for that insight into Ehrlich, who I already knew to be wrong scientifically. So he’s also a hypocrite . . . not terribly surprising.
I hope you and Dr. Capt. Mike K. will agree at least that geoengineering as proposed would be far less disruptive to the economy than the current system of increasingly draconian carbon-cutback mandates. Those could all be repealed. I’d like to see more AGW skeptics advocate this as a much better alternative that could have a big payoff for a comparatively trivial sum of money.
I think we should build hundreds of nuclear power plants and spend a lot of Obama’s “infrastructure” money on the power grid, which is very shaky right now. It will definitely not accept a large shift to “plug-in” electric cars or hybrids with plug-in technology. One of the reasons why we had some problems with the early nuclear plants were that they were all one-off designs so each plant had a learning curve problem. The French have built many plants from a standard design and have had few problems.
That would do a lot to reduce coal use and might allow less gas use. Natural gas should be restricted to home heating use where it is superior. The price rise has been due to the use of gas power from electricity.
I think there may be a human factor in climate but I think it is 10,000 years old and due to agriculture. Ironically, agriculture is far more efficient now and forests are reclaiming large areas that were deforested by early farming. That human effect may decline and be offsetting the carbon effect from coal and oil.
To add to “Drill, baby, drill,” I would add: “Fission, baby, fission!”
That might give us some breathing room to fix our mess.
Oh, but what about nuclear wastes? Notice why and where the roadblocks to those problems are being set up, and by whom.
Pick your problems. And look, again (and it pains me) at France.
I’m agreeing with Eric here, I just flat out don’t like mucking around with the temperature on earth without having a proper understanding of the functions of long cycle heating and cooling, climate in general, the benefits of periodic cooling and heating, the benefits of extinction and climate change as well as the detraction. Computer models can’t accurately predict a season of hurricanes or even the precise path of a hurricane a day out. They certainly haven’t accurately predicted the certain heating of the earth the past few years. When my weather man can get the daily weather forecast correct for 20 years straight every single day without error, And he makes those predictions more than a year out, I will believe the models have achieved omniscience. Until then, and even then, they are way too flawed and inaccurate for me to believe that kind of control is possible and not excessively harmful.
Also, it shivers my bones to think of some UN bureaucrat having control over the dial of world temps. Like THAT’s not gonna lead to some professional level and deadly as all hell corruption scams. You think for one moment that some future Putin isn’t going to twiddle with temps to make more money, gain an empire, exact revenge? And, to be really honest, I don’t even trust me with that kind of control, I sure as hell don’t trust you and you and you and you….