4 ms·

One thing I never see addressed with all the talk about climate change: Let's say we managed to cease our CO2 production, even reverse the current man-made war

by xienze 9y ago

One thing I never see addressed with all the talk about climate change: Let's say we managed to cease our CO2 production, even reverse the current man-made warming trend (save me the "impossible hypothetical scenario" talk, substitute in whatever values of "cease" we would have accomplished with the Paris Agreement, whatever). Eventually, the earth is going to warm significantly without the aid of mankind. What are we supposed to do about that? Global warming is an eventuality, and no amount of carbon taxes that apply to a certain set of countries and not to others is going to change that. So someone enlighten me, what's the long, long-term view plan for global warming?

yks 9y ago
Postpone immediate danger until we're sufficiently technologically advanced to deal with other issues? Or, in other words, build MVP first instead of starting the heavy project which ultimately cannot be finished by the deadline.
- xienze 9y ago
  Well I mean give me a taste here, what technology are we talking about that will keep the earth's climate stable in the face of natural warming and cooling periods that have occurred throughout its existence?
  - yks 9y ago
    For one, thermonuclear fusion can give us much cheaper and cleaner ability to cool down/warm up our habitats.
  - prawn 9y ago
    In the short to medium term, improvements in energy/battery technology that would help maintain habitations and agriculture in areas that would otherwise become problematic. It will take time for that to reach poor/remote areas of the world and limit migration issues we've already seen.
angrydev 9y ago
Your strawman is showing
- xienze 9y ago
  Which would be what? The fact that the earth goes through natural warming and cooling periods?
  - btmiller 9y ago
    We're talking about the difference between linear fluctuations and order-of-magnitude changes. For visual aid, please refer to this relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
  - sethrin 9y ago
    Is there anything in particular about climate science that you need help understanding?
stevenleeg 9y ago
> Eventually, the earth is going to warm significantly without the aid of mankind What exactly are you referring to here? The sun expanding and becoming hotter as it ages? If so we're talking about the timeline of a few billion years. Climate change is something that has already begun to affect us and will continue to worsen over the course of the next few decades, which makes this issue far more pressing than whatever "natural warming" you're referring to.
- cderwin 9y ago
  No, he or she was just observing that natural warming/cooling moves pretty randomly, and even if we can null out the human effect on it, we need to be able to withstand a dramatic change in global temperature.
  - prawn 9y ago
    Are you sure it's random? I think there have been reasonably regular cycles through history? e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
- xienze 9y ago
  No, the fact that the earth goes in and out of ice ages. That is not something that occurs on the order of billions of years.
  - stevenleeg 9y ago
    Sure, but those kinds of changes happen on the order of thousands of years. The climate change we're talking about preventing is something that, again, will affect us now and even moreso in the coming /decades/ due to anthropological causes. Frankly, if we're going to die out because of "natural cycles" so be it. I just don't want our species to die out because of something we could have prevented by being less selfish/exploitative.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  Our species will go extinct someday no matter what we do. I'd prefer it doesn't happen in mine or my children's lifetimes.
brianpgordon 9y ago
Eventually, maybe. But the Earth's temperature doesn't fluctuate that much naturally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Vari... By the time global warming is unstoppable hopefully we'll have the technology to mitigate its effects on humans.
jmts 9y ago
This is a reasonable question, though tangential to the original article so you're going to find some criticism among those who miss the nuance. I assume you're not making an argument against climate change being an issue, but asking a related question. By my understanding the natural cycles in climate that you refer to occur in hundreds of thousands of years time scales, and we know a reasonable amount about them with regards to Milankovitch cycles, but there are other factors like solar cycles that can influence climate that still add some uncertainty. How we might go about cooling the earth or whether we even need to in response to a natural warming cycle may be entirely different to our response now, because of this difference in time scales. Over hundreds of thousands of years, populated areas that would be affected by rising sea levels are likely to be rebuilt many times. Any increase in sea levels is likely to be accounted for in this naturally, and such issues may never arise in large enough cities. Other places that cannot be built up will likely be abandoned and eroded by the sea over time, with abandonment not unusual for localities that are deemed no longer habitable or economically feasible. As far as cooling the earth if it is necessary, I expect that we will be looking toward space exploration to help us here. Any science toward terraforming other planets will help, so colonizing Mars may be a useful near-term goal. I assume technologies to control the heat retained by the planet would be important, either by reflecting solar radiation before it reaches our atmosphere, or by controlling the levels of greenhouse gases. If we had the technology now, we could essentially do the same thing, however we don't, and won't. The difference in time scale involved here is the main point. Man-made climate change is occuring on a time scale that our current technology has no ability to counter directly, and this has huge ramifications on short time scales economically, and for the quality of life for coming generations. Natural climate change occurs on a much longer time scale, so any economic impacts are likely to be amortized across the duration of the change and will probably end up in the noise, with technology likely to be able to keep up if we are intelligent about managing our own contributions.
tshadley 9y ago
> Eventually, the earth is going to warm significantly without the aid of mankind. What are we supposed to do about that? Are you talking about Milankovitch cycles? We're about 10,000 years past the warmest point of the last cycle so, absent anthropogenic warming, we should be cooling for a few more thousand years. Then an ice age would last for around 80-90 thousand years, followed by another 10-20 thousand year warm period. http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/... So you're basically asking about the next warming period expected roughly 100,000 years from now? What are we supposed to do about that?
sndean 9y ago
I mean, there are some predictions like this [0], but I don't know how credible they are. It is true though, that a transient spike or dip in temperature could cause famine, and the like. The Little Ice Age and other similar natural oddities are evidence of that. Not sure how well we'll deal with that. [0] http://www.wired.co.uk/article/mini-ice-age-earth-sunspots http://www.wired.co.uk/article/mini-ice-age-earth-sunspots
InclinedPlane 9y ago
These are different categories of problems. The problem with climate change is that it might overwhelm our ability to solve it in the "short term" where "short term" is defined as on the scale of a few generations to a century. In the long term humanity will, if trends continue, be so incredibly wealthy and technologically advanced that we'll be able to tackle problems like CO2 in the atmosphere a lot easier. We'll be able to seriously consider remediation efforts (deciding what the ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere we want is and then making that happen). We'll be more able to respond to climate change by moving our cities, changing our food production strategies, and so forth. That's pretty much guaranteed as long as humanity continues advancing technologically. But we're not there yet. Much of the world is still impoverished and developing. And there's a great potential for vast human misery. The point of these efforts is to give ourselves enough time to not get completely screwed by climate change before we have the power to deal with it more easily.

by xienze 9y ago

yks 9y ago

Postpone immediate danger until we're sufficiently technologically advanced to deal with other issues? Or, in other words, build MVP first instead of starting the heavy project which ultimately cannot be finished by the deadline.

xienze 9y ago
Well I mean give me a taste here, what technology are we talking about that will keep the earth's climate stable in the face of natural warming and cooling periods that have occurred throughout its existence?
- yks 9y ago
  For one, thermonuclear fusion can give us much cheaper and cleaner ability to cool down/warm up our habitats.
- prawn 9y ago
  In the short to medium term, improvements in energy/battery technology that would help maintain habitations and agriculture in areas that would otherwise become problematic. It will take time for that to reach poor/remote areas of the world and limit migration issues we've already seen.

angrydev 9y ago

Your strawman is showing

xienze 9y ago
Which would be what? The fact that the earth goes through natural warming and cooling periods?
- btmiller 9y ago
  We're talking about the difference between linear fluctuations and order-of-magnitude changes. For visual aid, please refer to this relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- sethrin 9y ago
  Is there anything in particular about climate science that you need help understanding?

stevenleeg 9y ago

> Eventually, the earth is going to warm significantly without the aid of mankind What exactly are you referring to here? The sun expanding and becoming hotter as it ages? If so we're talking about the timeline of a few billion years. Climate change is something that has already begun to affect us and will continue to worsen over the course of the next few decades, which makes this issue far more pressing than whatever "natural warming" you're referring to.

cderwin 9y ago
No, he or she was just observing that natural warming/cooling moves pretty randomly, and even if we can null out the human effect on it, we need to be able to withstand a dramatic change in global temperature.
- prawn 9y ago
  Are you sure it's random? I think there have been reasonably regular cycles through history? e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
xienze 9y ago
No, the fact that the earth goes in and out of ice ages. That is not something that occurs on the order of billions of years.
- stevenleeg 9y ago
  Sure, but those kinds of changes happen on the order of thousands of years. The climate change we're talking about preventing is something that, again, will affect us now and even moreso in the coming /decades/ due to anthropological causes. Frankly, if we're going to die out because of "natural cycles" so be it. I just don't want our species to die out because of something we could have prevented by being less selfish/exploitative.
umanwizard 9y ago
Our species will go extinct someday no matter what we do. I'd prefer it doesn't happen in mine or my children's lifetimes.

brianpgordon 9y ago

Eventually, maybe. But the Earth's temperature doesn't fluctuate that much naturally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Vari... By the time global warming is unstoppable hopefully we'll have the technology to mitigate its effects on humans.

jmts 9y ago

This is a reasonable question, though tangential to the original article so you're going to find some criticism among those who miss the nuance. I assume you're not making an argument against climate change being an issue, but asking a related question. By my understanding the natural cycles in climate that you refer to occur in hundreds of thousands of years time scales, and we know a reasonable amount about them with regards to Milankovitch cycles, but there are other factors like solar cycles that can influence climate that still add some uncertainty. How we might go about cooling the earth or whether we even need to in response to a natural warming cycle may be entirely different to our response now, because of this difference in time scales. Over hundreds of thousands of years, populated areas that would be affected by rising sea levels are likely to be rebuilt many times. Any increase in sea levels is likely to be accounted for in this naturally, and such issues may never arise in large enough cities. Other places that cannot be built up will likely be abandoned and eroded by the sea over time, with abandonment not unusual for localities that are deemed no longer habitable or economically feasible. As far as cooling the earth if it is necessary, I expect that we will be looking toward space exploration to help us here. Any science toward terraforming other planets will help, so colonizing Mars may be a useful near-term goal. I assume technologies to control the heat retained by the planet would be important, either by reflecting solar radiation before it reaches our atmosphere, or by controlling the levels of greenhouse gases. If we had the technology now, we could essentially do the same thing, however we don't, and won't. The difference in time scale involved here is the main point. Man-made climate change is occuring on a time scale that our current technology has no ability to counter directly, and this has huge ramifications on short time scales economically, and for the quality of life for coming generations. Natural climate change occurs on a much longer time scale, so any economic impacts are likely to be amortized across the duration of the change and will probably end up in the noise, with technology likely to be able to keep up if we are intelligent about managing our own contributions.

tshadley 9y ago

> Eventually, the earth is going to warm significantly without the aid of mankind. What are we supposed to do about that? Are you talking about Milankovitch cycles? We're about 10,000 years past the warmest point of the last cycle so, absent anthropogenic warming, we should be cooling for a few more thousand years. Then an ice age would last for around 80-90 thousand years, followed by another 10-20 thousand year warm period. http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/... So you're basically asking about the next warming period expected roughly 100,000 years from now? What are we supposed to do about that?

sndean 9y ago

I mean, there are some predictions like this [0], but I don't know how credible they are. It is true though, that a transient spike or dip in temperature could cause famine, and the like. The Little Ice Age and other similar natural oddities are evidence of that. Not sure how well we'll deal with that. [0] http://www.wired.co.uk/article/mini-ice-age-earth-sunspots http://www.wired.co.uk/article/mini-ice-age-earth-sunspots

InclinedPlane 9y ago

These are different categories of problems. The problem with climate change is that it might overwhelm our ability to solve it in the "short term" where "short term" is defined as on the scale of a few generations to a century. In the long term humanity will, if trends continue, be so incredibly wealthy and technologically advanced that we'll be able to tackle problems like CO2 in the atmosphere a lot easier. We'll be able to seriously consider remediation efforts (deciding what the ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere we want is and then making that happen). We'll be more able to respond to climate change by moving our cities, changing our food production strategies, and so forth. That's pretty much guaranteed as long as humanity continues advancing technologically. But we're not there yet. Much of the world is still impoverished and developing. And there's a great potential for vast human misery. The point of these efforts is to give ourselves enough time to not get completely screwed by climate change before we have the power to deal with it more easily.