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I was thinking how you define brilliance. The problem with arguing such a complex topic is that in order to make a point you need to understand and take into yo
by 1gor 18y ago
I was thinking how you define brilliance. The problem with arguing such a complex topic is that in order to make a point you need to understand and take into your system the whole long chain of assumptions and conclusions that your opponent has made. Was your model right? Let me explain my model... Which is normally more than an average person is prepared for.
Hence, the power of the soundbite.
Freeman Dyson (and others quoted earlier on HN) however wins over the complexity not through unsubstantiated soundbite, but by arguing a simple logical point. CO2 is not a 'pollution' in itself. It's not an alien element on Earth. Plants put all of the carbon through their system 'every 12 years' on average. Plants are not alien. Forest fires and volcanic eruptions can produce carbon, and there is a ready system to 'digest' it. Plants.
That's something of a radical shift in the thinking. All that smoke from burning coal is not pollution???? Hm, taking the thesis to the extreme -- actually no. It's just taking one natural element from the soil and placing it in the atmosphere. Nature does exactly the same thing all the time (forest fires, eruptions etc.).
Obviously, even if we assume that increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is not a disaster, it may still be unpleasant because the change would affect the current status quo. Siberia will become fertile and Arkansas will turn into desert. This change should be prevented or at least managed. But not by the government austerity measures, but by gradual and natural means.
These simple ideas are powerful. They don't require complex arguing over whose weather model is better. Hopefully they will spread.
- khafra 18y agoThe way I understand it, the disastrous part is that we've been releasing millions of years worth of carbon all at once, by burning the fossil fuels that had sequestered it underground until now. Of course, this still presents the difficulty of deciding when and where to buy a hundred acres in Siberia to retire on.
- Tichy 18y agoI don't get the "natural" part of the argument. If I carve a spear out of wood and put it through your heart, it will still kill you, even though it is all natural. Clearly it is what you do with it that matters... I think earth has been terraformed by organisms several times, like there used to be not so much oxygen floating around? But I think the organisms that released the oxygen died after the terraforming. The same could happen to us... Not saying it will, just warning against some sort of Gaia theory that nature will fix everything to our benefit. Nature doesn't really care about us.
- stcredzero 18y agoHis point is that the CO2 is not pollution in the same way that plastic in the Pacific gyre or PCBs in Love Canal are pollution. The excess CO2 is like the water from a flood caused by humans. When you want to prevent floods, you need to find technologies and techniques that work with the laws of physics, natural systems, and economic forces. If you're going to build below sea level, what is the engineering required to compensate? Does the cost/benefit pan out? Likewise, if you're going to push the climate towards warming, what is the engineering required to compensate? Does the cost/benefit pan out? This is what Freeman Dyson and the authors he is reviewing are asking. Nature doesn't care about us. But we humans have harnessed nature. Dyson is suggesting that we could do that once again to get us out of the current predicament.
- Tichy 18y agoI understand the economics viewpoint, I just don't see how being natural makes a difference for CO2 compared to, say, plastic. Sooner or later there will probably be organisms that can "digest" plastics, too.
- stcredzero 18y agoSoon, there may well be bacteria that produce it. That would blur the lines a whole lot. The difference is in the fact that there's been a Carbon Cycle for ages, just like there's been a water cycle for ages. Hydroelectric dams use energy in the water cycle. Gravity driven irrigation canals do as well. The point is that there's already a natural system out there that's capable of capturing huge amounts of carbon.
- Tichy 18y agoSure, but ultimately it just boils down to "some miraculous future technology will fix it", biotech or whatever. I think I read recently that the plants that were turned into oil actually are from a time when there was no process in nature yet that could process the bound carbon (similar to plastics today). So it was never part of the natural cycle. I thought more about the proposed "super-carbon-harbouring trees", but really, how should that work? Any plant that does that would have to be more efficient than existing plants, meaning it would replace the natural plants. Dangerous game to play? (Those genetically engineered plants would definitely replace existing plants, if only because humans would plant massive amounts of them).