6 ms·

A Guide to Climate Change

44 points by neilkakkar 7y ago

cpr 7y ago
Whenever random folks post dire climate change articles, I like to point to a somewhat less random engineer's take on things: https://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm https://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Why would an aerospace engineer have any particular insight into climate change moreso than any other random non-climate-science engineer? Burt might be one of the most famous aerospace engineers currently living, but that is mostly due to his aerobatic stunts, and not his knowledge of climate science. Personally, I think anthropogenic climate change is clearly happening, but I think the dire prognostications about our future is too much - I think we'll be just fine. So it appears I may agree with Mr Rutan, but I just don't see why his opinion is relevant to point out.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  From my five minute assessment, this is nonsense. I didn't flag it immediately because I wanted to give it the (remote) chance of being legitimate questioning of alarmist articles, but it's just the typical person denying the whole thing. Please don't spread this around. It's practically a conspiracy theory saying that all actual climate scientists are trying to get us to reduce CO2 for their own ends.
- lutorm 7y ago
  Whenever random folks post climate change articles, I like to point them to the official IPCC reports. ;-) The executive summary of the last assessment report is at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/. It's written for policymakers so it does not assume detailed technical knowledge. I have tremendous respect for Burt Rutan as an aerospace engineer, but on this topic I think he's completely off base.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That seems to be about as accurate and helpful as any random and unknown layperson's "insight" something they don't understand. Or multi Nobel winner Linus Pauling's entirely misplaced obsession with vitamins, spawning a multi-billion dollar but pointless industry. Why does this random aerospace engineer have any credibility on climate? What peer reviewed research has he on climate? How does knowing something about aerospace engineering provide insight on climate?
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    Well I don't like to dismiss someone based on the argument that they didn't study for it. Hackers of all people know how effective self education can be. But yeah, in this case, there is nothing that makes him more qualified than the large number of professionals he's disagreeing with.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      True, but then I'd hope to see something brought to the party a little more substantive than just shouting at the consensus. Maybe an attempt to show credibility, or humility if making a case for a previously undiscussed aspect or link etc.
- schott12521 7y ago
  Congrats on finding a scientist that is against climate change: >I put myself in the (Those who fear expansion of Government control) group, and do not hide the fact that I have a clear bias on Anthropogenic global warming (AGW). My bias is based on fear of Government expansion and the observation of AGW data presentation fraud – not based on financial or any other personal benefit. I merely have found that the closer you look at the data and alarmists’ presentations, the more fraud you find and the less you think there is an AGW problem... For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion – “if someone is aggressively selling a technical product whose merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying”. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.[1] You may not face the "dire climate change" but the future generations will. Or we can nitpick the studies and claim it as government fraud-- it's probably easier that way. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan#Anthropogenic_climate_change_skepticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan#Anthropogenic_clima...
- mhh__ 7y ago
  The physicist Richard Muller had similar doubts about global warming, so he took some money from climate deniers (allegedly) and founded Berkely Earth. They used - at least at the time - more data than anyone else, dating back to the 1700s. Surprise surprise they not only found that the temperature was rising with the so-called IPCC hockey stick, but also the correlation with CO2 was strong too. https://youtu.be/Sme8WQ4Wb5w https://youtu.be/Sme8WQ4Wb5w
kbutler 7y ago
Skimmed parts of it. Read this bit: """ Right now, we are at net positive emissions. Every year, we add more CO2 to the atmosphere. Even if we reach net zero emissions by 2050, we’ll keep adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere for 30 years. Thus, we’ll keep increasing the rate of heating. Even in 2050, the planet will continue heating up - faster than today, but at net zero, the rate will stabilise. Imagine a car on a super long path2 that ends in a cliff. We are pushing this car harder and harder, which makes the car keep going faster and faster. We will continue pushing for 30 years, and when we stop, the car will continue going at its current speed. This roughly translates to the car falling off the cliff. It doesn’t matter how long the path is, we will get to the cliff. """ This view that a given CO2 level determines a rate of global heating does not match any scientific view of the greenhouse effect of which I'm aware.
- lutorm 7y ago
  Yeah I got to that, too, and it's not correct. A given CO2 level basically determines the temperature at which the Earth will be in net radiative equilibrium between heating and cooling. The Earth can't simply continue heating up until the oceans boil and the rocks melt because the CO2 level has gone up a bit. That would only be possible in the presence of a very strong positive feedback loop that made the Earth better and better insulated the hotter it got, which would be unlike any other thermal system we know of. Edit: there are some positive feedback effects, like water vapor being a greenhouse gas, that will likely make the end result hotter than that expected based on the change in CO2 alone, but it will not lead to heating just continuing indefinitely.
  - nootka 7y ago
    Isn't there a bunch of methane trapped in icebergs or something? I'll be honest, I'm convinced humans have a big hand in climate change, but I can't seem to determine whether I merely need to lobby my rep for green legislation or start taking survival classes for an impending collapse of JIT supply chains and society in general.
    - jkettmann 7y ago
jkettmann 7y ago
Thanks fur this article! I like the comparison to the ozone hole problem a couple of decades ago. People panicked at that time and that resulted in immediate change. I think we should panic more in this situation as well. Besides climate change not being a spicy enough story and consequences being more long-term another important factor in my opinion is that we rely much more on processes that create CO2 than we were relying on ozone-eating gases. Lobbies are much bigger and the transition requires much more effort

44 points by neilkakkar 7y ago

cpr 7y ago

Whenever random folks post dire climate change articles, I like to point to a somewhat less random engineer's take on things: https://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm https://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan

oh_sigh 7y ago
Why would an aerospace engineer have any particular insight into climate change moreso than any other random non-climate-science engineer? Burt might be one of the most famous aerospace engineers currently living, but that is mostly due to his aerobatic stunts, and not his knowledge of climate science. Personally, I think anthropogenic climate change is clearly happening, but I think the dire prognostications about our future is too much - I think we'll be just fine. So it appears I may agree with Mr Rutan, but I just don't see why his opinion is relevant to point out.
lucb1e 7y ago
From my five minute assessment, this is nonsense. I didn't flag it immediately because I wanted to give it the (remote) chance of being legitimate questioning of alarmist articles, but it's just the typical person denying the whole thing. Please don't spread this around. It's practically a conspiracy theory saying that all actual climate scientists are trying to get us to reduce CO2 for their own ends.
lutorm 7y ago
Whenever random folks post climate change articles, I like to point them to the official IPCC reports. ;-) The executive summary of the last assessment report is at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/. It's written for policymakers so it does not assume detailed technical knowledge. I have tremendous respect for Burt Rutan as an aerospace engineer, but on this topic I think he's completely off base.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
That seems to be about as accurate and helpful as any random and unknown layperson's "insight" something they don't understand. Or multi Nobel winner Linus Pauling's entirely misplaced obsession with vitamins, spawning a multi-billion dollar but pointless industry. Why does this random aerospace engineer have any credibility on climate? What peer reviewed research has he on climate? How does knowing something about aerospace engineering provide insight on climate?
- lucb1e 7y ago
  Well I don't like to dismiss someone based on the argument that they didn't study for it. Hackers of all people know how effective self education can be. But yeah, in this case, there is nothing that makes him more qualified than the large number of professionals he's disagreeing with.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    True, but then I'd hope to see something brought to the party a little more substantive than just shouting at the consensus. Maybe an attempt to show credibility, or humility if making a case for a previously undiscussed aspect or link etc.
schott12521 7y ago
Congrats on finding a scientist that is against climate change: >I put myself in the (Those who fear expansion of Government control) group, and do not hide the fact that I have a clear bias on Anthropogenic global warming (AGW). My bias is based on fear of Government expansion and the observation of AGW data presentation fraud – not based on financial or any other personal benefit. I merely have found that the closer you look at the data and alarmists’ presentations, the more fraud you find and the less you think there is an AGW problem... For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion – “if someone is aggressively selling a technical product whose merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying”. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.[1] You may not face the "dire climate change" but the future generations will. Or we can nitpick the studies and claim it as government fraud-- it's probably easier that way. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan#Anthropogenic_climate_change_skepticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan#Anthropogenic_clima...
mhh__ 7y ago
The physicist Richard Muller had similar doubts about global warming, so he took some money from climate deniers (allegedly) and founded Berkely Earth. They used - at least at the time - more data than anyone else, dating back to the 1700s. Surprise surprise they not only found that the temperature was rising with the so-called IPCC hockey stick, but also the correlation with CO2 was strong too. https://youtu.be/Sme8WQ4Wb5w https://youtu.be/Sme8WQ4Wb5w

kbutler 7y ago

Skimmed parts of it. Read this bit: """ Right now, we are at net positive emissions. Every year, we add more CO2 to the atmosphere. Even if we reach net zero emissions by 2050, we’ll keep adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere for 30 years. Thus, we’ll keep increasing the rate of heating. Even in 2050, the planet will continue heating up - faster than today, but at net zero, the rate will stabilise. Imagine a car on a super long path2 that ends in a cliff. We are pushing this car harder and harder, which makes the car keep going faster and faster. We will continue pushing for 30 years, and when we stop, the car will continue going at its current speed. This roughly translates to the car falling off the cliff. It doesn’t matter how long the path is, we will get to the cliff. """ This view that a given CO2 level determines a rate of global heating does not match any scientific view of the greenhouse effect of which I'm aware.

lutorm 7y ago
Yeah I got to that, too, and it's not correct. A given CO2 level basically determines the temperature at which the Earth will be in net radiative equilibrium between heating and cooling. The Earth can't simply continue heating up until the oceans boil and the rocks melt because the CO2 level has gone up a bit. That would only be possible in the presence of a very strong positive feedback loop that made the Earth better and better insulated the hotter it got, which would be unlike any other thermal system we know of. Edit: there are some positive feedback effects, like water vapor being a greenhouse gas, that will likely make the end result hotter than that expected based on the change in CO2 alone, but it will not lead to heating just continuing indefinitely.
- nootka 7y ago
  Isn't there a bunch of methane trapped in icebergs or something? I'll be honest, I'm convinced humans have a big hand in climate change, but I can't seem to determine whether I merely need to lobby my rep for green legislation or start taking survival classes for an impending collapse of JIT supply chains and society in general.
  - jkettmann 7y ago

jkettmann 7y ago

Thanks fur this article! I like the comparison to the ozone hole problem a couple of decades ago. People panicked at that time and that resulted in immediate change. I think we should panic more in this situation as well. Besides climate change not being a spicy enough story and consequences being more long-term another important factor in my opinion is that we rely much more on processes that create CO2 than we were relying on ozone-eating gases. Lobbies are much bigger and the transition requires much more effort