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This is exactly why I think the debate should be less about "how can we as humans stop affecting Earth's natual climate" and "how can we as humans gain control
by hugh3 15y ago
This is exactly why I think the debate should be less about "how can we as humans stop affecting Earth's natual climate" and "how can we as humans gain control over Earth's natural climate".
Climate change happens with us or without us. If we're going to protect our huge investments in climate-dependent infrastructure (i.e. cities) then we're gonna want (say) giant space mirrors to compensate for any zany things that nature might throw at us.
The political problem of who gets to control the Earth's thermostat is, of course, a tricky one.
- AndyKelley 15y ago"The political problem of who gets to control the Earth's thermostat is, of course, a tricky one." Understatement of the year. Can you imagine?
- jhamburger 15y agoMight test the BRIC alliances. Russia and Brazil probably won't agree on this one.
- rglullis 15y agoWhat BRIC alliances? BRIC countries are just clumped together for being developing economies that are going through similar experiences, but it is far from being a political-economic group. Quite the opposite, actually.
- jhamburger 15y agoThere has been an annual BRICS summit attended by the leaders on the 5 nations since 2009. Clearly it's a bit more than a clever media acronym.
- rglullis 15y agoCorrect, but I wouldn't say this can be called an "Alliance". Even the members of this group are hard to precise. Some would put Korea, some would put Nigeria, some would put Indonesia, etc. "BRIC" is no NATO, or anything that resembles some formal structure. The "BRIC" countries are getting into multi-lateral agreements, yes, but there is no "BRIC" organization. While the summit is used to conduct agreements between Russia and China, or Brazil/China/India, there is no "BRIC alliance".
- Daniel14 15y agoI could imagine it, as always, being the guys that paid for it.
- natmaster 15y agoFor instance Canada may want the earth warmer, whereas Indian would want it cooler. (Since it benefits their respective latitudes.)
- curious_man 15y agoWell, I think this would be the simplest: the temperature at any given latitude will be the average of the last n years. Period. But maybe I'm too naive.
- goatforce5 15y agoWho gets to define n?
- chrischen 15y agoWhoever has the most firepower.
- curious_man 15y agoI don't know actual statistics, but I think that in every place there is something like a "normal temperature" each season.
- wunderfool 15y agono one. we do not have the technology to rapidly alter the climate. our current climate change is the result of thousands of years of population growth and industrialization. concepts for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere in short course are just that, concepts mother nature is still in charge, and needs only shrug slightly with a temperature change of 10 degrees on average in either direction to eliminate humans and our society
- jarin 15y agoSomehow I doubt a 10 degree shift (F) would eliminate humans altogether, since humans have likely gone through a population bottleneck of 1,000-10,000 breeding pairs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
- danparsonson 15y agoAttempting to exercise control over such a chaotic system with simplistic solutions like giant space mirrors strikes me as a very bad idea indeed. Until we have a complete understanding of how the climate is regulated naturally I really don't see how we can do any good at all. Not to mention that, as you say, the politics are beyond us at the moment anyway (global consensus? yeah, right...)
- dy 15y agoYou're not following Lean Climate Control practices.
- redthrowaway 15y agoFailing Fast seems suboptimal, here.
- arctangent 15y agoThe morning weather forecast will promise that "some weather" will be delivered but they don't know what form it will take or how much of it there will be. They will go on to say that if you're not happy with the weather that is delivered then you shouldn't worry because they can guarantee that some more weather will be delivered the following day.
- simonh 15y agoThat's assuming that there is any kind of natural 'regulation' of the earth's climate. It appears to veer erratically from mini-ice age to heatwave. However it's true we do need to vary carefully consider the downsides of any potential interventions and be flexible about it. There's far too much dogma and polarisation of debate in climate science at the moment.
- danparsonson 15y agoThat is indeed an assumption on my part, although there is evidence of such regulation that I, at least, find compelling; for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insol... and it's worth pointing out that long term regulation and the shorter term variations that you mentioned aren't necessarily incompatible. IANA Climate Scientist though!
- csomar 15y agoThis is like using a tool. It may crash while you are using it for no reason, or may be someone else steal it. But this is not a reason not to be careful of your tool and don't abuse it. Especially when you don't have another one.
- run4yourlives 15y agoIt's probably easier to just colonize other planets than it is to go farting around with something as delicate as Earth's climate.
- nathanb 15y agoWouldn't this then require us to "fart around" with the climate of the planets we colonize to make them more like Earth's?
- benihana 15y agoYes. But when Haliburton claims a planet, I don't really care if they fart around with its climate, because I'll never be allowed to go there anyway.
- rvkennedy 15y agoI've seen that movie - Avatar I think.
- run4yourlives 15y agoThe difference being that there is nobody living on a planet like say, Mars. Last I checked, there are a whole bunch of people with nowhere else to go on Earth as it stands.
- wunderfool 15y agonowhere to go? really? last time i checked most of the earth's surface was uninhabited. why do people want to go to mars when the land can be had in the mojave desert for practically no cost? its just as dry but has an oxygen atmosphere, and there is virtually no demand for the land or forget about the mojave. northern canada has a population per square km that is effectively zero. pretty mars-like, but you can hunt for dinner if you're smart. and once again, the land is basically free. oh i'm not even mentioning a half dozen inhospitable places that no one occupies....why on earth would these people need to go to mars again??
- dolvlo 15y agoThis sounds like a horrible idea; you can't backup the planet and revert if shit hits the fan (and it does, it always finds a way).
- Retric 15y agoMinor changes in the suns output have a tiny impact on earths climate. The vastly simplified reason is black body radiation increases as the 4th power of temperature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law). And the sun is vary stable when you average over a day sitting at +/- .05% since we have been able to detect it. And unlike earths climate astronomers have plenty of other vary similar stars to directly compare the sun to and they are also vary stable. PS: Now a gigantic increase in the suns output relative to the norm of say 0.11% = an increase of 1.0011(288K)^4 = (288K+x)^4 = ~0.08 degrees C.
- retrogradeorbit 15y agoYour sentence should read: Minor changes in the suns output THEORETICALLY have a tiny impact on earths climate. Real empirical data refutes your conclusion based on one equation. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wro...
- ra 15y agoI worry that you underestimate the complexity of the problem. Drastically reducing CO2 in the atmosphere by reducing fossil fuel usage AND increasing sequestration by natural systems is by far the easiest and most predictable approach to strive for. However, even that is proving beyond the abilities of our struggling political leaders.
- Locke1689 15y agoA nice idea but I don't think it's really practical. Humanity itself doesn't really have the capability to bring that level of energy output and control to bare on a planetary scale. Moreover, I don't think it's really a very interesting problem. To use an analogy, your idea is similar to the approach used in AI in the 70s or 80s -- computer scientists trying to build a complete artificial intelligence from scraps. In the past 30 years we've learned that this isn't the right approach to a massive problem that we don't truly understand. Instead, we should focus on building small advances -- pieces which get us toward our overall goal. Instead of attempting to control the weather, we need to focus on smaller goals like practical fusion power, a highly advanced national electrical grid, or advanced solar power.