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Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B'

12 points by parenthesis 18y ago

tptacek 18y ago
Montgomery Burns was right! And we shot him for it!
jerf 18y ago
Can we hold off on the whole "cooling the globe" thing until it's not happening on its own, please? One thing lost in all the global warming hype is that if you ignore the screeching and look at the situation with open eyes, an Ice Age is, quite simply, the worst case scenario, with no feasible amount of warming ever, ever coming close to how bad an Ice Age is. It's not even close. I would be very, very, very, very leery of people engaging in large-scale cooling efforts.
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  Climate coolness is good, if one is producing a lot of heat. With nuclear energy, within a few centuries, humanity could easily be producing one million times as much heat as it produces today. In such a scenario, it might be helpful to have less Greenhouse Effect.
- dejb 18y ago
  Of course no one is suggesting that efforts be made to cool the globe before significant heating has already occured and the climate models are 99.9% percent confirmed (as opposed to the current 80-95%). But if we get to the stage where temperatures are say 5C hotter then we'll want to have some options available and that research will take time. I'm sure all those 'stupid' scientists with their 'screeching and hype' aren't completely blind.
  - jerf 18y ago
    I judge climate models by how well they predict the future, and no other standard. (Because there is none of any scientific value.) They are nowhere near 80-95% right now. None of them predicted the past 10 years correctly, and if we continue to cool, an entirely rational prediction at the moment, none of them predicted that either. By their own standards, by their own confidence intervals, the models from several years ago are at 5%-ish and dropping. (That's what a confidence interval is.) No amount of, yes, hype can change this fact. It is unscientific babble that has you convinced they are at 80-95%. The massive-warming models are by their own predictions on their last legs, not on the verge of being vindicated.
    - dejb 18y ago
      The climate models do not pretend to be able to predict the climate in an individual year but the medium and long term trends. > By their own standards, by their own confidence intervals, the models from several years ago are at 5%-ish and dropping. I'm not sure which models you are speaking of. Would you care to provide a reference. It would surprise me if any well respected model from a few years ago had such a tight confidence interval as to be demonstrably wrong already. You keep saying things like 'unscientific babble' and 'hype' but you don't even seem to dispute that most scientists do in fact hold global warming to be a fact. When most of the worlds experts agree on something then it is up to the deniers to come up with actual scientific evidence and not to throw around unsubstantiable insults. You could also refer to evolution or quantum physics as unscientific babble but what does that achieve. Frankly if any group should be accused of unscientific babble or hype it is many of the climate change deniers.
      - jerf 18y ago
        I'm talking about graphs like this one: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/slides/05.24.htm http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/slides/05.24.htm Which just show temperatures going up and up and up, with error bars that just go up and up and up even on the low end. Every climate prediction I've seen from global warming alarmists looks like that, that is, I've never seen one that does not have that characteristic, and I'd like to see the one that does. (Which I know we have not had, I'm saying I've never seen a chart that permits it.) Those error bars are the fudge factor you're talking about in your first paragraph. In order for you to be able to use that argument, it should have been built into the graph, with big fat error bars over the first ten years that inexplicably got narrower as time went on. (Which is obviously gibberish when you actually put it that way.) To account for weather, the error bars should be drawn so it fits in there. It's no good using the argument in English but leaving it out of the actual model being proposed. Not being able to predict the weather tomorrow may not mean you can't predict the climate 50 years from now, but not being able to predict the climate 5 years from certainly does. 5 or 10 years is not "weather", and if it is, so is 100. No amount of song and dance from any scientist can change this. No model predicted cooling on any time scale. No model that failed to do (by excluding the possibility) so is correct. Period. That is the scientific answer, regardless of how many "scientists" line up against it.
pmorici 18y ago
This strikes me as border line crackpot. Regardless I'd rather take my chances with nature than put my fate in the hands of the people who think this is a good idea.
- celoyd 18y ago
  What's so crackpot? We're already running huge, poorly understood eco-engineering projects. Coal power generation, for example. The idea here is that for the first time some big projects will be aimed at restoring equilibrium. Taking our chances with nature is hardly an option, if it ever was. Nature's solution to excess CO_2 is mass die-offs. Worrying about these projects after what we've been doing to the atmosphere seems like eating week-old junk food until you hurt and then refusing to take an aspirin because it might be tainted. (That's not to say they're all great ideas. Some of them will probably turn out to be foolish. But I don't see anything wrong with the principle behind them.)
  - pmorici 18y ago
    Because we have examples of when man tries to mess with nature for the sake of nature and they usually end up going awry. For example when ecologists introduce natural predators to control populations of nuance animals. Nature's solution to excess Co2 is to grow more plants.
- newt0311 18y ago
  Borderline? You give these guys way too much credit.
netcan 18y ago
Crazy as these sound, I think we may see some of these come into play. I am having a hard time separating fact from fiction. But if some combination of what seem to be relatively mainstream predictions are correct, this is probably a real choice. A way of buying an extra 10-20 years.
albertcardona 18y ago
Someone ought to remind the 'Plan B' executors about the toads and snakes introduced in Australia ...

12 points by parenthesis 18y ago

Montgomery Burns was right! And we shot him for it!

jerf 18y ago

Can we hold off on the whole "cooling the globe" thing until it's not happening on its own, please? One thing lost in all the global warming hype is that if you ignore the screeching and look at the situation with open eyes, an Ice Age is, quite simply, the worst case scenario, with no feasible amount of warming ever, ever coming close to how bad an Ice Age is. It's not even close. I would be very, very, very, very leery of people engaging in large-scale cooling efforts.

DabAsteroid 18y ago
Climate coolness is good, if one is producing a lot of heat. With nuclear energy, within a few centuries, humanity could easily be producing one million times as much heat as it produces today. In such a scenario, it might be helpful to have less Greenhouse Effect.
dejb 18y ago
Of course no one is suggesting that efforts be made to cool the globe before significant heating has already occured and the climate models are 99.9% percent confirmed (as opposed to the current 80-95%). But if we get to the stage where temperatures are say 5C hotter then we'll want to have some options available and that research will take time. I'm sure all those 'stupid' scientists with their 'screeching and hype' aren't completely blind.
- jerf 18y ago
  I judge climate models by how well they predict the future, and no other standard. (Because there is none of any scientific value.) They are nowhere near 80-95% right now. None of them predicted the past 10 years correctly, and if we continue to cool, an entirely rational prediction at the moment, none of them predicted that either. By their own standards, by their own confidence intervals, the models from several years ago are at 5%-ish and dropping. (That's what a confidence interval is.) No amount of, yes, hype can change this fact. It is unscientific babble that has you convinced they are at 80-95%. The massive-warming models are by their own predictions on their last legs, not on the verge of being vindicated.
  - dejb 18y ago
    The climate models do not pretend to be able to predict the climate in an individual year but the medium and long term trends. > By their own standards, by their own confidence intervals, the models from several years ago are at 5%-ish and dropping. I'm not sure which models you are speaking of. Would you care to provide a reference. It would surprise me if any well respected model from a few years ago had such a tight confidence interval as to be demonstrably wrong already. You keep saying things like 'unscientific babble' and 'hype' but you don't even seem to dispute that most scientists do in fact hold global warming to be a fact. When most of the worlds experts agree on something then it is up to the deniers to come up with actual scientific evidence and not to throw around unsubstantiable insults. You could also refer to evolution or quantum physics as unscientific babble but what does that achieve. Frankly if any group should be accused of unscientific babble or hype it is many of the climate change deniers.
    - jerf 18y ago
      I'm talking about graphs like this one: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/slides/05.24.htm http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/slides/05.24.htm Which just show temperatures going up and up and up, with error bars that just go up and up and up even on the low end. Every climate prediction I've seen from global warming alarmists looks like that, that is, I've never seen one that does not have that characteristic, and I'd like to see the one that does. (Which I know we have not had, I'm saying I've never seen a chart that permits it.) Those error bars are the fudge factor you're talking about in your first paragraph. In order for you to be able to use that argument, it should have been built into the graph, with big fat error bars over the first ten years that inexplicably got narrower as time went on. (Which is obviously gibberish when you actually put it that way.) To account for weather, the error bars should be drawn so it fits in there. It's no good using the argument in English but leaving it out of the actual model being proposed. Not being able to predict the weather tomorrow may not mean you can't predict the climate 50 years from now, but not being able to predict the climate 5 years from certainly does. 5 or 10 years is not "weather", and if it is, so is 100. No amount of song and dance from any scientist can change this. No model predicted cooling on any time scale. No model that failed to do (by excluding the possibility) so is correct. Period. That is the scientific answer, regardless of how many "scientists" line up against it.

pmorici 18y ago

This strikes me as border line crackpot. Regardless I'd rather take my chances with nature than put my fate in the hands of the people who think this is a good idea.

celoyd 18y ago
What's so crackpot? We're already running huge, poorly understood eco-engineering projects. Coal power generation, for example. The idea here is that for the first time some big projects will be aimed at restoring equilibrium. Taking our chances with nature is hardly an option, if it ever was. Nature's solution to excess CO_2 is mass die-offs. Worrying about these projects after what we've been doing to the atmosphere seems like eating week-old junk food until you hurt and then refusing to take an aspirin because it might be tainted. (That's not to say they're all great ideas. Some of them will probably turn out to be foolish. But I don't see anything wrong with the principle behind them.)
- pmorici 18y ago
  Because we have examples of when man tries to mess with nature for the sake of nature and they usually end up going awry. For example when ecologists introduce natural predators to control populations of nuance animals. Nature's solution to excess Co2 is to grow more plants.
newt0311 18y ago
Borderline? You give these guys way too much credit.

netcan 18y ago

Crazy as these sound, I think we may see some of these come into play. I am having a hard time separating fact from fiction. But if some combination of what seem to be relatively mainstream predictions are correct, this is probably a real choice. A way of buying an extra 10-20 years.

albertcardona 18y ago

Someone ought to remind the 'Plan B' executors about the toads and snakes introduced in Australia ...