4 ms·

Thus far we have done precisely zilch about global warming. Nothing, nada, not a thing. Every significant target has been missed, every opportunity for increase

Thus far we have done precisely zilch about global warming. Nothing, nada, not a thing. Every significant target has been missed, every opportunity for increased use of fossil fuels has been taken, nuclear power is now practically-speaking off the table, and now that the Arctic ice cap is retreating, we're taking the opportunity to drill for more oil under it! We have evolved under natural selection pressures to maximise our exploitation of the world around us - the winning apes were those that could make bigger & sharper tools, bigger fires, bigger farms. The idea that mankind has somehow veered away from the 'natural' path, that he is a 'disease' (the Matrix's Agent Smith), could not be further from the truth. Every organism competing in Earth's biosphere is trying to maximise their resource usage, maximise their mastery over the environment. Our problem is that we have succeeded! We have grown to dominate the entire planet, and (Elon Musk notwithstanding) that's a hard limit. So we have what Iain Banks calls an 'outside context problem'. The strategies our genes have evolved over eons are now insufficient: there is no more competition between Man and anyone else. Even the competition of one human tribe against another is lessening, now that the big tribes have nuclear weapons. Solving this problem will require post-Darwinian strategies. Getting to the point where that is a realistic prospect will be highly non-trivial.

meaty 14y ago
Yes us evil Eukaryotes are responsible for the demise of this planet. Why don't we all do the honourable thing and kill ourselves rather than solving the climate problems with taxation and working out how to trade carbon and leverage trade sanctions to gain more tangible but useless bits of metal and plastic... I mean those sulphur breathing bacteria which we oxygenated out of existence are utterly pissed at us now. For those who don't get my comment: we don't know how the planet works. Don't know what our impact is. Oh and the climate changes anyway without our intervention which may cause our demise or not - just go with the flow.
- Gravityloss 14y ago
  I'm not exactly sure if I understood your comment. But we know quite a lot about how the planet works and what our impact is. We don't know everything, but we know a lot more than nothing. It's like sending a blind person over a busy road. If you do it when the pedestrian light is red, you might not know which car might hit her at what velocity, but you know that the outcome is quite likely much much worse than if you wait for the green light.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Actually no we don't. The physical models are scrapped yearly, our predictions are incredibly inaccurate and we can't shake a stick at the to tiny amount of broken data we hold and extrapolate it. Every corporation and politician clamps onto hypothesis' if there is gain to be made, yet theories that result are impossible to challenge. That'snot science. Thatis religion. It's more like we're arrogant blind fundamentalist religious zealots with not much data playing whack-a-mole in the dark and simultaneously fucking everyone in the process.
    - scarmig 14y ago
      The fact that models are constantly refined doesn't mean they're "scrapped." The core model, of CO2 being a greenhouse gas that drives feedbacks--particularly water vapor feedbacks, but others as well--is very well attested to. It's true that climate is complicated and there are significant uncertainties in how they might interact. Most of those uncertainties, however, lie in the positive direction. That's part of the reason why the expected mean warming is much closer to the lower bound than the upper one.
    - Gravityloss 14y ago
      That's not correct. Just to name a few examples, we have quite good data of CO2 concentrations and CO2 infrared behaviour. But what's also strange in your argument, you say that if we know less about the effects, then we should freely change the climate system more. Here's a free online book by Spencer Weart of the history of climate science for anyone who is interested: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm And a blog by Steve Easterbrook about the current state of software in the more complex models: http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=2828 http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=2828 Probably many software-oriented people here might find the latter blog interesting: "We found that the climate models all have very low defect densities compared to well-known, similarly sized open-source projects."
baq 14y ago
one can argue that civilization itself is post-Darwinian - whenever there's any engineering and design involved, it's not evolution. we've evolved to the point of being able to figure out how our world works - now we need to figure out how to keep it working. what's most perplexing for me is the constant pressure on growth. we can't have growth and survive this century at the same time. the big question is the mode of failure of humanity, which at the moment doesn't give reasons for optimism - we're on our way to wars for fuel first, and a couple of decades later wars for food and water. recommended reading: the limits to growth - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
- macavity23 14y ago
  Agreed - although I don't think it will take nearly that long for wars over food and water. Thanks for your reading reco, I'll trade you 'Full Planet, Empty Plates' - http://www.amazon.com/Full-Planet-Empty-Plates-Geopolitics/dp/0393344150/ http://www.amazon.com/Full-Planet-Empty-Plates-Geopolitics/d... I don't have any doubt of humanity's survival as a species - even a total catastrophe, say a 75% reduction in food production, isn't going to wipe us out. The survival of our current civilization, on the other hand...
nodata 14y ago
> Nothing, nada, not a thing. We banned CFCs.
- scarmig 14y ago
  CFCs and consequent ozone depletion are, ironically, a negative forcing. One possible but likely stupid mitigation route would be to pump a lot of CFCs into the stratosphere and destroy our ozone layer.

meaty 14y ago

Yes us evil Eukaryotes are responsible for the demise of this planet. Why don't we all do the honourable thing and kill ourselves rather than solving the climate problems with taxation and working out how to trade carbon and leverage trade sanctions to gain more tangible but useless bits of metal and plastic... I mean those sulphur breathing bacteria which we oxygenated out of existence are utterly pissed at us now. For those who don't get my comment: we don't know how the planet works. Don't know what our impact is. Oh and the climate changes anyway without our intervention which may cause our demise or not - just go with the flow.

Gravityloss 14y ago
I'm not exactly sure if I understood your comment. But we know quite a lot about how the planet works and what our impact is. We don't know everything, but we know a lot more than nothing. It's like sending a blind person over a busy road. If you do it when the pedestrian light is red, you might not know which car might hit her at what velocity, but you know that the outcome is quite likely much much worse than if you wait for the green light.
- meaty 14y ago
  Actually no we don't. The physical models are scrapped yearly, our predictions are incredibly inaccurate and we can't shake a stick at the to tiny amount of broken data we hold and extrapolate it. Every corporation and politician clamps onto hypothesis' if there is gain to be made, yet theories that result are impossible to challenge. That'snot science. Thatis religion. It's more like we're arrogant blind fundamentalist religious zealots with not much data playing whack-a-mole in the dark and simultaneously fucking everyone in the process.
  - scarmig 14y ago
    The fact that models are constantly refined doesn't mean they're "scrapped." The core model, of CO2 being a greenhouse gas that drives feedbacks--particularly water vapor feedbacks, but others as well--is very well attested to. It's true that climate is complicated and there are significant uncertainties in how they might interact. Most of those uncertainties, however, lie in the positive direction. That's part of the reason why the expected mean warming is much closer to the lower bound than the upper one.
  - Gravityloss 14y ago
    That's not correct. Just to name a few examples, we have quite good data of CO2 concentrations and CO2 infrared behaviour. But what's also strange in your argument, you say that if we know less about the effects, then we should freely change the climate system more. Here's a free online book by Spencer Weart of the history of climate science for anyone who is interested: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm And a blog by Steve Easterbrook about the current state of software in the more complex models: http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=2828 http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=2828 Probably many software-oriented people here might find the latter blog interesting: "We found that the climate models all have very low defect densities compared to well-known, similarly sized open-source projects."

baq 14y ago

one can argue that civilization itself is post-Darwinian - whenever there's any engineering and design involved, it's not evolution. we've evolved to the point of being able to figure out how our world works - now we need to figure out how to keep it working. what's most perplexing for me is the constant pressure on growth. we can't have growth and survive this century at the same time. the big question is the mode of failure of humanity, which at the moment doesn't give reasons for optimism - we're on our way to wars for fuel first, and a couple of decades later wars for food and water. recommended reading: the limits to growth - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

macavity23 14y ago
Agreed - although I don't think it will take nearly that long for wars over food and water. Thanks for your reading reco, I'll trade you 'Full Planet, Empty Plates' - http://www.amazon.com/Full-Planet-Empty-Plates-Geopolitics/dp/0393344150/ http://www.amazon.com/Full-Planet-Empty-Plates-Geopolitics/d... I don't have any doubt of humanity's survival as a species - even a total catastrophe, say a 75% reduction in food production, isn't going to wipe us out. The survival of our current civilization, on the other hand...

nodata 14y ago

> Nothing, nada, not a thing. We banned CFCs.

scarmig 14y ago
CFCs and consequent ozone depletion are, ironically, a negative forcing. One possible but likely stupid mitigation route would be to pump a lot of CFCs into the stratosphere and destroy our ozone layer.