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I am really trying to make sense of this reasoning, but it's not working. Maybe someone could help me out. It seems like this is saying, 1. (implied) Humans

• ChuckMcM 14y ago
  I understand the emotion. Large scale climate change has generally also meant large scale extinction events. And in the past when the threat of world wide nuclear war had us looking into the face of human extinction it was very scary. At least with nuclear war we could choose not to engage, not to participate. Climate change is different though, its not like we've ever actually been able to control the weather, much less the climate. That makes it that much scarier. Before you can reason about climate change you have to accept that for reasons completely outside of your (or anyone's) control the climate will change. Human's historically aren't good at this as evidenced by their throwing virgin girls into volcanoes to get the volcano to stop erupting, or sacrificing people or animals to bring the rains back and end a drought. Don't underestimate how hard it is to get to that acceptance. Now, to cover your points. 1) (Implied) Humans are affecting the climate. Of course they are, so are sheep, so are whales, so are trees. Its a relatively closed system and the activity of all the internal pieces have an effect. 2) Humans can't direct the change of the climate That is a true statement, there are theories about various geo-engineering things we are capable of doing to change the climate, but our best models disagree about the effect of those changes. We can detonate all our nuclear bombs and put megatons of aerosols into the atmosphere, we can try to jump start various ecosystems, we can try to change the proportion of various chemicals in the atmosphere. The bottom line is we don't know what those changes are bringing or what other strategies will bring. 3) The climate will change, regardless of Humans This too is an accurate statement. When Yellowstone next erupts, the climate will change for centuries. I don't think there are any lines of research or reasoning that suggest that wouldn't be the case. All of our models predict that you put that much stuff in the upper atmosphere and it will change things down here. 4. (Implied) Negative affects that Humans behavior has on the climate is irrelevant.[sic] This gets to the heart of the emotional crisis. Human behavior affects the climate, it enables change. Given the amount of leverage green house gases have in the models, it seems to enable a lot more change than we originally suspected. It is quite sensible and rational to work out how to minimize that forcing function. But the climate will still change, because Humans aren't the only agent pushing on the climate. The emotion comes from the realization that no matter what you do, you can't stop this 'bad thing.' And that is really scary, especially when people put it inside what might be considered your 'time horizon' (the next 50 to 100 years [which is in itself bogus because we're still working out the models]) To use an illustrative example which is outside our time horizon, the Andromeda Galaxy is going to collide with the Milky Way[1]. It will, in all likely hood, result in the complete destruction of our solar system. There is nothing we can do about it. Except its going to happen in about three to four billion years. So nobody cares. 5. Invest in Human survival So if you can accept that we don't know what we don't know about the way climate changes or might be changed. Then the best investment of your time is to work on things you do know how to do. There are lots of things that serve both purposes, you can work on battery technology that would make using electricity easier (fewer pounds of CO2 per joule than gasoline for example) or colonizing the moon (nobody on the moon is going to be directly changing the Earth's climate), urban planning at higher elevations, housing and moving populations above a rising sea level and at a reducing sea level. After all if we start another ice age all that seawater will be trapped in ice again. I think a responsible species would be ready for any change, while developing a deeper understanding of how change occurs. So if you're not already in a research program studying the climate, your next best choice would be getting us ready for a change. [1] http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/milky-way-andromeda-120531.htm http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/milky-way-andromeda...
  • 3am 14y ago
    Your reputation precedes you, so I'm a bit hesitant here... but I have some questions based on this comment. Point 1: do you think humans are effecting the climate as much as whales or sheep? Less, more? If so, what order of magnitude, and what is the primary cause of the difference? (EDIT: also, do you accept the notion of the climate as a closed systems as excluding geologically sequestered reservoirs of hydrocarbons like oil and coal, or not?) Point 2: If you accept as a given that man-made CO2 production is causing climate change, would reducing CO2 emissions be an equally valid strategy that geo-engineering? Point 3: I don't believe anyone is disputing this. Point 4 and point 5: If the human species is creating a preventable crisis, would it be wiser to _not_ cause that crisis and devote the same resources to solving a less avoidable one instead? (like say, an eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera like you mentioned) ps - You say that the collision of Andromeda and the Milk Way will destroy our solar system, but from the referenced article, "The merger poses no real danger of destroying Earth or our solar system, researchers said"
    • sliverstorm 14y ago
      Point 2: I am thinking Chuck's point is not that we shouldn't try to reduce CO2 emissions, but rather that we shouldn't try to combat warming through other avenues. We are not very good at the latter, and it introduces additional complexities such as "where exactly should the climate be, anyway?". Your initial statement left it up to interpretation whether you meant you wanted to combat CO2 emissions, or secure the proverbial interstellar ice cube to drop in our oceans. Point 4: I'm not sure if there is anything we can do about Yellowstone, unless our hydroponics have advanced enough to allow us to live and farm underground and we establish tremendous power capacity to make up for the lack of sunlight. do you accept the notion of the climate as a closed systems as excluding geologically sequestered reservoirs of hydrocarbons like oil and coal, or not? Is this even a point of contention? Sequestered hydrocarbons like oil and coal are almost entirely from plant life, which means that carbon is from the air. (90%+ of plant mass is from the air) I don't see how you could consider those deposits of hydrocarbons to be separate from the earth's climate, at least from a macro perspective.
    • ChuckMcM 14y ago