14 ms·

World won't cool without geoengineering, warns report

62 points by ph0rque 13y ago

CodeCube 13y ago
Looking forward to my house turning into beachfront property here in Orlando, FL!
- pilom 13y ago
  Sounds nice except for you wont have any water to drink because all of the freshwater aquifers in Florida will have been infiltrated by sea-water. And this estimate of 1 meter of rise is on the low end of the estimates I've seen. Hope you get exactly the amount of seawater rise you need and also can fund your own desalination plant.
  - jtheory 13y ago
    Eh, Florida has enough green lawns to water that they're making good progress salinizing their aquifers without any rising tide necessary.
300bps 13y ago
It's no surprise that the AGW crowd is losing the war of public opinion. Take the last line of the article that details a part of the report: The draft report says the available evidence now suggests that above a certain threshold of warming, the Greenland ice sheet will almost disappear within approximately 1000 years, which will result in 7 metres of global sea-level rise. It estimates that the threshold may lie between 1 °C and 4 °C of warming, but is not confident of this figure. So what they're saying is they are not confident that some degree of warming may occur within a huge band which may do something that sounds really bad (but they don't actually spell out the bad things) in the next 1,000 years. I am a scientifically literate person with a strong conservation and environmental bent. But when I read something like this even I roll my eyes. Because I want people to actually conserve, please take the following advice to the AGW crowd: First, stop using the disaster du jour to say, "See!?! We can expect more of this from now on!" Because when you did this with Katrina and then we had 8 years of relatively quiet hurricane seasons you sound like a "sky is falling" fool. The fact that "An Inconvenient Truth" came out shortly after Katrina with a hurricane on the movie posters and box covers was ridiculous. Second, stop making inaccurate predictions about what is going to happen. For example - for a while everyone was decrying that snow was a thing of the past because of global warming (example: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-j...) When we then had record snowfalls throughout many areas of the world, the same people changed their tune and said, "Exactly! Global Warming will actually bring more snow!" Enough of this nonsense. Stop using things like carbon credits to live a ridiculously lavish lifestyle while telling everyone else to live simply. Finally, stop trying to profit off of AGW. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environmen... There are many people that you will never convince of the reality of AGW. But there are many more people that you are turning away from believing you because of the things above. Because I think finite resource conservation is the right thing to do, please stop hurting this cause.
- leokun 13y ago
  You seem to have a severe emotional response to data reports about global warming. The thing to remember is that how that data is reported doesn't actually matter. Reserve your angst for actual errors. The dramatic flashy wrappers people use is to try and reach people who would otherwise be watching ice truck drivers on the "History Channel".
  - talmand 13y ago
    If the reporting of that data includes a one-sided interpretation of that data, including denouncing anyone who may question said interpretation, then how it is reported does indeed matter and is a big part of the problem described. Almost everything associated with how climate change research is reported makes it reek of bad science and propaganda.
    - leokun 13y ago
      > Almost everything associated with how climate change research is reported makes it reek of bad science and propaganda. The science says that the Earth is getting warmer, and it's getting warmer because of people. If you think this interpretation is bad science and propaganda, then you are simply mistaken.
      - talmand 13y ago
        You need to read my post again. I was not commenting on the science, I was commenting on how it is being reported.
        leokun 13y ago
        It's probably being reported as the Earth getting warmer due to people. As that's what's happening.
        talmand 13y ago
SeanDav 13y ago
It is laughable that all this is based on imprecise models and simulations and not actual science. There is nothing provable with any of this or for that matter disprovable. Alter the inputs and weighting in the models by merest fractions, or try take new factors into account and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, yet on the basis of this Billions, if not Trillions of dollars are being moved around and new laws are being made, among many other side effects. Who decided exactly what inputs are needed for calculations and which should be left out? Who decided their relative weightings? Who decided the exact nature of the interactions inside the models? It is just crazy.
- IanDrake 13y ago
  Yes, predictive modeling is easy when the you don't have to prove you're accurate. They just keep building more models yielding new predictions to cover all the bases so, when the future does come, they can claim success and forget all the failures.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tfgg 13y ago
  Scientists? People who study the physics of the system in question by building models, simulating them and comparing to data? I'm not sure what else you expect. I'll take them for big policy decisions any day over some blogger cherry picking data.
  - ttflee 13y ago
    Sounds like an economist's job, to me. No offense to economists.
  - talmand 13y ago
    Seems to me that everyone involved is cherry picking the data to support their own interpretation. There's even been accusations of cherry picking of how the data is collected in the first place.
bsullivan01 13y ago
the Greenland ice sheet will almost disappear within approximately 1000 years Gee, we're making 1000 predictions right now? How are those predictions made 10-30 years ago faring?
- talmand 13y ago
  And who's to say that ice would not have disappeared naturally over the next 1000 years if humans didn't exist at all?
jsdalton 13y ago
I wish geoengineering played a much larger role in the conversations around global warming. It seems we're never going to wean ourselves off of petroleum, and most efforts to meaningfully curtail its use are politically untenable (outside of Europe that is). I think if people who believe in global warming are serious about solving the problem and not just hand waving about driving less and turning off our lights, then they'd start devoting some serious attention to geoengineering. (Note I'm not poking at a straw man in the paragraph above. Check out the NRDC page on global warming solutions [http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/solutions/ http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/solutions/]. I see a lot about restricting pollution and remaking our lifestyles, but NOTHING at all about geoengineering.)
ttflee 13y ago
But in the longer term, isn't it the global cooling rather than the global warming that is more disastrous to human beings and the eco-system?
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  I think this is an excellent question. There's been a lot of panic over the rise of sea levels and a warmer climate, but why exactly is this a world-ending disaster? Yes, the coastlines may change and yes, people will be displaced. Such has been the case for all of recorded history, and far before. Humans can adapt: they have, and they will again. I find the idea of geoengineering far more terrifying than global warming. The community that can't get their models to explain the last few years of observations now wants to throw a massive new wrench into the works? Madness.
  - csense 13y ago
    Exactly. If the sea levels rise ten meters overnight, that would be an enormous catastrophe with unfathomable loss of life. If the sea levels rise ten meters over a couple decades, people will get the heck out when the water's at their ankles, instead of patiently waiting a few years until it's over their heads. Or figure out a local civil engineering solution like diverting the water with levees and dams, that's at worst a local disaster if it doesn't work out.
    - talmand 13y ago
      You are quite wrong good sir, or madam, as someone else in this thread explained that millions will drown with a drastic change in sea levels over 1000 years. Actually, I'm assuming they were greatly exaggerating which seems to be commonplace in these types of discussions so I decided to poke a little fun at that one. Something about learning to swim and inventing something called a boat.
dmead 13y ago
in 3001: a space oddessy the book talks about how humanity had to build huge mirrors to reflect heat back into space. my body is ready

62 points by ph0rque 13y ago

CodeCube 13y ago

Looking forward to my house turning into beachfront property here in Orlando, FL!

pilom 13y ago
Sounds nice except for you wont have any water to drink because all of the freshwater aquifers in Florida will have been infiltrated by sea-water. And this estimate of 1 meter of rise is on the low end of the estimates I've seen. Hope you get exactly the amount of seawater rise you need and also can fund your own desalination plant.
- jtheory 13y ago
  Eh, Florida has enough green lawns to water that they're making good progress salinizing their aquifers without any rising tide necessary.

300bps 13y ago

It's no surprise that the AGW crowd is losing the war of public opinion. Take the last line of the article that details a part of the report: The draft report says the available evidence now suggests that above a certain threshold of warming, the Greenland ice sheet will almost disappear within approximately 1000 years, which will result in 7 metres of global sea-level rise. It estimates that the threshold may lie between 1 °C and 4 °C of warming, but is not confident of this figure. So what they're saying is they are not confident that some degree of warming may occur within a huge band which may do something that sounds really bad (but they don't actually spell out the bad things) in the next 1,000 years. I am a scientifically literate person with a strong conservation and environmental bent. But when I read something like this even I roll my eyes. Because I want people to actually conserve, please take the following advice to the AGW crowd: First, stop using the disaster du jour to say, "See!?! We can expect more of this from now on!" Because when you did this with Katrina and then we had 8 years of relatively quiet hurricane seasons you sound like a "sky is falling" fool. The fact that "An Inconvenient Truth" came out shortly after Katrina with a hurricane on the movie posters and box covers was ridiculous. Second, stop making inaccurate predictions about what is going to happen. For example - for a while everyone was decrying that snow was a thing of the past because of global warming (example: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-j...) When we then had record snowfalls throughout many areas of the world, the same people changed their tune and said, "Exactly! Global Warming will actually bring more snow!" Enough of this nonsense. Stop using things like carbon credits to live a ridiculously lavish lifestyle while telling everyone else to live simply. Finally, stop trying to profit off of AGW. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environmen... There are many people that you will never convince of the reality of AGW. But there are many more people that you are turning away from believing you because of the things above. Because I think finite resource conservation is the right thing to do, please stop hurting this cause.

leokun 13y ago
You seem to have a severe emotional response to data reports about global warming. The thing to remember is that how that data is reported doesn't actually matter. Reserve your angst for actual errors. The dramatic flashy wrappers people use is to try and reach people who would otherwise be watching ice truck drivers on the "History Channel".
- talmand 13y ago
  If the reporting of that data includes a one-sided interpretation of that data, including denouncing anyone who may question said interpretation, then how it is reported does indeed matter and is a big part of the problem described. Almost everything associated with how climate change research is reported makes it reek of bad science and propaganda.
  - leokun 13y ago
    > Almost everything associated with how climate change research is reported makes it reek of bad science and propaganda. The science says that the Earth is getting warmer, and it's getting warmer because of people. If you think this interpretation is bad science and propaganda, then you are simply mistaken.
    - talmand 13y ago
      You need to read my post again. I was not commenting on the science, I was commenting on how it is being reported.
      - leokun 13y ago
        It's probably being reported as the Earth getting warmer due to people. As that's what's happening.
        talmand 13y ago

SeanDav 13y ago

It is laughable that all this is based on imprecise models and simulations and not actual science. There is nothing provable with any of this or for that matter disprovable. Alter the inputs and weighting in the models by merest fractions, or try take new factors into account and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, yet on the basis of this Billions, if not Trillions of dollars are being moved around and new laws are being made, among many other side effects. Who decided exactly what inputs are needed for calculations and which should be left out? Who decided their relative weightings? Who decided the exact nature of the interactions inside the models? It is just crazy.

IanDrake 13y ago
Yes, predictive modeling is easy when the you don't have to prove you're accurate. They just keep building more models yielding new predictions to cover all the bases so, when the future does come, they can claim success and forget all the failures.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tfgg 13y ago
Scientists? People who study the physics of the system in question by building models, simulating them and comparing to data? I'm not sure what else you expect. I'll take them for big policy decisions any day over some blogger cherry picking data.
- ttflee 13y ago
  Sounds like an economist's job, to me. No offense to economists.
- talmand 13y ago
  Seems to me that everyone involved is cherry picking the data to support their own interpretation. There's even been accusations of cherry picking of how the data is collected in the first place.

bsullivan01 13y ago

the Greenland ice sheet will almost disappear within approximately 1000 years Gee, we're making 1000 predictions right now? How are those predictions made 10-30 years ago faring?

talmand 13y ago
And who's to say that ice would not have disappeared naturally over the next 1000 years if humans didn't exist at all?

jsdalton 13y ago

I wish geoengineering played a much larger role in the conversations around global warming. It seems we're never going to wean ourselves off of petroleum, and most efforts to meaningfully curtail its use are politically untenable (outside of Europe that is). I think if people who believe in global warming are serious about solving the problem and not just hand waving about driving less and turning off our lights, then they'd start devoting some serious attention to geoengineering. (Note I'm not poking at a straw man in the paragraph above. Check out the NRDC page on global warming solutions [http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/solutions/ http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/solutions/]. I see a lot about restricting pollution and remaking our lifestyles, but NOTHING at all about geoengineering.)

ttflee 13y ago

But in the longer term, isn't it the global cooling rather than the global warming that is more disastrous to human beings and the eco-system?

MrZongle2 13y ago
I think this is an excellent question. There's been a lot of panic over the rise of sea levels and a warmer climate, but why exactly is this a world-ending disaster? Yes, the coastlines may change and yes, people will be displaced. Such has been the case for all of recorded history, and far before. Humans can adapt: they have, and they will again. I find the idea of geoengineering far more terrifying than global warming. The community that can't get their models to explain the last few years of observations now wants to throw a massive new wrench into the works? Madness.
- csense 13y ago
  Exactly. If the sea levels rise ten meters overnight, that would be an enormous catastrophe with unfathomable loss of life. If the sea levels rise ten meters over a couple decades, people will get the heck out when the water's at their ankles, instead of patiently waiting a few years until it's over their heads. Or figure out a local civil engineering solution like diverting the water with levees and dams, that's at worst a local disaster if it doesn't work out.
  - talmand 13y ago
    You are quite wrong good sir, or madam, as someone else in this thread explained that millions will drown with a drastic change in sea levels over 1000 years. Actually, I'm assuming they were greatly exaggerating which seems to be commonplace in these types of discussions so I decided to poke a little fun at that one. Something about learning to swim and inventing something called a boat.

dmead 13y ago

in 3001: a space oddessy the book talks about how humanity had to build huge mirrors to reflect heat back into space. my body is ready