5 ms·

Climate is a big system and we know only some parts of it. Trying to cure symptoms may have grave consequences. (Think about medicine - there are many tests bef

by stared 11y ago

Climate is a big system and we know only some parts of it. Trying to cure symptoms may have grave consequences. (Think about medicine - there are many tests before it can be used; many early drugs had horrible side-effect. But in the case of Earth we have only one run.)

danieltillett 11y ago
Actually with many medicines you only have one run - it does not matter if a lethal side effect is rare if it happens to affect you. We are already running a massive experiment on the earth; we are pumping huge amounts of green house gases into the atmosphere and we are not really sure what will happen. If things go bad really quickly I would like to have some options (even if high risk) rather than be left with nothing.
- stared 11y ago
  Sure, a medicine may be lethal (but after many trials, errors, cases etc - people developed efficient drugs and medical procedures). But there are many people; it's a big difference if one dies or everyone dies. "Even more experimenting" is a bad idea. The current situation is bad and we should change its causes. (Otherwise it's like healing tooth with painkillers.) Here I would guess that the average value of risk is highly negative (as in any case with dealing with complex systems). And there are many imaginable consequences, which are far worse than the current pace of global worming. E.g. poisoning biosphere, accelerating global warming, etc. And, no, global warming is not an asteroid impact (i.e. killing everyone and everything), so "all or nothing" is a poor mentality (and deadly dangerous!).
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    The people involved in this research are not suggesting we try this - they are suggesting we work on alternatives in case we really need them. I agree 100% that we need to do far more to reduce our emissions, but right now not enough is being done. If we don't get our act together in time, or things on the warming front move faster than everyone hopes, then we need alternatives. We only have one world.
- vixen99 11y ago
  I thought we were sure about what will happen. Won't it, according to the models, lead to catastrophic global warming? We're spending enormous sums of taxpayers' money on that basis. It does also cause greening of the planet but that's of little interest to anyone.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Yes in the long run the amount of greenhouse gases we have already released will result in very significant warming and the melting of all the ice caps. What we don't know for sure is how long this will take and if we will hit any positive feedback loops that will accelerate the process. If we do we will want to have other ways of keeping things from getting out of control.
    - msandford 11y ago
      We also don't know if we'll run into any negative feedback loops that'll cause cooling, either. The Earth's climate seems to be pretty stable over the last few million years insofar as life has been able to exist in ways that are -- in terms of microbiology, our cells machinery -- very familiar. Given that we have record of that stability it seems likely that there are forces which push the climate towards that stability. Of course it's impossible to know for sure either way until it happens and we witness it and write it down.
      - DennisP 11y ago
        Actually the geological history is not reassuring. There have been multiple cases where the planet warmed a little due to orbital variations, and then positive feedbacks kicked in and took it several degrees further. Feedbacks evident in the record include ice melt, methane hydrate destabilization, permafrost melt releasing CO2 and methane, forest fires caused by drought, and CO2 release from dried-out topsoil and peat bogs. A good introduction to all this is in Hansen's book Storms of My Grandchildren. It's true that the past couple million years have been relatively stable. For at least the past 800,000 years CO2 never went higher than 280ppm. But the last time CO2 was as high as now, the planet was 3 to 6 degrees C warmer, and sea levels 25 to 40 meters higher: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.abstract http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.abstract
realusername 11y ago
Indeed, the main problems are uncontrolled side effects. That's what happens when a system is really complex. Even if you just look at weather forecast (which is just really the visible surface of climate change), the models we have are just starting to be working for the immediate future and it's still impossible to predict anything reliably two/three weeks ahead despite the massive amount of money poured into the complex field of meteorology. It's good to gather ideas about what we could do but we don't have any idea of the massive side effects which are going to happen. Almost anything related to climate change is quite speculative and still in research.

by stared 11y ago

danieltillett 11y ago

Actually with many medicines you only have one run - it does not matter if a lethal side effect is rare if it happens to affect you. We are already running a massive experiment on the earth; we are pumping huge amounts of green house gases into the atmosphere and we are not really sure what will happen. If things go bad really quickly I would like to have some options (even if high risk) rather than be left with nothing.

stared 11y ago
Sure, a medicine may be lethal (but after many trials, errors, cases etc - people developed efficient drugs and medical procedures). But there are many people; it's a big difference if one dies or everyone dies. "Even more experimenting" is a bad idea. The current situation is bad and we should change its causes. (Otherwise it's like healing tooth with painkillers.) Here I would guess that the average value of risk is highly negative (as in any case with dealing with complex systems). And there are many imaginable consequences, which are far worse than the current pace of global worming. E.g. poisoning biosphere, accelerating global warming, etc. And, no, global warming is not an asteroid impact (i.e. killing everyone and everything), so "all or nothing" is a poor mentality (and deadly dangerous!).
- danieltillett 11y ago
  The people involved in this research are not suggesting we try this - they are suggesting we work on alternatives in case we really need them. I agree 100% that we need to do far more to reduce our emissions, but right now not enough is being done. If we don't get our act together in time, or things on the warming front move faster than everyone hopes, then we need alternatives. We only have one world.
vixen99 11y ago
I thought we were sure about what will happen. Won't it, according to the models, lead to catastrophic global warming? We're spending enormous sums of taxpayers' money on that basis. It does also cause greening of the planet but that's of little interest to anyone.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Yes in the long run the amount of greenhouse gases we have already released will result in very significant warming and the melting of all the ice caps. What we don't know for sure is how long this will take and if we will hit any positive feedback loops that will accelerate the process. If we do we will want to have other ways of keeping things from getting out of control.
  - msandford 11y ago
    We also don't know if we'll run into any negative feedback loops that'll cause cooling, either. The Earth's climate seems to be pretty stable over the last few million years insofar as life has been able to exist in ways that are -- in terms of microbiology, our cells machinery -- very familiar. Given that we have record of that stability it seems likely that there are forces which push the climate towards that stability. Of course it's impossible to know for sure either way until it happens and we witness it and write it down.
    - DennisP 11y ago
      Actually the geological history is not reassuring. There have been multiple cases where the planet warmed a little due to orbital variations, and then positive feedbacks kicked in and took it several degrees further. Feedbacks evident in the record include ice melt, methane hydrate destabilization, permafrost melt releasing CO2 and methane, forest fires caused by drought, and CO2 release from dried-out topsoil and peat bogs. A good introduction to all this is in Hansen's book Storms of My Grandchildren. It's true that the past couple million years have been relatively stable. For at least the past 800,000 years CO2 never went higher than 280ppm. But the last time CO2 was as high as now, the planet was 3 to 6 degrees C warmer, and sea levels 25 to 40 meters higher: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.abstract http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.abstract

realusername 11y ago

Indeed, the main problems are uncontrolled side effects. That's what happens when a system is really complex. Even if you just look at weather forecast (which is just really the visible surface of climate change), the models we have are just starting to be working for the immediate future and it's still impossible to predict anything reliably two/three weeks ahead despite the massive amount of money poured into the complex field of meteorology. It's good to gather ideas about what we could do but we don't have any idea of the massive side effects which are going to happen. Almost anything related to climate change is quite speculative and still in research.