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What can a technologist do about climate change?

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Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#21

Post by mdpopescu »

cpr wrote: post #9

I still like Burt Rutan's take on the AGW question ( http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-Science.v4.3.pdf ). He looks at it as an engineer, using generally-accepted data. His conclusion is that the alarmists are wrong.

The graph on page 10 is absolutely beautiful. I have discussed the same idea with others and I was told that the real 50 degrees difference between summer and winter is irrelevant while the 2 degrees increase in the average temperature over the next 100 years will be devastating. Having been told that a human construct (average) is more important than a real fact, I gave up. :)

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#22

Post by ommunist »

bluehawk wrote: post #14
ommunist wrote: post #11

Technologist can do approximately the same thing about the climate change, that our Sun can do about the average temperature in the Milky Way. Keep calm and carry on! Humanity is not a geological force on this planet. UPD: Lovely stockpile of relevant information though. But I have a better one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeytbHBPFM . Snows always melt. Look at glaciology data, dudes!

The majority of science studies, papers and reports disagree with you. Humans can and do have a huge impact on the world.

Since when number of publications became the measure of truth? There were numerous publications before Leonardo since Aristotle that flies have 8 legs. They all still have 6 though. Humans are nothing in impact comparing to a single volcano.

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#24

Post by skadamat »

jf wrote: post #2

This is a masterpiece. I'm excited and overwhelmed after briefly skimming through it. I'm looking forward to the hours it will take me to work through this web page and its hyperlinks.

I legitimately hope this causes even a few technologists to shift their attitudes & how they approach their careers (the way Inventing on Principle did!)

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#25

Post by XorNot »

cpr wrote: post #9

I still like Burt Rutan's take on the AGW question ( http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-Science.v4.3.pdf ). He looks at it as an engineer, using generally-accepted data. His conclusion is that the alarmists are wrong.

So from slide 2 of that link:

Note, the green life along the Nile river and the dead desert elsewhere. When co2 is greater in the atmosphere, plants need less water to thrive. When dinosaurs roamed we had 3 to 5 times current co2 and planet was nearly all green, pole-to-pole Near catastrophe when co2 declined to 180 ppm, since below 150 ppm plants, then animals die. If you promote a green healthy planet, then you should lobby for a co2-fertilized atmosphere, not a co2-starved atmosphere.

If that's the argument you open with, then as an engineer you have missed the point entirely.

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#26

Post by cpr »

epistasis wrote: post #19
cpr wrote: post #9

I still like Burt Rutan's take on the AGW question ( http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-Science.v4.3.pdf ). He looks at it as an engineer, using generally-accepted data. His conclusion is that the alarmists are wrong.

Wow, that slide presentation is a masterpiece in how to deceive engineers. He's not looking at it "as an engineer," he's looking at everything with preconceived notions and trying to cherry pick his way to his conclusion.

That's fairly ad hominem. Can you give some examples?

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#27

Post by ommunist »

jf wrote: post #12
jessriedel wrote: post #8

I'd think there are better sources for reading about climate change than an author one who must admit "I didn’t mention nuclear because I don’t know much about it."

What would you recommend?

When it comes to real climate change data - nothing can substitute glaciology data.

This is a good graph for you. Holocene temperature variations. Ironically it was quite warmer just 8 thousand years ago. Look, no cars, no cows, no industry... and it _was warmer_.

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#28

Post by brandmeyer »

I have a controversial opinion on this topic: I don't think it is morally ethical to use inefficient languages in high duty-cycle applications. By "high duty-cycle applications" I specifically refer to environments which consistently consume the bulk of available CPU resources: big web servers, caching intermeddiate servers, etc. The common rationale is to trade off engineering time for CPU time. But that trade also means trading engineering time for carbon emissions, too.

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#29

Post by cjcenizal »

ommunist wrote: post #11

Technologist can do approximately the same thing about the climate change, that our Sun can do about the average temperature in the Milky Way. Keep calm and carry on! Humanity is not a geological force on this planet. UPD: Lovely stockpile of relevant information though. But I have a better one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeytbHBPFM . Snows always melt. Look at glaciology data, dudes!

You're absolutely wrong. Here are two examples of human activity having global, negative effects:

1. Our use of CFCs caused global ozone depletion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Antarctic_ozon...

2. Our use of leaded gas caused global lead poisoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#History_of_cont...

Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?

#30

Post by nostromo »

pc86 wrote: post #18
guscost wrote: post #13

While I don't really agree with the premise, my initial impression is that this should get ten upvotes for being so well reasoned and executed. Amazing work, I'm confident a lot of good will come of it. One recommendation, at your earliest convenience do something about this: > I didn’t mention nuclear because I don’t know much about it.

I'm struggling to figure out why nuclear is lumped in with fossil fuels.

Nuclear is low-carbon, but it's not renewable. Earth has a set amount of uranium that is destroyed when creating energy.

Currently we have about 200 years of uranium available for economical extraction. But if we tried to replace all coal with nuclear, we would be out within a few decades. Then we'd need to move to other non-renewable materials (thorium?) or start mining astroids.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glob...

And the mining of uranium looks awfully similar to the mining of coal. (Of course you need far fewer uranium mines for the same amount of energy.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#/media/File:Ara...

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