This is well-done, but I wish such treatments spent more effort establishing that climate change projections are (a) reliable and (b) catastrophic. Those two points are the essence of the case, and yet they're usually just assumed. (Note that whether climate-change is anthropogenic or not is utterly beside the point. That so much attention is paid to this peripheral issue is a major red flag.)
What can a technologist do about climate change?
51–60 of 293 posts
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#52I'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."
You consider an author honestly assessing the scope and limitations of his own knowledge, and disclosing it, a negative? Really? I'd wager that a good chunk of our problems today originates from policymaking on the basis of people who don't know, or don't admit, what they don't know.
Spot on!
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#53I actually believe 'climate change' is a type of cover for geopolitical issues related to the petrodollar. I believe that humans affect the climate, but the real scientific basis for that being the primary driver of climate change isn't there. But they are using 'da earf is melting' as a substitute for another truth that is just as scary.
That truth is that the United States and its closest allies use about twice as much fossil fuel as the rest of the countries, and being able to continue that is completely dependent upon a massive military campaign that stretches thinner as the years go by.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~paul20i/classweb/AFP2008/middleas...
Technologists can work on education and preventing the spread of war propaganda, which is rampant in Western television and media. Notice how the terrorists always seem to be loudly explaining which currently most strategic middle east country they come from.
If you want to believe the main problem is just that 'da earf is melting' or climate change or whatever, the root of the problem is still fossil fuel dependency.
The massive amount of fuel used for moving 3,000 pound vehicles to and from offices everyday, for work that probably 75% or more can be done over the internet with Skype or whatever, is the most obvious low-hanging fruit.
Another thing is, as the dollar hegemony fades, what replaces it, and what sort of conflict arises during that transition? Something like bitcoin might be a good alternative to WWIII.
We can also look toward alternative technological frameworks for society that support decentralization. Named-data networking, IPFS, Ethereum, etc.
Suburbia is a prime target for reform. Here is my idea: https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#54I 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.
His conclusion isn't that alarmists are wrong; his conclusion is that global warming would be a net good for humanity, that CFCs don't cause ozone depletion, and that DDT is actually A Good Thing. And the last two, despite being flagrantly unpopular opinions, are apparently so self-evident that they don't even require explication. And that's just in 2 slides.
In general, there's a cogent argument to be made that some of the more extreme predictions people have made about the ultimate impact of global warming are maybe a little bit over-dramatic (and in fact, some prominant climate scientists called out Sanders for this). But this guy? Nutjob.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/ar…
> Nuclear is low-carbon, but it's not renewable.
Sure it is, Nuclear doesn't just mean uranium fission, fusion reactors are nuclear as well and they will be a big thing in the future and we get better at doing it.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Well your evidence sure is overwhelming! Hundreds of man-years of research based on multiple, independent lines of evidence pointing towards a singular conclusion and you, the voice of reason, here to refute it all without the aid of satellite data, ice cores, spectrometers or computers models.
I think this is exactly Bret's point that he makes in the essay. Citizens aren't empowered to find out for themselves and are instead asks to trust smart people:
"And why trust them? Their rhetoric is catchy, but so is the horrific “denialist” rhetoric from the Cato Institute and similar. When the discussion is at the level of “trust me, I’m a scientist” and “look at the poor polar bears”, it becomes a matter of emotional appeal and faith, a form of religion.
Climate change is too important for us to operate on faith. Citizens need and deserve reading material which shows context — how significant suggested actions are in the big picture — and which embeds models — formulas and algorithms which calculate that significance, for different scenarios, from primary-source data and explicit assumptions."
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#57I've asked this question a few times but haven't really gotten a satisfactory answer. There are a lot of what I might call "epic problems" out there. Malaria, homelessness, HIV, refugees, war, climate change, income inequality, gender inequality, hate crimes.
I don't know anything about creating vaccines or cures for malaria or HIV. I don't have a degree in social work or behavior science. I don't have any experience with economics outside of personal investment and filing my income tax paperwork each year. I don't have billions of dollars to fund a company to focus on these things.
I make a small salary relative to what's required for these things and have very limited knowledge.
I'm a programmer and a manager. So how do I contribute to these problems? How can I take the skills I have and get homeless people the help they need? How do I take my web development skills and reduce income inequality? How do I help stop the next Trayvon Martin incident?
I have no idea. This article goes into great detail about climate change, but I finished reading it and still have no idea. I don't even know where to start.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Well your evidence sure is overwhelming! Hundreds of man-years of research based on multiple, independent lines of evidence pointing towards a singular conclusion and you, the voice of reason, here to refute it all without the aid of satellite data, ice cores, spectrometers or computers models.
Ironically all that system is not designed to find the truth. It is designed to find more funding to support itself. I know that, because I did that myself.
A single set of glacial cores from Greenland tells you more that all that satellite BS.
If you remotely closely familiar with principles of climatic modelling, you 'd be rotfl, looking at someone trying to validate or backtrace that models. Because you'd be familiar with valid and comparable data scarcity. We lack actual climate data. Ice cores are really the only thing we really have.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#59I 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.
Mate this is a pile of biased, self-aggrandizing, rambling shit.
Love the justification of his methodology over the Scientific Method:
• Not responsible for adequacy or value of product.
• Frequently being wrong is not a problem.
Whereas the engineer has to be concerned with:
• Consequences if wrong (people die).
Come on, dude.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#60>Climate change is the problem of our time, it’s everyone’s problem, and most of our problem-solvers are assuming that someone else will solve it. I would change that to say, "Climate change is a problem that will always be 50 years away".
At the bottom of the page, Bret says "at least for the next century, the “problem” of climate change will not be “solved” — it can only be “managed”. This is a long game. One more reason to be thinking about tools, infrastructure, and foundations. The next generation has some hard work ahead of them."
I view this as a very short term problem (i.e. the artificial effect on the planet through our own doing.) And I'm not saying that it isn't a problem and that we shouldn't be doing anything.
The planet naturally goes through warm and cool times. There's little we can do to mitigate that, we'll experience another ice age eventually.