Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself • Hacker News Board

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#21

Post by mistercow » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 11:08 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

grecy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more ridiculous.. the full quote is: "We might be able to setup space mirrors or otherwise increasing the reflectivity of our atmosphere. Obviously, we cannot hope to both keep pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, and correct for it afterward: this could quickly become economically infeasible." In the context of killing the planet and the entire human race, we still mention a plan could be "economically infeasible". J…

Sigh. We're not going to "kill the planet," or the entire human race. Humans adapt. That's what we do. That's why we won. Such hyperbole endangers vital rational discourse on the subject.

>We're not going to "kill the planet," or the entire human race. Humans adapt. That's what we do. That's why we won.

That is very close to the "fine tuning" argument often employed by creationists. It is entirely possible that humans have, in fact, merely been phenomenally lucky to have survived so far, and that the fact that we find ourselves as members of such a phenomenally lucky species is easily explained by the anthropic principle.

If you take all of the intelligent critters out there in the universe that are capable of discussing their adaptability, a pretty big chunk of those critters are going to be members of civilizations that got very lucky over the ages and managed to produce large cumulative populations, while a very small proportion will be critters from short-lived civilizations. Indeed, holding constant whatever level of adaptability we actually have, it is reasonable to assume that we are among the luckier of the civilizations at that level.

So no, we can't just assume that we're going to leap over any hurdle that comes our way.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#22

Post by DennisP » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 11:45 PM UTC

TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #16

bryanlarsen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, by deciding to be "neutral" on the issue, you're exactly where the climate change deniers want you to be. The deniers don't have to be proven correct to prevent action on climate change, they just have to put out enough FUD to create doubt.

Most of the real changes would require many people to die. Going back, worldwide, to a pre-industrial civilisation would be a possibility. However, We're looking at 90% fatality rates to get to that point due to lack of food production. Probably would be even less than that. No chance in happening, unless forced by catastrophic event. Another possibility is tremendous rationing. We see what having even simple healthc…

A study about a year ago claimed that we could get to half the reductions required to keep us under +2C just by halting all fossil fuel subsidies worldwide (not that that's feasible).

A little googling on solar panel energy cost found, for example, these links:

http://solarbus.org/documents/pvpayback.pdf

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910

which claim that energy payback of solar panels takes about three years.

For various reasons I think we'd do better with advanced nuclear, such as integral fast reactors or molten salt reactors. Either would be safer than what we have now, proliferation-resistant, and produce a lot less nuclear waste with a much shorter lifetime. We could have a very energy-rich future without carbon emissions.

As for carbon credits, a lot of economists advocate a "fee-and-dividend" scheme. Instead of trading credits, major source emitters simply pay a flat fee per ton of carbon, passing on the cost to the rest of us. The money is divided among all citizens, equal amount per person. Most people come out ahead (since the median emissions are less than the average), but since the dividend is constant and the new cost variable, everyone has more incentive to conserve.

I've seen calculations for the contribution of waste heat and it's very minor compared to greenhouse gases. However, if our energy usage continues to grow exponentially on this planet it'll be a real problem in a couple hundred years: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#23

Post by Torgo » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:08 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #8

kstenerud wrote: post #3

"Let us look at the predictions made in 1990: they predicted an increase in temperature of 0.3C per decade, plus minus 0.1C. Yet less than 0.2C of warming per decade was observed. To be blunt, they got it flat wrong." How much less than 0.2C was it? 0.3 +/- 0.1 means it can be anywhere from 0.2 to 0.4, so unless it was grossly under 0.2, it wasn't flat wrong. "there are alternatives to banning oil production: solar r…

I think the bigger thing to pull from that quote centers on the word "prediction". The IPCC FAR didn't really make any predictions. Instead, it made a series of projections (twelve of them, to be precise) based on running various sets of hypothetical parameters through a climate model. Some of those projections were based on very pessimistic scenarios (very high CO2 sensitivity, very high future CO2 emissions). They…

Well, he used the same numbers that the IPCC FAR report's "Policymaker's Summary" section chose to use, which repeatedly uses the term "is predicted" (admittedly, qualified with "based on current model results" or specific scenarios.) The explicit purpose of that section was to suggest possible policy options based on a set of long-term events stated to be found _with certainty_ (their words) by the working group that were going to occur.

Let's say that I am a "policymaker" and not a climate scientist, and I sensibly choose to defer to experts how I should plan for any potential climate change. That's the section that was written specifically to me for that purpose, by the working group--with the same numbers that this guy quotes.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#24

Post by anthonyb » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:21 AM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #2

Global warming is one of those topics I've always withheld judgement on because it's such a huge topic that, even ignoring politics, it seems very hard to get a solid understanding of the science.

Just talk to some scientists, maybe? Here's the Australian CSIRO's take: http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/State-of-...

They produce a nifty State of the Climate report every so often, which is pretty easy to understand. There's one just been released, in fact: http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/%7E/media...

Disclaimer: I currently work for the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne - as a programmer though, not a scientist.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#25

Post by stonemetal » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:22 AM UTC

allardschip wrote: post #19

stonemetal wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also wasn't that 0.3C in a nothing done to avert it scenario? With various green efforts around the world I would expect it to not quite hit the mark.

Despite all the green efforts, CO2 output from using fossil fuel still grows. Western economies barely, if at all, made a dent in their fossil fuel consumptions. Upcoming economies like China use more and more fossil fuels. I think its fair to say that we are nowhere near having a solution to reduce global CO2 output.

Then blame it on the economy gas use fell(or at least growth fell) significantly with the recession.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#26

Post by inthewoods » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:25 AM UTC

I always find it troubling when someone with a computer science background assumes that their knowledge naturally transfers to something like climate science. Climate science is about probability and huge multi-factor models - and most importantly - models that change as new knowledge and data appear. It's just my opinion, but that seems to me to be the opposite of what most computer scientists are taught. Obviously computer scientists incorporate new data and new thinking - but I don't think it's quite the same as constructing a statistical model of how climate works. And obviously there are exceptions - but in general, I think it's just a different mindset.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#27

Post by anthonyb » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:25 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #9

kstenerud wrote: post #3

"Let us look at the predictions made in 1990: they predicted an increase in temperature of 0.3C per decade, plus minus 0.1C. Yet less than 0.2C of warming per decade was observed. To be blunt, they got it flat wrong." How much less than 0.2C was it? 0.3 +/- 0.1 means it can be anywhere from 0.2 to 0.4, so unless it was grossly under 0.2, it wasn't flat wrong. "there are alternatives to banning oil production: solar r…

Even more ridiculous.. the full quote is: "We might be able to setup space mirrors or otherwise increasing the reflectivity of our atmosphere. Obviously, we cannot hope to both keep pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, and correct for it afterward: this could quickly become economically infeasible." In the context of killing the planet and the entire human race, we still mention a plan could be "economically infeasible". J…

I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, and read economic arguments like that in the sense of "we will need to spend a large chunk of our civilisation's energy/material output to do this", not "Oh noes! My small, green pieces of paper!"

The thing that I worry about with the economic arguments is that the climate and/or ecosystems will reach a tipping point before we get to the point where we need to do something, and that chunk will be > 100%.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#28

Post by anthonyb » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:29 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

grecy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more ridiculous.. the full quote is: "We might be able to setup space mirrors or otherwise increasing the reflectivity of our atmosphere. Obviously, we cannot hope to both keep pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, and correct for it afterward: this could quickly become economically infeasible." In the context of killing the planet and the entire human race, we still mention a plan could be "economically infeasible". J…

Sigh. We're not going to "kill the planet," or the entire human race. Humans adapt. That's what we do. That's why we won. Such hyperbole endangers vital rational discourse on the subject.

Except that there are civilisations which have died out due to overexploiting their environment, or the climate changing and killing off their agriculture.

That's two risks. You can add others now which haven't previously been possible, such as disturbing your ecosystems to the point where there's another mass extinction looming, or changing the climate to the point where you spark famine, wars, lack of water, etc.

That's where all of the rational discourse backed by evidence (aka. science) is pointing.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#29

Post by oelewapperke » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:31 AM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #21

CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. We're not going to "kill the planet," or the entire human race. Humans adapt. That's what we do. That's why we won. Such hyperbole endangers vital rational discourse on the subject.

>We're not going to "kill the planet," or the entire human race. Humans adapt. That's what we do. That's why we won. That is very close to the "fine tuning" argument often employed by creationists. It is entirely possible that humans have, in fact, merely been phenomenally lucky to have survived so far, and that the fact that we find ourselves as members of such a phenomenally lucky species is easily explained by the…

Sure we can. We just should understand what any adaptation means : killing 90% of the human race.

But when it comes to extinction, we can be pretty sure that's not going to happen.

Is 90% dead much better ? Probably not for the economy.

Re: Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself

#30

Post by anthonyb » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 1:35 AM UTC

TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #16

bryanlarsen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, by deciding to be "neutral" on the issue, you're exactly where the climate change deniers want you to be. The deniers don't have to be proven correct to prevent action on climate change, they just have to put out enough FUD to create doubt.

Most of the real changes would require many people to die. Going back, worldwide, to a pre-industrial civilisation would be a possibility. However, We're looking at 90% fatality rates to get to that point due to lack of food production. Probably would be even less than that. No chance in happening, unless forced by catastrophic event. Another possibility is tremendous rationing. We see what having even simple healthc…

That's complete crap. All it takes is a reasonable investment in technologies like wind and solar.

For example, I'm in Australia. Aluminium smelting here consumes about 1/3 of the electrical energy produced. Mostly that's done with hugely subsidised brown coal. If there were a serious effort to use solar power to smelt Aluminium instead, you'd see a big reduction in the CO2 produced, and it'd likely be cheaper than the current situation.

But there isn't the political will to get it done - primarily because of idiotic arguments like yours.