The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson

The title of the article here is misleading. He isn't the global warming heretic, he's always been a heretic in everything that he's done or talked about. The simple fact is he's quite often accurate.

I find it interesting that the planet is presumed to be warming at roughly 0.02C a year, yet we pump out [enough energy to raise the temperature by 20C a year]. (Ed: Sorry, I'd mistaken my numbers. Our potential to raise the temperature of the atmosphere is actually 200 times what I'd mistakenly put (originally 0.1C). Our potential to raise the temperature of the oceans is 0.1C a year, when in fact the oceans temperature raises at 0.01C. Sorry for the mistake folks!)

I have several problems with all the eco-energy projects. Namely wind turbines are likely to cause more ecological problems than solve, I'm sorry but they're killing off bats in phenomenal numbers and killing a species high up on the food chain causes problems. We do it to seals, but we eat the fish that they would so ecologically it's not all that harmful... unless we're going to start eating millions of tons of bugs a year, I think killing off the bats might cause a serious problem. I mean the last thing we need are plagues of locust.

The other problem with wind turbines is that they slow local wind speeds, if this is produced on a global scale this could inhibit the transfer of energy to the night-side of earth to be radiated away. This is the same problem that wave-energy will produce, mass use of this technology will cause a reduction in water flow, which in turn will cause more energy to be stored by the water. This one is particularly unpredictable: reduced tidal action will reduce the cooling effect of water vaporisation, however this will likely be balanced by an increase in evaporation, yet this could potentially be disastrous because hotter water = stronger storms, so mass use of wave-power technologies could drastically increase tropical storms, more than global warming ever could. Hopefully the wind turbines can slow these down!

I haven't even touch on the fact that wind turbines place angular stress on the ground they sit on, which on a large scale has never been predicted. I mean we're talking about placing angular forces on entire tectonic plates that will change as the direction of the wind. The effect of this is inherently unknown, and I don't want to know what could happen at stressed fault-lines.

My problem with solar power is that it reduces the albedo of the planet and ultimately turns the electrical energy into thermal (infrared) energy, which is then trapped by CO2! Lowering the planets albedo will increase global warming even if we decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, this problem will be compounded if they ever get the holy grail of solar energy, the orbital solar power plant. Placing solar power plants into space won't increase the planets albedo, however it will transfer ridiculous amounts of energy to the planet and to be viable they only need a 20-30% efficiency due to the sheer abundance of energy. However, the other 70-80% will still be absorbed by the atmosphere and convert to thermal energy. (If anyone doubts this, please put a cup of water in the microwave and this is essentially the result as 70-80% of the energy will be absorbed by the atmosphere, which is roughly equivalent to a 10 meter layer of distilled water)

Global Warming is (95% probable) a byproduct of human civilization in one way or another. However the solution proposed by environmentalists is a planet wide geo-forming project.

I think the potential for harm could be much, much greater from geo-forming the entire planet than sea levels rising. We know what global warming could do to the planet, we don't know what geo-forming could do to the planet and no one is looking at it.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the planet that realises the solutions to the problem are potentially worse than the problem itself.

I was taking issue with the definition of a "rational" decision in terms of environment as merely a cost-benefit analysis.

I'm, frankly, sick of cost-benefit analysis being applied to everything. It has become the hammer that's turning everything into a nail. It's led to a pretty ugly state of software in a lot of different arenas, because a CBA doesn't support spending much time running down memory leaks, or trying to reduce software footprint.

The problem with using CBA in software -- and more to the point, in the environment -- is that it ignores the cumulative effect of lots of small decisions. Each individual action may not make "rational" sense in terms of CBA, but the consequences quickly add up.

To go back to my specific example, you're right that our hauling out some of the trash probably had very little positive impact on our environment. However, it is the cumulative actions of us and others like us who ensure that our trails stay clean.

For yet another example, if you climb Mount Rainier in Washington, you are expected to pack out all of your waste. I would guess the average trip time to the summit and back to be about three to four days, so that means that parties must carry their poop in their pack.

From an individual cost-benefit point of view, that's ridiculous and not rational. It requires a lot of effort for -- on an individual basis -- little environmental benefit.

However, it's the cumulative impact of thousands of summit parties every year that has a very real, and very detrimental, impact on the mountain's ecology.

Basically, cost-benefit analysis is a stupid, shortsighted way to make decisions.

You are suggesting that we ought to take all costs into account when doing cost-benefit analysis. You are not providing a substantive criticism of cost-benefit analysis.

If I had wanted to suggest that, I would have.

How does a group of people take all costs into account when doing a cost-benefit analysis if they can't agree on what constitutes a cost and what constitutes a benefit, and their relative values?

You and others here are talking about CBA as the basis for rational decision making, and yet I bet you couldn't even describe it in any formal way that could apply to all logical decisions.

What does it mean to do a CBA in terms of your immediate environment? What factors are you taking into consideration? Aesthetics? Health? How much money is clean water worth to you? Or, from a CBA standpoint: is it worth pouring a gallon of paint into your drinking water, or is it better to transport that paint to a remote facility which will handle it in some fashion? And in that one relatively minor decision alone, how many different factors are you going to account for? The size of your drinking water supply, the chemical composition of the paint, the ecology of your drinking water supply, the distance to the waste managing facility, the vehicle used to get it there, the methods the facility uses to handle it ...

This CBA hand-waving is bullshit. It's impossible to take all costs into account for this kind of stuff. Most people -- even the most knowledgeable climate scientists -- don't even know what all the costs are. So just how are we supposed to justify our environmental decisions using a CBA when you can't even correctly do the accounting in the costs column?

And this is what constitutes the basis for rational decision making? Bah! Bah, I say!

I think it's perfectly rational to make decisions based on morals and ethics, and whether or not the consequences of that decision get you closer to your goals or not. So, for example, one of my goals is to experience wilderness areas in as pristine a state as possible. I see trash there. The trash is heavy, and I have a long distance to hike out. It will cost me a great deal of effort to remove it. But, it still does help to accomplish my goal: the next time I visit that place, the trash won't be there (nor will it be there for the next visitor). Thus, I will remove it, if possible.

Is that not a rational decision-making process? Does that not make sense from an environmental standpoint, as a species?