How to Dial Down the Earth’s Thermostat
recode.net
recode.net
We've changed a few variables in a complex and sensitive system by introducing a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Temperatures appear to be rising in approximate correlation to the concentration of those gases. It's naive to expect that taking out the CO2 or - God forbid - pumping out sulphur dioxide particles is going to have any predictable effect.
There are other avenues with less possibility of side-effects, e.g. launching something into space to partially block the sun would have a direct impact.
Of course, things never change back to exactly what they were in the past. But to state that the risk of that option is similar to doing a completely new experiment on a global scale is insane.
Also, I always love those people that say that, since we've made Earth a worse heat sink, we should compensate by making the Sun a worse heat source. First principles do not go away just because you have a chaotic system.
1) chaos theory
This is an existential problem for climate theory. If you believe in statistics' mathematical foundation, then climate theory is wrong. Why ? Because the time series that are being used as the basis of the models do not satisfy the central limit theorem, ergo you cannot even correctly measure the climate (because no finite amount of measurements will ever be complete enough to give an accurate measurement of the whole system). Of course this is a mathematical argument that few people even understand. And it is extremely pedantic (like stating that in particle physics there's 2 contradicting theories, ergo we have no working theory), but in some ways this is correct.
The reply, when honestly discussed, is that chaos theory in practice applies to half the things you might measure in the real world, and disallows the use of statistics to predict the future. But ... those predictions "work". Just look at the numbers ! (In my opinion those numbers in fact they do exactly what chaos theory says they should, they work in the short term, fail in the long term. See for example the first few IPCC reports, and note that their predictions were wrong. The more recent ones are right - so far).
Utilitarianism in action. Of course the utility of climate theory varies, from genuine interest in the future evolution of the planet to political reasons. It will come as no surprise to anyone, these days, if one states that the vast majority of people have only political reasons - both on the left, right, green, red, blue, ... sides of the aisle.
2) mitigation
Mitigation would move us from a situation where "nature" is doing the damages, more or less randomly, to a situation where you can directly point at a specific human being/country that did the damage. Given that most world leaders are lawyers, this is seen as extremely undesirable.
Right now climate changes are the result of a "generic" action executed mostly by Europeans that are long dead. Hell, their 90% or so of their grandchildren are dead. If America were to directly change the climate, and as a result, say, the region around Delhi/Beijing/... changes into a desert ... Even if it present global advantages.
What. Could. Possibly. Go. Wrong?
I'm no luddite, but we are so bad at manipulating ecosystems, we cause so much damage via secondary, tertiary, and etcerary effects, that the idea of mucking, nay, fucking, with the entire atmosphere just seems overwhelmingly idiotic.
I really hope this guy is neither charismatic nor driven, because he is handsome enough that with charisma and drive he will convince enough politicians that surely someone somewhere will try this, regardless of the results of thoughtful risk analysis.
There is so much here we barely understand we must move cautiously, lest we kill ourselves in the process.
But many of the things we take for granted nowadays are the result of ecological manipulations. Ever rode a horse in the Americas? You took advantage of an ecological manipulation. Ever eaten corn grown in Europe? You took advantage of an ecological manipulation. Ever used electricity that comes from a dam? You took advantage of an ecological manipulation.
My point is this: man has manipulated ecosystems on a massive scale previously. I'm not going to say that what this guy is proposing is a good idea, but I'm also not going to dismiss it simply from the perspective that "Human intervention in the natural ecosystem is always inherently bad" either.
This is where science comes into play. I'd like to know more about what it says on this subject.
I'd welcome your reading the words that are written and not the words that you imagine a technophobe writing.
Thank you.
Cautious investigation is not doing nothing. It is learning and acting when we have a much better idea of the risks.
Our proposed solutions are not necessarily better - nor necessarily worse - that our current problem.
Our job is to to analyze them rigourously before acting.
And given how disastrous rash action has been in the past, we should have learned by now, from the data, to take our time.
Not as sexy as saying we have a solution, but far safer.
Consider nuclear power. If we had scrapped developing it because it sounded dangerous with the argument: "What. Could. Possibly. Go. Wrong?", then France today wouldn't generate 75% of it's electricity from nuclear power. Many countries around the world would be forced to use more coal and fossil fuels, adding a lot more pollution to our environment. And we'd be deprived of the source of energy that causes the fewest deaths per amount of energy produced.
But more broadly, this type of reasoning just isn't scientific. We can only judge geoengineering by carefully understanding what it would do. Yes, this would have to include a tough analysis on possible risks. But dismissing it out of hand and depriving it of funding because it feels wrong in your gut is not rational.
It's easy for us to approve studies that, say, fight disease. Everyone knows it's important to get information on, say, what the health impact of a new chemical is. But those are the easy cases. Doing science well is about getting it right in the hard cases. I believe geoengineering is one of those hard cases, because it feels wrong to us that we'd be able to control our environment. It doesn't seem like "our place" to tinker with nature.
But let's see. Volcanos erupt making abrupt, profound changes in our environment. As mentioned in the article, when Mount Pinatubo erupted, it shot enough stuff in to the atmosphere to cool the earth by nearly a degree Fahrenheit. Given that the world didn't end because of this, perhaps there's a place for controlled intervention by humans which more efficiently and precisely alters the world.
We don't know yet if anything we think of would work. We need to do more research. But do you really think we should quit because it doesn't sound nice?
The fate of the world rests in our hands. Are we going to throw away one of the few potential solutions to our problems because it doesn't appeal to our human intuitions?
It's time to grow up. Let's do science properly before we fuck ourselves over.
Remember the pile under the stadium at the University of Chicago?
Long before building nuclear plants we did a lot of small scale isolated engineering with the basic technology. Learned a lot. Killed more than a few people along the way.
Realized where the basic science was sufficient, realized where we needed more, realized where we needed hard engineering.
And we generally experimented on small scales. And built on small scales.
With this proposal, there really are no small scales. We need to evaluate the risks conservatively since there are many we simply do not yet know how to quantify. And proceed cautiously.
As you write, let's do science properly. Small steps. Lots of data. Better models. No dogma.
That's not my understanding from the article. For example,
"There are lots of experiments that will tell us something useful about the risk and efficacy of [geoengineering], and these experiments are so small that their physical risks are negligible."
He's not suggesting launching right into full-scale geo-engineering, but rather to start with small-scale tests and related research.
Also, the half-life of sulfur aerosols in the stratosphere is on the order of a few months. If we overdo it or discover some previously-unsuspected downside, all we have to do is stop, and the effects will fade out in a reasonable amount of time.
Caution is certainly warranted, but running away screaming is not.
The biggest problem with the sulfur aerosol approach is mentioned in the article: it does nothing to help with ocean acidification, which is also a serious consequence of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations.
This is the key thing. We're just modeling, and models aren't so trustworthy over the long term when they're based only on past experience.
yep, an it brought up and down massive civilizations. Roman Empire, Caliphates, Viking Age, Mongols, Medieval Europe/Black Death... somewhere here goes our current world order :)
Eventually, CO2 levels drop back down and the planet cools, but that's a much slower process involving things like rock erosion over millions of years. In the short term there are strong positive feedbacks...forests drying out and burning down, permafrost melting and releasing CO2 and methane, undersea methane ice destabilizing, etc.
A great book that covers the geological evidence in detail, written for laymen, is Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen.
Big fan of engineering climate stability given that we are inadvertantly engineering its instability but, as always, the devil is in the details and the nitty gritty of how to do it.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-i...
I wish we could do more to promote walkable community design and public transit and bicycling as a commuter alternative, especially in the U.S.
This sort of thing really frustrates me. It is chest beating, not problem solving. It is ego-based, not care-based.
So while I probably cannot convince anyone here, I will remain equally unconvinced that I am wrong. Also, fwiw, I was an environmental studies major. My degree happens to be incomplete, but I have studied environmental issues formally, to some degree. So I don't think I am merely talking about my butt.
Anyway, have an upvote.
So yes, get people riding bikes and taking public transit and convincing themselves that climate change is a problem people can tackle. Just don't stop there.