climate change skeptics
Aug. 19th, 2010 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eClimate change skeptics make the accusation that there is no real evidence of climate change. They are wrong. There is plenty of evidence. Ocean levels are rising, arctic ice is melting, and glaciers are retreating. These things are big and undeniable, and are happening even faster than the climatologists expected. These aren't vague theoretical graphs that nobody but experts can understand, these are things that anybody can measure, and many people have done so and provided proof that these things are really happening.
Climate change skeptics say that Malthus was wrong to raise alarms that population would expand geometrically and outstrip resources. Well, no. He was right -- population did expand geometrically, but we got lucky. Scientists found more resources and found ways to use other resources in unexpected ways. Climate change skeptics say that the Club of Rome predictions of calamity were wrong too. Well, no. They got the expansion right too. But once again the ingenuity of our scientists saved the day, postponing the crunch. The climate skeptics miss the whole point. There is real danger, but thanks to the scientists (the very class of people demonised by the climate skeptics) we have managed to dodge the bullet for far longer than expected. We need science to help us to think our way out of this situation. Saying that everything is fine and that the scientists' fears have been groundless is plain stupidity. It is to play Russian Roulette with all our lives.
More recently I've heard climate change skeptics say that, okay things are warming, but that it isn't caused by humans, because the heating doesn't line directly up with carbon dioxide concentration and if humans were the culprits the two curves would match. I'm amazed at the religious fervour with which they hold to their beliefs, but again, they're wrong. Their thinking is nursery school simple on a slightly more complicated problem. Until recently we were not only pushing heaps of carbon dioxide out into the atmosphere, we were also filthing it up with particulates which unfortunately, masked the warming to some degree. Now that we have been cleaning up our act (and reducing the sickness caused by smog) we are seeing a steep increase in warming. But even then things are not as clear as they would like us to believe. Carbon dioxide, though it is only a tiny part of the atmosphere is very effective at absorbing heat, but it is is just one of the 3 main greenhouse gasses. Methane and water vapour are the other two main ones -- and methane is far more effective than carbon dioxide at retaining heat. Both of those others are sensitive to the temperature changes caused by increased carbon dioxide. When the planet warms more water evaporates, increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. When the tundras melt large amounts of frozen land turns to methane-producing bog. Also there is the fear that as the oceans warm, large amounts of solid, frozen methane stored in the ocean floor will come to the surface and vaporise into the atmosphere. There is a lot of evidence that this has happened before in the prehistoric past, with catastrophic consequences, causing massive deaths of dominant animal species. Many companies are currently looking greedily at those enormous deposits of methane, wanting to mine them.
One of the most absurd things that climate change skeptics say is that changing our polluting, inefficient ways will ruin our already dangerously teetering economy. They say we need massive amounts of coal for electricity and petroleum for vehicles. If we don't have it the economy will suffer. This is incredibly simplistic and short sighted. The new jobs and technologies provided by cleaner and more efficient energy would actually boost the economy. It is difficult to see how entrenching profits in wasteful, dirty, increasingly expensive energy helps anybody except the wealthy energy producers. Anyhow, as any economist knows, the best thing for an economy is to totally destroy a city every few years and force everybody to rebuild... but that clearly isn't a good thing for the people. People's and the economy's interests don't necessarily align. If we all had cheap, or even free energy that didn't poison our environment, that was so decentralised it could never be attacked by malcontents, and we had efficient systems that let us get much more out of our energy, who could possibly argue that this would be a bad thing? We might not be able to get all the way to that goal by working hard on efficiency and alternative energy, but I can assure you that we will definitely never find it if we never look for it, relying on old technology instead.
One of the things that annoys me most is that climate change skeptics often shrug and say, so what if the climate warms a bit, the cold, icy parts of the northern hemisphere could be more productive if they were warmer. The problem is that it might not work out that way. Greenland's ice is melting at an accelerating pace. This means that the majority of the ice will melt quickly near the end, and massive amounts of cold, fresh water will get dumped suddenly into the north Atlantic. If that blocks the currents that bring warm water north then the Arctic could refreeze very quickly indeed, in as little as a decade, and blanket much of the northern hemisphere in snow. That would reflect so much light back into space that it could trigger a new ice age. Ironic, isn't it? Global warming could possibly cause Europe and North America to be buried under a kilometer or more of ice like they were during the last ice age. Yes. You read that right -- kilometers thick ice, not a meter or tens of meters -- a kilometer, perhaps more. So much for the warm, balmy north. Nobody is able to fully quantify the risks that this might happen. It appears to have happened in prehistory. Might the ice melting from Greenland and Canada set off such a chain reaction again? We don't know, but it is scarily possible.
What I don't understand is why climate change skeptics are so damn certain in their belief. They have no evidence that pushing the Earth's systems is okay, while they blithely dismiss all the evidence of danger. So, skip forward 50 years... if the planet's systems are crashing and one crop after another fails, wars break out with people trying to grab what little remains of the fresh water and arable land, large chunks of frozen methane surface from the sea to kill millions, a new ice age buries the cradle of civilisation... what are they going to say? Oops, we were wrong... sorry?
Instead of pointing a gun at our brains and insisting after each click of the chamber that it is actually safe, isn't it more sane to put the damn gun down and question whether it is smart to be doing this? There are safer ways to play.
Climate change skeptics say that Malthus was wrong to raise alarms that population would expand geometrically and outstrip resources. Well, no. He was right -- population did expand geometrically, but we got lucky. Scientists found more resources and found ways to use other resources in unexpected ways. Climate change skeptics say that the Club of Rome predictions of calamity were wrong too. Well, no. They got the expansion right too. But once again the ingenuity of our scientists saved the day, postponing the crunch. The climate skeptics miss the whole point. There is real danger, but thanks to the scientists (the very class of people demonised by the climate skeptics) we have managed to dodge the bullet for far longer than expected. We need science to help us to think our way out of this situation. Saying that everything is fine and that the scientists' fears have been groundless is plain stupidity. It is to play Russian Roulette with all our lives.
More recently I've heard climate change skeptics say that, okay things are warming, but that it isn't caused by humans, because the heating doesn't line directly up with carbon dioxide concentration and if humans were the culprits the two curves would match. I'm amazed at the religious fervour with which they hold to their beliefs, but again, they're wrong. Their thinking is nursery school simple on a slightly more complicated problem. Until recently we were not only pushing heaps of carbon dioxide out into the atmosphere, we were also filthing it up with particulates which unfortunately, masked the warming to some degree. Now that we have been cleaning up our act (and reducing the sickness caused by smog) we are seeing a steep increase in warming. But even then things are not as clear as they would like us to believe. Carbon dioxide, though it is only a tiny part of the atmosphere is very effective at absorbing heat, but it is is just one of the 3 main greenhouse gasses. Methane and water vapour are the other two main ones -- and methane is far more effective than carbon dioxide at retaining heat. Both of those others are sensitive to the temperature changes caused by increased carbon dioxide. When the planet warms more water evaporates, increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. When the tundras melt large amounts of frozen land turns to methane-producing bog. Also there is the fear that as the oceans warm, large amounts of solid, frozen methane stored in the ocean floor will come to the surface and vaporise into the atmosphere. There is a lot of evidence that this has happened before in the prehistoric past, with catastrophic consequences, causing massive deaths of dominant animal species. Many companies are currently looking greedily at those enormous deposits of methane, wanting to mine them.
One of the most absurd things that climate change skeptics say is that changing our polluting, inefficient ways will ruin our already dangerously teetering economy. They say we need massive amounts of coal for electricity and petroleum for vehicles. If we don't have it the economy will suffer. This is incredibly simplistic and short sighted. The new jobs and technologies provided by cleaner and more efficient energy would actually boost the economy. It is difficult to see how entrenching profits in wasteful, dirty, increasingly expensive energy helps anybody except the wealthy energy producers. Anyhow, as any economist knows, the best thing for an economy is to totally destroy a city every few years and force everybody to rebuild... but that clearly isn't a good thing for the people. People's and the economy's interests don't necessarily align. If we all had cheap, or even free energy that didn't poison our environment, that was so decentralised it could never be attacked by malcontents, and we had efficient systems that let us get much more out of our energy, who could possibly argue that this would be a bad thing? We might not be able to get all the way to that goal by working hard on efficiency and alternative energy, but I can assure you that we will definitely never find it if we never look for it, relying on old technology instead.
One of the things that annoys me most is that climate change skeptics often shrug and say, so what if the climate warms a bit, the cold, icy parts of the northern hemisphere could be more productive if they were warmer. The problem is that it might not work out that way. Greenland's ice is melting at an accelerating pace. This means that the majority of the ice will melt quickly near the end, and massive amounts of cold, fresh water will get dumped suddenly into the north Atlantic. If that blocks the currents that bring warm water north then the Arctic could refreeze very quickly indeed, in as little as a decade, and blanket much of the northern hemisphere in snow. That would reflect so much light back into space that it could trigger a new ice age. Ironic, isn't it? Global warming could possibly cause Europe and North America to be buried under a kilometer or more of ice like they were during the last ice age. Yes. You read that right -- kilometers thick ice, not a meter or tens of meters -- a kilometer, perhaps more. So much for the warm, balmy north. Nobody is able to fully quantify the risks that this might happen. It appears to have happened in prehistory. Might the ice melting from Greenland and Canada set off such a chain reaction again? We don't know, but it is scarily possible.
What I don't understand is why climate change skeptics are so damn certain in their belief. They have no evidence that pushing the Earth's systems is okay, while they blithely dismiss all the evidence of danger. So, skip forward 50 years... if the planet's systems are crashing and one crop after another fails, wars break out with people trying to grab what little remains of the fresh water and arable land, large chunks of frozen methane surface from the sea to kill millions, a new ice age buries the cradle of civilisation... what are they going to say? Oops, we were wrong... sorry?
Instead of pointing a gun at our brains and insisting after each click of the chamber that it is actually safe, isn't it more sane to put the damn gun down and question whether it is smart to be doing this? There are safer ways to play.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-08-19 10:27 pm (UTC)Both these compensating effects are happening anyway, but if the government balances things well and gets the timing right, then we could get all the benefits with no downside. Also, we would then be able to sell-on the better technology to other countries who will eventually need it. We used to be world leaders in solar technology, but successive governments have just about killed off that potential cash-cow.
The biggest problem is that our imbecilic governments have dithered around for so long that the transition period becomes progressively more difficult. At some point, if we wait long enough, there will be absolutely no way to change over painlessly. The sooner we move towards better energy sources then the easier it will be.
In some ways the government has made itself almost irrelevant though. Individuals and small companies are helping us move that way regardless. Unfortunately, I think that leaving it entirely to private enterprise means that there will be a prolonged period of pain. And of course the government just might put their foot in it again by investing in a monumental mistake like nuclear power (something private enterprise thankfully won't touch). Nuclear power stations can't help us in the short term because we need solutions in less than the multi-decade lead time nuclear takes. Also nuclear is dangerous for two simple reasons: it is centralised, so vulnerable to attack, and it can be diverted to weapons. Humanity can't be trusted with nuclear power. Maybe one day when we've matured it will be suitable, but in an era when a bunch of dickheads can feel good about flying planes into buildings, now is not the time to contemplate nuclear fission anything. Added to all that, nuclear is still only a finite resource and diverts funds from permanent solutions to our energy needs.
There are plenty of ways to save money in our energy use. Vehicles commonly waste more than 99% (!!!) of the petrol they burn. We can do much better than that. Wasting just half the petrol in cars would effectively halve the cost of fuel. How cool would that be! And we'd still have a lot of room for improvement. Electric power line losses are massive. Enormous amounts of heat go wastefully up the smoke stacks of coal-fired power stations. Electrical heaters, coolers, and air conditioners are very wasteful when houses are so badly insulated. Refrigerators waste terrific amounts of energy (they are often the heaviest burden in the house). Most computers consume between ten times and a hundred times more than they need to (I have a desktop computer that uses just 2 Watts instead of a normal computer's 150 Watts). Thankfully we've moved towards more efficient lighting, which is getting even better recently with LED (light emitting diode) lights that use a fraction of the power of other lights and last for more than a decade. But we have so much more that we can do to improve things. It can generate work and money while improving our lifestyle and saving us money and energy.