Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6475 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:27 pm Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Omnitir, I appreciate your insights, but I always come back to what Ludi said.
You are turning what could be a hundred-mile trek into an eternal one that never reaches its destination. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 1001 Location: Down Under
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Ludi wrote:
Then why not push for implementing the safe mitigation technologies we already have?
Not shiny enough?
I completely agree that we need to push for mitigation technologies we already have, and I've never said otherwise.
Though there are technologies in development that we should be aware of. Does not pushing for a shiny new technology mean that it won't be developed?
Considering the vast military applications nanotech could potentially have, is it wise to just ignore what is in development and who is developing it?
Yes, we should focus on what we can do now. But it's foolhardy to ignore what we may be able to do tomorrow, especially so when what we could do tomorrow is so potentially dangerous. _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6475 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Omnitir wrote:
I completely agree that we need to push for mitigation technologies we already have, and I've never said otherwise.
And yet you are an opponent of powering down. You don't deny that, do you?
Powering down and scaling down are the ultimate mitigation "technologies." Far more powerful, when it comes to seriously addressing our desperate plight, than a quadrillion nanobots. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3394 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:56 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
How will Powereddown (sorry about the ugly construction) societies manage to remove all the CO2 in the atmosphere, then? I agree with Omnitir that these technologies will be explored whether we like them or not - as it stands people eat this stuff up. Hmm, unintentional choice of words there...the massive increases in temperature we're facing will ruin crops everywhere; while I'm all for Permaculture and similiar concepts there is great potential for putting nanotech to good uses as well, especially in manafacturing.
If GW really gets out of hand people will demand any avenue be explored. Maybe they can make it too cold for your Japanese beetles, Hein! Of course there's another way to dim the atmosphere, full out nuclear war. Even without the nuclear winter of the TAPPS study (which has been discreteted) we'd dim things a bit just from smoke and dust; we'd also destroy a lot of CO2 belching industry, kill millions or billions of motorists, destroy economies producing the transportation and industry in the first place, etc. Talk about Demand Destruction...
I think it's wrong for these debates to be so dualistic. Some tech solutions may prove very useful in the overall scheme, just as a buffet of renewable energy applications will be more effective than trying to get by purely on just one. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
Could you slide your shorts down please?
Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming.
_________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming.
Yes I read that the day before yesterday. It's like lovelock is going mainstream. In yesterdays independent there's a big article on Barry Commoner. link
Quote:
Back in the 1970s, Barry Commoner was one of the first environmentalists to warn that the earth had limits - and human society was on course to exceed them. Now, as he turns 90, his message is more relevant than ever. By Michael McCarthy reports
The independent has certainly got better since Mr Blairs attack
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 3429 Location: California, USA
Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 4:14 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Good analogy, Dohboi, re. "if I pushed your head three inches slowly with my fist it wouldn't hurt..." Rate of change. Slow in human terms, hyperdrive in geological terms.
Omni, re. your item "nature doesn't know or care if we live or die..." In fact that's just plain incorrect on the science, and I would have thought you of all people would know this one:
Ecosystems are homeostatic, meaning that they use a variety of feedback systems, particularly negative (limiting) feedback systems, to maintain conditions that are optimal for their constituent organisms.
That in a nutshell is Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, the one that has become the mainstream paradigm in the Earth sciences. Lovelock was not some dopey new-ager who went around kissing dolphins and waxing poetic about Ma Nature convening a Board of Directors' meeting with all the furry creatures in Bambi's forest. He was and still basically is a hard-nosed science guy with a gift for language. Margulis proposed the name "Gaia" based on ancient mythology; this is no different than modern astronomers using ancient myths as the basis for names for astronomical objects.
Again for emphasis: ecosystems are homeostatic. They act in such a manner as to maintain optimal conditions for the organisms of which they consist. Thus they are inherently resistant to changes that would otherwise lead to conditions that would be unfavorable to life.
We are pushing the system beyond the limits of its homeostatic capability. We are breaking numerous negative feedback mechanisms including many we aren't even aware of yet. We are about to tip the system into a condition where runaway positive feedback loops dominate for a period of centuries and possibly longer. And we do not know enough about the system as a whole to maintain it.
We tried that with Biosphere II, and the experiment was, in purely scientific terms, a resounding success, precisely becuase it returned a very clear result. The popular media wrote it up as a failure because it didn't get the result we "wanted," but that's not how science works. Success in science is about getting clear results. We got a very clear result. The very clear result was that humans were unable to make the system work. The very clear result was that if we were depending on something of that sort to save our asses, we would quickly end up deader than doornails.
I'm not opposed to technology. I'm al in favor of it. I want PG&E or some group of private investors to build a nice big nuclear reactor right down the road from where we buy our land. I want to drive an electric car that will do 400 miles on a charge and recharge in ten minutes. I want to live in a nice cozy house where the temperature is always 72 degreees Fahrenheit with 55 - 60% humidity. I want to keep working in the technology industries, and keep enjoying the good ol' American diet, and have all the clean drinking water I want by just turning on the faucet, and all the electricity I want by just flipping a switch. I want to go to the fridge and have ice cream any time I feel like it.
But that's not what's coming. If we're lucky we might get our nuclear plant, but even a thousand nuclear plants and a million windfarms aren't going to stop the climate collision, only reduce the severity so that the people in the back seat don't get squished like bugs.
What's coming is a living hell. What's coming is a near-certain decline & fall of epic proportions such as the world has never seen before. What's coming probably includes nuclear and biological warfare as nations thrash about seeking to dominate the dying dung-heap of their own making. And that's probably the easy part.
No amount of tech fix is going to make this go away. We need to reduce Earth's human population by 2/3 or more immediately. To be terribly blunt about it, I see no other way to do that but by dropping large numbers of hydrogen bombs on major population centers.
Yeah, I want someone to prove me wrong. I want a miracle fix. I want a male contraceptive that makes guys have multiple orgasms with subjective time distortion so it feels like forever, even as it drops their sperm count to zero for months after each dose. I want hot fusion, cold fusion, and luke-warm fusion, and gravitational propulsion systems while we're at it. I want miracle grains that aren't immediately followed by miracle mice that devour them in the fields. I want a magic box with two electrodes you can attach to someone's head, press the button, and immediately give them classic Christian grace and Buddhist enlightenment that lasts a lifetime.
I want to flap my arms and fly.
But no matter how much I flap my arms, I'm not going to lift off the ground.
Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 4:46 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
GG wrote:
Quote:
The very clear result was that if we were depending on something of that sort to save our asses, we would quickly end up deader than doornails
Well we're going to have to learn and damn quick as the war is now on two fronts, emissions reduction - preferably down to zero ASAP - and a geoengineering project to get the crap out of the atmosphere\reduce the temperature (most feedbacks are heat driven). We need targeted technology, it really is looking like our only chance.
From the Article linked to by Zardoz:
Quote:
"We conclude that a feasible strategy for planetary rescue almost surely requires a means of extracting [greenhouse gases] from the air."
Agreed. The numbers are really stacking up. Lovelock is moving more into the mainstream with every passing day.
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 1001 Location: Down Under
Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:27 pm Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
gg3 wrote:
Omni, re. your item "nature doesn't know or care if we live or die..." In fact that's just plain incorrect on the science, and I would have thought you of all people would know this one:
Ecosystems are homeostatic, meaning that they use a variety of feedback systems, particularly negative (limiting) feedback systems, to maintain conditions that are optimal for their constituent organisms.
Again for emphasis: ecosystems are homeostatic. They act in such a manner as to maintain optimal conditions for the organisms of which they consist. Thus they are inherently resistant to changes that would otherwise lead to conditions that would be unfavorable to life.
When I said 'nature', I didn't mean specifically ecosystems, I literally meant all of nature - that includes the geography of the planet, the atmosphere, even space and asteroids. Sure ecosystems are homeostatic - until the rest of nature comes along and wipes them out, as has happened countless times throughout history. The planet's climate varies constantly. It does not seek to maintain an ideal climate what which ever ecosystem happens to be the strongest at any particular time.
From the way some people write about the natural environment, there seems to almost be a concept that the Earth has a natural, ideal state. This is simply wrong. The Earth really is in a constant state of change, regardless of how slow that change is. An ecosystem may maintain an environment for an extended period, but the rest of nature "bats last".
Even in less than 1 million years, not very long on a geological time-scale, the climate has varied dramatically:
And over the long term, the climate change is far more dramatic.
Yes, there are complex feedback systems at work to maintain a suitable climate for established ecosystems, but it is wrong to think that these systems can maintain the planet's climate indefinitely. If there is one thing we have learnt from natural history, it's that the only true constant on planet Earth is change.
The point again, is that if we want to survive long term, we need to try to actively change the environment to suit us, rather than expect that merely not damaging the environment will be enough. _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 6417 Location: Oil-addicted Southern Californucopia
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:56 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Omnitir wrote:
The point again, is that if we want to survive long term, we need to try to actively change the environment to suit us, rather than expect that merely not damaging the environment will be enough.
That's the very point you still have not fully come to grips with: The environment suited us perfectly right up until the Industrial Revolution. As soon as we developed modern technology, we began wrecking the beautiful human-friendly environment that we thrived in. The more technology we develop, the more damage we do.
I won't post the 2000-year population chart again. You know it by heart by now. The lesson we learn from it is that we rocked along just fine for countless milennia, doing virtually no permanent damage to the biosphere whatsoever, until we got the machines running. It's going to take just 200 years or so for our machines to render the biosphere unsuitable for human habitation. _________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 1001 Location: Down Under
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:17 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Zardoz wrote:
Omnitir wrote:
The point again, is that if we want to survive long term, we need to try to actively change the environment to suit us, rather than expect that merely not damaging the environment will be enough.
That's the very point you still have not fully come to grips with: The environment suited us perfectly right up until the Industrial Revolution. As soon as we developed modern technology, we began wrecking the beautiful human-friendly environment that we thrived in. The more technology we develop, the more damage we do.
I won't post the 2000-year population chart again. You know it by heart by now. The lesson we learn from it is that we rocked along just fine for countless milennia, doing virtually no permanent damage to the biosphere whatsoever, until we got the machines running. It's going to take just 200 years or so for our machines to render the biosphere unsuitable for human habitation.
No, I get this point, but you don't seem to take it further. We had this perfect human friendly environment and ruined it. And now, after 200 years of environmental ass raping, just reducing how much we continue to damage it is supposed to somehow make it go back to the way it was prior to industrialization?
To quote gg out of context:
gg3 wrote:
And at some point I have to deal with that.
And dealing with that is called being realistic.
Get real. We need to actively try to save the environment, not live in fantasy land by believing that reducing emissions and stopping further damage will magically reset the planet. It's too late, we've most likely past the tipping point already. _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:22 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
gg3 wrote,
Quote:
I want a magic box with two electrodes you can attach to someone's head, press the button, and immediately give them classic Christian grace and Buddhist enlightenment that lasts a lifetime.
If you send me €1,000 via Paypal, I can have one fedexed to you by Monday morning... _________________ www.askaboutenergy.com
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 1001 Location: Down Under
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:31 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Heineken wrote:
Omnitir wrote:
I completely agree that we need to push for mitigation technologies we already have, and I've never said otherwise.
And yet you are an opponent of powering down. You don't deny that, do you?
Powering down and scaling down are the ultimate mitigation "technologies." Far more powerful, when it comes to seriously addressing our desperate plight, than a quadrillion nanobots.
I tried to explain before that I don't fully understand the definition of powerdown - even after reading Heinberg's book, I couldn't get a clear description of what exactly powerdown entails.
So I can't accurately answer you. I get the impression that powering down means trying everything we can to revert to a pre-industrial world, in which case, yes, I am strong against such a powerdown.
But than I've also heard powerdown been freely exchanged with conservation, in which case, no, I am strongly supportive of such a powerdown.
I do think we need to be far less wasteful and that conservation and increases in efficiency can free up huge amounts of energy and dramatically reduce the damage we are causing the planet. Obviously this would be a great thing, and I don't think anybody could be against that.
Where I differ though is that I believe that in striving to live in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way we can and must take advantage of the advanced science and technology available to us now and in the future. I believe that there are powerful tools available to us right now, and even more so in the future.
As we know, the problem is really political and cultural, however I believe that as certain technologies develop, it will become ever easier to overcome the political and cultural inertia.
I know that people such as yourself Heineken believe that the only solution involves pain, suffering and hard work. But I believe that if there is a way for people to have their cake and eat it too, by saving the environment and maintaining a high standard of living, than there will be a far greater chance of success. People won't powerdown unless they are forced to. But they will adopt shiny new green ways of living if they are appealing.
Of course we may not get the choice, but it makes sense to try get there. _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6475 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:14 am Post subject: Re: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predict
Omnitir wrote:
Heineken wrote:
Omnitir wrote:
I completely agree that we need to push for mitigation technologies we already have, and I've never said otherwise.
And yet you are an opponent of powering down. You don't deny that, do you?
Powering down and scaling down are the ultimate mitigation "technologies." Far more powerful, when it comes to seriously addressing our desperate plight, than a quadrillion nanobots.
As we know, the problem is really political and cultural, however I believe that as certain technologies develop, it will become ever easier to overcome the political and cultural inertia.
I know that people such as yourself Heineken believe that the only solution involves pain, suffering and hard work. But I believe that if there is a way for people to have their cake and eat it too, by saving the environment and maintaining a high standard of living, than there will be a far greater chance of success. People won't powerdown unless they are forced to. But they will adopt shiny new green ways of living if they are appealing.
Of course we may not get the choice, but it makes sense to try get there.
To address the political and cultural and behavioral constraints, you'd have to invent technology that controls them. An interesting prospect. Other than through something like that, human behavior will NEVER change in time to achieve the ends we all support. Human behavior is a constant. It appears to change only because of external variables, which dress the emperor in novel threads, and give him ever more destructive tools.
I don't understand how you could read "Powerdown" and not understand the basic concept. It's not rocket science. I agree that it's not the best of books, though, which is unfortunate. To the concept of powering down I think it's important to add "Scaledown." We have to stop pursuing gigantism in all its forms---giant buildings, giant farms, giant jets, giant cities and populations. We have to get smaller and simpler, through intelligent planning and decision-making. Otherwise we will choke to death on our gigantism, and collapse.
I don't agree that getting simpler, and smaller, and closer to nature is inherently painful. Quite the opposite, in fact. It could bring us back to a far more satisfying way to live. That's certainly been my own experience in my own life. It's true that, for people who don't like to plunge their hands in the soil, the prospect is terrifying.
I agree that a powerdown solution is about as unlikely to actually happen as a techno one. There we agree. That's why I'm a doomer. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
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