Hi Doc Bones; Re: "And a lot of it is even cogent and correct, though I'm suspecting some cut-and-paste."
I can type like a fire, and if I "cut-and-paste" I will give a link or a reference, but thank you for commenting on this. Heck, if I did cut and paste I wouldn't have gotten Kelvin's age of the Earth wrong by 3 orders of magnitude.
It's not just that I can type at high rate, but that my grammar is good enough that it doesn't look like it's the obvious ramblings of an under educated moron (like most SI posts, LOL!!!).
It's not that I'm arguing that we should party, it's just that the Greens have provided absolutely no proposal that faces the problem they're describing. It's like someone is saying that we have to wake up! Defend ourselves from a horrible invasion! So they say that everyone should make sure that they "never leave home without their butter knife". (So was that "cut and paste"? Go use google and find someone else who's put it that way. Hint: The concept of defending yourself with a butter knife is from a now fairly obscure Sir Mix-a-lot album. The song is against gun control.)
But I like your viewpoint that this is a very long term thing we're looking at here. So let's try and figure out what that future might contain, and try to decide whether or not the long term future of the planet is to grow warmer or to grow colder. Here's some possible future developments that will cool the planet or reduce CO2:
(1) Thermal engines (the ones that take advantage of the difference between cold deep ocean water and warm surface waters) have been talked about for generating power near the equator. The immediate effect will be to cool the equators.
(2) Fertilizing the oceans with Iron will tend to increase take up of CO2 as it gets converted into biomass and seashells.
(3) Manufacturing of oil replacements on land (probably using genetically engineered plants) will drain carbon out of the air. To the extent that the results are stuck in landfills (and not burned) it's a carbon sink.
(4) Building space based massive solar power apparatus will have the effect of shading the earth. Heck, if we wanted to I guess we could do this deliberately, though I wouldn't think we would.
It's simply too early for us to guess what the distant future will hold, as far as how man is modifying the planet. New technologies come and go with lightening speed, compared to how quickly the temperature can change.
If we really were convinced that global warming were an issue for human survival (rather than the survival of the Siberian Musk Moth), wouldn't it make sense to go to war over it? It better, because that's what it will take to force the world's disparate countries into line.
The problem with global warming is that the effect is too slow, too hard to stop, and too insignificant to make it politically possible to do anything about it. If it is there, and it is significant, then the fact is that it is going to happen, so get used to it. You might as well try to stop "springtime". Worrying about it is not necessarily a waste of time, but trying to make a significant dent in it using diplomacy and politics is.
Global warming, (if it exists) is an irresistible force. It is something that we will have to experience, not something that we can avoid.
It would be more useful to start making plans on what to do with all that new land in Greenland and Antarctica. We should be looking at what kind of trees will be suitable for planting in what areas 40 years from now and planning our current timber harvests accordingly. We should be looking at how the ecosystem will be altered by global warming. These are useful things.
Trying to get Brazil, China or Mexico to develop without using fossil fuels is utterly impossible. Getting the US to quit using them, (don't give me this 8% reduction BS, that doesn't make a dent in the CO2 levels) is also quite impossible.
Running around saying that we're all doomed and going to die is also a waste of time. For that matter, I doubt that we are, this planet has been through some nasty times, but the worst times (in terms of ecological collapse as counted by number of surviving species) have been times when glaciers ruled the planet, not times when it was a couple of degrees warmer.
-- Carl |
