Houston we have problem

[Sigurd]

I don't know about that. As people are starting to develop farming ... in Greenland ... I find myself unable to dismiss the idea of global warming. Forget the yearly temperature measurements, forget the current fluctuations and just take a look at Greenland.
In the 80s it was an icebox through and through. Nowadays you have this, at least in the south of it http://www.spiegel.de/international/...434356,00.html

That's the thing...
Farming on Greenland happened during the Viking age, but was discontinued due to global freezing in the late 13th century. Normalization would be a better term for Global warming.

[rvg]

That's the thing...
Farming on Greenland happened during the Viking age, but was discontinued due to global freezing in the late 13th century. Normalization would be a better term for Global warming.

Call it what you will, Normalization, Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever. Whether it's manmade or not is also irrelevant, because either way it must be stopped. Why? Because the modern civilization has been built around the 19th-20th century climate with its rainfall patterns, ocean levels, hurricane seasons, etc. A significant change in climate will be a catastrophe for about half of the world's population: they won't care if the climate change is natural or man made, as they'll be facing the prospect of droughts in some places and going below sea level in others. Manmade or not, this process must be stopped.

[Vuk]

Call it what you will, Normalization, Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever. Whether it's manmade or not is also irrelevant, because either way it must be stopped. Why? Because the modern civilization has been built around the 19th-20th century climate with its rainfall patterns, ocean levels, hurricane seasons, etc. A significant change in climate will be a catastrophe for about half of the world's population: they won't care if the climate change is natural or man made, as they'll be facing the prospect of droughts in some places and going below sea level in others. Manmade or not, this process must be stopped.

lmao, desperate man...just desperate. Funny how humans have survived much more drastic climate change over the years. Wouldn't you think that a smarter thing to do than trying to force an entire planet to do what we want, would be to restructure our civilization around it? Which is easier, restructuring our society, cities, and way of life, or restructuring an entire planet? In the scheme of things, humans are pretty insignificant. It is quite arrogant to think that we have the power to craft an entire planet to our liking.

[rvg]

lmao, desperate man...just desperate. Funny how humans have survived much more drastic climate change over the years. Wouldn't you think that a smarter thing to do than trying to force an entire planet to do what we want, would be to restructure our civilization around it? Which is easier, restructuring our society, cities, and way of life, or restructuring an entire planet? In the scheme of things, humans are pretty insignificant. It is quite arrogant to think that we have the power to craft an entire planet to our liking.

To adapt is good, to control is better. Human civilization has been at the mercy of the elements for its entire lengths of existence. It is time to run the tables imho. Technological progress is here for a reason: if we are to survive and thrive, we have to be able to exert control over our environment. More control == safer environment. Furthermore, as the population grows, any sort of natural disaster will result in very high casualties. More control will allow us to prevent or at least reduce the casualty rate.

[Vuk]

To adapt is good, to control is better. Human civilization has been at the mercy of the elements for its entire lengths of existence. It is time to run the tables imho. Technological progress is here for a reason: if we are to survive and thrive, we have to be able to exert control over our environment. More control == safer environment. Furthermore, as the population grows, any sort of natural disaster will result in very high casualties. More control will allow us to prevent or at least reduce the casualty rate.

Controlling the world around us is better up to a point. That is, point where you would spend more resources controlling than you would adapting. For instance, it is a good investment to build up higher banks around a river that keeps flooding, rather than rebuilding each year. It is not, however, smart to try to control an entire planet's weather patterns (which we do not even understand) over the course of thousands of years, to try to stop gradual changes that happen over the course of every couple hundred years. Forgetting feasibility, it is just not cost-effective (and therefore, hardly the better option).
Even if we wanted to though, who is to say that we could? The earth is a force a lot bigger than us. It is great that we can play around with clouds and get it to rain when we want, but the amount of control we have over this earth is extremely limited, with even the best of our technology. (and probably always will be)

It is not feasible, and even if it were, it would not be cost-effective. Why then should we do it when we have a feasible, and comparatively cheaper way of dealing with it? (slowly adapting our way of life over time)

[rvg]

Controlling the world around us is better up to a point. That is, point where you would spend more resources controlling than you would adapting. For instance, it is a good investment to build up higher banks around a river that keeps flooding, rather than rebuilding each year. It is not, however, smart to try to control an entire planet's weather patterns (which we do not even understand) over the course of thousands of years, to try to stop gradual changes that happen over the course of every couple hundred years. Forgetting feasibility, it is just not cost-effective (and therefore, hardly the better option).
Even if we wanted to though, who is to say that we could? The earth is a force a lot bigger than us. It is great that we can play around with clouds and get it to rain when we want, but the amount of control we have over this earth is extremely limited, with even the best of our technology. (and probably always will be)

It is not feasible, and even if it were, it would not be cost-effective. Why then should we do it when we have a feasible, and comparatively cheaper way of dealing with it? (slowly adapting our way of life over time)

The problem with the cheaper approach is that it puts billions of lives in jeopardy. That's provided that the tension amongst nations caused by the climate change does not spark a global conflict for resources and unflooded living space. That would be putting the civilization itself in danger.

[Vuk]

The problem with the cheaper approach is that it puts billions of lives in jeopardy. That's provided that the tension amongst nations caused by the climate change does not spark a global conflict for resources and unflooded living space. That would be putting the civilization itself in danger.

Oh, come on, isn't that a bit dramatic? First of all, the long term trends we are talking about happen gradually, giving people plenty of time to adapt their way of life to the area they are living in, or to move to another area. Most of the landmass on earth is unsettled. I think the apocalysm is hardly called for.

[Rhyfelwyr]

It is quite arrogant to think that we have the power to craft an entire planet to our liking.

Not the entire planet, just its surface. We already did it in Africa without any modern technology, humans made the savannahs.

[Vuk]

Not the entire planet, just its surface. We already did it in Africa without any modern technology, humans made the savannahs.

Managing the flora and fauna is one thing, changing long-term weather trends is something else entirely.

[gaelic cowboy]

It is quite arrogant to think that we have the power to craft an entire planet to our liking.

The fine agricultural land in America begs to differ Vuk if left alone it will revert the wild in a few years.

That by the way is an awful lot of land which would affect local climate.

[Vuk]

The fine agricultural land in America begs to differ Vuk if left alone it will revert the wild in a few years.

That by the way is an awful lot of land which would affect local climate.

That is a complete and total myth. Indians had been working the land all across the current United States for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. Following a sharp population decline after the first Europeans arrived (due mostly to diseases that were accidently transfered), much of North America was unmanaged for a short amount of time, but what came in that time period was a direct result of earlier Indian settlement and agriculture. There is no such thing as a 'natural' or 'wild' state for land to revert back to, because since before we have history it has been shaped by humans, and no matter what happens later, it will be the result of human influence.
I am not denying that humans have the power to affect the land they are living in, by reshaping the land, irrigating, transporting soil, digging canals, etc, etc, but that is a far step from controlling global weather patterns.

[rvg]

I am not denying that humans have the power to affect the land they are living in, by reshaping the land, irrigating, transporting soil, digging canals, etc, etc, but that is a far step from controlling global weather patterns.

We can try. For instance, large volcanic eruptions that that spew a whole bunch of ash into the atmosphere are known to significantly reduce global temperatures for a year or two. We can at least attempt to do something similar it the need arises. Heck, remember when Saddam lit up all those oil wells in Kuwait back in 1991? Kuwait didn't have much of a summer that year. Now that's a local example of course, but the point is that it can be done.

[Vuk]

We can try. For instance, large volcanic eruptions that that spew a whole bunch of ash into the atmosphere are known to significantly reduce global temperatures for a year or two. We can at least attempt to do something similar it the need arises. Heck, remember when Saddam lit up all those oil wells in Kuwait back in 1991? Kuwait didn't have much of a summer that year. Now that's a local example of course, but the point is that it can be done.

I know we can effect global weather patterns somewhat, but I still am not convinced that we can significantly slow or halt global weather patterns.

[Papewaio]

Vuk I have to agree with you.

Humans have been shaping the local environments for thousands of years. When the Australian Aborogines came to Australia he local mega fauna soon died out, the burning of the rain forests changed the local environment to being dominated by gum trees which flourish in burn offs.

New Zealand has on local scales filled in entire valleys with slurry, changed where rivers flow (there was more steam boats dredging NZ rivers for gold then there was steamboats on the Mississippi), in the search for gold they created locally the worlds largest man made desert. Later they modified land into the worlds largest non native pine plantations.

As a undergrad I stood beside the mile deep Kalgoolie mine. I've stood on a mine site in equatorial Borneo and seen how a river was redirected from one side of a mountain to the other so that the gold could be mined underneath the old river bed. I spent my 26th birthday in Mount Newman which they are mining for iron ore will become a local lake when the mining is finished.

Australian land is becoming useless as salt rises in the soil due to local clear felling of all the forest. Localised replanting of scrub and larger trees is required to reverse the salty water table rising.

One farmer proved that by planting trees on his dusty land that it is now a lush green farm with a lake and wetlands. So local change is possible and can be planned.

I agree that we have and continue to impact our local environment.

I also agree that we can affect our weather patterns and the content of our atmosphere. Most of it so far has been accidental but even from the time of the Romans you can look at ice samples in Mont Blanc and verify which minesite the lead was mined in by the isotope ratio. For more recent leaded gas we can trace the lead to the country of origin based on the isotopic ratio in the lead just like a fingerprint. We can see in ice core samples from around the world lead from gas and we can tell if it is from Europe, US or other refineries. We can see the amount of lead peak and diminish as the supply of leaded fuel diminishes.

Likewise for ozone in the atmosphere we can see the amount increase as the various CFC bans took place, there is a much longer tail on this due to the time it takes and other chemicals that are also depleting Ozone.

What I believe is that if we align up enough local environmental changes we have global change.

[gaelic cowboy]

That is a complete and total myth. Indians had been working the land all across the current United States for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. Following a sharp population decline after the first Europeans arrived (due mostly to diseases that were accidently transfered), much of North America was unmanaged for a short amount of time, but what came in that time period was a direct result of earlier Indian settlement and agriculture. There is no such thing as a 'natural' or 'wild' state for land to revert back to, because since before we have history it has been shaped by humans, and no matter what happens later, it will be the result of human influence.
I am not denying that humans have the power to affect the land they are living in, by reshaping the land, irrigating, transporting soil, digging canals, etc, etc, but that is a far step from controlling global weather patterns.

I never wrote anything about Indians.

Wild state merely means unmanaged the natural state is of course something we can never again achieve.

A managed eco system will affect local climate and that local means the continental united states. (and thats fairly big yes/no)



Now to some ideas you wrote which I have picked on about control, really we should be using the terms Intereference or Change, this does not imply actual control merely application of certain processes.

It is these processes which shape and change the enviroment then later humans adapt there society to fit within the resultant new parameters.

Thats why global warming is so dangerous because if the resultant parameters are TOO harsh then humanity may be incapable of adapting sufficiently. Humans are basically changing the parameters TOO fast and likely by TOO much, it does not mean that life will be extinguished but we could send it all the way back to bacteria floating around hot vents.

We cannot actually control even the processes that we unleash, in fact in some cases we cannot even stop them. Eventually the change will self regulate by use of natural feedback loops leading to a new equilibrium, does this mean we must attempt to engineer a new equilibrium I would say NO.

We have interfered to much by spreading over the whole planet and changing everything, basically we need to stop or attempt to reduce our adding to the feedback.

Possibly then we can adapt to the new hotter world we are gifting our great grand children.

[Vuk]

Now to some ideas you wrote which I have picked on about control, really we should be using the terms Intereference or Change, this does not imply actual control merely application of certain processes.

It is these processes which shape and change the enviroment then later humans adapt there society to fit within the resultant new parameters.

Thats why global warming is so dangerous because if the resultant parameters are TOO harsh then humanity may be incapable of adapting sufficiently. Humans are basically changing the parameters TOO fast and likely by TOO much, it does not mean that life will be extinguished but we could send it all the way back to bacteria floating around hot vents.

We cannot actually control even the processes that we unleash, in fact in some cases we cannot even stop them. Eventually the change will self regulate by use of natural feedback loops leading to a new equilibrium, does this mean we must attempt to engineer a new equilibrium I would say NO.

We have interfered to much by spreading over the whole planet and changing everything, basically we need to stop or attempt to reduce our adding to the feedback.

Possibly then we can adapt to the new hotter world we are gifting our great grand children.

This is the biggest load of BS I have ever read. What do they teach kids now adays?
Seriously, you sound like the wacko religious fanatics, hiding in their basements, awaiting the end of the world. I guess apocalyptism has never went out of vogue.
REPENT! GIVE UP YOUR SUVs OR GOD MOTHER EARTH^TM WILL SEND US BACK TO THE STONE AGES!
I am having a hard time thinking of how to seriously reply to this, because I cannot convince myself that you'd believe it!
Dude, you're drinking the cool-aid. Try water, it is a lot more satisfying.

[Montmorency]

I'm interested in hearing about the ups and downs of geo-engineering again. Lemur?

[a completely inoffensive name]

I'm interested in hearing about the ups and downs of geo-engineering again.

I have actually read of a few theoretical geo-engineering ideas that don't sound *that* far-fetched.One of them were a fleet of cheap long vertical tubes that pumped cold water from below up to the surface to cool surface temperatures down. They were powered by extracting energy from the waves if I remember correctly. Not exactly practical but not a giant space mirror to reduce the sunlight hitting the earth.Also, idk if this counts as geo-engineering but there were trials (I think) with artifical cloud seeding to promote water droplet formation and rain in dry areas.

[gaelic cowboy]

I have actually read of a few theoretical geo-engineering ideas that don't sound *that* far-fetched.One of them were a fleet of cheap long vertical tubes that pumped cold water from below up to the surface to cool surface temperatures down. They were powered by extracting energy from the waves if I remember correctly. Not exactly practical but not a giant space mirror to reduce the sunlight hitting the earth.Also, idk if this counts as geo-engineering but there were trials (I think) with artifical cloud seeding to promote water droplet formation and rain in dry areas.

Probably the easier geo engineering project would be to paint large areas of the earth to reflect sunlight, this would hopefully encourage the growth again of land ice.

Sure it's a big undertaking but it has a simplicity about it and would need no to low energy input once done, also crucially we dont need much in the way of adavnced tech either to do it.

Happily it would not have any unforeseen affects on our climate unlike many of the other projects I have heard about over the years.

[Sigurd]

Its established science that the earth will go through long-term climate changes. If the human race survives for 100,000 more years, we'll witness drastic climate change. This is a fact.

This fact has existed since the birth of this planet. Whether by human influence or not, the climate changes and will do so for the unforeseeable future.
Agriculture existed on Greenland a millenia ago and will so again and there is probably nothing we can do about it.
Grapes were found on the North of the east coast of America and perhaps they will be found again.
Lush forests were found on Spitsbergen at one time, maybe this will occur again? We mine its remnants today and releases the carbon they bound in coal burning power plants.
As humans we move around where the nature will let us settle. We follow the retreating glacier and remove ourselves from their advances.
We have done so since the dawn of man... it is only now that we want to impose our will on a ever changing nature. We want it stagnate and controlled.

[gaelic cowboy]

This fact has existed from the birth of this planet. Whether by human influence or not, the climate changes and will do so for the unforeseeable future.
Agriculture existed on Greenland a millenia ago and will so again and there is probably nothing we can do about it.
Grapes were found on the North of the east coast of America and perhaps they will be found again.
Lush forests were found on Spitsbergen at one time, maybe this will occur again? We mine its remnants today and releases the carbon they bound in coal burning power plants.
As humans we move around where the nature will let us settle. We follow the retreating glacier and remove ourselves from their advances.
We have done so since the dawn of man... it is only now that we want to impose our will on a ever changing nature. We want it stagnate and controlled.

What exactly does that prove apart from happens, the aim for humainty should always be to try to interfere as little as possible. Things will change on there own but at least we might have time to adapt due to our technology and intellectual capacity.

We may not have enough time to change to what were unleashing in the future and yes maybe we will adapt in time but it's a big guess.

Also it will likely be 7 or 8 billion people by then and thats not likely to be able to be moved easily, a massivge enough change could kill 2 or 3 billion. However the big danger is climate change and wars waged by nations litterally for survival in the resultant changed climate.

That could give us drastic climate change and nuclear war which would likely either extinguish or severely stunt humanity.

[Slyspy]

And what was the estimated human population last time we ran away from the glaciers? What were the settlement patterns?

[gaelic cowboy]

And what was the estimated human population last time we ran away from the glaciers? What were the settlement patterns?

Probably a few hundred thousand maybe even a few million globably essentially not a large ammount and with plenty room to move into.

But the thing is we actually moved into the ice sheets we didnt run away from them at all, academics are now even asking if people may have crossed from Europe to America on the early ice sheets across the North Atlantic.

Why they moved into the ice sheets is because they had the technology and social structure to survive in the enviroment, and the flora and fauna had time to adapt or move. Take Oak trees as an example they will not have time to move north quick enough if we rise the temperature fast enough, this would severly restict the birds and animals that depend on them for food and shelter.

This would mean only the animals and plants that can move quick enough will survive and that may be a severly stunted eco system. Basically it might take millions of years to develop new flora and fauna to fill the empty niches, however it's likely we will prevent most of them being filled.