Global Warming: Past the point of no return

[ScallopPotato]

I'm REALLY preferring the geoengineering options over genocide and stripping humanity of its humanity. Proposals and fears of such proposals is part of the reason why there's so much popular resistance in the U.S. to anything involving sustainability, or even acknowledging climate change's existence.

For the natural end-of-sun sceriano, I've heard of at least one scientist propose the idea of throwing astroriods into earth orbit to transfer gravitational energy and thus increase the SMA of Earth's orbit around the sun. I wish I had an article to share about that. It's beyond our current level of technology, but we don't have to worry about that for a long time.

Mirrors are my favorite option. Greenhouse gases absorb solar energy, so reducing the amount of solar energy would reduce the amount of thermal energy in the atmosphere. Cutting the amount of energy coming in to Earth works for any sort of climate change, be it AGW, NGW, runaway greenhouse, etc. Unlike cutting carbon emissions, reducing solar energy can cut out atmospheric energy much faster than waiting for the carbon dioxide levels to settle down.

A large, cheap, bulk-carrier rocket like the Falcon Heavy can deliver the mirrors to LEO where they are picked up by a solar electric tug (ie VASIMR tug) and delivered to Earth-Sun L1. There are ways to reach ESL1 using minimal energy by exploiting chaotic regions and Lagrange points and the moon's gravity. It's called the Interplanetary Transport Network, and there are whole papers about it. ESL1 is a stable location and it massively reduces the amount of surface area needed to reduce solar energy.

What sort of materials can be used for mirrors that are light, strong, and fairly cheap? How much surface area is needed to lower the global mean temperature by 1 degree C?

[lajoswinkler]

Do you go after every military person? Because that's basically their job description.

No, genocide is not their job description, although, sadly, a significant number of them are participating in it.

How would geopolitics adjust to that would be another matter entirely. Almost the entire humanity could survive such an event, and probably would, given perfect cooperation. In fact, I'd love to have balmy tropical weather through Europe. Of course, if the leaders screwed this up, there could be a lot of victims.

With tropical weather also come these little things.

I sincerely don't want them above my town.

The more heat is trapped in the biosphere, the more storms we'll have. It's simple as that.

[Red Iron Crown]

No, genocide is not their job description, although, sadly, a significant number of them are participating in it.

"If I saw people murdering on the behalf of the government, I'd destroy them." Killing on behalf of the government is what a military is for.

On topic:

I don't think global warming can kill us as a species, no matter how drastic. We are technologically sophisticated enough to adapt to almost any climate change. That adaptation may be painful and costly (both in money and lives) but not impossible.

[Nibb31]

The thing is, it's much easier and cheaper to distribute contraceptives and condoms to Third World countries than it is to launch a deploy giant mirrors.

We're also going to need to stop burning stuff. Oil companies should be switching to renewable and nuclear power. In the long term, those sectors offer more growth than relying on finite resources.

The problem is that both politicians and corporations are incapable of planning further than 5 years ahead, and none of these investments will be profitable before 10 or 20 years.

[Red Iron Crown]

The thing is, it's much easier and cheaper to distribute contraceptives and condoms to Third World countries than it is to launch a deploy giant mirrors.

Educating women would be enough, I think. There's a direct negative correlation between women's education levels and birthrates.

We're also going to need to stop burning stuff. Oil companies should be switching to renewable and nuclear power. In the long term, those sectors offer more growth than relying on finite resources.

The problem is that both politicians and corporations are incapable of planning further than 5 years ahead, and none of these investments will be profitable before 10 or 20 years.

I think this will happen naturally, as fossil fuel reserves dry up. As fossil fuels become more and more expensive, the alternatives get more and more economically feasible.

[Seret]

I don't think global warming can kill us as a species, no matter how drastic. We are technologically sophisticated enough to adapt to almost any climate change. That adaptation may be painful and costly (both in money and lives) but not impossible.

Even if our technology fails to protect us we also have the advantage of being biologically non-specialised. We don't rely on any particular food source, environment or other species for survival. Most species that go extinct do so because something they rely on becomes unavailable.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Seret

[rkman]

You really believe that climate change has already reached a point where, and I quote, "the average temperature would keep going higher until it reaches unhabitable temperatures"¿

That's how the OP defines the Point of No Return, but in reality the problem with GW is not that it will cause unhabitable temperatures, rather it means rising temperature causes changes to the climate that reduce production of agrigulture and habitability of population centers. Lots of people would suffer and/or die but Earth would not become unhabitable.

Wrt GW usually the Point of No Return is defined as the point beyond which any measurs that we could take do not result in a substantial reduction of global warming. Arguably we have past that point some decades ago.

[Scotius]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene

Read this article guys. During Eocene concentration of CO2 was much, much higher than today, and temperatures were 5-6 degrees higher. There were virtually no ice caps anywhere. Yet environment was far from apocalyptic wasteland media like to scare us with. In fact, biosphere thrived - lush forests covered much bigger areas of land than today, climate was warm and moist, temperature differences were were small globally. Heck, tropical rainforests grew in Northern America and Europe.

I'm not saying situation will be exactly the same as it is now - but globar warming does not necessarily bring an extinction upon us.

[Seret]

but globar warming does not necessarily bring an extinction upon us.

If by "us" you mean the current inhabitants of Earth, then yes it would. Large changes in the environment do result in massive extinctions. Life thrived in the Eocene because it had evolved over millions of years to thrive in it. A similar but very rapid climatic change would be devastating for species alive today, but of course over millions of years life would adapt to the new reality. Just take something really significant like the emergence of oxygen into the atmosphere, that stuff was poison to almost all life on Earth, but eventually oxygen-tolerant life took over and built the world as we know it.

Now, whether humans in particular would be able to adapt to large climate changes is another story. We've made it through glacials before, but just barely. Our genome shows we went through at least one severe population bottleneck where we were teetering on the edge of extinction. I think we're better placed to survive these days, but it's never certain.

[lajoswinkler]

"If I saw people murdering on the behalf of the government, I'd destroy them." Killing on behalf of the government is what a military is for.

On topic:

I don't think global warming can kill us as a species, no matter how drastic. We are technologically sophisticated enough to adapt to almost any climate change. That adaptation may be painful and costly (both in money and lives) but not impossible.

No, that's not what the military is for.

[mdatspace]

I live in Vegas.

A few more degrees of heat will make this place even more uninhabitable in the summer. I can see the signs: "Welcome to Las Vegas. You can fry eggs on the pavement."

On a serious note, genocide is not a solution to dealing with sustainability and overpopulation. We need birth control in undeveloped countries. That will slow population growth. Better education will slow it even more.

For energy sources, we have to start a transition to renewables. I think nuclear is a good energy source. We should not rely on a single source of energy.

[Seret]

No, that's not what the military is for.

As an ex-serviceman I'd disagree. You can hang all sorts of noble ideals off it if you want, but when you get down to it they're in the business of killing whatever poor blighter the politicians tell them to.

There is an important caveat that their orders must be lawful, but politicians excel at finding was to make dodgy things legal.

Edited April 17, 2014 by sal_vager
No profanity guys

[Nuke]

the military is for whatever the state that runs in says it is for. this could be "peacekeeping missions", this could be "defensive maneuvers", could be a "police action" and it could just be making sure the trains to the death camps are on schedule.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Nuke

[78stonewobble]

No, genocide is not their job description, although, sadly, a significant number of them are participating in it.

Them? Don't you mean "us"... us with access to internet and using enough ressources that could sustain like what? 3-10 times as many people in the developing countries?

The last report I read guestimated that global warming will cause an extra 5 mio. deaths a year over 25 years. Thats allmost as bad as ww2 alltogether, certainly up there with the worst genocides ever. Atleast from a numerical pov. rather than percentages. You don't need a gun to cause deaths... All you need is a bright idea, get wealthy and have kids.

But I like to be rich (relatively)...

[architeuthis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene

Read this article guys. During Eocene concentration of CO2 was much, much higher than today, and temperatures were 5-6 degrees higher. There were virtually no ice caps anywhere. Yet environment was far from apocalyptic wasteland media like to scare us with. In fact, biosphere thrived - lush forests covered much bigger areas of land than today, climate was warm and moist, temperature differences were were small globally. Heck, tropical rainforests grew in Northern America and Europe.

I'm not saying situation will be exactly the same as it is now - but globar warming does not necessarily bring an extinction upon us.

I agree with your main point, global warming may not drive our species to utter extinction, but the comparison to the Eocene is not apples-to-apples. We've already thoroughly degraded much of world's ecosystems, and the climate transition will be grossly more abrupt. Ecosystems, like most complex systems, have limited abilities to adapt over the very short term. A 2-6 C global mean temperature increase over less than 100 years will result in a mass extinction event... pretty godddamn apocalyptic if you ask me, but it doesn't have to go down this way. We've still got the power to fix things.

[bsalis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene

Read this article guys. During Eocene concentration of CO2 was much, much higher than today, and temperatures were 5-6 degrees higher.

Could say the same about CO2 levels for the Ordovician period. Did not stop an ice age though.

[Idobox]

Could say the same about CO2 levels for the Ordovician period. Did not stop an ice age though.

The ocean temperature was 45°C for much of the Ordovisian period, and the Hirnantian glaciation is supposed to have arisen when the levels of CO2 dropped, because of either photosynthesis or reaction with volcanic rocks.

Anyway, you can always have high carbon and low temperatures in many ways, for example by smashing a large asteroid or having an active supervolcano spewing megatons of dust in the stratosphere.

[Scotius]

Could say the same about CO2 levels for the Ordovician period. Did not stop an ice age though.

Exactly IMO all this talk about "Point of No Return" is pointless. Climate on Earth is too dynamic, and there is too much factors influencing it.

[Seret]

Exactly IMO all this talk about "Point of No Return" is pointless. Climate on Earth is too dynamic, and there is too much factors influencing it.

I don't think the OP phrased it particularly well, but it seems their intent was to examine what our options were if the climate entered a point where further warming was driven partly or predominantly by positive feedback rather than by human emissions. In other words they wanted to look at options other than reducing emissions for reducing warming.

[Nibb31]

Once we have made the Earth uninhabitable, we could always dig ourselves underground, live on hydroponic lettuce, recycled urine, and don't forget to wear an EVA suit when you go outside.

No need to go to Mars.

[SeventhArchitect]

Global warming doesn't exist. Scientists legitimately disproved the theory, and instead, proved that global cooling exists.

Anyone and everyone who still believes in global warming is a stubborn idiot for denying straight facts.

[Red Iron Crown]

Global warming doesn't exist. Scientists legitimately disproved the theory, and instead, proved that global cooling exists.

Anyone and everyone who still believes in global warming is a stubborn idiot for denying straight facts.

[citation needed]

[Ralathon]

Global warming doesn't exist. Scientists legitimately disproved the theory, and instead, proved that global cooling exists.

Anyone and everyone who still believes in global warming is a stubborn idiot for denying straight facts.

Some places will heat up (Most notably the poles) and other areas will cool down. That's why they call it climate change nowadays. Point still is that the average global temperature is increasing according to overwhelming evidence and the effects of this could be very damaging to the ecosystem, the economy and humanity.

This is also not relevant for the discussion at hand. The premise of the argument is that climate change is real and reaches a point where the positive feedback effects cause a chain reaction towards a new stable state and how this influences our actions. Discussion whether or not global warming is real is considered a conspiracy theory by the mods and won't be tolerated, so if you're looking to discuss this go do it somewhere else.

[TarkinLarson]

Some places will heat up (Most notably the poles) and other areas will cool down. That's why they call it climate change nowadays. Point still is that the average global temperature is increasing according to overwhelming evidence and the effects of this could be very damaging to the ecosystem, the economy and humanity.

This is also not relevant for the discussion at hand. The premise of the argument is that climate change is real and reaches a point where the positive feedback effects cause a chain reaction towards a new stable state and how this influences our actions. Discussion whether or not global warming is real is considered a conspiracy theory by the mods and won't be tolerated, so if you're looking to discuss this go do it somewhere else.

I concur. The point of this was not to discuss climate change itself, but in the event it happens and will not right itself over time short enough to be tolerable by humans, human intervention will be required to make it more of what we consider a tolerable climate.

Ideas like the giant space mirrors/shades, swinging a comet by our atmosphere to 'drag' off excess atmosphere, genetically modifying crops to use up or fix more CO2 etc are what the OP was after.

If it was at such a stage that a natural cycle would not return it to normal, it would take the entire human race to right it again. Unfortunately some of the ideas will probably be unthinkable (or deemed unethical) at the moment but will probably appear more reasonable later. Alternatively some of the ideas that include eugenics, genocidal and anti-human rights paths and may become irrelevant as many people may starve and die in resource wars and civil disorder before we get to a point where 'irreversible' change takes place. So in fact we may not have to reduce the population actively because lots of people will die anyway. This is a very sad state of affairs in my opinion either way. I would not like to see anything like this, but as things change people panic.

Some of things like eating less cows/livestock and converting to insects or agrarian sources of protein would help a long way. Also increasing density and public transport so we don't need to use cars and fossil fuels. I don't think high density living has a very good effect on personal and mental wellbeing (at least it doesn't for me) though so, but again these can only prevent further change. To actually cool a warming climate would be very difficult.

Eventually all the things we will do unless you look at the causes of things. IF climate change is down to humans and CO2 and Methane and other greenhouse gases then we'd need a way to reduce these in the atmosphere (and also production of these gasses). Fixing bacteria or artificial processing plants would need to be used, although these come with risks and would have to be on a grant scale. We could create polymers from the CO2 in the air, rather than digging it out of the ground? Perhaps we would see the rise stromatolite like creatures in the seas.

Unfortunately if it's a bit more related to cycles of the Earth and Sun and general, non-human, climate change we can't do anything about, then we would perhaps be foolish to intervene and we should just 'roll' with the changes. In this case it would be arrogant to think we could make such an impact on Earth, or even try and change what it does. Trying to cool Earth might make us plunge into an ice age instead!?!?

One thing, however, I would like to say is I often think that humanity is a little arrogant in thinking the planet should stay exactly how we want it (or how it is at the moment). Species evolve and become extinct over time regardless of human intervention. The same with the climate which changes over millions of years. I am not arguing against human induced climate change to any degree. I am just wondering how many people want to keep everything exactly how it is, when in reality it is meant to change.

Edited April 17, 2014 by TarkinLarson
S.P.A.G.

[Idobox]

One thing, however, I would like to say is I often think that humanity is a little arrogant in thinking the planet should stay exactly how we want it (or how it is at the moment). Species evolve and become extinct over time regardless of human intervention. The same with the climate which changes over millions of years. I am not arguing against human induced climate change to any degree. I am just wondering how many people want to keep everything exactly how it is, when in reality it is meant to change.

We are causing an extinction event just by our normal activity, even without taking climate change into account. The loss of biodiversity means we destroy a treasure of scientific data and useful molecules, and at the same time make the world less hospitable for us. Just for that, we should protect the environment.

Then there is the ethical question. Coming to a place and crapping it up beyond repair is usually considered not an acceptable behavior, extending that reasoning to nature makes sense. It doesn't mean keeping it under a glass bubble, but it would be nice if we stopped logging prime forest to grow unhealthy palm oil and raise cattle, or to throw millions of tons of long lived toxic waste by using disposable plastic crap.

Edited April 17, 2014 by sal_vager
No profanity guys