Yeah, that's the point-- it does affect us. We have a vested interest in minimizing the damage it can do to us. Nothing to do with "stopping mother nature", but with protecting humanity and avoiding death and suffering for a few billion who are in harm's way and don't have the resources to get out of it.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

but with protecting humanity and avoiding death and suffering for a few billion who are in harm's way and don't have the resources to get out of it.

Are there scientific reports that predict death and suffering for a few billion due to ice melts? I thought that the IPCC currently predicts the sea level rise to be about a half a foot to two feet over the next century. A foot per century is not too much different than what the sea level rise has been since the 1800s at least. From the predicitions it sounds like dealing with this rise is well within our capability while we wean ourselves from fossil fuels.

The IPCC report is one estimate, yes. I prefer to plan for the worst-case scenario, a sudded loosening of the western ice sheet, which is also a possibility. It would result in a much more rapid rise, or series of rises, than a gradual uniform melt.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Actually, the IPCC skipped the glaciers part because "we don't know how they'll react" or something like that. So the actual sea rise could be much more than that. Or not. The rate the Arctic ice is melting doesn't look good at all regarding Greenland.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

In my inexpert experience, two things seem relevant;

1. Ice, especially ice broken and loosened by movement and shifting pressure, tends to generally fall apart in chunks and clumps when melting.

2. Murphy's Law always applies, especially when you aren't ready for it.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

The IPCC report is one estimate, yes. I prefer to plan for the worst-case scenario, a sudded loosening of the western ice sheet, which is also a possibility.


Risk assessment must take account not only of the consequence, but also of the probability. If the current data suggests that the possibility of a sudden loosening of the western ice sheet is low, then preparing for it or trying to prevent it most likely wouldn't be the best use of our time and resources right now. (Consider the cost of planning for the worst-case scenario every time you crossed the street.)

Global warming presents potential problems on many fronts: sea level, temperature, drought, rain, disease, hunger, etc. There is no realistic way to plan for the worst-case scenario in each case. A more effective approach is to identify the most likely scenarios as best as we can and put ourselves into a position to manage those as cost effectively as possible. That is, find the most bang for the buck.

A detailed appraisal of the possibility hasn't been done yet. At present there's only a lot of conflicting speculation.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Not really zombie threads if they're from last year, but they're not exactly fresh-picked.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

For some people, half a foot per year is nothing.
For others, it is life and death. Venice , Bangladesh, Key West (5 feet above sea level ) ......parts of Washington,DC, New York city ...... That's just a brief
look at trouble. Then there are quite a few islands in the south Pacific .
But........ it's no problem.....right? And New Orleans?
.....just a thought.

For some people, half a foot per year is nothing.
For others, it is life and death.

That's the idea. Instead of spending $180 billion a year on Kyoto to lower CO2 emissions right now, which will accomplish next to nothing over the next century at great cost, focus on the problem areas directly. Cities like New Orleans were disasters waiting to happen regardless of global warming.

Coastal areas are such a big problem because more and more people live there. That trend will continue. Fortunately, people will also be better off economically in the future too, even the poorer people, and will be in a better position to reinforce coastlines. By spending the money directly on coastal protection, there is no reason that coastal flooding worldwide can be less than it is now in a century, even with the predicted sea level rise.

Kyoto wants us to spend the money instead on lowering CO2, which will have only a marginal effect, yet will leave the coastlines unprotected. If we want to care about the welfare of people, we have to get our priorities in order.

See, there's a problem with that idea. Two, actually.

1. 180 billion, or however much the number actually turns out to be, is a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed to reinforce worldwide coastlines from even a moderate rise in sea level, even assuming only the most conservative estimates are true.
2. There's no evidence a Kyoto-like plan will have have "only a marginal effect." There is no evidence that sea levels will only rise a few feet. There are, at present, nothing but vague guesses.

So it's not a case of either-or, tastes great/less filling, but a combination of gathering further information, improving economy and infrastructure, reducing poverty, and reducing CO2 emissions by both making more efficient use of exising energy sources and transferring to more renewable sources.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

180 billion, or however much the number actually turns out to be, is a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed to reinforce worldwide coastlines from even a moderate rise in sea level

That's $180 billion a year for Kyoto (with everybody participating). We are talking resources equivalent to the entire decade of the Apollo program, including all lunar missions, every single year.

Just to get some possible numbers on the table, here is a study, not final by any means, of costs to protect the coastlines for various sea-level rise scenarios over the next century:

Impacts and responses to sea-level rise (Nicholls and Tol)

Figures 7 and 10 and the discussion on pages 1088-1089 show that it might be possible for most countries to lose very little land for an annual investment of below 0.1% of their GDP. (Worldwide GDP today is around $50 trillion).

There's no evidence a Kyoto-like plan will have have "only a marginal effect."

I don't think it is online, but there is a paper commonly referenced by Tom Wigley, The Kyoto Protocol: CO2, CH4 and Climate Implications published in Geophysical Research Letters that shows that by 2100, Kyoto will have shaved off 0.3 degrees F from a possible temperature rise of 4.5 degrees.

Another way of putting it is that with all countries ratifying and living up to their emission cuts, Kyoto would postpone the expected temperature rise just five years, that is, from 2100 to 2105.

This page has quotes from the paper:

http://www.ucar.edu/news/record/#grl

There is no evidence that sea levels will only rise a few feet. There are, at present, nothing but vague guesses.

I'm simply working off the IPCC and related reports. You folks keep saying to look at the science. I am trying my best to do that. It doesn't help that when I look at what seems to me to be the leading science on the subject, it is immediately dismissed as vague guesses.

Be careful not to foster uncertainty to make room for your beliefs. If things are uncertain, then they are unknown and we have no basis to worry about them.

So it's not a case of either-or, tastes great/less filling, but a combination of gathering further information, improving economy and infrastructure, reducing poverty, and reducing CO2 emissions by both making more efficient use of existing energy sources and transferring to more renewable sources.

And we don't need Kyoto to accomplish any of that. We will be better off addressing the problem areas directly because there is nothing practical we can do in the near term to significantly lower CO2 over the next century. (The primary reason, keep in mind, is because of the rapid increase of emissions from developing countries.) Kyoto will only make people poorer. The better off nations are, the better they can adapt to global warming. In the meantime, we can wean ourselves from fossil fuels at a more cost-effective pace.

Is IPCC the "leading science"?And I did not dismiss the IPCC report as "vague guesses", I was talking about predictions of Antarctic ice behavior (which were not included in that report).

Uncertain does not equal nothing known. Uncertain does not equal "no basis to worry". It means some details about specifics are not clear. The general trends of rising CO2 emissions is not at all uncertain, it is established and repeatedly confirmed as fact. The rising average temperature of the Antarctic region is established fact.

My "beliefs" are irrelevant, as are anyone else's. Physics trumps all beliefs, opinions and feelings.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I'm sorry, but what planet are you living on?

It seems to me that you're arguing for shifting the economic burden from the people causing the problem to the people affected by the problem which in my opinion is a really upside down view of things.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I'm sorry, but what planet are you living on?

Hi, Henrik. Thanks for the reality check.

It seems to me that you're arguing for shifting the economic burden from the people causing the problem to the people affected by the problem which in my opinion is a really upside down view of things.

At this point I am simply trying to compare one worldwide spending policy against another to ask: Given what we know, and what is uncertain, what will be the best use of our resources? A wise investment policy should better protect the affected more than a policy that may end up being just a symbolic, feel-good gesture.

Or a first step.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Or a first step.

I read somewhere that as it stands, the effect of Kyoto (which extends only to 2012) will be to delay the rise in temperature by something like 7 days in 2100. Consider how hard it was to get Kyoto. Politically, anything calling for even more drastic cuts in CO2 emissions will be nearly impossible to get into effect.

Kyoto asks for lower CO2 emissions. Wouldn't a better alternative be to invest the money directly in low-carbon power technologies?

Read somewhere? Then it must be true.

I'm not advocating the Kyoto plan specifically. It's just one example of things that can be done. And I'd take pessimistic estimates (or overly optimistic ones for that matter) about its possible effectiveness with a large mountain of salt. Both sides have exaggerations, misinformation, skewed "scientific" authorities, and plain old lies out there.


Define "nearly impossible", and why.

Early efforts to accomplish anything are almost always difficult. Ask the Wright Brothers, then look what their little hop led to.

And how do you insure that money not used for one will go to the other? Or that that isn't how CO2 will be lowered? People tend to do what they can get away with. Kyoto and measures like it may help put a slight hammerlock on them (assuming, of course, they're ever enforced).

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Read somewhere? Then it must be true.

I referenced a paper earlier that showed a full-tilt compliance to Kyoto for a full century postpones the predicted temperature rise by maybe 5 years. 7 days postponement seems reasonable (if admittedly meaninglessly below the noise level) given how few nations are actually meeting the emissions reduction targets and given that Kyoto expires in 2012.

A more fruitful strategy on your part, rather than just denying the claims and papers I put forth, might be to counter with studies and evidence that demonstrate how Kyoto will significantly combat global warming and how the benefits outweigh the costs.

I'm not advocating the Kyoto plan specifically. It's just one example of things that can be done. And I'd take pessimistic estimates (or overly optimistic ones for that matter) about its possible effectiveness with a large mountain of salt. Both sides have exaggerations, misinformation, skewed "scientific" authorities, and plain old lies out there.

That's just swell. Everyone says to listen to the science. As soon as I do, it is summarily dismissed. If both sides are exaggerating, etc. then there is no reason to listen to either of them. We have no positive basis (in the sense of direct evidence) for a particular policy, Kyoto or otherwise. Uncertainty and doubt are not arguments for anything.

Define "nearly impossible", and why.

Kyoto is already a failure and even if it was adhered to, it would have little effect. A treaty calling for far more drastic cuts will have less of a chance being signed and especially, less of a chance of being adhered to.
Global warming is going to happen over the next century. We cannot stop it. As Bob Dylan says, “you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone.” I have been suggesting that we focus our resources on the swimming (that is, adapting) first because it is something we can do over the next century.

Early efforts to accomplish anything are almost always difficult. Ask the Wright Brothers, then look what their little hop led to.

Kyoto is not a plan to develop a specific technology. Nor is it a plan to reduce global warming in the long term. It is a plan to limit CO2 emissions with the hope that it does something for global warming.

And how do you insure that money not used for one will go to the other? Or that that isn't how CO2 will be lowered?

Kyoto calls for lowering of CO2 emissions, not for any specific means of achieving it. We know that we have to move to a non-fossil fuel economy. Spend directly on that technology (tax credits, etc.) instead of calling for CO2 reductions and hoping that a particular technology comes out of it.

People tend to do what they can get away with. Kyoto and measures like it may help put a slight hammerlock on them (assuming, of course, they're ever enforced).

We shouldn't hammerlock people. Energy is our friend. Energy is why we live so comfortably today. Our goal, if anything, should be to have everybody living as well as Al Gore does—for the long term, of course. People of the future will be richer than we are today. It doesn't make sense for people in the developing world to have to sacrifice too much just to benefit some future rich guy.

Well, there's your problem.


Um, what part of "I'm not advocating Kyoto" is hard to understand?

Calling a particular report biased is hardly "summarily dismiss"ing the science. The pure science isn't going to come from advocates of any side. Look at no one particular report, but the overall weight of evidence.


Exactly, the very concept of "sides" is biased. Look at the data-- all of it.


Wrong. We have every reason to improve the efficiency of our technology. We have reasons, economic and scientific, to reduce our dependance on fossil fuels. These policies will reduce carbon dioxide production, with or without Kyoto or its descendants.

There is no doubt about the amounts of CO2 we produce. There is no doubt CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There is no doubt the climate is shifting.


Personal opinion.


Personal opinion.


Yeah, because reducing our CO2 output over the next century is impossible.

It's not an either-or. Tastes great, less filling. We can do things to mitigate the effects, lessening the amount of radical rebuilding, relocating and the like we'd have to do.


You answered you own question there. They are not mutually exclusive, so nothing prevents us from doing both. Since taxes are set by each country, there has to be something to motivate each country to do so. I agree, a treaty is a poor motivator. But short of military force, it's all we've got that can affect so many different nations.


So who's asking that? Developing countries can benefit more from greater efficiency and better technology, because they can install it right from the start. And for most developing nations, wind, sunlight and organic materials are more readily available than coal and oil.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Perhaps sea water should be developed as a fuel. Or would that affect world economy ?

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Why not pump all the melting glacier water into the sahara and plant tree's ? Could be a new rainforest. Like a lung transplant for the earth........

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Thank God for magnetism.

Different soil. Rainforest trees probably would not grow in desert soil.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

True. Sand with water is just wet sand. Not to mention how monumental a task transporting that much fresh water would be when we can't currently even get it to all the people who need it.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

You would have to mix in some humus, but not that much.
Typical jungle soil isn't that rich.
And the Sahara is not all sand. Some parts are very fertile, it just lacks water.

Someone (?) once proposed to pump the discharge from the Amazon river to the Sahara.
That would be as much as 200,000 tonnes of (muddy) fresh water per second.

So there people thinking about such technologies.

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But the aboveground parts oaf most rainforests contitute a massive quantity of biomass, which would all have to be transported along with water to establish a rainforest large enough to effect world CO2.

How much water and biomass will be needed? And how large an area are we talking about?


There are also people thinking about trans-Atlantic train tunnels, space elevators, floating cities, terraforming, and Dyson Spheres. But they aren't going to happen anytime soon, and some never will. The amount of energy alone needed to pump that much water halfway around the world makes this one an unlikely prospect ever to become real.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

The devil is in the details.

Sometimes one needs to think outside the box.
This would basically be an engineering problem, though on a continental scale.

It helps to see adversities as challenges rather then problems.

And as far as fertiliser is concerned, European agro-industry produces so much dung
that it has become an environmental problem. (Ammonia you know.)
I'm sure they would ship it for free.

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So we should spend hundreds of billions of dollars on Kyoto, which the science says will have almost no effect, but shouldnt spend the hundreds of billions on projects which have good science but pretty much redefine extreme engineering?

Either way, it is global scale engineering.

Lighten up, none of these ideas are to be taken seriously.

(The speculation about Kyoto is still ongoing, what "science" says should always be differentiated from the surmises of any one report or estimate. Especially in cases like this when many contradictory conclusions are put forth by many people.)

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

A pipe line could be introduced from melting ice flows into the desert, if it doesn't fertilise it, at least it would evaporate and not dilute the oceans and slow the conveyor, which should slow down global warming. Oil gets pumped further.............

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Thank God for magnetism.