Link: Humans Won’t Conquer Climate Change
Posted in Environment by George
Read an article today in the Guardian that asserts humans will not overcome the challenge of climate change. Why?
Behind our thinking about global warming lies an unspoken assumption: that, in the end, science and technology will rescue us. Perhaps we shall launch giant reflectors into space to protect us from the sun’s rays. Or discover new ways of growing food so it won’t matter if half the world’s agricultural land turns into desert. More plausibly, we may find a new source of low-cost, low-emission energy. As Bush reiterated yesterday, America has most faith in technical fixes, and at least he is honest about it. But it is the biggest illusion of all. Science and technology haven’t delivered on half the promises of the past 50 years. We don’t have a cure for cancer. We don’t have robots to do the cleaning. We can’t take holidays on the moon. And we still haven’t found a way to harness high-temperature superconductivity which, we were told 20 years ago, would cut energy waste by half…
No, I am not the sandal-wearing fanatic of sceptic legend, wishing my dismal lifestyle on everyone else. I burn coal fires in winter, I’m off to New Zealand this year, and I estimate my home has a hundred electric light bulbs, though they’re not all on at once. That’s why I don’t hold out much hope. Having been convinced that global warming is a genuine threat, I still think, deep down, that you only live once and my own carbon footprint won’t make much of a difference. Which is just what everyone else thinks.
Sorry that blockquote is so long. This reminds me a lot of comments from Jon and Chris on this website, as well as many people’s opinions that have been expressed to me.
This is a really pessimistic article, but unfortunately, the author could be on to something.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:47 am
I think he’s right that technology is going to just come in and fix global warming for us, but I think his point is incomplete. Maybe we won’t have some technological fix that will allow us to have the same standard of living and consumption, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make changes in policy and habits of consumption. Our power as citizens larger lies in our power as consumers. If we can use that power to pursuade businesses to produce sustainable products, that will make a huge difference. Just because we probably won’t defeat global warming with technology doesn’t mean that we’re doomed.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:49 am
In the first sentence I meant to say that “technology is not going to just come in and fix global warming”
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I agree that humans should not just assume doom and go on with our daily lives because we believe we cannot make a difference. At the same time, he makes a good point that many people come to believe their individual actions are close to insignificant so they don’t do anything at all.
However, I definitely do not think that this kind of thinking is virtuous, and I share your optimism, Steve.
June 4th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
The following is a quote taken from a blog post I read today. I’d like to get everyone’s thoughts on it.
After this planet has experienced many cycles of extreme climate conditions lasting millions of years, and most all of them occurring before humans inhabited the planet, what is the likelihood that an impending dramatic change in the climate is caused by humans or can be mitigated by humans? Ants are as likely to be able to dramatically affect the earth’s climate as are humans.
June 4th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I suppose I feel like this is one of the traditional skeptic views. Yes, there have been extreme climate conditions in the past that have existed before humans inhabited the planet. We should expect such events to continue as they have in the past. But there are two reasons why this should not lead to the idea that we do nothing.
(1) A vast quantity of science points to the fact that human-induced climate change is a fact. Even if it is not as significant as causing climate change without help from nature, human CO2 emissions are still important. For instance, humans may be accelerating natural climate change through CO2 emissions.
(2) Even if climate change is not caused by humans, we should be researching as hard as possible to find out exactly what is happening to temperatures and CO2 concentrations, how they affect us, and what we can do if there are dramatic changes in the Earth’s climate to mitigate costs.
Also, the last sentence about the ants is kind of worthless…
June 4th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Yeah, I thought the last sentence was a bit much also.
June 4th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Yo, JJ, do you have a link for the blog that comment was on? Just interested in reading the whole entry to see what the author was advocating.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Yep, here it is…
http://carsonsasser.com/2007/05/31/nasa-administra...
June 5th, 2007 at 9:22 am
From the link:
That’s fine to argue that human induced climate change is in question, but it is universally accepted that melting icecaps means higher water levels which means people have to evacuate low land which means huge economic & human costs. I think it’s rather arrogant to assume that isn’t an issue.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
OK, I admit that the ‘ants’ statement borders on hyperbole, but here’s the point I was trying to make: If you plot the effects of all the contributors to the earth’s climate on a line, with the greater effects to the right, you will likely find that, although the effect of ants is to the left of the effect of humans, the separation between humans and the sun is so much greater than the separation between ants and humans that it looks like there is little difference in the effects of ants and humans.
June 7th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Okay, I see now. That’s a good point, Carson.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Thanks for the comment, Carson. However, I don’t agree that your comment justifies your blog entry. You write:
The implication here, is that we should do nothing to mitigate the effects of climate change, right?
I don’t believe sitting idly and just waiting for dramatic climate change with all of its negative effects is ethical or logical, REGARDLESS of whether the cycle is natural or not. If we conclusively find the climate warming cycle is natural and will result in horrible things to humanity, we should pursue geoengineering and the like… not sit around and wait to be harmed.
Furthermore, yes, the sun does contribute more to the greenhouse effect much more than humans. That’s obvious. However, as climate is a delicate cycle, relatively small changes to what is natural can dramatically alter the climate, because of second order effects (i.e. the glaciers melt a little, increasing amount of light energy not reflected back into space, thus heating the earth even more).
June 8th, 2007 at 11:00 am
What makes you think the effects of climate change will be a net negative?
June 8th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I think a better question would be what makes you think otherwise? There is a wealth of scientific evidence on the costs of climate change… in fact I’ve never heard the costs debated before. The debate is over whether or not humans are conclusively causing it.
June 9th, 2007 at 10:54 am
One bit of technology fix that I heard about and wonder if it would work is to introduce fine particles in the upper atmosphere to act as a reflective agent so the earth gets less energy from the sun. Freeman Dyson proposed his idea.
It won’t solve other problems with air pollution. Since his wife is a runner. I am sort of surprised he doesn’t have a bigger problem with air pollution.
June 10th, 2007 at 9:52 am
I’ve heard of this as well… and I’ve heard one of the potential particles they would use is sulfur. So obviously you get all of the problems of sulfur pollution… in exchange for the benefit of potentially stabilizing the climate. Let’s hope there is a better solution.
June 10th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Global changes in climate will almost certainly be a net negative. With the melting of the ice caps the oceans are projected to rise, and even if the increase in dept does not sound impressive (I’ve heard something like 1-3ft by 2100) it will cause a huge loss in land, displacing millions of people. In addition, many third world countries are in areas where the climate change would either flood huge portions of the country or dry the land out, killing their agriculture. It is true that some areas of land in the northern US are expected to have longer growing seasons, but is it fair to destroy these other countries for a little longer growing season? Also, the climate is changing much faster right now in comparison to past climate changes, and the evidence strongly points to a human cause. If there are dramatic changes in climate, this will in turn lead to dramatic changes in habitat, making it extremely hard for many species that depend on the delicate balance of their habitat to survive. Global warming will be terrible for biodiversity. If change happens gradually, animals have time to evolve or move to other habitats, but considering we occupy most of the options for them to move to other habitats, I sincerely doubt this will happen.
Saying that it is arrogance to think that humans can affect the climate with greenhouse gas emissions is a philosophical argument and has no scientific basis. If I’m going to make a decision on whether humans are causing climate change I’m going to do it based on the scientific data, which the vast majority of peer-reviewed objective scientists says points to humans as the cause of global warming. I think it’s arrogant to believe that we can let the climate change without messing up the balance of our ecosystems. We don’t understand how everything is interconnected and we could end up shooting ourselves in the foot by screwing up our natural support systems and then having no way to get them back.