Strategies for a Changing Planet: Awareness

Reversal is probably possible but would require heroic selfless efforts that no one is currently willing to undertake.

It will take arrival of serious debilitating climate change for any widespread and globally supported reversal action to be taken.

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All carbon emissions from fossil fuel use would have to stop, completely. We would have to use only renewable energy sources, and would have to accept the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear waste reprocessing and re-enrichment as being too vitally important for the world populations to not use.

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We would have to recognize that soil erosion is a calamity that can not be tolerated and must be slowed or stopped by any means possible. And that trees are critically important for removing carbon from the air and sequestering it.

We would need to restore forests to their previous state before human civilization took off (say, 8000 years ago) as much as possible. Old growth trees would have to be regarded as both protected and necessary for human survival. Lawns and mowing would have to become either illegal or socially unacceptable.

Rapid reforestation of previously strip-cut and now barren mountains can be done but is ridiculously complicated and expensive. The forests only existed because of the soil which was held in place by the tree roots. Loss of the forests resulted in massive erosion so all that remains is bare rock. Natural recovery requires millions of years of rocks being weathered away and what meager plant life there is keeping the broken down minerals retained.

Rapidly restarting tree growth on now barren hills would require transporting soil and water back up onto the hills to provide a growth medium to restore plant life, and binding the soils in place until the plants can hold onto it themselves.

There's plenty of silt on the ocean floor that could be used for this, but it would have to be dredged up and the salts would have to be washed out for it to sustain plant life again.

A better alternative would be to collect silt entering rivers and recover it at deltas before it flows into the oceans.

Similar rapid recovery efforts are likely possible where rainforest has been cleared to make grazing land and in desert areas of shifting sands made arid by clearcutting.

The costs would be ridiculously high and would have to be shouldered by a global population that understands such steps are necessary. The local countries would likely be too poor and decimated by climate change to do anything like this themselves.

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Direct rapid technical extraction of carbon out of the air and sequestering in a stable form (NOT just injecting CO2 underground) may be possible. The carbon can be separated from oxygen and turned into highly stable crystalline molecules such as graphite, which is then buried.

But this process may require just as much energy to recover the carbon as we are already using by burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Countries of the world would have to set aside billions of watts of nuclear and renewable power for just this purpose.

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The goal would be to just get back to a climate like we have now, or perhaps a little bit cooler.

But I don't foresee anything like this happening until we're all eating jellyfish sticks for dinner every day.

- Dale Mahalko

A good goal would be to lower CO2 emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. Economists (with Dr. Jim Hansen) say a carbon fee and rebate (as in HR3242) would achieve that by rebating fees to the taxpayer and shifting the market to carbon free energy. The obstacles are not technological; they are political. The unfettered greed that poisons our politics and has kept us passive and dumb may kill us. Delay already has. The World Health Organization estimated that , in the year 2000, about 130,000 deaths could be attributed to climate change.

The science has been clear for decades. It has been misrepresented by some in Congress. People like Senator Inhoffe should be indicted, his email records subpoenad.

Sheep. Baaaaah.

200 years ago, the south east USA was actually a tropical forest and much more trees, bushes, grass covered all the USA as well. Like with any good tropical forest, it brings its own rain and removes much carbon from the atmosphere. The USA could go on a tree, bush, grassland planting spree all aross the the country and infact 50 years in the future, we would make a postive enviromental change.

Of course, I am just dreaming. It is more fun for the 1% wealthy to sell high price recources to the rest of us working folk.

It is now a agriculture scientific fact, should we as a society besides lowering carbon emissions and pollution, we can infact increase our GREEN foot print too. Now much talk go on now adays about plants treets or making the barren grass lands green again?!

You said yourself "These are only scenarios spit out by climate models; there’s no way to predict exactly what will happen."

But IF there is irreversible MAN-MADE global warming that threatens human existence, then the logical course of action would be for a unified global climate jihad to force other countries and cultures to believe and behave as we enlightened ones do.

Sure, millions will die from the ensuing climate wars, and millions more from the complete collapse of the global economy and ban on non-green farming and industry.

But the surviving population will martyr them as the survivors follow the only logical course of action and kill themselves and their families so as to leave as small a carbon footprint as humanly possible.

So PopSci has decided to stop discussing the facts and switch to survivalist mode. On the other hand, you can combine your AGW preparations with your zombie apocalypse preparations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18692139

" 'No global warming since 1998.; There are few things better calculated to annoy a Greenie than this statement - which is why I like to mention it as often as possible. They hate it even more when you mention that the arch-warmist Professor Phil Jones of the notorious Climatic Research Unit (home of the Climategate scandal) admitted in a BBC interview that there has been 'no statistically significant global warming since 1995'. [...]

"What we CAN say is this. AGW theory is predicated on the idea that there is a strong correlation between man-made CO2 output and global warming. But while in the last decade - thanks largely to China - CO2 levels have continued to rise dramatically, world temperatures most definitely have not. This suggests that there are more, many more, things responsible for climate than CO2 levels."

Descussing survival mode is not a bad thing. Living in the south and near the ocean, it is encourage for most people to have a rations of water and food, just incase we get a bad tropical storm or hurrican. But the odds of my particular house getting hit, are low. Still, what odds there are of getting hit, are high enough to warrant some preparation.

Preparing for global warming seem prudent.

I mention above about planting more trees in the USA and bring back the barren lands to grass lands. Another by product of a better enviroment of more trees, would be more work, cheaper lumber for homes and contrution.

"Living in the south and near the ocean, it is encourage for most people to have a rations of water and food, just incase we get a bad tropical storm or hurrican."

See how the AGW preys on ignorance? Climatologists no longer assert that increased global warming does or has caused increased tropical storm activity. But they don't have to, do they? The damage from their hysteria in the 1990s has firmly planted that error in the minds of the credulous.

crushtv,
Your comments are opinionated as well, nothing more.

The earths climate has had some dramatic swings. Places where 250 years of drought recorded. California and southwest USA having 40 an 80 year drought's. No one knows what the weather should be. Those swings laid waste to the civilizations in their way. It is possible that the Sphinx was made when Africa was a tropical rain forest. Could deforestation have caused the deserts? Could the ancient Africans cutting wood, to use for metal forging, have wrecked the ecosystem? Deforestation is being waged on every inch of the world. Streets, buildings and crop land all reduce the earths ability to absorb sun. A plant is not a thing that cools like an ac. It absorbs energy.

I agree that CO2 levels are bad but they should be increasing plant processes to counteract this. There should be a world wide increase to all green plants. Is that being recorded?

Addressing these complex problems, anthropologist Jason Godesky proffers the following premises in his essay "The Thirty Theses:"

1. Complexity is subject to diminishing returns.
2. Civilization has passed the point of diminishing returns.
3. Technology cannot stop collapse.

So what does the future hold? Collapse* of agricultural civilization, and possibly species extinction of that ever so clever hairless Great Ape who didn't understand that a globe is finite.

Anybody who thinks that more technology is the answer to the unintended consequences of technology belongs to a modern "Space Age Cargo Cult"** as Catton puts it.

__________
* Jared M. Diamond (2005). "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." Viking Press.
** William R. Catton Jr. (1980). "Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change‎." University of Illinois Press, p. 187.

Yes, climate change IS happening, just as it has been for the last 10,000 years or so. It's called an interglacial period. Just because it's fun, let's rebut some of the outrageous, unsupported claims.

"...postindustrial temperatures have already risen by as much as 1.6°." No. Try maybe 1.25° F, and there is no indication that trend will continue as there has been no appreciable increase in global temperatures over about the last decade.

www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php

If we accept your 1.6° temperature increase (actually 1.25°) since 1880, when CO2 was about 290 ppm, and CO2 is now about 396 ppm, that means a 100 ppm CO2 change produced a 1.6° F change, IF it correlates directly with CO2 concentrations (which it doesn't). So explain how at 450 ppm, a mere 54ppm higher than the current level would produce an additional 2 FULL degrees increase in temperature? You can't? Why? Because the prediction came from those famously inaccurate computer models with spurious "forcings" and "feedbacks" that don't actually correlate with real world measurements.

There is NO data anywhere to support a prediction of an additional 2° warming when we reach 450 ppm, much less an additional 3.2° in 88 years, or the completely ridiculous 7.2° by 2060.

The funniest claim is sea levels 6 feet higher in 88 years. That means an average rise of 20.78 mm per year, which is 12 TIMES faster than the measured yearly rise from 1950 to 2009 of 1.7 mm per year (+/- 0.4 mm). That's a heckuva lot of magical something causing huge sea level rise.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise

So in 100 years there's not only NOT a "nontrivial chance that much of Manhattan will be under water in 100 years" there is a NONEXISTENT chance it will happen.

And those increasingly catastrophic weather events? They're not happening either. Modern records show NO statistical difference in the number or severity of weather-related catastrophes compared to several decades ago. In fact the strongest correlation is to El Nino and La Nina patterns that are well understood. And the number of deaths due to weather-related catastrophes is significantly lower now than it was several decades ago mostly because of better short-term forecasting.

Perhaps you didn't get the memo about how increasingly ridiculous claims, though stimulating to the zealous climate change Chicken Littles, actually turns off public interest in the debate because people aren't stupid. They can intuitively sense flagrant alarmism a mile away.

After gleefully rebutting the silly claims in the article, it's time to offer up realistic suggestion for how to deal with climate change...oh never mind. It's happening so slowly, there's nothing really to deal with.

So here's how to deal with a natural disaster that may or may not affect you in your lifetime. Plan ahead. Or as Boy Scouts say, Be Prepared. Keep extra food and water on hand, have an emergency plan, keep camping gear handy. If you can afford it, get a generator.

We love big engineering projects here at PopSci 'cause they're awesome, but in reality, most people from the richest to the poorest will deal with the glacially slow effects of climate change individually just like they have for millennia; no government intervention or major engineering required.

Some decent information laurenra7. But there are some things to consider. And since you seem intelligent, I hope you will take these observations seriously.

The models you talk about as being spurious are relatively similar ones to the ones that model the interglacial period. So you cant dismiss them so easily otherwise you undermine your own argument. But yes, currently the models are lacking, and innacurate. You cant say it will rise by 1.25, its more of a rise by 1ish degree.

Here is 2 very nice papers on current models and their issues that were just released (sorry if you cant view, behind Nature Journal firewall);

www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n6/full/nclimate1414.html

www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n6/full/nclimate1456.html

You also forget that its not only CO2 rise that is the issue. Thats a part of it. There are other anthropomorphic environmental changes that must be considered. These environmental changes (short list here);

Chemical Pollution
Atmospheric Aerosol Loading
Biodiversity Loss
Land Use
Freshwater Use
Phosphate and Nitrogen Cycles
Ozone Depletion
Ocean Acidification
and of course... CO2 Production

all have an impact on climate. The worrying part is if you extrapolate 100 years from now, without these environmental trends changing, it results pretty big change in climate, even if you account for innacurate models.

www.environment.arizona.edu/files/env/profiles/liverman/rockstrom-etc-liverman-2009-nature.pdf (Free for View Nature Article)

So, yes, when you are talking about CO2, your mostly correct. But just reasoning with CO2 alone is not enough, its oversimplifying the situation.

Hmmm, cant we edit our own posts?

In any case, forgot another environmental change.

High-entropy waste heat from economic activity (pretty much use of energy for economic reasons).

We produce a lot of high-grade, high-entropy thermal waste (heat) energy from all processes that require energy.

Only one way to get rid of this globally; release of infrared radiation into space, which happens quite naturally and is something we can model very well and understand perfectly.

But we are outpacing Earth ability to do so, we results in environmental heating as more waste energy is trapped. Also a factor in anthropomorphic temperature and climate change.

It hot in July and it going to be a hot August. By the way, the polor regions are melting.... too.

The climate religion is worse than the 2012 dommsday people. These climate change people are like chicken little claiming that the sky is falling. Guess what life goes on, all of their models have and will be proven wrong. Tornado's,flood, drought, hurricanes are as old as time. Back then the "elite" would pose as high priests, asking for offerings of gold, food, virgins to appease the gods. Now the "elite" pose as do-gooders promising to save the world if we just give up our privacy, private property, and rights. LMAO what a joke, and the dumb sheep masses keep falling for it. The upper class has been using fear to control the masses from the beginning of history. This is no different, instead of a spartan with a sword, now its a bill gates with a telescreen.

WAKE UP SHEEP

@ Aldrons

Hopefully your a troll, and dont actually give too much credit to your own comment. But if you truly believe that, then you should throw out all your medicine, never visit a hospital, get rid of your synthetic clothes, get rid of your car, ditch your computer. Reject most trappings of the modern industrial age.

Climate change theory is based upon scientific research. You cant pick and choose what you want to believe. Some life saving drugs people have and need, are based on, guess, what, models! Guess that these models are based on? Current knowledge of physics, chemistry, and statistics. There is a whole discipline dedicated to this, called bioinformatics.

The car you might drive, will have been modeled. Using similar principles. You computers hardware, has been modeled using current understanding of molecular interactions across inorganic matter. Pretty much everything about modern society has been modeled during research at some point. Drilling for oil, flying a plane, name it.

We dont pull these models out of thin air. We use them for a reason. They are based on what we know, our current understanding of reality, math, psychics, meteorology, etc. So yes, models can be inaccurate, and errors can appear, because our knowledge of reality is incomplete. But generally they are damn good indicators. This includes climate change models.

And oh yeah, before you say us scientists have an agenda, we mostly work for little money, at least those in academia do, where most climate research is done. There is no agenda except to understand reality better.

98% of Climate Scientists?
I think there was only 250 IPCC delegates,of them 13 where Scientists of any kind with the Atmospherc Physicists,Ocean Physicists,Physicists,and Mathamatican/Geologist even remotely claiming to be "Climate Scientists"
Is it because Phil Jones will say it's warmer but wont say it's humans fault thet makes him 2% unsure?...lol
If you actually read the IPPC Summary for Policy maker the 8 page has a table of likelyhood that humans are responsible for any % of the warming(if any) via burning fossil fuels is "more likely then not" which according to the foot notes on page 3 is 50/50 chance
Not to mention the estimated Sea rise max on page 7 is 1.5 feet?(.17 meter) not "water world"
Average Gloabal tempature Swings from 12c(Ice Age) to 18C(Interglaciation peak) and is controled by how much heat plate tectonics lets excape from the Earths core/mantle with Ice Ages caused by Earth's center cooling and plate tectonics slowing down decreasing exhausting heat that powers the ocean conveyers that drive back the polar ice while extendend little/no plate tectonics builds up heat and pressure in core which re-jumpstarts plate tectonics that raises earths heat output though plate tectonics and you get "Inter-glaciation"..it has nothing to do with CO2 which is also vented from mantle,or brought up from warming deep seas where they reside as ice into the Evaporation/Percpitaion cycle (It's why Milankovitch Cycles fail at explaining "Iceball Earth" during close Encounters with sun,and Hellball earth at it's farthest distance..AGT isn't determined by sun heat input,it's determine by Earth's internal heat output through plate tectonics)
3.2 degrees increase might be the difference between the Upper Temparate average tempature variability and the Tropic average temputure variability causing more powerful storms between those 2 points in both the Summer and Winter
Right now the Tropics is averaging 7 degrees cooler then usual while the Poles are 7 degrees hotter then usual..sub tropics -5f,sub pole +5,lower Temparate -4f,upper temparate +4f

Hot blazzing chickens are falling from the sky! December 21, 2012 we will all be killed by a blaze of fried chickens! ARG!

I believe the sun and its cycles heats the earth. I also believe humans have influence climate change in a hot manner. But, I will be clear; I am opinionating now. Take care! Do not pollute. That pee you do in the swimming pool, might be the cool aid you drink tomorrow!!

I didnt say 98% did I ;)

I even stated that some disagree with the current theory.

Again, you seem to only be talking about CO2 and global warming. If you read my post, i specifically mention climate change. Two different things.

Now, if we are talking about global warming. Yes, I agree, its overblown, and has become sensationalist. Its not going to get that hot, and the sea isnt going to swallow us, I agree with you there.

There have been periods of much higher CO2 atmospheric concentrations in the past. And yes, we may be in an interglacial period. And yes, i fully expect that warming could be caused by non-anthropological reasons, such as natural cycles. None of this is disputed. What is disputed is how much we are affecting global warming. Its a matter of degrees. And we are certainly contributing something. I mean, we create CO2, so we contribute. Models show this. Models take into account past climate environments. Which is pretty much what your talking about with temperature differences over millions of years.

Now then lets move on from the small part that global warming plays a role in, in climate change.

Climate change. Not global warming.

Many other variables affect climate change, and yes, some of them anthropomorphic.

Oh and the IPCC report is a crock of shite :P Its a political report, and therefore far more biased that a peer reviewed journal article in the field of climate change.

Give me sources from actual journals and peer reviewed articles and then we can discuss :) I dont want news, or political sources, too much noise. Too many opinions.

If you think global warming is the only issue here then please broaden your mind. See my above post. Im not scared of global warming, im scared about the cumulative affect of other environmental boundaries we are affecting. And infringing on those boundaries does have an affect on climate change. Or just read this journal article (its not technical);

www.environment.arizona.edu/files/env/profiles/liverman/rockstrom-etc-liverman-2009-nature.pdf

The problem is the more along the lines of the 7 billion plus folks exhaling...and the politicians trying to make a buck off the rest of the world misery. Bottom line for millions of years the planet has taken care of itself, it will continue to do so there will be a war...if not a war a disease, and a famine. Death is the part of life we dont like to talk about but its coming, best you prepare now because in the next ten years like as not out of every ten people you know 7 are likely to die. Nature takes care of itself

@ garthog42

You underestimate the human race's ability to do harm. Take all the nukes we have and detonate them in our atmosphere. Lets see nature take care of that lol. There would not even be a 'nature', just a sterile lifeless rock.

Point being, this nature can take care of itself is all fine and dandy when we were cavemen or knights or even a WWI trench soldier. But since 1945, if we really wanted to, we can wipe mother natures face with our arses.

@Warzones, I say you are a greenie troll, lets call you a gremlin..LOL. I won't throw out my modern toys or assets, that's what a greenie would do.

I base my opinions on FACT. Go to this website and educate yourself...you may find research there that interests you.

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php

If you don't think the climate change agenda is political you are sorely mistaken, it may not be political fir because you are a scientist being steered into a corner. But this is a socialistic agenda.

AMERICA is a unique country as it puts its citizens rights above all else and that's what has made America so successful. The globalist seeks to destroy america by dissolving its sovereignty and making it subject to the laws of a WORLD GOVERNMENT...that is totalitarian in nature.

http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml

Housing of 300 sq.ft? Community cars? No I have a right to private property and to pursue happiness. I do not see population problem in the USA I've been to New York, Virginia,, Michigan, Illinois, Atlanta, Florida etc etc...and guess what all I see is an abundance of land, food, wealth. These climate greenies and their boss's are nothing but chicken little trying to scare people.

Living in a socialistic society is not the answer, freedom and the constitution is. With freedom we will figure it out together, not with a tax for the rich. Not with DE-industrialization. The smart cities, the green zones have been in the works for decades, its only becoming mainstream now. Take a closer look at your government and for the love of God WAKE UP SHEEP

The troll comment was because i could not tell if you were serious or not, so my apologies on that :) And actually, im not living green at all. Quite the opposite. Ill keep my damn toys as well :D But thats another argument.

Alderon please, im not talking about global warming, im talking about climate change. Different things alright. See the last link I gave.

I checked out your links. The first is biased, very biased. It doesn't even have many decent sources apart from investigative journalism, which is not considered a good source. The emails... so scientists who are making a political report will be biased, Of course they will, but their research that may be part of the report is not. The second is a UN report, again its a political report, so biased. Dont pay it any attention, the UN is full of crap anyways, who listens to them?

I want impartial sources, not government reports, news, opinionated websites. You cant use that.

This is the same issue that comes up all the time. Sources need to be as impartial as possible. You cant keep quoting biased sources, its not good for a debate. The only decent impartial source is academic papers from journals. Those are the only sources that try to be impartial. For a good debate, the less opinion the better.

As i have said, i have yet to see a majority of impartial academic papers in peer reviewed journals that say climate change is not influenced by human activity. Most of them conclude that we do influence climate change.

I dont agree with IPCC or any other UN reports because i believe they butcher scientific research to fit political needs.

Point being, i could give you hundreds of links from news, blogs, political websites, etc, that both say your side of the argument is correct, or my side of the argument is correct.

But i have yet to find someone who will bring actually impartial evidence based sources to argue with me. Im giving you as impartial sources as possible, you are not reciprocating. Give me some academic research, its the closest thing to impartial sources we have in this day and age.

So please dont talk to me about governments, politics, corporations, or what not. Its irrelevant, it distorts the fundamental debate. When you get down to it, the most impartial sources do have a consensus that climate change is being influenced by the human race.

If you dont believe that academic papers are as impartial as a source we can get, then I would say you have a mistaken idea regarding how fundamental research is done. This is pretty common, but its easy to remedy. Lots of information on scientific methodology is accessible.

Oops, forgot to mention.

Lucky you Aldrons, you live in the USA. Im in Europe where we are losing more and more sovereignty per day to the EU.

I believe we have similar ideals regarding politics, as in we are both realists. While I agree with you that global warming is not as affected by humans as our governments would like us to think, i disagree with you regarding climate change, although you have not really talked about it, your more fixated on global warming i guess.

Wow ... Jamais Cascio was 100% right. Amazing.

In another thread, I suggested a means of transforming residential solar into a lucrative investment for both buyer and seller. Assuming it could be made to work, it could make a substantial impact with solar panels being installed on many millions of homes.

In the event that AGW proves to be false, however unlikely that may seem, there is no harm no foul... just millions of people getting free electricity. A win/win carrot based solution.

But the green crowd doesn't like win/win carrot based solutions. They go straight for the win/lose stick based solutions... and I can't help suspecting that this is their true intent, i.e. wielding the stick... regardless of climate change.

When hurricanes were hitting Florida every other day (it seemed), the 98%'ers said that Global warming (they hadn't yet changed to climate change to avoid the lack of warming spell) would cause more frequent and powerful hurricanes in the Gulf. When the hurricane activity failed to meet the projections, The claim was changed to be that global warming was "actually" going to result in fewer hurricanes.

When Winter weather broke some records, it was claimed that global warming was going to cause colder Winter weather. The "lack" of the ability to predict with any certainty what "global warming" would do to the weather, led to coining the term "climate change" and the purple faced protestations that "climate and weather are not the same thing!" Which turns out to be the Winter chant when the weather is colder than expected; the Summer chant being "see how hot it is? That is due to global Wa... er, climate change!"

On top of this linguistic change, all of the "predictions" came after the fact and were suitably shaped to fit the events that had already occurred -- no matter what the situation was, it was presented as proof positive that global warming was real.

The interesting thing then was that since, in their minds, the presence of global warming was established, they threw in "and it is the fault of humans" as an afterthought and basically said, don't question the word of Oz! It was decreed that there was a consensus and the topic should never be discussed again... let's get on to the act of dividing up the money!

Do I know if climate change is occurring... yes, it absolutely is; and it always has occurred from the creation of the Earth until now. As far as the cause, I am much less convinced. Like a true scientist (even though I am not one), I am skeptical, especially when people try to say things shouldn't be questioned because it is "established science" or (much worse) "there is a consensus"; again sounds a lot like Oz saying "don't look behind the curtain".

When I think about this, I am curious how exactly do we measure the temperature of the entire planet to a precision of a tenth of a degree. Sounds remarkably ambitious. I don't deny that it could be done, but I have yet to see anyone explain exactly how that is done. If I could get a grip on that, then I would need someone to explain to me how this is done retroactively a hundred or more years back. I get that tree rings can provide some relative insight on temperature between years, but accurate to a tenth of a degree? Maybe; show me how?

Once that is established, then I will start to look at the effects of CO2 and greenhouse gasses and cloud formation and levels of air pollution (both man made and natural) and deforestation and plankton blooms and ... well you get the picture. Sounds pretty complicated ('cause it is).

Finally, once we determine the cause and we devise ways to take control of the temperature; then, and only then, can we can get to the harder question and that is "who gets to control the thermostat for the Earth's temperature?"

As most stories about climate change suggest, the flow of carbon is linear, meaning from earth to atmosphere. Carbon actually functions as a cycle - the Carbon Cycle.

Our two neighbors, Mars and Venus, are in chemical equilibrium. If you try to light a match on either planet, due to the lack of oxygen, it's not possible to start a fire. The atmospheres are dominated by carbon dioxide.

Earth is not in chemical equilibrium. Why? Because we have life - photosynthetic plants that mix carbon dioxide and water molecules to make carbohydrates (with energy to feed life). The bulk of plant material is made from the atmosphere, not the soil.

Consequently, focusing on the carbon cycle as a linear process completely misses the opportunity to pull carbon back out of the atmosphere at massive rates. We CAN do this by enhancing plant life on the planet.

To wait until the US and other western countries decide to move to much lower carbon emissions while China and India ramp up their use of fossil energy will prove devastating to our species.

The discussion of the greater damaging greenhouse gas, water vapor, is equally disappointing. We are witnessing great impacts of a challenged Water Cycle - floods, storms, drought. The exciting opportunity is that water follows carbon. If organic material (carbon) increases in the soil, more water is stored in the soil.

This is critical information, and not widely known. We have an opportunity to increase the carbon levels in the earth, decrease carbon levels in the atmosphere, increase water holding abilities of the earth (aquifers, streams, etc), and grow more food because of more carbohydrates and water.

To learn more information about this critical link in the carbon cycle dialogue, check out: www.soilcarboncoalition.org

Jeff Goebel
www.aboutlistening.com

It would also help if the US would stop wasting half its budget on fighting over the oil we should not burn anyway.
Bob Stuart

"It would also help if the US would stop wasting half its budget on fighting over the oil we should not burn anyway."

Yep... the use of force, except in defense, is inherently, instinctively wrong.

So PopSci has joined the Al Gore-David Suzuki "THE-SKY-IS-FALLING" marching band and jazz combo. Wonderful. Wouldn't want those two to be out on their own. Climate change has been happening since long before the arrival of the hairless ape, and it will be happening until the Sun goes Super Nova and our little mudball is fried. We are rotten custodians of this planet, but we don't cause, nor can we stop, climate change. It's as natural as sunrise.

How about we focus on things we can control? Deforestation turned parts of Australia into wasteland, and they threaten to do the same to the Amazon basin in Brazil. If we stop buying wood from rainforests, and we teach indigenous people how to farm in heavily forested areas without knocking all the trees down, we win. We win the forestry conservation battle (which has nothing to do with climate change), that is. How about we go to the plastic swamp in the Pacific and collect the garbage to turn it into building materials. Not hugely economical, but better than leaving it there. And how about stopping whaling and cut back on harvesting wild fish by using sound, environmentally efficient fish farming methods (unlike those used by the Norwegians in British Columbia, for example) to feed people. Profitable and conservation-oriented.

There are lots of things we can do. Hand-wringing over the inevitable, along with putting the blame squarely where it doesn't belong, doesn't help anyone. Other than the Gore-Suzuki cartel, that is. Those boys are making a fortune from all this nonsense.

What happens when science is mixed with politics?

The scientist says this will happen. The politician recommends oppressive government solutions.

The scientist says that will happen. The politician recommends oppressive government solutions.

The scientist says the other will happen. The politician recommends oppressive government solutions.

No matter what will or will not happen... The politician recommends oppressive government solutions. The science is simply a justification for oppression.

We form governments to protect us from tyrants, not to become tyrants.

What is it, Climate Change or Global Warming? Both sound onerous. The Climate has been changing since the last Ice age 11,000 years ago, Global Warming has occurred since the mini ice age in the 1800s.

Carbon Credits has already taken jobs from millions of people and given the wealthy market makers more money. Al Gore notwithstanding.

It says in the article if we were to stop using carbon today bringing down the usage to a zero sum, we would still have Global warming. We need to adapt. Those that can't will just have to give themselves up for those that can.

What truly will help mankind would be the clean and 100% recycling of materials and resources used. Minimal waste, any waste made is processed in a way it can be broken down and used a fertilizer or similar. The sun is a BIG ball of energy, most of our recycling needs can be powered for free by it.

The issue is we have held onto a monetary system too long and now its limits are showing their ugly head. Things will get ALLOT worse before people finally sit down and agree that putting a financial dollar figure on saving our environment is insanity!

[Delmar Fairchild] Those that can't will just have to give themselves up for those that can.

That is a very selfish statement. Those that can't are the poorer non-wealthy nations/people. I predict if we allow this type of thinking to mature then expect terrorism to sky-rocket to unbelievable heights; maybe even go nuclear. I'm not joking, to think people will sit around and DIE! so you can live like a king is of gross denial!

Bogus! When is PS going to start publishing Science again?

If you believe that crap, then you must agree that the mosquito population must be drastically increased!

How mostly intelligent people get hoodwinked by this Global Warming garbage is just, well, silly.

First and foremost, the only "Proof" you have of global warming are Climate Models. These "computer climate models" try to predict the climate 10 to 100 years from today. Climate is weather, just on a much longer and larger scale. In fact, one can easily argue that climate is in fact much more complex than weather. Yet the absolute very best weather models of today still can't accurately predict the weather tomorrow with any degree of accuracy. Ask the weatherman what next weeks weather will be and accuracy falls to a coin flip, MAYBE!

Yet people who make the case for AGW want me to believe that somehow their climate models can accurately predict what the weather will be in ten years!

Are you freaking kidding me? There is so much else wrong with this AGW nonsense, but how can I possibly trust ANY climate model when the best we can currently do is maybe predict the weather tomorrow?

The answer is you can't trust these climate models any more than you can trust the people peddling this nonsense.

In the final analysis two things are certain:
1. The public is justifiably opposed to Cap and Trade, so far the most widely known political solution offered to the IPPC’s conclusions about anthropomorphic global warming.

2. Those conclusions are serious, but more than a few scientists still resist undertaking a global economic shift that would suck billions out of the world’s economies and would result in a negligible impact on the purported climate trends. I would remind you that several astronauts have recently gone public with their doubts.

DTS

esteffagroup
We have excellent solution to reverse Climate change gradually? We have to work all very quickly (immediately) everywhere on it using new technologies no other way.
The First technology: AST Synoptic harvesting (Fog harvesting system)
• Weather modification hardware and software developed by the Russian military
• Improved for civilian use
• Trialled with good success
• Functionality
• Initiating precipitation
• Interrupting precipitation
• Dispersing fog
Applications
• Agriculture
• Snow for low lying areas of ski resorts
• Airport fog dispersal
• Highway accident black spot fog dispersal
• Prevention of rain/snow fog during weather critical events (Olympics etc)

The Second technology:
Use of pAgriSap in agriculture (Agriculture SAP new technologies of Polykem from Switzerland) to allow:
• Priced to allow farmers to make attractive incremental profit
• reducing irrigation water consumption and the death rate of plants
• increasing the available water in the soil which enables the plants to survive longer under water stress
• reducing the evapo-transpiration rate of the plants
• inducing a much higher growth rate
• reducing compaction tendency and increasing the soil aeration and microbial activity
• preventing erosion and water runoff
• improving fertilizer retention in the soil and, thus, increasing the fertilizer efficiency as well as preventing the contamination of the underwater sources –binding heavy metals and mitigating their action on plants
• mitigating the effects of salinity
• facilitates water-retaining materials in the form of seed additives
• Plant all deserts with forests with bio fuels and animal fodder
• Greening all areas.
• Cooling the soil planted with it.
Kindly see our new: polykemglobal.com
Our old : polykem.com
Our Email: ibrahim.alalim@yahoo.com
Tel: +966504117242
Address: P.O.Box 9564 Riyadh 11423 Saudi Arabia
Let us work together and make it all over the globe and reduce it and improve it.

every country should adopt china's population controls.A large carbon tax would be good for the planet,the climate and our health.Meat prodution creates as much co2 as cars.Cars should be banned.Asphalt roads and roofing should be banned because they heat the air and produce co2.

sm Wild fires can be prevented by better forest management They produce more co2 than cars.One idea is to dump surplus wood into lakes or make biochar for soil condtioner.

sem... your suggestions would drive up the cost of energy, which would drive up the cost of everything, which would lower the standard of living for everyone. Here is the better way:

Install solar panels on every suitable rooftop. This would limit or even reduce the cost of energy, create many thousands of jobs and improve the economy.

The primary problem with residential solar is the payback period. The payback period can be defined as the length of time it takes to recoup the difference between the initial cost and the resale value.

We can reduce the payback period by guaranteeing a high resale value, transforming solar into a money making proposition for the homeowner. He would be foolish NOT to invest in solar panels... and every panel installed would reduce fossil fuel usage.

A wise investment, low maintenance, very long lasting and the noise doesn't wake the neighbors. What's not to like?

Oops... "your suggestions" = "some of your suggestions"

Why residential solar? Because the investment makes the most sense for those who pay the highest energy rates... and the fuel is free.

I should add that if the science proves to be wrong, there is no harm no foul... just millions of people getting free electricity. You don't have to be a true believer to make a wise investment.

The remaining question then is who will step up and guarantee to buy used panels, thus guaranteeing the resale value? Ideally this would be someone who can to profit from doing so. Two possible candidates immediately come to mind: The electric utility and the panel manufacturer.

Problem isn't so much used pannels as the fact that since Solar panels, Windmill parts, Nuclear rods,Hydrocells,and lithium batteries for electric cars uses Coal, gas, oil, disel, jet fuel, ship oil to manafacture and move to market and install the stratagies that limit those resources via regulation and taxation drive up the cost alternative energy that uses "fossil fuel tech" in its creation and maintenence and makes them more unattainable,not "cheaper"
I mean, didn't that "Picken's plan" go under cause his 2 million dollars a piece windmills could only power 500 homes each and 2000 of them plus the 10 trillion dollar overhaul of the National Grid to allow for things like conversion of short distance power like Windmills to intergrate into it was already "out of US budget" before they decided to jack the price of oil,gas,desiel,jet fuel via taxes for the November 2007 Cap and Trade known as the "Biofuel Initative" that caused a spending drop in Travel Industry first then eventually led to the Mortgage Insurase Crises as laid off and fired people, in Travel Industry first,couldn't pay their morgage in droves then retail market spending drop (especially around tourist sites/vacation spots), then nobody wanted to buy a SUV at almost $5 a gallon via the "cap and Trade" so GM and Chryster heavily steeped in SUV making loss money leading to them almost "going under" and eventually October 2008 came about and it wasn't "Global Warming Armegedon" every 20 minutes by the media unless Congress does something but "World Economic Meltdown Armegedon" every 20 minutes unless Congress does something?
Also doesn't Spain and Greece pride themselves in "Green Tech"?
Really hurts not having all that oil,gas, disel tax to pay your loans for your welfare state...doesn't it?
US Feds make more in a day in fossil fuel taxes then Big Oil makes in a quater as "Croney Contractors" (Obama could stop drilling in gulf cause US Feds own US oil deposits, BP Horizon was Contracted,given 10 million severence with the boot,pulled anchor and went to drill oil for Brazillian Government)
They (US Feds) are hurting a little in tax income between the November 2007 US Cap&Trade(near "World Economic Meltdown" causer)and June 2009Cap&Trade (World Economic Recession causer) and American public is hurting a lot thus the lame attempt to lower gas prices before November via releasing US oil reserves

"I mean, didn't that "Picken's plan" go under cause his 2 million dollars a piece windmills could only power 500 homes each..."

Hmmm... that comes to $4000 per home.

Honeywell has a residential windmill that attaches to the top of your house. The design is rated at 166 kilowatts a month and operates in winds of only 4 MPH. It costs about $4500.

I am highly skeptical of large, ridiculously expensive projects. Residential power generation is the best way to go.

Climate Change : Man-made or Beyond Man's control? touchy subject.

To ignore man's impact on planet Earth would be naive, there's pollution and nukes aside from the greenhouse gases our industries are spewing out that could easily refute that argument (I doubt anyone would even be foolish enough to bother arguing about the existence of POLLUTION and it's impact on the environment just to disprove that point). But to assume that man is the sole contributor to a changing climate reeks a bit of hubris in that we cannot assume all responsibility for all the unpredictable hiccups of the known universe. So let's just cut to the chase and split it half-and-half. We should just focus on the things we CAN change instead of arguing about the things that we can't.

Anyways, letting the consumers take the sole initiative by telling them to consume less but buy more "green" and energy saving products seemed too blatantly capitalistic. Here's where some people draw the line in that it sounds like you expect them to buy into a con. And since most people don't have unlimited money, you've effectively placed a societal wedge that adds a new irrational source of rage or discontentment promptly followed by disbelief or apathy.

Meanwhile, placing all the responsibility on the laps of the government only forces them to seek escape goats and secretly fund misinformation campaigns sponsored by the affected corporate entities just to convince us that "Everything's fine". So to assume that there are no conspiracies brewing their way through the highest levels of our political and economic systems seemed like ramblings of blind optimistic patriots. Governments lie. Everyone lies. Deal with it.

So what's the solution that would remain effective regardless of the outcome between contradicting arguments?

Quoting part of the article:
"It may be possible to weather this onslaught if we begin preparing now, by building low-carbon, high-density cities away from the coasts, radically improving the efficiency of water and energy systems, boosting local and global emergency-response capacities, and adjusting to a less consumption- and waste-oriented lifestyle."

Creating a more efficient and environment-friendly society seemed like a reasonable argument with me. So why bother arguing against it? It's the HOW part which is tricky and that's probably where the consumers and their governments need to rethink their relation with each other.

For example: energy generation has usually been tasked to governments or private corporate entities. However, integrating the process of energy generation as part of our urban structures can help with the consumption rates as well as a new source for the generation of energy.

A lot of people are saying, let's go solar, let's go wind, let's go waves, while others say let's go nuke. While I ask the simple question : Why bother arguing if we can just use them all? For as long as they are in their appropriate settings and we can keep them safe and efficient. (Though I doubt the integration of energy generation through nuclear plants near highly populated sites would be practical, so we'll probably keep that out of urban settings)

Anyways, Governments can help the consumers (building or home owners) install city-wide solar-thermal pipes and wind double-helix turbine apparatuses to their establishments. Consumers are tasked in helping to maintain the devices in exchange for their energy consumption, while the Government receives the surplus energy which they can sell back to consumers who exceed their monthly allotted consumption rate(arrangements can vary depending on what's most convenient. Ex: the apparatuses can eventually bought by the consumer from the government and any surplus energy they generate can be sold back to the Government as part of the consumer's extra-income).

Meanwhile governments can use the surplus energy generated for vertical urban farms, external battery recharge stations for electric powered cars, etc.. Aside from the other sources of energy that we already have in place.

Having large amounts of surplus energy would eventually unveil a clear path towards a post-scarcity based society. But the main objective for this would initially be to slowly transition the development of our cities to be more self-sufficient and environment friendly in response to a changing climate.

Now I don't really see any down-side to that.
So what's the big-fuss all about?

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