Michael Crichton picks a fight with environmentalists

[Urban Ranger]

While there are no external contraints, the internal pressure will be enormous. Unlike the US or Canada, Chinese cities are very crowded. Besides, bad weather is going to mess up crop production, and there are a lot of farmers in China. In fact, the peasant problem is numero uno in the PRC.

[notyoueither]

And no, you will not proceed like CA or Europe, in the short term. If you did, you'd kill your economy before it matures. That would be worse than stupid. That would consign a billion people to perpetual poverty when you are so close to bringing a full fifth of the worlds population into what might be called an advanced society.

I have no problem with China making great advances. I applaud it. I do have a problem with a plan that requires that others slit their economic wrists in the name of psuedo science. I refer to the openning post.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
While there are no external contraints, the internal pressure will be enormous. Unlike the US or Canada, Chinese cities are very crowded. Besides, bad weather is going to mess up crop production, and there are a lot of farmers in China. In fact, the peasant problem is numero uno in the PRC.

I agree that China has its own unique circumstances, and that things will go different for you than they did for any other industrialising nation. However, do you really think you can increase output indefinitely and not increase co2 emmisions?

You can switch from coal to oil, but then do you freeze the number of vehicles? Do you say no new plants to make things?

The minute you do, the jobs move to where you can't affect them, like the third world. Even make it more expensive to open a factory in China, and they will go elsewhere. China might well reduce enviromental pressure (I doubt it) but the net effect on the environment will not lessen. There are another 200 nations lining up to get the jobs.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
If he is so clever why hasn't he cloned a dinosaur yet?

Have you learned nothing from Hollywood movies?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Odin


What do you think that CO2 is doing? CO2 absorbs infrared radiation, hence "greenhouse gas". More CO2 = more heat traped, that is a proven chemical FACT. Water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, that is why humid summer nights tend to be warmer than dry summer nights if I remember right.

It's all a bit more complicated than that isn't it? CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs a lot of infrared radiation which would normally hit and be absorbed by the surface. To use an analogy, if we think of the CO2 as a blanket then it is going to tend to keep heat from being transferred from one side of the blanket to the other moreso than if it weren't there. The degree to which CO2 prevents the earth's surface from heating up compared to its ability to trap heat that manages to penetrate to the surface should give us some idea whether CO2 really raises surface temperatures, which is most important to us.

As for the water vapor, the same thing applies. Cloudy days allow less sunlight to penetrate to the surface where it is absorbed most effectively to warm us. Some of it is reflected back into space, and some of it is absorbed in the atmosphere.

The reason that you feel warmer on a humid summer night however has nothing to do with any of this. It instead has to do with the fact that air saturated in water has a lot more thermal mass than drier air, which means in turn that it resists cooling off at night to a greater degree and that its effect on your own body is greater even if the temperature of the dry air is the same. The same principle explains why you can be very close to an acetylene torch which is burning very hot while you cannot survive being close to a lava flow which is considerably cooler but much more massive.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Been off for a couple of weeks ....

Welcome back Shawn, and thanks for the informative posts.

On the subject of glacial melting, how come I don't see much mention made of the possible effect of the change in the albedo of the glaciers in the temperate zones? A lot of air pollution has been created in these zones over the last 300 years, primarily ash from burning forests and wood, followed by coal and petroleum. It wouldn't take a lot of soot to alter the surface and edge temperatures of the glaciers enough to cause them to melt, and when they do the evidence would wash away along with the water.

I tend to doubt the greenhouse theory I guess. It has a lot of holes in it and is on much shakier ground than global warming generally. I agree with several previous posters that it's a good idea to reduce energy consumption and the production of as many toxins as we can. But I also agree with you that we need to look before we leap in regards to climate change.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Given that the surface temperature of the earth goes up and down, one might ask, "What is the problem?"

The problem is the rate of change. In the past, temperatures had been higher, but rate of increase or decrease we are seeing is unprecedented, except during a catastrophe.

So we are confident based on a looking at the last 1/6 of a millenia that we can make conclusions about the 100,000 millenia preceding it?

I've got some stock for you. I don't know how it did in the last 100 years, but yesterday it's gains were unprecedented.

[Kuciwalker]

It's all a bit more complicated than that isn't it? CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs a lot of infrared radiation which would normally hit and be absorbed by the surface.

Infrared radiation absorbed by CO2 in the atmosphere ends up going right back into the ground wherever it came from. And a lot of the light hitting the earth isn't infrared.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


#1, We are here now, so it is a concern to us. So what if CO2 levels were higher 300 hundred million years ago. All of the currently existing organisms have evolved since then.

#2, May be part of a normal cycle. On the other hand, it may not. Until we know either way, it behooves us to deal with it now.

This is the rubbish.

We don't know what is going on, lets ACT DECISIVELY.

The problem is, you have as good a chance as not of making the problem worse when you don't understand its origins.

In the future, we may find we need to increase the water vapour in the atmosphere to better shield the earth's surface from increasing solar radiation.

In the meantime, all kinds of financial and human resources are being wasted on hysteria. Why not spend it on stamping out AIDS? Or educating Americans on Islam? Consider the possibility that we are now genetically engineering viruses AS MEDICINE to target harmful bacteria. Recall all of are successful past history with introducing non-native organisms into an ecosystem to control unwanted native ones. [/sarcasm]

#3 What is happening is harmful. Small islands are being swallowed up.

The Great Lakes are at recored LOW levels.

Storms are getting nastier, even if they aren't increasing in frequency yet.

Uh, is that nastier on the Vortex or Machton "nastiness" scale?

Enough!

This is all bits and pieces of anecdotal evidence thrown up to support a supposition.

Cricthon is not refuting all of the enecdotal evidence. Mostly he is saying there is also a huge body of anecdotal evidence which CONTRADICTS "Global Warming".

Global Warming is not science.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


Speculation.

Plus I don't argue with DL's.

Can you please tell me what my other login is ? My shrink want all the information she can get to get rid of my split personalty disorder.

Ohh wait... I have a terrible sensation - maybe, just maybe - - could it be ... no, no, that would be cruel - maybe it's Ted Striker !!! Maybe every time the Ted ego writes something hopeless, the BlackCat ego takes control and tries to reduce the damage.

No, it's just a minor slip in my grasp on reality (myst remeber to tell shrink)

If you are too chicken to defend your own statements, then don't post instead of this kind of BS.

[Mr. Harley]

Sikander, your commnet on albedo may be very germane, on more than one level. I haven't commented on that because I may try to parley that info into a job should they contract out my current one, which unfortunately is in process. The CO2 - Global Warming types have made a series of assumptions, and I have my own opinion (which not having a super-computer nor an advanced math degree I cannot test) about what they may be missing. It all has to do with Chaos Theory and the assumptions hard-wired into the current "orthodoxy" on global warming. Similiar to the cold blooded dinosaur orthodoxy of half a century ago.
Note though that if the deposited particulate pollutants are making that big a change in the local albedo, they will eventually to some degree cause increased retention of the sun's radiation if for no other reason than the glaciers are melted, and they had/have a very high albedo.

Mad Viking, out of curiousity (Crichton always gets on my nerves, that's why I avoid him) are your arguing, or citing Crichton's argument, that there is no Global Warming, or that it is not a CO2-man made situation. If it is the former, have you bothered to check out the science I've been mentioning, i.e. less Arctic ice, net melting of temperate climate glaciers, pollen and other data from paleontology research, oxygen isotope ratio data, current data from ice and sediment cores (which also goes back to the pollen issue), etc. There is NOT a "huge body of evidence" that refutes global warming.

The preponderance of evidence shows we have entered a period a global warming, very possible the largest since the last ice age. If you're arguing that it may not be man made, I agree. As I keep stressing, I want more hard data and models that work backwards, i.e. from the current time using past data they correctly show the preceding conditions. We don't have enough of the data, and the models don't pass the stress test.

[Myrddin]

we have entered a period a global warming, very possible the largest since the last ice age.

Hold on

Technically we are currently IN an Ice Age, but in an Interglacial period, when the ice sheets retreat

Yes the earth may be warming and ice sheets may be retreating, but we are probably not at a point higher than in recorded history - remember Vinland?

There is certainly a need for caution but not for the 'sky is falling' hysteria from some sections of the environmental movement

[Mr. Harley]

Myrddin, the problem with mentioning Vinland is the current extensive temperate zone glacial melting. Remains are being exposed that have been locked in temperate to arctic zone glaciers that are 5000-12000 years old, which predates the Vinland/Greenland little ice-age depopulation by several millenia. I blew off the global warming advocates at first, but after the glacial melting data came in I realized we have some radical changes (reference what humans have lived through) in process. I started watching articles on it much more closely after that. We are witnessing some fairly extensive changes in our climate, whether it's due to a glitch in the sun-spot cycle that will taper off in a few more years, or it's a long-term change seriously worsened by human effects we simply don't know.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
BlackCat, read my earlier posts. We don't know, and too little effort/funding is going into finding out. We don't even know how the sun works, for goodness sakes (the neutrino emissions are all wrong - either what's going on inside differs from the theories, or the base theories are wrong, in which case we REALLY don't know).

You'll note I mentioned an extinction event. They are thoroughly unpleasant, and mankind might not survive it. No, not because we aren't adaptive, but because when people are starving they do funny things. Called wars. In between nukes, recombinant DNA (nobody has seriously used modern genetics to make a killer germ, the potential is catastrophic), and nanotechnology, in combination with an ongoing extinction event and the fact everybody seems too cheap to seriously go into space, we could end up extinct. In the next century if trends continue, i.e. warming and climatological changes, desertification, aquifier depletion, water source pollution, non-diverse food crops, etc.

Of course in another twenty years they could all be laughing at the global warming hysteria at the turn of the century. We don't have the data, and without it no rational plan of action is possible. The people who err on the side of safety are actually being quite rational. The problem as one poster pointed out is that governments typically do nothing.

Look at the asteroids that cross Earth orbit. From an insurance standpoint it - cost versus amortized cost of not during something over the lifetime between events - it makes sense to map them all and create a space presence able to do something about one should it be on a collision course. But the scales are so large that governments won't budge. Politicians run most of the industrialized world governments, not insurance mathematicians, nor scientists, nor engineers (though China may be an interesting hybrid). Until the crisis is looming, but the cost crippling (i.e. social security) nobody is going to do anything. But don't cite Crichton, even the Bush administration says there may be some kind of problem, and they had to be dragged kicking and screaming.

If i'm not wrong, then I think we agree on most issues.

We are in the middle of climatic changes, but we don't know WHAT are causing this. One major problem here are that we are using the major research and avoidance capacity on how humans may be the cause and are deeply neglecting other causes. We are actually accepting climate forecasts based on wery feeble foundation instead of researching into areas that may explain the climate mechanics. May, because i don't think that we get full knowledge for the next couple of centuries. Seriously, the current models are based on 150 years of more or less reliable meterological measurements, and a number of theories of what happend before.

If you think that I think we just shall keep on polluting as previous, then you have got me wrong. Actually, i wouldn't complain if legislation made f.ex. energy effective cars cheap - or rather, energy ineffective cars should be taxed extremely hard. The 1970'es learned our country a lesson about energyefficiency, so at the moment we are getting approx 90 % energy out of every drop of oil or piece of coal.

Your asteroid example isn't that good. We actually have a possibillity to detect a threat, but it's not that good yet (if i'm not wrong there was an "oups that one we didn't catch" a couple of years ago). Worse, we may be able to detect them, but still don't have capability to do anything against them.

About the extinction event. I see two scenarios : meteorite causing instantanious chaos - if it's big enough, then the impact place don't matter - that will be the reason of local wars (and maybe a maniac pushing wrong buttons). My guess is that such an event will provoke some kind of police state to erupt. The other is the more slow through climatic changes. Yes, they may happen quickly talking in historical terms, but even in the worst case we are talking about 100 years or more and that is enough to make adjustments wether it's moving people or adapt to new environment.

[Mr. Harley]

Black Cat, I had noticed that we are fairly close together, unlike the continual quoting of Crichton's Antartic Ice Shelf statement. I'll even grant that the asteroids were a poor analogy, I was trying to make the point, agreeing with another poster, that governments will probably do very little because they are made up of politicians.

The climactic changes I'm worried about are because they could very likely build on some problems we are already accentuating. Part of the problem in the Sudan is desertificiation. You'll note that they are engaged in ethnic cleansing, what I call genocide-lite when I'm in a bleak mood. Unfortunately I don't see adjustments, I see people refusing to accpet displaced persons, populations refusing to implement ratinoal family planning policies, and as a result wars over the new haves versus have-nots. Of course eventually people will come into balance with the carrying capacity of their new environment. It just may be very messy, and unnecessarily so if we start a crash research program so we can find out what actually is happening, coupled to accurate predictions.

You also have deforestation, with the resulting floods in many of the world river deltas and loss of topsoil. Combine that with global warming and the effects may be felt in more like one or two decades. Of course bone-headed actions like what follows don't help. After a drought in the late 90's wiped out much of Madagascar's herding animals, what did the UN agency helping out replace them with (they are having terrible deforestation/desertification problems)? Goats.