$25 offered million for plan on the removal of CO2 from air

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title says it al

Keep in mind that I find GW reactionaries like Gore a little annoying. But the difference between this and the other recent thing about offering money is that these guys are offering money in return for a plan of action, the others were offering money in return for an interpretation of the facts. Big difference.

This in fact IS the way science is done. Give someone an incentive to create something, whether that incentive is personal like satisfaction from curing AIDS, or monetary like the chance to patent an idea. You create the incentive, and then release the hounds. There's nothing unscientific about this. The most stalwart GW skeptic could create this and collect the reward without ever having compromised his integrity.

This is fine.

This is how engineering is done. They are offering money to accomplish something. The flip case had a cash prize offered to challenge the scientific consensus with junk science. This is about as different as can be - even if global warming was a huge myth, the CO2 removal would still be a measurable feat, like the X-Plane award from a while back.

Also it's probably more honest to say that it's Virgin CEO Richard Branson that's ponying up the cash.

I can only conclude that Nosferatu is not a scientist.

OK:
1st) this was half a post half a half assed poke at Robear, and yes it was mostly written directly off of his other post, and it was not a good idea, and to robear I apologize for well being an asshole (I thought of it after I posted it (at work and no internet access there) and decided I needed to change it, needless to say at 6 AM this morning when I crawled into bed, I wasn't in the mood to check)
2nd) if some mod wants to edit it I'm fine with that otherwise I'll do it when I get home (5 hours off between shifts due to something coming up sucks).

IMAGE(http://www.mablethorpe.info/fernlea/pix/2003Basket%20%20Aug%202002.jpg)

x 1 trillion

Cha-ching!

Actually, I love this idea.

As I told Robear, no one questions that the globe has gotten warmer over the last century. My contention is in how much of this warming is actually caused by man.

But let's assume that it is all caused by man, every last bit of it. During the last century, the globe got 1 degree warmer and global GDP went up by 1800 percent. Life expectancies in the United States increased from about 47 years to about 77 years. In the West, literacy, medicine, leisure and even the environment (except for the temperature) have improved over the course of the 20th century. In the realm of trade-offs, I think that was a pretty good one.

Now, I admit there is a point of no return, a tipping point, where the costs outweigh the benefits, no matter how great. Assuming that all of the global warming is caused by man, I would be willing to trade another 1 degree for similar gains in the 21st century, assuming we didn't hit that tipping point.

The problem is, we don't know where the tipping point is, if it even exists.

The scare tactics used by global warming activists are necessary because the costs of government intervention for 'fixing' global warming are estimated at a minimum at 1% of global GDP per year and going up rapidly. And those changes would have minimal impact on global warming. One estimate said it would take restrictions 20 times greater than Kyoto to impact global warming in a meaningful way. Those costs are far too high for far too little return.

But if the history of capitalism and technology tells us anything, it is that what starts out expensive and arduous becomes cheap and easy over time. Technology ten or twenty years from now might make solving global warming easy. And this is where Gore's prize is great. It is additional incentive for innovation.

Throwing away trillions of dollars by way of government intervention into solutions that even their proponents admit won't have any meaningful impact doesn't sound too smart to me. In the realm of costs and benefits, government intervention is a clear loser. Even if man is the cause (which I am still not convinced of), we will solve for this through more efforts like Gore's and Branson's...letting capitalism and technology do their thing.

But let's assume that it is all caused by man, every last bit of it. During the last century, the globe got 1 degree warmer and global GDP went up by 1800 percent. Life expectancies in the United States increased from about 47 years to about 77 years. In the West, literacy, medicine, leisure and even the environment (except for the temperature) have improved over the course of the 20th century. In the realm of trade-offs, I think that was a pretty good one.

The warming was not the *cause* of the prosperity, nor was the warming entirely due to man-made causes. It is a result. The argument that warming is universally good is thus flawed. The same argument can be used to show that the clean air act is not only useless, but harmful, because the massive air pollution of the industrial age drove massive societal gains.

The problem with the "tipping point uncertainty" argument is that it allows us to use uncertainty to push the consequences as so far away that it would be stupid to try to address them now. However, it's clear that in other complicated systems, and probably in climate in the past, sudden changes occur - tipping points are indeed real. This is coupled with the "we can't do anything about it anyway" argument, which actually is not reflected in the IPCC summary, which instead says we can't entirely mitigate it for centuries, but every bit helps. That fills in the tipping point hole, where one could argue that we should try to mitigate it with long-term work to amortize expenses over many years instead of a few. It's worth noting that the combined argument runs like this:

Man-made warming so strongly changed the world in beneficial ways that we should be happy to get more of it.

We don't know when negative effects will become onerous, so we should not waste money addressing them.

Man can't actually do anything to change the rate at which the world warms.

It's too costly to even try to mitigate things, once they get bad.

As can be easily seen, each of these arguments have a fundamental flaw, and contradict each other. I like what Gore is doing, but Johnny's formulation is not driven by the science, it instead uses selective readings to justify an economic argument - dealing with global warming is simply too expensive, leave it alone unless you can find a way to throw money at it via the private sector. Cart before horse reasoning. The fear of government in this case prevents an entire class of cooperative changes being proposed, which is a shame.

Thanks Nos! I've actually really enjoyed the conversations over the last few days, never fear.

The warming was not the *cause* of the prosperity, nor was the warming entirely due to man-made causes.

Really? I thought Warmer=More prosperous. Because of all those places near the Equator that are so free and wealthy.

It is a result.

You don't say. Well, I'm glad you pointed that out.

The argument that warming is universally good is thus flawed. The same argument can be used to show that the clean air act is not only useless, but harmful, because the massive air pollution of the industrial age drove massive societal gains.

My point is that a potential side-effect of the world becoming much, much wealthier, longer lived, healthier, better educated, and having a dramatically improved quality of life was that the world got warmer by 1 degree. I think that is a great trade-off, even if all of the temperature increase was caused by man.

Man-made warming so strongly changed the world in beneficial ways that we should be happy to get more of it.

We don't know when negative effects will become onerous, so we should not waste money addressing them.

Man can't actually do anything to change the rate at which the world warms.

It's too costly to even try to mitigate things, once they get bad.

Thankfully, I didn't make any of those arguments.

I like what Gore is doing, but Johnny's formulation is not driven by the science, it instead uses selective readings to justify an economic argument - dealing with global warming is simply too expensive, leave it alone unless you can find a way to throw money at it via the private sector.

My formulation does not use 'selective readings', unless you consider that your arguments are based on 'selective readings' as well. The proponents of the Kyoto protocol admitted that it would have minimal impact. The government recommendations of a carbon tax, carbon permits, ethanol, etc are all terrible ideas in the real world.

No, leave it to the private sector.

Really? I thought Warmer=More prosperous. Because of all those places near the Equator that are so free and wealthy.

I don't follow. The Industrial Revolution was not caused by an increase in global temperature.

My point is that a potential side-effect of the world becoming much, much wealthier, longer lived, healthier, better educated, and having a dramatically improved quality of life was that the world got warmer by 1 degree. I think that is a great trade-off, even if all of the temperature increase was caused by man.

Oh, indeed. Anyone would agree with you. But the issue is not how much warmer it became because of our increased CO2 output, it's the rate of change of that temperature increase, which has increased sharply. Projections, based on (shock horror) physics note that when you add energy to a system, you increase it's ability to vary further from a norm. If nothing else, that would be somewhat worrying in the atmosphere, as it would provide more power for storms, and potentially change weather patterns. However, there are a large number of other effects that occur secondary to atmospheric (and oceanic) warming.

Do you argue that the retreat of glaciers is a good economic event in the Alps, for example? It's ironic that you have no problem averaging out the effects of the increase when looking at economics, but that same perspective washes over regional and local changes that are severe for the populations who live there.

If this were a steady-state, I'd agree with you.

My formulation does not use 'selective readings', unless you consider that your arguments are based on 'selective readings' as well. The proponents of the Kyoto protocol admitted that it would have minimal impact. The government recommendations of a carbon tax, carbon permits, ethanol, etc are all terrible ideas in the real world.

It uses selective readings in hopping from one argument to a contradictory one in order to create a picture where we are helpless in the face of an immense problem that we contributed to in part. But we should not contribute part of the fix, because it's not a complete fix (hmm, I wonder how that would go over in medicine?), and even if someone came up with good numbers for that, we should consider it too expensive. And if all that failed, well, heck! It's not even a problem for us, it's a benefit!

It would be impossible for me to assemble a similar argument to support reacting to global warming, since it would be shredded immediately as inconsistent and contradictory. In that sense, yes, this is a set of selective readings, looking at different aspects in different ways.

No, leave it to the private sector.

Why even bother? It's too expensive to try; nothing they do will have an effect to reverse what we have affected so far; and it's been good for us so far. So why is the private sector the answer? Why, indeed, is there even a problem?

Robear wrote:
Really? I thought Warmer=More prosperous. Because of all those places near the Equator that are so free and wealthy.

I don't follow. The Industrial Revolution was not caused by an increase in global temperature.

I think he was being sarcastic. Warmth did not cause the advances of the past few hundred years. If the general standard of living has increased so dramatically, in tandem with the warming of the earth, why should further warming necessarily be apocalyptic?

If there's any chance that global warming could cause the sort of damage some are predicting, then I'm all for doing something about it. But given that there is no real consensus that these actions were have a meaningful impact on the issue, perhaps we should be looking for a solution that doesn't punish industry, with all the ripple effects that will cause? That's why I like this idea: you'll have a ton of applications, and will probably get one that is a nice medium between efficiency and real-world feasibility. You're talking about modifying human actions to affect a process that you admit is only partially a result of our previous actions. Don't try to paint the consideration of economic concerns in this issue as immoral, or rooted in capitalistic greed, or whatnot - to not consider them would be far more immoral. If a plan will have minimal impact on a problem which is not even agreed upon to be a meaningful problem at all, and that plan will also have significant negative effects... well, I don't think you should even consider that plan.

I'm not even close to being an expert in this issue, but I've heard enough valid problems with the central arguments of the GW activists to say at least one thing with certainty: There is NO consensus. Certainly some very good scientists support one side, but when we're discussing action that would have effects that are arguably worse than what we're trying to fix, I would demand more certainty than some very good scientists. I would want something at least approaching an consensus, and there is none.

Robear,
If I read Johnny right, he is sayign that the increase in both CO2 emmisions and the quality of life in general are both directly tied to the industrial revolution, which assuming that all of the increase is man made, means that the incerase in global temperature would be a direct result of our increase in quality of life. I believe he is saying that No Polio, and living to 80 are worth dealing with a few more degrees of temperature.

Seriously, I've got this bamboo that has somehow survived without any real amounts of water or attention for years. They should just pay me now.

If I read Johnny right, he is sayign that the increase in both CO2 emmisions and the quality of life in general are both directly tied to the industrial revolution, which assuming that all of the increase is man made, means that the incerase in global temperature would be a direct result of our increase in quality of life. I believe he is saying that No Polio, and living to 80 are worth dealing with a few more degrees of temperature.

One could argue that with the culture that gave us Bennifer and Brittany, several degrees of warming crushing civilization would be a mercy.

That ignores two things - the tipping point idea, that there is a point at which unanticipated changes begin to occur on a dangerous scale, which is why the argument has that tipping point addendum. It also ignores the extension of the argument, that if we want to avoid problems, we'll be paying to adapt anyway - which is why the fancy future technology argument exists.

It's a neat package of problematic ideas, each backing the other up where it fails.

(I guess it ignores the third, the other problems of massive industrialization - pollution, destruction of ocean ecosystems and fish stocks, etc. For some reason, we still try to address those, at immense cost sometimes, despite the obvious benefits of industrial culture.)

It occurs to me I have never seen anyone (on either side of the debate) give me an idea of exactly how much ice sheet there should be, i.e. what is a "normal" amount. Anyone else ever remember seeing anything about that (although it might be tough to figure that out, since if there is no ice sheet then there is no ice pack data for them to point out CO2 levels from (which might well be proof in and of itself))

Nosferatu wrote:

It occurs to me I have never seen anyone (on either side of the debate) give me an idea of exactly how much ice sheet there should be, i.e. what is a "normal" amount. Anyone else ever remember seeing anything about that (although it might be tough to figure that out, since if there is no ice sheet then there is no ice pack data for them to point out CO2 levels from (which might well be proof in and of itself))

What I find humorous is that evironmentalism is one place where the "liberals" want to keep things the way they are and the "conservatives" endorse what could result in drastic changes.

Anyone else seen the King of the Hill episode where Dale goes off on growing pineapples in Alaska as one of the benefits of global warming?

Paleocon wrote:

Anyone else seen the King of the Hill episode where Dale goes off on growing pineapples in Alaska as one of the benefits of global warming?

Yeah, that was pretty sweet.

I do love pineapple....

It occurs to me I have never seen anyone (on either side of the debate) give me an idea of exactly how much ice sheet there should be, i.e. what is a "normal" amount. Anyone else ever remember seeing anything about that (although it might be tough to figure that out, since if there is no ice sheet then there is no ice pack data for them to point out CO2 levels from (which might well be proof in and of itself))

Because there is no such thing as a "normal" amount of ice cover? What they can do is look at the historical concentrations from primary and secondary indicators embedded in old ice. That tells us what snowfall and atmospheric gases and the like were in the past.

Then they look at the effects of the ice cover on climate, as far as can be determined. Then they look at how much we have had in the last X years, via direct measurement; how much we've lost, and how quickly; and then run that as part of the climate models.

This is similar to asking what a "normal" height is for a human. What is more realistic is to ask, what are extremes of ice cover; what else was going on when they were present; and how close are we to them now?

5'9"

Isn't that *average*, as opposed to *normal*?

Yeah, normal is the force of gravity in a direction perpendicular to the plane.

But I believe that normal means within a standard deviation or so from the average. So, um, 5'11"-5'8" for men, for example.

So now we are back to a range. But that's for today's population. We still have not accounted for "normal" for climate elements, over the past few...how many?...years. That's my point, and it's a skeptical point too, since one of the questions they ask is "warming compared to what?"

So the question "What is the normal glacial coverage?" is not really bounded well enough to answer.

Well since the amount of ice and sea levels are kinda related, I imagine anything other than "What they are right now" is gonna piss off people on the coasts. Course if you're a few houses away from the shoreline you might be in favor of warming things up and making your own front lawn the new coastline. And naturally Lex Luthor is in favor of buying Arizona and flooding out California.

I think that, within reason, we should go with the "whatever floats your boat" approach. What's best for human life?

Why exactly have Mars' icecaps been shrinking for the last six or seven years? Do the Martians use hairspray as well?

JohnnyMoJo wrote:

Why exactly have Mars' icecaps been shrinking for the last six or seven years? Do the Martians use hairspray as well?

No, they just fart a lot.

You know, methane.

Why exactly have Mars' icecaps been shrinking for the last six or seven years? Do the Martians use hairspray as well?

Again, I don't follow you. Mars icecaps are made of CO2 - it's atmosphere is 95% CO2. It's late summer there, the southern icecap should be pretty well depleted, while the northern one should be somewhat beyond maximum.

Maybe your source can explain to you how the physics of a high-CO2 content atmosphere on a planet farther from the sun with seasonally deposited icecaps made of frozen CO2 compares to Earth's water ice, on land and sea. I'm curious to know.

What's the fascination with hairspray? Are you confusing global warming with the ozone hole, which was caused in large part by chlorofluorocarbons?