[extropy-chat] Ice cores show warming 'natural' (or not)

[Robert Bradbury]

Who cares?!?

We had discussions several years ago regarding the fact that CO2 = carbon
and carbon is the best material for many nanostructures and so once
nanotechnology (esp. nanorobots) become "real", they will suck all the
available CO2 out of the atmosphere because it is a "free" resource.  *We*
should be discussing the coming CO2 shortage (and the death of all life
forms based on photosynthesis) *NOT* global warming [1].  Worst case should
be discussing global warming within the context about how stupid the
discussion is because the press (and politicians and the public at large)
really don't understand the implications of nanotechnology.  That is what
*should* be important to people on this list.  The sooner people see
nanotechnology development as an "easy" solution to global warming, the more
investment will shift in that direction and as a side effect generate
nanocapabilities sooner (saving a significant fraction of the people that
die every year due to a lack of nanocapabilities to deal with things like
heart disease, cancer, aging in general, etc.).

I wrote up the solutions to this this in my "Global Warming is a Red
Herring" paper 4+ years ago.  *Why* are we still discussing it?

I would generally agree with the comments that warming at the poles is
probably good.  Any sea level increases will be modest and can be dealt with
relatively easily.  The additional growing season in the northern hemisphere
(esp. Russia and Canada) should increase agricultural production and make
food cheaper thus decrease deaths caused by insufficient affordable food
resources.  This does not minimize the fact that some people may be
negatively impacted by global warming but the volume of the discussion is
*way* out of proportion to what should be discussed regarding the relatively
slow rate of progress in biotechnology & nanotechnology (either of which
could be used to solve the global warming problem).

Rational approaches to these problems should focus attention on what is
really important -- saving lives.

Robert

1. Side notes -- To pull the CO2 out of the atmosphere doesn't even require
full "nanorobot" capabilities, just molecular sorting rotors [Nanosystems,
pgs 374-383] which are significantly less complex to design and build.  You
can also easily engineer bacteria to perform the same function.  If you want
to discuss something interesting -- discuss the costs associated with
hauling CO2 (or pure C) back from Venus, Mars, Titan, Uranus or Neptune
after plant life and cyanobacteria start dying off (which will presumably
cause the extinction of most "higher" life forms as well) due to the removal
of excessive amounts of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere...
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