[ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled

Spencer Campbell lacertilian at gmail.com
Wed Feb 17 22:40:56 UTC 2010


Max More <max at maxmore.com>:
> Not only is the one-decade/12-year record of little importance, I still have not seen adequate reason to maintain my doubts about the claim that century-long warming is definitely and entirely due to human activity rather than to a natural cyclical recovery from a cold period.

Haven't seen reason to maintain your doubts, eh? Perhaps you should
abandon them, and jump on the mankind-driven bandwagon instead!

Couldn't resist.

Personally I am more-or-less with Max here in saying that we do not
yet have nearly enough evidence to support either view. Truly
conclusive proof would require, at the very least, an alternate Earth
(real or simulated) in which no species ever evolved to the point
where it became a good idea to just start burning everything.

It's fairly obvious, though, that if we are the chief cause of global
warming then we have no idea what we should do differently to prevent
it or even slow it down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_effects_in_Earth.27s_atmosphere

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/othergas.htm

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Ugh, I actually hadn't read any of these before now (except the
Wikipedia one, maybe, but I only skimmed it). Just Googled them up on
the spot. We don't know anything!

Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>:
> I would far rather see money spent on developing plants that are not
> sensitive to heat & cold (interestingly, when plants are bred for cold
> tolerance, they often have heat tolerance as well, as "side effect."), on
> efficient energy production (so we can create affordable microclimates and
> deal with rising sea levels, if we have to), etc. In other words - figure
> out how to DEAL with the problem, not STOP it.>

Seconded.

More heat just means more energy. Let's load up on Stirling engines*
and start building cities underwater! No sense in waiting for the sea
level to rise and do it for us.

Or, you know, ideas that work. Like hardier plants.

This is not my job.


*Actually, as I understand it, global warming could more accurately be
called global climate change. The hots get hotter and the colds get
colder; everything, everywhere, grows extreme. So a continent-spanning
array of Stirling engines might actually be useful, taking advantage
of temperature differentials on global scales. Any of our geoengineers
want to run the numbers on that? I'll bet you it would only be
economical if we could build such a device for almost nothing.



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