Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[trish]

Haven't heard of Qanats before. Thanks for example. The Qanats and the Zuider Zee are indeed excellent examples of technological solutions to difficult problems that utilized reasonably well understood principles or the existing science of the time.

The smallpox vaccination is indeed closer to being an example where science itself had to be advanced to solve a serious problem. Human societies were afflicted by smallpox for at least ten millennia before it's eradication. Before coming up with preventive vaccination science had to await the development of the germ theory of disease. The actual eradication of smallpox (impossible without the vaccination and the science that led to it) was a large cooperative project of world governments, charities and medical organizations more akin to an enormous engineering project than science.

But your examples do show that at some crucial times in the past human ingenuity, commitment and cooperation have solved huge problems that threatened, the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of individuals. In all these examples it took more than science. It took more than engineering. It also took commitment to the project and cooperation in carrying it out. Two things that are missing in the current energy/climate equation.

[Ben]

Maybe Limbaugh is right. And all the climate scientists are wrong. So, maybe we should base and decide public policy on what Limbaugh believes. It's a very rational and democratic way to go about things --

[JamesHunt]

Vote for Obama, fight climate change: N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg



A vote for Barack Obama is a vote to combat climate change, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in an endorsement of the Democratic president published Thursday, as his city struggled to recover from superstorm Sandy.


http://blogs.marketwatch.com/electio...yor-bloomberg/

[Stavros]

Haven't heard of Qanats before. Thanks for example. The Qanats and the Zuider Zee are indeed excellent examples of technological solutions to difficult problems that utilized reasonably well understood principles or the existing science of the time.

The smallpox vaccination is indeed closer to being an example where science itself had to be advanced to solve a serious problem. Human societies were afflicted by smallpox for at least ten millennia before it's eradication. Before coming up with preventive vaccination science had to await the development of the germ theory of disease. The actual eradication of smallpox (impossible without the vaccination and the science that led to it) was a large cooperative project of world governments, charities and medical organizations more akin to an enormous engineering project than science.

But your examples do show that at some crucial times in the past human ingenuity, commitment and cooperation have solved huge problems that threatened, the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of individuals. In all these examples it took more than science. It took more than engineering. It also took commitment to the project and cooperation in carrying it out. Two things that are missing in the current energy/climate equation.

I just don't think you can separate science from civilisation; the precise relationship can often be hostile -consider Galileo and the Catholic Church as one example-and, for all its thousands of years of duration, the civilisation of China produced in Mao Zedong a man with no real knowledge of science, and the mad ideas that sprang up -for example during the Great Leap Forward which led to the deaths of maybe 30 million- were a depature from 'normal science' (in fact you can't develop a steel industry in someone's back yard) and when real scientists were too afraid to speak -and yet the same relationship produced the Pyramids in Egypt and Central America, and there are all the latter achievements of other civilisations and empires, European or not in architecture, engineering, medicine and so forth. I have an idea that when Empires have declined, collapsed, or withered away, science was not a leading factor, but politics. Military science made the First World War longer and more destructive than its Generals had believed would be the case, but it was the politics that started (and ended) the war. It is, nevertheless, an important and fascinating problem that Niall Ferguson, in his irritating way addressed in his book/tv series Civilisation -flawed in my view.

I don't think the long term future of the species if at risk, as long as one doesn't call long term a billion years or however long the sun survives; ultimately, humanity is doomed unless it can find another planet to live on; but I do think that the energy transition away from fossil fuels will be as important a challenge as the provision of water for humans. Other issues, like halting forest clearances, can be dealt with now -but again that's politics, not science. Even if the Arctic is opened up and free from sea ice, the total volume of oil and gas is on unreliable estimates less than the total reserves of the Middle East discovered since 1908. If fossil fuels decline by 2100 to be what they were in say 1900, I assume the green fanatics will be vindicated and with a declining world population, planet earth in 2150 may actually be a cool place to hang out in. Minus Polar Bears, whales, tigers and other wild animals...

[danthepoetman]

Forget it, people: we’re doomed, and it’s ok too. We’ll leave what remaining species we spared a good breather.

[trish]

I didn’t intend to say science was separate from civilization, rather that at any given moment science is only equipped to solve that problems that are amenable to the current knowledge of science. That was what I was attempting to say when I pointed out that smallpox had been around for ten thousand years before medical science discovered the germ theory of disease and acquired a vague idea of how immunity against disease works. Only then did the notion of inoculation occur to Dr. Jenner. The eradication of smallpox could not have been accomplished without Dr. Jenner, but Dr. Jenner alone was powerless to eradicate smallpox. The eradication took an effort as huge as a wordwide military campaign. That’s what it’s going to take to solve the energy/climate problem.

Science has informed us of climate change due to greenhouse gas emission. It’s fairly well understood science...not really Nobel Laureate sort of stuff. What is new is the scale of human interaction with the planet due to industrialization, the worldwide adoption of modern technology, modern lifestyles and of course the logistically increasing population which is still in exponential phase. The scale of human intervention is now planetary. Humans have inadvertantly begun terraforming the planet (just the way photosynthesizing plants accidently terraformed the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago adding oxygen to an atmosphere that virtually had none). Only a planetary scale intervention can restore and stabilize the climate.

We now know of a number of sources of energy: solar, gravitational (e.g. hydroelectric), wind, nuclear and fossil fuels. Some of them are ancient and some of them relatively modern. Neanderthals knew they could warm themselves in the Sun and Victorians brewed solar tea, but modern technology has given us the solar cell. Will science find a brand new source? What if there isn’t any? Will engineers invent a new technology to develop an old but unexpected source (perhaps we can sap energy from the Earth’s rotation and at the same time length the workday)? Or will engineers develop a new super-efficient, super cheap solar cell? It’s possible, but it’s no sure thing either. Scientists will continue to do science, and engineers will continue to work on energy solutions. But we need to be prepared for the most likely scenario: that no such miracle will be immediately forthcoming. The world needs to cooperate and commit itself to energy conservation, the discontinuation of greenhouse gas emissions, the continued development of solar, wind, hydro and nuclear sources of energy.

The average U.S. citizen consumes energy at an annual rate of about 340 million BTU. That’s about 11 kilowatts of power. Presumably we want every person on the planet (there are 7 billion of us) to enjoy a quality of life equal to our own. If that means every one on the planet should be able to draw power at the same rate an American does, then we need to produce 2.4 quintillion BTUs of energy annually (410 trillion barrels of oil, which is about 20 times the estimated amount of oil on the planet).

What this says to me is that we have already acclimated ourselves to a world with severe economic inequities. Developing countries with huge fossil fuel deposits will continue to extract those reserves for their own economic development or to fill the pockets of their dictators. The western world will continue to consume. As fossil fuels become rare they will become more valuable and the rate of their extraction will increase. At some point fossil fuels will become too expensive for industry to rely upon. At that point gas, oil and coal companies will have already diversified into more profitable pursuits. The switch to other fuels will already be in progress but the overall production will already have been on the decline. The coasts will have already moved further inland, the world population will be in the tens of billions and the quality of life for the 99% will be miserable. It won’t be the end of the world. We won’t be in danger of extinction. It won’t be the wonderful wild west anarchism that survivalists who stockpile food and guns fantasize about. We’ll simply go on living normal lives, consuming less, having less, knowing less while putting up with more and more stress and strife.

[Stavros]

I agree with most of what you say, Trish, except that the world's population is not expected to grow beyond 10 billion max, and then is projected to decline (see this link).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...=ILCNETTXT3486

I also don't think the major independent oil companies can be relied on to diversify because they tried it in the 1970s and then sold off their non-core businesses in the 1980s and 1990s because they were not profitable. I also think a positive spin on solar energy will happen when the problems of technology, storage, mass production are solved, and I think they will be, but not soon, and not soon enough. In practical terms, policies that can be adopted now, are the end of deforestation in South America, Indonesia and parts of Russia which has to stop or those places will end up looking like Mars. Fundamentally, the politics is still weak, denial is strong. But the issues won't go away.

[trish]

In population studies fertility stands for relative birth rate. First world economies tend to have lower fertility than third world economies. If quality of life improves around the world we can expect fertility to decline and yes perhaps the world population will stabilize at ten billion. But if we don’t resolve our energy/climate issues, then can we count a worldwide improvement in the quality of life?

In practical terms, policies that can be adopted now, are the end of deforestation in South America, Indonesia and parts of Russia which has to stop or those places will end up looking like Mars. Fundamentally, the politics is still weak, denial is strong. But the issues won't go away.

Agreed.

[Stavros]

In population studies fertility stands for relative birth rate. First world economies tend to have lower fertility than third world economies. If quality of life improves around the world we can expect fertility to decline and yes perhaps the world population will stabilize at ten billion. But if we don’t resolve our energy/climate issues, then can we count a worldwide improvement in the quality of life?

Agreed.

If you watched Sarah Harper's talk in the link she does point out that infertility is a growing issue and a key indicator of the general slowing of population growth over the long term; and that Vietnam has a declining fertility/increasing infertility rate -is Vietnam a 'third world economy'? I thought that third world was now a distant memory.

[trish]

Demongraphers agree that fertility is in decline in many regions of the world. Some nations are even alarmed by their falling fertility rates and attempting to put in place incentives to halt the drop (e.g. Putin). There is less agreement on the cause of fertility decline. Most likely fertility rate is a complex response to economic and political conditions. Perhaps it is no longer true that poorer populations see larger families as insurance against destitution in old age. In some regions the drop in fertility may be a response to perceived overpopulation.

Modern technology also has a role to play. As you mentioned, Vietnam has declining fertility. This seems to be due to parents being able to prenatally select sons over daughters. The deliberate “masculinization” of the population has the effect of lowering the overall population’s fertility. Interestingly, even though Vietnam has declining fertility, it’s population is expected to grow through the decade. This is because their “baby boomers” are in their child bearing years.

http://vietnam.unfpa.org/public/pid/5880

If the future sees a substantial decrease in the world’s supply of affordable energy, and if this is concomitant with the frequency and magnitude of climatic disasters what will be the effect on fertility? Will large families once again become valuable insurance against hard times? Or will large families be too expensive to maintain? Will plagues devastate our populations or will populations rebound exponentially. The current demographics (imo) can only tell us the trend all things being equal. My point is that diminishing energy supplies and climate change do not meet the “all things being equal” criterion.