The Annual Global Warming Flame Thread

[Darwin]

Not for nothing is this current era called an interglacial period. Between ice ages. You know, until the next one.

[sgreger1]

I'm not really a believer or a skeptic. Mostly I am just apathetic.

So, if the temperature goes up, we'll be looking at about an extra 20 inches in sea-level. So... Given an enormous effort, we'll build a 21 inch seawall around rich people's houses by the shore - or maybe we'll have to move back from the ocean a few feet. Or we'll get innovative and do some geo-engineering (http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Ge...ntury_999.html). There will be some changes. And that is scary for people, but we should keep in mind, to be cliche, that the one constant is change and that we have survived as a species so far by adapting to those changes (probably the only evolutionary benefit to our large brains). i.e., Malthus was wrong because he didn't factor in technology advances.

I also find it a bit funny, the level of trust people put into these computer climate models... We all understood the enormous problems associated with computer simulations in other areas like the SDI program from the 80's. We understand that tomorrow's weather forecast is at best a good effort. Yet we enthusiastically accept that the climate models are valid - and climate is a LOT harder to model then missile trajectories or weather patterns for 48 hours out given the enormous number of variables involved - we are basically sucky at modeling relatively simple systems - modeling a system as large as the Earth is simply not possible with any degree of accuracy and probably won't be within my lifetime. So, we are stuck running each, potentially flawed, model with a tiny number of, not particularly clean, variables - which leads to more or less useless data, IMO, since the interaction of millions of interactions and feedbacks is what determines our climate, not just 1 or 2 variables. (i.e., increased co2 raises temperature, increased available co2 + increased temp = more plant life, more plant life = less co2, etc, etc.)

At the end of the day, IMO, we're, as a species, probably better off with warming then cooling. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...g-ice-age.html And cooling is probably inevitable based on geologic history and planetary physics.

There has, to my knowledge, never been an extinction event directly related to warm interglacial periods (which is where we are now as I understand).

This is the best global warming related post I think i've seen on the internet yet. THIS x infinity.

[sgreger1]

Uranium is also not the only usable fuel.

Thorium is another option, though last time I mentioned it Justin said there was some issue with it.

[Darwin]

Some explication of thorium issues here: http://www.dauvergne.com/technology/thorium-vs-uranium/

More complex reactor design required and it breeds uranium. Anti-nukers fibrillate with high indignation when breeder reactors enter a discussion.