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Any attempts to engineer the climate are likely to result in "different" climate change, rather than its elimination, new results suggest. Prof Ken Caldeira, of Stanford University, presented research at a major conference on the climate risks and impacts of geoengineering. These techniques have been hailed by some as a quick fix for climate change.
But the impacts of geoengineering on oceans, the water cycle and land environments are hotly debated. They have been discussed at a meeting this week of 12,000 scientists in Vienna. Researchers are familiar with the global cooling effects of volcanic eruptions, seen both historically and even back into the deep past of the rock record. With this in mind, some here at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly ( http://www.egu2015.eu ) have been discussing the possible worldwide consequences of pumping sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to attempt to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @01:22PM
But what if so-called "Climate Change" isn't caused by humans? What if it's part of the natural cycle? Hell, what if "Climate Change" doesn't actually exist, and is only a figment of measurements made during an irrelevantly small period of time? Should we still be engaging in such climoengineering? What if we're trying to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 18 2015, @02:23PM
Parent post is modded funny? Bahhh . . . he states my opinion, and I'm not being even marginally funny.
Let me state this again, for those who haven't heard it already. In 1963, my third grade teacher told all of us kids about the interglacial period that we are enjoying. She explained that at different periods of time, the land that we lived on, the school yard, our entire CITY was buried beneath hundreds of feet of ice. Not once, apparently, but multiple times. Let's say it all together, children: "Interglacial period". It means that when you are old and bouncing little grandchildren on your knees, the climate is likely to be warmer than it is today.
But, all you younger folk can choose to believe that the alarmists who work for the UN and various governments know what they are talking about. Everyone needs to believe in something, I guess. All heed the warnings of the Prophet, Al Gore.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @02:27PM
The modding here has been particularly bad lately. I've seen lots of perfectly fine comments marked as "Troll", lots of serious comments marked as "Funny", many totally-on-topic comments marked as "Off-topc", and so on.
I know there were changes earlier about how modding is done and which options are available, but I think there's still a lot of work needed to fix up the modding here. Too often it's just plain bad, which is more harmful than not having any modding at all.
I think it's time to show who modded each comment, and how they modded it. At least this brings some accountability into the equation. We can see who the bad mods are, and maybe make them think twice before engaging in bad modding.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:15PM
Oh great, here we ago again. A couple of loudmouths who will never be satisfied because moderation doesn't always match their personal version of reality show up, start sqwaking and so we have to fuck with the system in a way that won't make a significant change in the results unless it is so terrible that it craters it.
Just say no to more mod system fuckery.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:16PM
There's already a lack of discussion here. Bad modding just makes that worse, when good comments aren't visible by default because somebody screwed up when rating them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:03PM
The moderation matches the community, as a whole. If it does not match up with your personal reality, that means that you are the problem, not the community. Going against the status quo and not going along with circlejerk groupthink is one thing, but (thankfully) this place is far from an echo chamber and anything that gets modded purely because its "against the status quo" gets fixed pretty quick, so that whatever stays modded down after about a day is because its totally fucking retarded and out of touch with reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @06:42PM
It can't match the community as a whole. A lot of us post as AC. We don't have accounts. We don't want accounts. So we don't get to moderate comments. Thus our views are ignored thanks to the broken moderation system that requires accounts.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:24PM
Oh woe is you!
Moderation is censorship, I don't want to participate so everybody else must do my bidding because logic! or winning! or something.
It is the weekend and the moderation whiner is back!
Didja skip your meds this week?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @10:19PM
Well, that just crimps it! More modding that tries to censor perfectly good crazy conspiracy theories! When are you going to wake up, sheeple! ACs can even mod down posts by actual users! I ask you, is this fair? Where else in history have we seen this kind of mind-control? Could it be, SATAN? Climate Change could just be a natural process of inter-sessional glacial government! What if we live, in world, where non sequiturs do not follow?? Go ahead. Mod me up. Make my day, all youse SJWs!!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by kadal on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:10PM
No, they're heeding the warnings of a lot of very smart people who have been studying the climate system for a long time.
From the IPCC AR5 synthesis report: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf [www.ipcc.ch]
The whole report is worth going through. At least look at the figures! This is good science.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:03PM
"have been studying the climate system for a long time."
Define "a long time". These youngsters have been studying for five years? Or, some of the older people have been studying for twenty years? You call that a "long time"?
Glacial and interglacial periods are measured in periods of tens and hundreds of thousands of years. MANKIND'S HISTORY only extends back 5000 years or so. Recorded history doesn't even occupy half of one glacial/interglacial period. But - some kid who has been studying for five years claims that he has studied climate change for a long time? Uh-uh - that dog don't hunt. Maybe he has spent a significant part of his lifetime studying, but that ain't a "long time". Empires, kingdoms, and nations rise and fall in the blink of an eye on geological time scales.
Now - if someone were to go back into time, and plant some recording devices so that we could retrieve the data next year, THEN we might agree that we can study climate change. Plant those devices about ten million years in the past, and they will record a few hundred climate changes. Be sure to plant those devices in many different parts of the world - the Sahara, the Himalayas, the Med, Caribbean, Antarctica - scatter them widely.
FFS, today we have people arriving at conclusions based on data that doesn't even exist. They pretend that they can extrapolate data tens of thousands of years ago, based on a couple hundred years of recorded history!
Look at China's history. How many dynastic changes are recorded? Wonder how many of those dynastic changes can be correlated to climactic changes? The word I heard was, ALL OF THEM!!
The climate is not some static thingamabob that was set to a perfect level, and we've come along and screwed it up. Climate changes, quite naturally, with or without the approval of any of the life forms that inhabit this planet!!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by kadal on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:39PM
Paleoclimatologists look at the rock record, pollen, fossils, ice cores etc. to get time series of proxies for things like temperature and the like. Here are some of the datasets they use: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets [noaa.gov] . Yes, it's not perfect but it's not nothing either.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:25PM
I never claimed that the scientists have nothing. I'm stating that "climate change" has been politicized. I'm stating that a lot of people stand to profit on selling this concept of climate change. I state clearly that the UN promotes this climate change, which fits like a hand in a glove with their desire to redistribute the wealth of the industrialized nations.
I am simply not buying into the theory that mankind has changed the environment, to the extent claimed. Oh, yeah, we've CONTRIBUTED to something that we little understand. That is unquestionable.
Your earlier claim that we've accelerated warming, when the climate should have tilted back the other way. What about that? On what basis does anyone CLAIM to know when the interglacial period was "supposed" to reverse itself? I suppose that you are aware that states such as Wyoming were once rain forests? On the Eurasian land mass, I suppose that the rain forests probably extended all the way up to Krakow and Moscow.
On what basis do we conclude that the natural course of events wouldn't see those jungles returning to the same latitudes?
Now, before you hit me with continental drift and all that - the last glacial period was only a couple tens of thousands of years ago. It took MUCH longer than that for the North American land mass to drift where it is from the tropics.
Long story short: I don't doubt the data being studied. I doubt the ability of those studying the data to arrive at relevant conclusions.
Yeah, I believe that mankind may be a contributing factor to global warming and/or climate change. I do NOT believe that mankind is causing it. That massive fire that appears to rise in the east, and set in the west each day produces more energy on it's most passive day, than mankind has unleased in all of his history. That ball of fire is the primary regulatory agent in any climate change.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Touché) by kadal on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:40PM
Long story short: I don't doubt the data being studied. I doubt the ability of those studying the data to arrive at relevant conclusions.
Maybe you should become a climate scientist, study the data and publish in a good peer-reviewed journal then.
That ball of fire is the primary regulatory agent in any climate change.
Try http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/solar-variability-statistics-vs-physics-2nd-round/#more-277 [realclimate.org] and many other posts on that site.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday April 18 2015, @10:26PM
I'm stating that "climate change" has been politicized.
You know, there is a solution to this. Stop politicizing it by being an anti-science denier! See? Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 19 2015, @03:44AM
So, your solution is to just stand by, and watch the next Holy Roman Catholic Empire birth itself? You do realize that "climate change" is rapidly becoming a religion, which metes out punishments for those it considers to be heretics? It may take time, but you can expect the next Inquisitions to be driven by members of the Climate Change Church.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:06AM
So, your solution is to just stand by
Oh, I beg your pardon, I thought you had identified a problem, and were asking for solutions. Instead it seems you are engaging in self-fulfilling prophecy, sort of like a sorcerer or heretic would do . . . . . OMG! "We found a witch! May we burn it?" [Monty Python and the Holy Grail, somewhat before Scene 24]
To repeat, the solution is to do science, and that means you must stop watching Fox News, reading the Drudge Report and the World Daily News, and listening to Republican congressmen and khallow. See? Already Anthropogenic Global Warming is de-politicized! The first step in solving a problem is to stop causing it. I am glad to have been able to be of assistance to you in this matter. Please feel free to call on me again if you have problems in the future. Oh, one more tip, sorcery does not work.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 19 2015, @05:36AM
So, you're pretending that the issue isn't political on the OTHER side. Al Gore and his cronies have NOT made million or billions on their carbon credit scams, and other nations do not stand to benefit from the deinstrialization of the US and Europe. Got it. All the evil is coming from the heretics.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @07:25AM
For all intents and purposes you've just admitted to everything you accuse the "other side" of doing.
That's "fair and balanced" logic at work - the other guys are scum so we have to be scum in order to balance it out!
For guys like you its nothing more rational than tribalism.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday April 19 2015, @07:35AM
Not pretending. So you can get it, all on your own! Yes, it is all coming from rightwing nutjobs taking their talking points from the rightwing press, and do you know why? Because they are not smart enough to figure it out on their own. They cannot be climate scientists because it involves math, and so they go back to third grade in the early 1960's, and deal with hypothetical innuendo, like just "suggesting" that AGW is not real. Well, what if it is? You see, politics is actually a good thing. It is not a brawl where whoever brings the most idiots to a fight wins. It is the rational, realistic, assessment of where we are, as whatever political entity we are, and based on that, a rational debate over what we should do. That is called "policy", which is related to the word "politics". which derives from the Greek "polis" which means city.
For you, or anyone as obtuse as you, to suggest that politics is a bad thing, and that it immediately implies ulterior motives, only shows that you have been hornswaggled by Murdock, the Kock brothers, the one percenters who actually do have a financial interest in nothing being done about climate change. But you see, that is not an argument that their objections to climate change are wrong. In fact, it has as much to do with the question as your suggestion that maybe climate change is not real. Many here have pointed out to you that this is a joke. Yeah, maybe. And Al Gore and the scientific community say not, based on data, observation, and, you know, predictive science? Of course it could be wrong! That is not the point at all.
I am detecting a powerful disturbance in the force. I am getting it from you, from other oil company shills or patsies, from Gamergate failed-to-launch males and science fiction writers that no one wants to read. The disturbance is the stupid. And the main problem with the stupid is, as stupid usually does, that it does not realize it is stupid. Thus they think they are being oppressed just for having a different opinion. But they are wrong, They are not just different, they are truly stupid. You have made some great progress by acknowledging the fact that all the politicalization of Anthropogenic Global Warming is coming from the right. Follow through. Do some research. Check your sources for conflicts of interests. Ask yourself why some one would want to go against all scientific opinion on a particular subject. Is it because they are a heretic, or is it because they are stupid, or because they have very basis financial interests in the status quo. Yes, all the evil is coming from the heretics. But I don't blame you. I just think you do not know any better. And I am embarrassed for you, that you let yourself be used in such a fashion. So just stop. Comment on things you actually know something about. You have made some great contributions to Soylent News. It would be a shame to destroy your reputation for Exxon. Think about it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:00PM
Paleoclimatologists look at the rock record, pollen, fossils, ice cores etc. to get time series of proxies for things like temperature and the like.
The Saudi Arabia graffiti in caves [soylentnews.org] story had a good label for this: "grey data". It's better than nothing, but don't mistaken it for reliable measurements.
Yes, it's not perfect but it's not nothing either.
It's "not perfect" means it's not good enough for global scale policy decisions. We can easily fix that by taking detailed measurements over the next few decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:59PM
> It's "not perfect" means it's not good enough for global scale policy decisions.
Like the unrestricted release of co2 through the daily burning of hundreds of millions of gallons of oil?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:32PM
It's "not perfect" [...]
Like the unrestricted release of co2 through the daily burning of hundreds of millions of gallons of oil?
Are you going to make that argument? Because I'm not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @07:19AM
Seems like you already did. You just didn't realize it.
That's what happens when you use superficial logic to rationalize a bias.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:02PM
Seems like you already did. You just didn't realize it.
No, doesn't seem that way. I don't have anything to add, unless you want to approach this argument in another way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:12PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jcross on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:13PM
Yes, but I believe we're supposed to be nearing the end of the current interglacial period, which means that things should have been cooling off already. It's possible that we've put off the ice age a bit, which is probably a good thing for us, but that would be a tough balance to hold. I think the climate scientists are well aware of glaciation cycles and have accounted for that as an expected variation in baseline temperatures, which is why they can say that anthropogenic climate change may have started something like 8-9,000 years ago from clearing land for agriculture. I'm no great fan of the cult of Al Gore, but I'm also pretty sure our activities have *some* effect on the climate, even if it's hard to pin down.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:11PM
Good answer.
I've long been convinced that mankind's most harmful affects on the environment is deforestation. People see the lack of vegetation in a desert as the result of to little moisture. Looking at it from another angle, we can just as easily say that there is little moisture because there is so little vegetation to hold the moisture. Much of the mideast was very fertile, thousands of years ago. Today - much of it is desert. What happened? Well - they cut down the trees, over grazed the pasture lands, and when nothing else could subsist on the drying land, they put goats on the land to finish killing off the vegetation.
Want to save the earth, as we know it? Plant some trees. World Wide Arbor day! If a tree won't grow where you live, plant some shrubs. If there's not enough moisture for shrubs and bushes, plant some drought resistant grass. Let's turn the world green, with photosynthesis!!
Good news for those who are worried about carbon dioxide. Planting all that green stuff will sequester BILLIONS of tons of carbon!!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday April 18 2015, @06:40PM
Let me state this again, for those who haven't heard it already. In 1963, my third grade teacher told all of us kids about the interglacial period that we are enjoying. She explained that at different periods of time, the land that we lived on, the school yard, our entire CITY was buried beneath hundreds of feet of ice. Not once, apparently, but multiple times. Let's say it all together, children: "Interglacial period". It means that when you are old and bouncing little grandchildren on your knees, the climate is likely to be warmer than it is today.
So you are claiming your understanding of climate science is based on what you learned in third grade over fifty years ago and thus we should disregard anything anyone has learned since?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:26PM
> I'm not being even marginally funny.
Just because you aren't intentionally being funny doesn't mean you aren't a laughingstock.
> Let me state this again, for those who haven't heard it already. In 1963, my third grade teacher told all of us kids about the interglacial period that we are enjoying.
So your refutation of all the climate research is something you learned in 3rd grade.
That's totally not ridiculously funny at all. Not. at. all!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:11PM
> But what if so-called "Climate Change" isn't caused by humans? What if it's part of the natural cycle?
Irrelevant. If climate change is happening we are fucked regardless of the root cause.
> Hell, what if "Climate Change" doesn't actually exist, and is only a figment of measurements made during an irrelevantly small period of time?
That's redundant to your first point about "part of the natural cycle." The evidence that something is happening is incontrovertible. The opening of the northwest passage, the enormous amounts of glacial melt in greenland and antarctica. All these things are happening and are not just minor perturbations.
> Should we still be engaging in such climoengineering?
Depends on the specific types of engineering. It isn't an either/or, it is a range of options with long-term and short-term effects.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:16PM
And even if climate change does exist (which right wingers are starting to acknowledge - finally, and grudgingly) and it turns out to be man made, then the Koch Brothers and their mouthpieces (Fox News, talk radio) will have been more than adequately compensated during their time on earth.
And of course, they keep bringing up Al Gore, who hasn't even been in public view for most of the past 15 years. He's only a figure of sarcastic pronouncements from the right, on the level of middle school boys passing judgement on everyone from the back of the classroom.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:34PM
Al Gore is an example of what we see from the political left on a frequent basis. Outlandish claims are made, without any basis in reality. Several years later, it become obvious that the claims were outlandish. But by that time, the left has moved on to the next talking head, or onto the next subject they've gotten all riled up about.
As somebody who is on neither side of the political spectrum, I see much more consistency from the right. They look at an issue, they analyze it, they come up with a logical opinion. This is exactly what they did with climate change. They acknowledged that it might exist, but didn't jump to the conclusion that humans were responsible. They wanted more evidence before coming to a conclusion. Some of that evidence suggests that climate change may not exist, so they consider that to be a possibility, too. The political right wants to deal with facts, not feelings.
The political left, on the other hand, don't seem to care about facts. They don't care about the truth. They're driven solely by feelings and emotions. They get themselves worked up over fictional problems that they have created in their minds, and then expect everyone else to help them "solve" these problems that don't actually exist because they're just delusional thoughts in some leftists' heads.
The right isn't always correct about all matters, but when it comes to climate change they're coming from a much more responsible and sensible position than the left is. The right is about facts in this case, the left is about emotion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:43PM
"I’m one of those Republicans who thinks we are getting warmer and that we contribute to that".
- Mitt Romney, 2012
But Mitt must be one of those overly emotional types who gets overwhelmed by feelings worked up over fictional situations, right? We need to listen more to people like Sean Hannity and Ted Cruz.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:49PM
"I like big butts and I can not lie. You other brothers can't deny. That when a girl walks in with an itty, bitty waist, and a round thing in your face you get sprung."
- Albert Einstein, 1951
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:52PM
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/01/22/romney-im-one-of-those-republicans-who-thinks-we-are-getting-warmer-and-that-we-contribute-to-that/ [cbslocal.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:58PM
http://washington.cbslocal.com/1951/11/19/einstein-im-one-of-those-scientists-who-likes-big-butts/ [cbslocal.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:54PM
> As somebody who is on neither side of the political spectrum,
Everybody thinks they are a perfectly reasonable centrist who gives equal balance to all arguments and that everybody else goes to far in either direction.
Hint, you claim to be a centrist but then what you actually say proves otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:03PM
So agreeing with rightists on climate change, but disagreeing with them on everything else would make one a rightist in your view? That's pretty fucked up!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:21PM
Haven't see any proof of agreeing with anything beyond than extreme right on climate change.
And since you identify with such an extremist position its going to take a lot to 'balance' that out.
Immediate amnesty for illegal aliens.
$16 minimum wage
That sort of thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @09:04AM
Hairyfeet, is this you posting as AC? Sounds just like you. You know, the "I don't agree with the conservatives, but at least they are consistent" shtick. Yeah, whatever. Consistent insanity is still insanity. And when was Al Gore proven wrong? The right is totally buggered on Climate Change, and they know it. Now they have to find a way to always have been for it before they were against it. Don't get left on the wrong side when they finally switch, it will make you look like an imbecile.
Hairyfoot Patrol Officer #27
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Dunbal on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:52PM
What if we're trying to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist?
HERESY! YOU WILL BURN!!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @07:21AM
What if we're trying to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist?
HERESY! YOU WILL BURN!!!!!
Groupthink! You will be censored!