[TheLoneWolfling]

This is the same problem I have with the extreme push towards global warming mitigation.

Half a century ago we were worried sick about global cooling. Sure, we know more now than we did then. But that is not a valid response: in any decade we know more than in decades before that.

Most of the measures for global warming mitigation either directly cause massive economic costs (large taxes, etc, etc, which all end up preventing the same sort of progression that is allowing us to bootstrap!), are short-sighted (Carbon credits leading to old-growth forests being cut down), directly cause deaths (banning of CFCs leading to deaths due to the alternative puffer propellants not working as well), etc. Or end up as a combination of both.

For that matter: there are viking farms in what has been permafrost for the last ~500 years. We (assumption here) were not industrialized at the time. So: why was it not permafrost? And for that matter, considering the greenland ice sheet was not the size it is today at that time (again: assumption based on the fact that, you know, it wasn't permafrost at the time), why was the sea level not higher to the extent that people are predicting?

And the question is: for what gain? (For example: a large chunk of the Canadian shield, while good farmland, is primarily growing season limited. It seems plausible that higher temperatures could increase their yields. So: has anyone crunched the numbers? Plants grow better in higher CO2 concentrations. Etc.) And what alternative measures could be taken? (For example: dropping a nuke to trigger a volcano would lower global temperatures. We know this.)

It's my children's world that I'd like to build up here, and my children's children. I'd like to make rather sure that we know what we're doing. There is no rash decision quite like one affecting the entire globe for centuries.

[higherpurpose]

It's not just about coal and oil's effect on global warming, but their effect on human health, too. The faster we move to cleaner technologies, the better. Wouldn't you like the children to grow in a healthier world?

The situations are different here. It's not like in 50 years we'll discover that "hey, wait a minute - inhaling coal fumes is actually good for us!" - which is what you're trying to imply with your comment.

[TheLoneWolfling]

Notice: I did not mention air quality.

Notice: modern scrubbers are rather efficient

Not to mention that coal is one of those things that I am all for us getting rid of. But not to ban other countries from using. Spending 20-30 years bootstrapping themselves to alternative methods very well may be better than building up a massive population base because they couldn't get themselves to the point where birth rates drop.

Not to mention that half of the alternatives to coal have been EPA-d (is that a verb? Now it is) to the point where "dirty" fuels are the best option from a straight economic point of view.

A better example for your comment might be nuclear power. Where a large chunk of the reason behind why nuclear power is not more widely used is public (panicked) response to radiation concerns. Even though burning coal ends up with a larger radiation dose per MWH. Even though the alternative tends to be coal or oil fired power plants. Even though nuclear power (with suitable reprocessing) is the cleanest general-purpose form of power generation we have. (And yes, this includes "green" energy. Solar/wind require rare earth elements / batteries / etc, geothermal is highly regional, hydro causes issues with fish/etc, biomass is sooty, etc)

[randallsquared]

"which is what you're trying to imply with your comment."

The grandparent comment said nothing whatsoever about air quality.

[anigbrowl]

This is a canard. There was certainly some thought given to the idea of global cooling but there was never anything even close to the modern consensus about climate change (a term which recognizes the non-uniform effects of warming). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

I get where you're coming from, but I do think you're being a touch disingenuous with questions like 'has anyone crunched the numbers?' Of course people have considered that higher CO2 concentrations could come with benefits as well as costs. Here's an optimistic crunching of the numbers, finding a $3.5 trillion benefit over the last 50 years, although I thinkt he methodology is severely flawed: http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/Mone...

And here are some explanations for why the relationship between CO2 availability and agricultural productivity is non-linear: https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm

I have to say that if you are as concerned about your descendants' future as you say, then I think it's time you did more of your own homework.

As for CFCs, the main problem I've been aware of resulting from the ban that might have resulted in deaths was due to the increased cost of asthma medication. Do you have any data to quanity how many deaths this has supposedly caused? Would you say that this is more or less than the lives that would otherwise be lost to skin cancer?

[jjoonathan]

Just this week there was an article in Science about plants/soil as a CO2 buffer:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6183/508.abstract

[sampo]

> "banning of CFCs"

CFCs were banned because they were destroying the ozone layer, and the ozone layer protects us from excessive UV-radiation (which causes skin cancer). This was not related to global warming.

[TheLoneWolfling]

Correct, sorry. I had forgotten that, although they are potent greenhouse gasses, that was not the reason they were originally banned.

Still a valid point in the "don't be rash" sense", but not in the "don't be rash regarding global warming" sense.

[jjoonathan]

> But that is not a valid response: in any decade we know more than in decades before that.

Why does the inevitable increase in accumulated knowledge imply that it doesn't make sense to base decisions on the current state of that knowledge? It sounds like you haven't thought this argument through.

Repeated, rapid fluctuations in the scientific opinion or lack of broad consensus would be warning signs, but neither of those are present.

> So: has anyone crunched the numbers?

Yes! That's what scientists do for a living. They publish detailed records of their data-->conclusion inference process, high-level scientific summaries of those individual results (reviews), and higher-level nonscientific summaries of their cause/impact/mitigation conclusions (IPCC reports). Thousands of them sign statements saying that their individual contributions weren't misrepresented in the high level reports, and then individual members of the community go forth and represent that consensus to the media and to politicians.

And then people like you notice that their soundbytes don't constitute a formal inference process and use this fact to argue that the scientists don't know what they're talking about. Of course, you're too damn lazy to dig through their painstakingly constructed pyramid of results and see for yourself, so you have to keep your feet firmly planted in "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge" territory to keep up the argument. This should tell you something.

> Plants grow better in higher CO2 concentrations.

Do you really think this escaped the notice of thousands of specialists with millenia of accumulated experience?

Answer: it didn't. Here's the latest report I've seen addressing this issue. There have been plenty of other reports answering permutations of this question, but they weren't published last week in Science, so I'd have to use google scholar to find them.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6183/508.abstract

> I'd like to make rather sure that we know what we're doing.

"Doing nothing" is doing something -- something that the only people in a position to make credible predictions regarding the effects of what we're doing are awfully worried about.

> dropping a nuke to trigger a volcano would lower global temperatures. We know this.

You seem far more confident in your ability to predict the climactic effects of a nuke in a volcano than in the scientific community's ability to predict what happens when we dump an insane amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Why?

A child could tell you why the volcano would be a bad idea. I'm quite certain you've not given this nearly as much honest thought as you think you have.