Regarding the rising of sea levels, what do you say we use large scale engineering to mitigate the problem? Have battery powered, robot driven vehicles of some sort that spend their day driving out into the ocean, scooping up a load of sand, then come ashore and dump the load somewhere ( like midtown NYC ). The end result being the oceans are deeper and hold more water, keeping sea levels constant. If we can develop low energy desalinization techniques, ocean water could be used to irrigate the desert ( and fracture rocks in the search for trapped natural gas deposits ). I think the left wing, defeatist thinking of the scientists who dominate environmental studies is a real problem for the earth. The time for dithering has ended.

"I think the left wing, defeatist thinking of the scientists who dominate environmental studies is a real problem for the earth. The time for dithering has ended." This is one of my favorite ironic comments on climate change ever. I'm just disappointed that it didn't originate from Stephen Colbert.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: Have battery powered, robot driven vehicles of some sort that spend their day driving out into the ocean, scooping up a load of sand, then come ashore and dump the load somewhere ( like midtown NYC ). The end result being the oceans are deeper and hold more water, keeping sea levels constant.

Make it so, Number One.

Quoting Monkey Corp: Sorry guys but you have not explained why the super freakoeconomics idea of spraying sulphur into the stratosphere won't work. Lester's objection is that it would be too hard to get all nations to agree to do it (like a green treaty is going to be easy!!), or we don't know what such a step would do. But isn't the whole point of the sulphur idea is that it is simply copying what volcanoes do when they explode? We have repeated tests in the form of every eruption thats ever occurred. We have firm data on the effects of such eruptions and can be sure that its safe and if it doesn't work the effect only lasts a few months so we can simply stop spraying the sulphur and we're back to where we started with no harm done. David doesn't even try to answer it but does the politicians side-step and tries to take premise to the ridiculous. If you are going to debate these topics in an open forum as experts, the sulphur spraying is now

Quoting look: Make it so, Number One.

lol

I've been following Lester Brown's prophecies of doom for 40 years now, ever since my hippie days. (Yes, I am that old!) I used to take his extrapolations of the future quite seriously, which is to say uncritically, just as I did with Stephen Schneider and Paul Erlichman. But after a while I noticed his apocalyptic scenarios never seemed to pan out. By now he reminds me of one of those New Yorker cartoons in which an old man on a street corner holds up a sign reading, "The World is Coming to an End." Maybe it is, but I just don't believe it.

Monkey Corp is right. When I read the segment title, "Sorry, SuperFreakonomics—geoengineering won’t save us," I thought they were going to roundhouse kick Levitt and Dubner's idea in the face. Instead, their response was just sad. It was about what we didn't know and getting the nations to agree and something about oceans. Geo-engineering is "enlightenment thinking" as one of them said. Enliightenment thinking? Like what jump started the Industrial Revolution and gave us all the things we have today, including the technology to have this discussion? If so, great! The only thing we should be arguing about is if their solution is workable and the best solution. Theoretical Physicist Michio Kaku talks about 3 different types of civlizations: . What we are aspiring towards is Type I, a civilization that controls the planet it lives on. Controlling Earth's temperature would be a huge step towards this, which I thought was the point. I thought global warming was going to put Manhattan under water in 40 years?

Roberts and Brown seemed to be more concerned about the global kumbaya party than the planet. I don't know if Levitt and Dubner's idea is a good one; for all I know it's expensive snake oil. But, it's

read more . . .

These are two pretty good posts by Ryan Avent explaining why the prospects of geoengineering, specifically pumping sulfur into the atmosphere, are pretty dubious and no substitute for reducing carbon emissions. We should keep studying the impacts of geoengineering so that we might be able to employ some of the techniques if bad case scenarios arise, but we shouldn't kid ourselves like the authors of Superfreakonomics that global warming can be solved on the cheap. There are A LOT of holes with these solutions and the likelihood that they are a silver bullet is pretty remote. http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2239
http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2243

My understanding of the geoengineering argument in the book isn't "oh we can just do a quick-fix of all our environmental problems" but rather that if we find ourself heading into a civilization threatening cycle of warming, you could use these methods as a sort of brake on the process to give us more time to come up with long term solutions. My suspicion is that environmentalists like trotting out worse case scenarios because they can help motivate people to enact the sort of political programs they like and don't like anyone blunting the psychological impact of those disaster scenarios. I would be interested in a diavlog between scientists, or at least having one being interviewed analyzing this geoengineering suggestions specifically and doing a pro/con analysis on them.

Quoting BornAgainDemocrat: I've been following Lester Brown's prophecies of doom for 40 years now, ever since my hippie days.

....never seemed to pan out....

...Coming to an End....

Maybe it is, but I just don't believe it.

Me too, though maybe not quite as long as you(!). I even bought one of his books once. It had a section about the US crop of wheat declining (this was probably the 1980's) which Lester attributed to soil erosion. Anyone living in the farm belt, or anywhere else on Earth for that matter, could have told you the crop was declining due to low prices and government set aside programs. Unfortunately the right doesn't have a monopoly on wingnuts (though it does have a dominant market share), and it is nice to see that BHTV occasionally gives them an airing. BTW I regret buying the book and begrudge the waste of the tree used to print it and the royalty payment to Lester.

Quoting policy wank: These are two pretty good posts by Ryan Avent explaining why the prospects of geoengineering, specifically pumping sulfur into the atmosphere, are pretty dubious and no substitute for reducing carbon emissions.
http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2239
http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2243

I don't read anything at those links that hightlights problems engineering wise with methods to reduce the warming. There were plenty of democrats who dismissed the technical feasibility of missile defense. Why listen to them now on climate change? The larger fact is that India, China and the rest of the Asian world are going to continue to grow their emissions of CO2. Whatever reduction the US and Europe are able to achieve will not stop the net growth of emissions around the globe.

Lester Brown mentions that the number of people without enough food in the world is no longer falling in response to the Green Revolution. What he neglects to mention is that most of these people live in Africa and that the environmental movement successfully lobbied against the Green Revolution in that part of the world. Why? Among other reasons because wheat and rice are not indigenous to Africa and their cultivation would disrupt the natural ecology and traditional forms of agriculture based on yams and the like. In other words, plants before people! The whole story is told by Borlaug, the Nobel laureate who pioneered the Green Revolution, in a profile by Greg Easterbrook in The Atlantic Monthly a few years ago. You can find it on the web.

Quoting brucds: "I think the left wing, defeatist thinking of the scientists who dominate environmental studies is a real problem for the earth. The time for dithering has ended."

This is one of my favorite ironic comments on climate change ever. I'm just disappointed that it didn't originate from Stephen Colbert.

How do we really know that DenvilleSteve is not Stephen Colbert? DenvilleSteve ... Steve Colbert? Hmmm??? Wake up, sheeple!!!1!

What is the critical problem with elevated CO2 levels? It's approx 380ppm now, up 100 in the last 100 yrs. Even if got to 500 0r 600ppm the earth has regularly had levels far higher than this. Higher CO2 levels is one of the things that increases plant growth. The SFE book talks about greenhouses running with added CO2 to get their levels to 1400ppm because its better for the plants and commercial air conditioners operate at 1000ppm of CO2 for most office buildings. Why wouldn't increased CO2 levels help us feed everyone?

A tribute to the folly of the perpetual harbingers of doom. Apocalypse Then

Quoting Toolbit: [...]

Many good points. I am sympathetic to the general point of view that Lester and David hold, but I gotta say to both: if you're going to try to take down the Freakonomics guys, you have to recognize their popular (populist) appeal and be much more rigorous. And David, please, if you're going to represent us, work on the word choices. There were times I could smell the patchouli oil and feel the Birkenstocks sprouting. Attempting to use "enlightenment thinking" as a pejorative is a real clunker, as Toolbit rightly notes. And please be aware that in any conversation, no matter what the topic, each successive use of the word holistic decreases your credibility by half. That's practically a theorem.

Quoting policy wank: [...]

Thanks for those links. Avent makes some good points. Love your username, too. (Have I told you this before?)

Quoting piscivorous: A tribute to the folly of the perpetual harbingers of doom. Apocalypse Then

You sure didn't take away the same message as I did from Manjoo's article! Thanks for the link, though. A good read.

Quoting Monkey Corp: What is the critical problem with elevated CO2 levels? It's approx 380ppm now, up 100 in the last 100 yrs. Even if got to 500 0r 600ppm the earth has regularly had levels far higher than this. Higher CO2 levels is one of the things that increases plant growth. The SFE book talks about greenhouses running with added CO2 to get their levels to 1400ppm because its better for the plants and commercial air conditioners operate at 1000ppm of CO2 for most office buildings. Why wouldn't increased CO2 levels help us feed everyone?

the increased CO2 has a bad affect on the oceans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

Quoting policy wank: These are two pretty good posts by Ryan Avent explaining why the prospects of geoengineering, specifically pumping sulfur into the atmosphere, are pretty dubious and no substitute for reducing carbon emissions.
http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2239
http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2243 These links don't refute sulphur spraying at all. The 4 objections are 1) Politicians are too risk adverse to do this - mmm but what about invading two countries just recently? Whatever you think, you can't think it was risk adverse. 2) People will think its a conspiracy - someone always thinks everything is a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists have not stopped large scale gov intervention eg. vaccinations, central banks etc. 3) Other countries won't be happy because there will be particularly bad outcomes for them - what bad outcomes? Why sulphur spraying is getting traction is that it doesn't seem to have any bad outcomes. Greenland and Russia probably want the earth warmer as it will unfreeze land that can then be used for crops but what are the bad outcomes ryanavent is talking about? 4) Geo-engineering seems easy because its not actually on the table and subject to "hysterical bickering" - No. It seems plausible because it seems plausible. These objections aren't really saying anything.

[quote=DenvilleSteve;137781]the increased CO2 has a bad affect on the oceans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification[/QUOTE You could potentially live without crabs, shellfish and coral reefs but if acidification kills plankton that's really scary. The geoengineering idea of seeding oceans with lime to reduce ph level doesn't seem as plausible as the sulphur idea, simply due to the amounts you'd need.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: I don't read anything at those links that hightlights problems engineering wise with methods to reduce the warming. There were plenty of democrats who dismissed the technical feasibility of missile defense. Why listen to them now on climate change?

I think you're so sanguine about geo-engineering solutions to climate change, because you have a primitive mind, as all conservatives do. Science is just magic or miracles to you; scientists are just saints or witch-doctors. You don't understand why what they have accomplished is possible, so why should anything you want them to do be impossible? Again, it's childish thinking: you want medicine, but you don't want to accept the consequences of the science that makes medicine possible, i.e. evolution. Climate change, in your mind, arose through mystical means, and so mystical means will set things right again, no matter what the mystics say. It's frustrating to deal with your side.

Quoting bjkeefe: And David, please, if you're going to represent us, work on the word choices. There were times I could smell the patchouli oil and feel the Birkenstocks sprouting. Attempting to use "enlightenment thinking" as a pejorative is a real clunker, as Toolbit rightly notes. And please be aware that in any conversation, no matter what the topic, each successive use of the word holistic decreases your credibility by half. That's practically a theorem.[/quote] LOL!

I suppose it is just my cynicism showing.

Quoting Ray: I think you're so sanguine about geo-engineering solutions to climate change, because you have a primitive mind, as all conservatives do.

Science is just magic or miracles to you; scientists are just saints or witch-doctors.

to paraphrase Carl Pagan, there are billions and billions of people in Asia currently entering the industrial age. What realisitic possibility exists that they are not going to exponentially increase their CO2 output over the next 20 years? I say, none. There is nothing that can be done to stop the increase in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans. We have to come at the problem by removing CO2 from the environment.

Quoting Ray: It's frustrating to deal with your side.

Speaking for my side, us cons are not thrilled with the democrat dithering approach to the problems of the day. The news today was that the feds ran a deficit of $176 billion in the last month. What is super amazing about that figure is that it exceeds the $135 billion revenue for the month. So "we" over spent in October by more than 100% of what the government took in.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: to paraphrase Carl Pagan, there are billions and billions of people in Asia ...

Carl Pagan is the phit. Also: looks like Rush taught one of his dittoheads a new word! Let us start a new counter. (And what was the final tally on "brave red state Americans" again?

Quoting piscivorous: I suppose it is just my cynicism showing.

Actually, given your computing background, I'm surprised you didn't already have something like the same attitude as I did about the Y2K thing: say what you will about the possible dangers having been exaggerated, what is true is that we ended up not having a problem (so maybe we did fix some things to prevent it) and the money spent ended up being pretty useful. Tell me you didn't get a chance to clean out some old crufty code back in the day, using "OMG Y2K" as an excuse, that no one in management would have authorized otherwise. I know I did.

Quite right! I did real well leading up to 01/01/2000, mostly from the evil big Pharma, but mostly what I saw was wasted effort and resources; as hitting the on off switch would have solved at least 80-90% of the problems. The fear was palatable at the time though. Like lemmings at the cliff they fear mongers drove them forward and over the top.

Quoting Monkey Corp: - what bad outcomes? Why sulphur spraying is getting traction is that it doesn't seem to have any bad outcomes.

This isn't something I know anything about, but if I am getting this right...then... A) Global warming will be hazardous to the food supply B) We don't like that, so... C) We are going to (somehow) fill the upper atmosphere with sulfates to lower the mean global temperature. My question is, since we are primarily thinking about doing this to save the food supply, has anyone bothered to check what the effects of decreased insolation is going to have on plant life?

Greenland and Russia probably want the earth warmer as it will unfreeze land that can then be used for crops but what are the bad outcomes ryanavent is talking about?

I think this whole global warming thing is a plan hatched by the Canadians for world domination. Damn Canadians. Edit:
damn Canadians....

Quoting Ray: It's frustrating to deal with your side.

Well then just stop trying to do so. It'll be better for your health.

Quoting piscivorous: Quite right! I did real well leading up to 01/01/2000, mostly from the evil big Pharma, but mostly what I saw was wasted effort and resources; as hitting the on off switch would have solved at least 80-90% of the problems. The fear was palatable at the time though. Like lemmings at the cliff they fear mongers drove them forward and over the top.

The fear was probably palpable, too. :-)

From my perspective as a consultant it was very tasty and my wallet grew fat from eating it. But then you can express my thoughts better than I; I guess.

It is worth noting that simple math informs us that trying to displace farming centers has exactly the insolation problem you note with the various silly proposals to "just" throw junk into the atmosphere or space to block sunlight. As you move northward or southward away from the equator and out of the temperate zones, insolation per square meter drops in a nonlinear manner. Warm the globe all you want, the reduced energy density and the little problem of the first row of crops increasingly shading those further from the equator means you aren't going to be growing or eating much. The ancients who worshiped the sun as the source of life weren't that far off. This planet runs on solar energy, and all life here is ultimately dependant on that most important resource. Oil, natural gas, coal, wind, photovoltaic, hydro, food, its all solar power. Any plan for dealing with global warming that involves reduction of insolation is a really, really bad plan.

Yes it is such a serve problem that Canada is

In terms of international trade, however, Canada is the world’s second largest exporter of wheat; with annual exports averaging some 20 million tonnes, this country accounts for about 21% of the world market for wheat exports.

6th largest producer overall.

Did Brown really imply that Afghanistan's political problems are a symptom of climate change? Wow.

Quoting badhatharry: Well then just stop trying to do so. It'll be better for your health.

But I have to deal with you barbarians, precisely because of my health. Conservatives deny climate change. Conservatives hate and fear science. Conservatives have the vote. This puts me in an immensely difficult position. I have to make my way in a society loaded up with willfully ignorant sociopaths who would happily end the world in a blaze of famine, pestilence, and war. I mean: conservatives are people who deny the biological science that cures their diseases. What can one possibly say to people like that? The United States needs a propaganda program that will disguise scientific advances as the works of Jesus H. Christ so that the cretins will vote against the apocalypse, rather than for it. Maybe this is what Intelligent Design is really all about.

Fascinating though irrelevant little factoid. Canada, roughly tied with China as second largest nation on earth in land area but having only 34 million people to China's 1.3 billion, exports wheat. China is the world's largest wheat producer. So we might expect that the amount of land a nation dedicates to a given agricultural product vs. other crops or land uses, and the amount of that product they consume locally affect exports. Big surprise. If you are actually interested in agricultural potential as a function of latitude, you might look into studies of exactly that question. DeWit for example estimates that under ideal conditions (soil, water, etc.) and limited only by insolation:

For a single ha of land, he obtained integrated photosynthesis, for example, of 60 t carbohydrate/season/ha at 50 North latitude and 90 t at 40.

These estimates drop off even faster than the cosine of the latitude.

There is a lot of land in the Rocky Mountains but last time I looked there wasn't much wheat grown there either nor for that matter is there not a lot of grain grown in the Alaska tundra. For that matter slash and burn all the jungle in Brazil and for a couple of years you can grow some crops at very high yield rates but after that time yields drop considerably even given the exceptional insolation because guess what not all things are equal in nature. Studies under "ideal" conditions are useful talking points to academics but climate, soil, water and other factors are what dictates limits in the real world of those that actually farm.

Pisc, come on. Yes, all things are never equal, conditions aren't always ideal, and there are good reasons people don't try to grow a lot of wheat in deserts or on rock. Read the thread and consider a little context. The immediate point at hand regards decreasing agricultural potential due to insolation should we attempt to displace farmland to areas nearer the poles (see SW's suggestion that we just accept a 10-15C temp increase and then move on when portions of the earth become to hot. Assuming the part of south Florida you live in remained above sea level, the summers would resemble Death Valley - enjoy). The response of agricultural potential to the factor of insolation also indicates that schemes to block sunlight would in fact decrease production, as also questioned upthread. In addition to being stupid for other reasons.

I'm not the one that brought out the straw men of ideal conditions and amount of land mass.

Again, come on. It isn't a straw man, it considers the effects of the specific factor under discussion, making no claim that there are no other limiting factors. Every once in a while you seem to be in the mood to engage in a reasonably honest and rational discussion of something here. Your initial factoid response should have clued me that this isn't one of those times. My bad. Finis.