Since rational persuasion is futile, what's the best solution for AGW?

Question

Any of us that have lived long enough to debate people emotionally linked to their belief system know that reason and evidence won't change some peoples minds. There are some legitimate areas of skepticism in AGW (e.g. 2 or 5C warmer, 20, 80, or 150 CM sea-level rise, etc.), but some people are so emotionally linked to their denial they won't even consider evidence that they could be wrong. For those people, a quote comes to mind:

"You can't teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of time and it annoys the pig."

In light of this, why continue trying to give singing lessons? Why not, instead spend more time discussing solutions?

What's the best solution for AGW and why?

1) Mandatory carbon caps

2) New clean-energy technology

3) Carbon sequestration

4) Conservation

5) Give up all modern conveniences

6) Become vegetarians

7) ?

Answer 1

To take your suggestions 1 at a time:

1 - No, this is a typical government command and control approach.  These always fail and create more problems than they solve.

2 - Good if you can find it, but so far it is pretty much pie in the sky

3 - Expensive

4 - Helpful, but limited possibilities

5 - You cannot be serious, are you some type of neo-Luddite?

6 - Now you are just being silly

7 - Nuclear power for electric generation is the only viable path to reduced CO2 emissions while maintaining our current standard of living.  If you are truly concerned with AGW, you should be marching in the streets demanding nuclear power now.

8 - I don't think there is any thing we can do to stop global warming.  Even if we stopped all CO2 and other green house gas emissions today and found a way to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels back to pre-industrial maximums, average global temperatures are likely to continue to rise to a maximum of about 3 degrees above current levels.  My best suggestion is to accept the inevitable nature of climate change and start using all of the energy currently being spent in name calling, finger pointing and hand wringing on developing and implementing programs to address the expected consequences of warming.

Answer 2

I think most of the opposition comes from so many tree huggers trying to force #5 on everybody.

Answer 3

A CAP AND TRADE IS NECESSARILY THE SOLUTION.

The reason is that we know about to which levels we want to stabilize concentrations of GHG to avoid the most dangerous effects.

TECHNOLOGY:

Because the cap and trade is running a market without necessarily speeding up investments in the technologies we will need to reduce greenhouse gases emissions without affecting long term economic growths. Today we have 6 main power generation sources, in the future we will have close to 20-30, but most of them are not ready yet or not economic viable.

LAWS:

Because we need NOW to give a clear signal to investors to invest in the lowest GHG emitting technology. Most power plants investments are done for 40-50 years. As such, it is important to stop the construction of the most emitting plants in the developed world since these investments in a carbon constrained world would otherwise be trashed

Also the non cap and trade sector (you and me) needs to have laws which will provide them with the most efficient items for the daily life: high milage cars, zero energy houses, and so on.

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE:

Since for some large industries we have not found a viable technology to replace coal (e.g. steel and cement).

GOOD ENGINEERING:

High performance materials can reduce the need for materials by 50% without decreasing the lifetime or the performance (e.g. high strength metals, high strength cements, composites, etc.).

RECYCLING / CO GENERATION

Cogeneration uses the waste heat of the thermal power production and as such increases the fuel utilization from 50 to 80-90%.

Recycled steel emits 50% less, recycled aluminium 95% less.

A WORD ABOUT NUCLEAR

While I do not oppose it, solar will be able to generate power at market prices in only 20 years... The lifetime of a nuclear power plant is 40-50 years. This means that DURING MORE THAN HALF OF THE LIFETIME OF A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT STARTED NOW IT WILL BE MORE EXPENSIVE THAT PHOTOVOLTAIC !!!

Answer 4

1) has poor economic consequences, 2) is great, 3) ok but cost more than the end product, 4) there is a group saying all we need is 2% carbon cut per year for 40 years, 5) no, 6) some. Tax pollution! We will see the swing big time without the economic problems of Caps. Today here is what we know:  many of mankind’s advancements cause earth surface to warm, destroy the ozone layer, kill off endanger species, heat cities, and in some way cause more destruction.  Blacktop (roads and parking lots), buildings, air pollution (causes lung and other diseases), deforestation, duststorms (which increase hurricanes and cyclones and cause lung diseases), fires (cause pollution, mud slides, and deforestation), refrigerants (like CFC's), solvents (including benzene destroy the ozone layer raising skin cancer rates) and plastics; cars, airplanes, ships and most electricity production (causes pollution including raised CO2 levels) are human problems we need to fix to keep life on earth sustainable! The federal government needs to adopt a pollution surcharge to balance the field and advance new technologies. We must pay the real price of oil (petrochemicals) including global warming, cleanup and for health effects. But with that we must understand we have never seen what is now happening before. CO2 has never lead to temperature change, but temperature change has led to increases in CO2. The models have to be made as we go along with little evidence! The result is:  change is on the way, we just do not know what changes. But again adding a small amount of CO2 to the atmosphere enlarges the earths sun collection causing warming; increase water in the atmosphere and they form clouds cooling earth but causing flooding. Even natural events are warming earth and causing destruction. The sun has an increased magnetic field causing increases in earthquakes (more destruction), volcanoes (wow, great destruction), and sun spots. Lighting produces ozone near the surface (raising air pollution levels). But humans have destroyed half of the wetlands, cut down nearly half of the rain forest, and advance on the earths grasslands while advancing desertification which increases duststorms. The USA Mayor's have taken a stand and I believe are on the right track, we can have control and can have economic growth. With the peak of oil in the 1970’s, the peak of ocean fishing in the 1980’s, humans must stop procrastinating and make real changes to keep earth sustainable including in the energy debate, finance and regulation. The sun is available to produce energy, bring light to buildings and makes most of human’s fresh water. Composting is the answer to desertification. New dams are the answer to fresh water storage, energy and cooling earth by evaporation, we need many small ones all over (California needs 100 by 2012 and has not even started).

President Bush has made a choice of energy (ethanol) over food and feeding the starving people around the world; this is a choice China has rejected.

That is why I founded CoolingEarth.org, a geoengineering web sight where you can learn more about earth, the atmosphere, and how to sustain life on earth’s surface.

Answer 5

I think we've passed some kind of turning point, and we no longer have to waste energy arguing with deniers.  It's time to ignore them and start working on solutions.

Deniers gain strength when we 'debate' them.  Their very successful strategy has been to create the illusion of uncertainty, and we contribute to that by treating them seriously.

That's not to say that public outreach and education doesn't need to continue, but it shouldn't really pay too much attention to the spoiled children shrieking that they'll have to play nice with others.  Kind of like managing a grade school classroom--if you pay too much attention to the disruptive kids, all the other students suffer.

In terms of best solution, IMHO its probably carbon caps with trading.  That doesn't contradict your other solutions, but encourages them--once carbon gets expensive, your numbers 2, 3 and 4 should begin to happen through market forces.  Generally, when the government tries to pick technologies, they don't do that good a job, but when the government sets up incentives for the private sector so solve problems, things work out well.

Answer 6

For my background, record, and other comments on this subject, please see my homepage.

1. Mandatory carbon caps.  

YES, and that goes for the Developing World, too.  They're so much more densely populated, that they need to start, from the ground up, using green sources of energy, and not relying upon fossil fuels.  

(It's not politically-correct to say anything about the Developing World's contribution to Climate Change, but I am more concerned about the PLANET, than I am about any touchy political 'special interests'.  Also, my family are all in India, and I grew up in the USA, so I've seen the worst of both...)

2. New, clean-energy technology.

YES.  Particularly wind, hydro-electric, solar, and geo-thermal.  Nuclear power both requires conventional electricity to produce, and is, frankly, very blxxdy dangerous.  Why embrace something lethal to humans and other living things... for 450 million years... if we're trying to SAVE what we can??

3. Carbon Sequestration

Unnecessary if we can re-forest.  Reforestation is vitally important.  See Item 7.

4) Conservation

Duh.  The trouble is the people who stand to lose money, when conservation, rather than discard/replace becomes the global way of thinking...  Capitalism is the enemy of conservation, until/unless we can teach the corporate sector that they will be rewarded for changing their ways.  Ceramics can replace plastics.  Some bio-products can also replace plastics.  Cellulose is incredibly useful.  None of these things is quite as durable as plastics (which will be in landfills until the Sun goes Nova), which means the corporations can sell their products more often... TAX plastics and petroleum-based products at the manufacturing level.  Yes, it's drastic.  Drastic times and all...

5. Give up all modern conveniences

Isn't that a bit extreme?  What about finding renewable, non-polluting ways to keep modern conveniences.

Admittedly, in the USA, it is impossible to live without a car, in most of the country.  Changes in lifestyle are urgently necessary.  Shops need to be close to residential areas.  Motor vehicles MUST NOT use internal-combustion-engines (bio-fuels pollute as much as petroleum).  This is a LONG-term project, which needs to start in 1970, at the latest.  While the planners get the cities on power-grids which power vehicles, those who can, should walk and cycle as much as possible.

The Developing World needs to START with this model, rather than emulating the catastrophic mistakes of the past 300 years, in the Crumbling World.  The air-pollution in Beijing makes 1960s NYC look fresh and clean!!

6) Become vegetarians

As a lifelong, religious vegetarian, I would say I am for it.  However, there are caucasians who require animal protein (copious) in their diets, or they become very unwell.  I could be brutal, and say they are a maladaption which should die out -- but I didn't study ethics on a lark.  People who are allergic to nuts (a walnut would hospitalise me) are also maladaptive.  The first mark of 'civilisation' is the protection of our weakest members.

I lived in 'cattle country' (Colorado, USA, with McBurgers on the hoof) for many years... Diet is one of those Very Touchy Issues (e.g. Hindu vegetarians, Jewish kosher, French people and cheese... the Western USA, Argentina, etc, and beef).  This would have to be handled with the co-operation of governments (notice how much tobacco is still being grown in the US SouthEast... despite the tv advert ban in 1971, and the disappearance of smoking characters, from most US tv programming).  Yes, smoking is waaay down in the USA.  Tobacco is back to being a major export crop.

Religion, personal privacy, and a host of problems come up, with this one.

That said, there's nothing wrong with re-claiming 'grazing' ranch land for planting TREES (by government fiat, providing farms, or alternative work, for the uprooted people) in the Developing World.  Green communal farm groups could purchase as much ranch-land as possible.

Meanwhile, there would have to be a carpet-bombing anti-burger-joint, anti-chicken-bucket, anti-fast-food advertising campaign, because that's where the majority of ranch-stuff ends up.  It worked with fur... mostly.  Just bear in mind that Coca-Cola/McDonalds, and Pepsico/BurgerKing own franchises EVERYWHERE.  People want fast food.  They LIKE what they are used to having.  Somebodies will have to fill in the vacuum...

and in the USA, most fresh veg are picked by illegal immigrants.

(another rant, for another day).

Benefits: No cattle-ranchers in UK/Argentina/EU having to slaughter whole herds because of disease.  Improvement for fishing industries (if they could just get the pesky mercury out of the tuna) and dairy/egg industries.  And, OBVIOUSLY, drop in the obesity/heart-attack/diabetes/so forth in the Crumbling World.

This is a BIG, long-term project.  We may not have that sort of time.

7.  Zero Population Growth/Population Reduction/Decent Medicine

Conditions in the Developing World are so... appalling.  Poverty, no clean water, clear-cutting rainforest just for farms, infant mortality, and disease...

ALL of these things would be UNIMAGINABLY less bad, if the population density of the Developing World were similar to that of the Crumbling World.  Fewer people means more resources to go around... it's that simple.  In 1960, there were 2.500.000.000 people on this Earth.  Now, the number is about 6.900.000.000.  The Planet cannot sustain such numbers.  I forsee a Malthusian Catastrophe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_...

Global warming might be it.  HIV/AIDS might be it.

Mao Zedong made the People's Republic of China into a perfectly self-sustaining, isolative State, in part, by insisting that families have only one child.  He was thinking about sustainability, from the standpoint of 'China for China; Leave Us Alone'.

Well, there is a LIMIT to how many humans (and our rubbish) this Planet can sustain.  We have nowhere else to go.  I suggest a leaf from Mao's book.  Latin America (I once had a Colombian student, who was one of 22 siblings by the same mother!) and other Roman Catholic countries need to learn -- have been learning -- that two children replace two parents.

In countries like Sierra Leone, where only one third of children live to see their fifth birthday, SO MUCH needs to be done.  Between civil wars, disease, famine, and 'ethnic-cleansing', there is little incentive for people in Africa to reduce the number of children they have.

If Pakistanis stopped having hordes of children, only the religious fanatics would do... and that would be a calamity of another sort.

India... if approached properly, would make an effort to educate the public, as they did, about HIV/AIDS.  Same goes for Thailand.  After the 1970-80s holocaust in Cambodia, it would be inhumane to ask them not to have children.

If there were good, fair, accessible medical care in Africa, and proper pre-natal care, and decent nutrition...

*sigh*

Africa isn't the problem... except for the cutting of the rainforests.

India and China are the population nightmares which are burdening the Earth with more than just people.  They have been Westernised, to the point of wanting all the same STUFF... and generating the same rubbish, only in quantities we cannot begin to imagine.

The only 'solution' I have is a cruel one.  The Crumbling World must stop 'outsourcing' to China and India.  Then, they will find themselves too poor (again) to sustain such unreasonable populations.  Millions of people will die.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

Since I believe Global Warming IS a Malthusian Catastrophe, if we do not take all of the above measures, and more, the global human population will drop, within my lifetime, from close to 7,000,000,000 people... to 700,000,000 people.

700 millions of humans... scattered inland and on high ground.  (For comparison, the current population of the USA is roughly 260 millions of humans... concentrated in the cities and industrial North, and the population of the UK [England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland] is roughly 60.5 millions of humans, also concentrated in cities, and South of the Orkneys) will be all that is left, if we DO NOT ACT NOW.  

I don't know what to do, about the population problem... only that it is half of the destruction of our Planet.

Our Planet will not die.  The humans who damaged it will be culled... and millions of species of flora and fauna will go extinct.

Humans have treated the animals and plants of this world like a man, who shoots his wife/girlfriend, and then himself.  (I've lost two close friends, and several acquaintances, that way).  Why could we not have just made ourselves extinct, and left the animals and so forth to live their lives?

Answer 7

Nuclear = Good

Laws and regulations = Bad

Living in caves and using sticks = Very bad

Answer 8

Currently many scientists say that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about half. Since the U.S. produces about 2-3X the per capita greenhouse gas pollution of the residents of many European countries, clearly we can live a modern life in a much less impactful way, and conservation can easily get us most of the way there. The cost of many conservation measures is offset by the long term savings.

Coal-fired power plants account for about 40% of the total emissions, so growth in power generation must come from cleaner sources. The cost of solar panels has come down to the point that its up-front cost is recouped in about 40 years, long before the useful lifetime of a typical house. Every new house could have a system to offset much of its baseline consumption. Since the need for centralized power plants would be reduced, that construction and maintenance savings by the government can be passed back to homeowners in the form of incentives to help existing homeowners purchase and install solar systems.

On the power conservation side, the Energy Star program for PCs alone will save $1.8B per year in energy costs (see link below). This type of program should be expanded to increase power savings and replace older appliances.

The next biggest category is transportation, with over 30% of emissions. Conservation also has a huge payoff here:

"Increasing the average fuel economy of America's new autos to 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2018 would save consumers $61 billion at the gas pump and increase U.S. employment by 241,000 jobs in the year 2020, including 23,900 in the auto industry."

Oil industry analysts are forecasting that oil prices could double next year alone, so the cost savings and the economic benefits tot he U.S. economy could actually be much higher as gasoline prices skyrocket.

Clearly the big changes that need to occur in the U.S., such as increasing efficiency in power generation and transportation, need to occur on a national policy level.  

The North American sources of carbon are well documented in this December report:

http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sa...

We just need to decide which Presidential candidates has the most credibility as far as actually doing something about it.

Answer 9

Another solution would be to hold Video-Conferences instead of jet-planing THOUSANDS of so-called climate experts to a remote luxury resort location (Bali) to discuss how WE (not they) should be more responsible in our use of energy!  This solution might also give the 'Man-Did-it' Global Warming Mutual Admiration Society a bit of credibility.     Nuff said!!

Answer 10

Clean energy technology would be my bet.

Walter Kurtz - How can you keep spouting that 1998 was the warmest year on record, when the graph I will link to from NASA shows 2005 as the warmest? You must be part of the Bush administration "Brownie, you're doin a heck-of-a job"...

Please, show us your proof. And I hope you don't reference the IPCC, because we know you probably don't believe a word they say.

Denial in the face of fact.

Answer 11

There is only one way to manpulate the mean temperature of the planet and that is by modifying its emissivity. The only problem with that is that a change in emissivity of just 0.09% gives a one degree temperature change. If man starts trying to make such a modification and goofs, then we could get temperature adjustments of many degrees. That could be catastrophic.

Answer 12

The best solution is a carbon cap and trade system.  It allows us to put a ceiling on how much carbon our industries emit while also allowing companies the freedom to emit more (and purchase extra credits) or less (and profit by selling extra credits).

Ideally I would like to see this applied to individuals as well.  We could be given carbon credit cards and carbon cost could be calculated for various products depending on how much CO2 was released in their development and transportation.

This would benefit domestic companies because products built/grown in the US would have a smaller carbon cost due to a shorter transportation.  It would also help reduce our massive gap between rich and poor, as poor people generally use less energy (and thus emit less carbon) than rich people, and thus could sell their extra credits to the wealthy.

So a carbon cap and trade system would be the biggest step to solving the problem.  Additionally we would have to make the system viable by introducing new green technologies such as electric cars, and the subsequent green technology boom would help revitalize our floundering economy.

Answer 13

Yes, some people are obsessed with fixing the blame, waiting until everyone agrees with them before fixing the problem.  Shame.

Since 50% of all ghg's in the US are produced by power generation, nuclear power is the best option.  

Once nuclear power is embraced, then electric cars are pratical as being zero carbon cars rather than moving the carbon from the car to power stations.

Then homes could be all electric, making oil and gas heat and water heaters obsolete.

Within 15 years we could eliminate about 65% of all ghg's currently produced.  We just lack the will to use modern technology as this scares a few people.

Answer 14

It's not futile.  I routinely get responses from people indicating that I've changed their minds.  Don't let the few noisy deniers here get you down, keep playing.  "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph...."

Jello and I agree about nuclear power.  I'll add that we should also be proceeding with wind and solar, but nuclear is the only thing that can do the heavy lifting now, particularly with electric/fuel cell transportation.

You already know it, but here's the practical and affordable plan, which is a combination of strategies, mostly involving the reduction of fossil fuel use.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl...

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg3.h...

Answer 15

The best solution is:

7.  All the highly emotional environmentalists volunteer for their EUGENICS program.

Answer 16

It's sort of like a democracy. It's good that we have a representative democracy instead of a flat public vote on every issue. The public believes in lots of really silly things. GW is understood by the great majority of reasonable people to be quite solid, despite the public misinformation campaign. For many of these people, unless they wake up and it's 120 degrees in the middle of winter they aren't going to believe it. Nothing to be done. Almost half the US population doesn't believe in evolution of species. Nothing to be done. No further evidence would change their minds.

Answer 17

k,