Let's suppose that AGW is real. Shouldn't we assume that it won't be easlily reversed? What are the negative and positive effects? Is it best to try to prevent it by limiting CO2 or should we be trying to adapt, or even "re-engineer" it (ie. pumping sulpuric acid into the atmosphere). How much will all this cost and is it worth it? Is AGW just speeding up would happen anyway, but over a shorter period? These seem like logical questions, yet all I hear is GW is "bad" and we need to limit CO2. But really, if this has been going on as long as some say, how on earth will limiting CO2, prevent GW? If the science is settled shouldn't we be working on REAL solutions?
That would be the rational approach, unfortunately the only solutions offered are one's of a particularly odious idiot-ology.
I have a category called tooth fairy economics which evidently is wildly popular in academia consisting of generally getting something for nothing, make work jobs and printing your way to prosperity. I just realized they took those same concepts and applied them to climatology some how thinking: 1) it will be easy to keep the climate the way we want it. 2) the cost will be an economic boon 3) the cure is obviously better than adapting
No , the correct analogy would have been: you are going to die, screw looking for the fountain of youth.
Correct, it won't be easily reversed. Excess CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a long time - decades, centuries, probably millenia until it would return to it's natural levels. Other GHGs such as methane are not so bad in this respect and would be cleared in a decade or so. Have a look at some of the presentations here http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/programme.php which are from a climate change conference at Oxford University which considered what the world might be like if it were 4C hotter. One of the consequences of AGW that receives insufficient attention is the all the climate models forecast a very uneven warming - some places much more than others. For an average warming of 4C some places may warm 6C to 10C. The arctic by 14C! I looked at the predictions for Australia and it looked like 6-7C. Victoria, Australia suffered it's worst ever bush fires last year with 170 burned to death and whole towns incinerated. Rural temperatures reached 48C. These fires are all but unstoppable. What would it be like with temperatures of 55C? California and countries such as Greece or Spain might well be looking at something similar. And quite probably other places that currently do not experience such extreme fires. And this is just one of many, many negative consequences. The problems with geoengineering: 1. You are stuck with it "forever". For example, you would have to keep on pumping sulphur particulates into the atmosphere indefinitely. Any action of this sort is going to have undesirable effects. Acid rain anyone? 2. Any such action would have to be designed using climate models. As we all know there is considerable uncertainty in climate models. It's seems to me that pissing around with the planet on that scale with considerable uncertainty in the outcome is sheer folly. Furthermore achieving international consensus to do this sort of thing may well be impossible. The other approach to geo engineering is to find a means of scrubbing the excess CO2 from the air. There are suggestions to plant massive forests in the deserts of places like the central Australian deserts, and irrigate by piped in desalinated water. It would be a massive undertaking, if it is feasible at all. Perhaps other means will be developed but is seems very unwise to depend on that. No, natural changes are much, much slower. All indications are that the current rate of warming is unprecedented in millions of years. The average output from the sun is largely unchanged over the last sixty years (allowing for the 11 year cycle). There is no other plausible explanation for the measured warming other than human emitted green house gases. http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm If CO2 levels are stabilized, the climate will also stabilize with a lag time of some years - maybe a decade or two as the oceans heat up and reach thermal equilibrium. If humans stopped emitting excess GHGs today, there may be half a degree more warming and that would be it - followed by a very slow cooling over decades or centuries. Indeed - but we also can't live in hope waiting for magical technology to arrive. As well as new research, we have to start using what we have now. Burning coal is the worst culprit and phasing it out for electricity generation would help a lot. There are options - solar, wind, nuclear and promising new technologies such as geothermal hot rock.