From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sun Apr 14 2002 - 12:06:52 MDT
On Sunday, April 14, 2002, at 12:07 pm, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>>
>> We can't do that in Florida. The whole state is flat and only a dozen
>> feet above sea level. Twenty feet would be devastating.
>
> Nah, it would save the US hundreds of billions of dollars in social
> security, medicare, and medicaid every year. Possibly the best favor
> nature could do to us... ;)
Let's vote on it first....
> However, if you apply Moore's Law to the problem, it is obvious that the
> longer we wait, the less expensive it gets to solve the problem. This
> phenomenon of waiting to save money was recognised in the original
> carbon tax studies done by the DOE and EPA in the early 90's.
This is a very good point which should be stressed more in these debates!
However, realize that it gets cheaper and cheaper up to the point where
it becomes too late. The problem also gets harder and harder. We
believe that technology will advance faster than the problem, but how
can we be sure? It is like playing a game of chicken by rushing
headlong toward the problem and waiting for the last possible moment
until we change course. Many people will become extremely nervous as we
get closer. Even though it may be cheaper, the risk of failure
increases as we get closer as well.
Also keep in mind that you are talking total cost. It may be easier to
pay more over a longer timeperiod, and to spread the cost over a lot of
people. It we could pay $1000 extra per car over a century, it might be
easier than a single nanotech company paying billions all at once to
nanoscrub the atmosphere later. Like a car loan, many people rather pay
less per month for a longer period of time. So even if you are right,
some people may rather choose the alternative.
Also, I do not believe Moore's law works smoothly as some people do. I
believe that we have plateaus between breakthroughs. Our spaceships,
for example, don't improve much gradually. We have complete
replacements every few decades. Computer chips also don't increase as
fast as the benchmark tests try to pretend. The real speed increases
occur with new chip sets. While it may be advantageous to wait until
the latest plateau before acting, we should start as early within that
last plateau as possible. The timing of this will be much harder to
predict.
In other words, I agree with your point totally for the overall trend.
However, I think that detecting the precise trigger point when it
becomes time to act will be increasingly difficult as we get closer. I
also think that while the cost goes down, the risk goes up. Timing
becomes critical, and I don't trust our current government or corporate
structures to be able to react quickly enough if we get too close.
> it's indicative that cleanup will be easily affordable sometime in the
> 2010-2030 timeframe.
Although I'm not sure about the detail, I agree with your final
assessment. Global ecology changes too slowly to wipe us out suddenly.
Repair technology and detection technology is getting better as we
progress. We should be able to handle the problem before it gets too
bad. However, this implies that we must allow such technology to
continue advancing! We can't declare global warming a non-issue and
stop research in that area. Otherwise, the problem will advance while
we stand still.
> While the real negative impacts of warming (as projected by some truly
> flawed simulations which leave out significant phenomena) do not occur
> for at least another 100 years, it's evident that the clamoring now is
> little more than a new excuse by the left for massive taxation today of
> the resources of economic development to fund massive welfare state
> programs.
I'm not sure I believe this. Are you aware that all coral reefs are
sick and dying today? It is blamed on global warming, although I
suspect just plain pollution is a larger contributor. We also have
shifting migration patters within the oceans because the old spawning
grounds are warmer than they used to be. I think life is more adaptable
than people give it credit, but I also think we are seeing major changes
today. The biggest fear is of the unknown. Maybe it won't be a big
deal if all the coral dies within a decade. Or maybe it will have a
major impact that we didn't suspect. Like debugging complex software, a
small change might be able to crash the whole system. I don't think we
are as unaffected today as many people claim.
>> Population explosion was not false. We changed our breeding habits and
>> avoided it.
>
> THough not because of the threat of population explosion, since there
> are plenty of cultures around the world today who are quite aware of the
> phenomenon but are still breeding like rabbits. Habits change when women
> gain legal independence and become increasingly educated.
True. But my point was that the problem was real, not hype. The
solution was less breading, which we did. I think education did solve
the problem, and not as a direct attempt to solve the problem. In other
words, we got lucky on that one. We did not directly solve the problem,
nor did it turn out to be a non-problem. Nor was it solved by
self-regulating pressures on population.
> Nor can we deal with real threats when our resources are diverted by
> chimeras propagandized by those with alternative agendas.
Agreed. This is where real science is required. However, our two-party
system in America has made real science undetectable. We can predict
what each side will claim on any issue. We don't even have to do the
science any more to have PACs jump in on both sides claiming they are
right. They are so highly funded and carefully spin-doctored, that I
don't think we can tell where the real science is. To be honest, I
doubt you or I really can tell how much global warming is real. There
is so much propaganda out there, that all of us are probably fooled on
various issues. In the areas of my own expertise, I see more hype and
vaporware than real science. So many competitors are announcing
vaporware that the company that doesn't can't compete. I really have a
fear that true science is being overrun by politics and advertising
hype. This is the biggest impediment to our scientific agenda today.
(This seems to be my favorite soapbox topic, lately....)
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