I would like to read about this, do you have a source?
I read about it in ‘The Singularity is Near’ by Ray Kurzweil. And I know he’s got a bit of the stink of the alchemist on him so I would like to verify from other sources. And to be honest I am working at the edge of my knowledge here. So I might be wrong, but it makes sense based on what I think I know about it. 
Anyway, here’s a bit about the topic.
So basically my thinking is this. Carbon is highly used in Nanotech. Carbon Nanofibers, Buckyballs, etc… If we develop good sequestration technology then we can separate the carbon and use it in technology. As Nanotechnology advances, it will create a natural market for carbon.
I know it sounds a little Sci Fi, but it might also not be that far-fetched. I welcome anyone who knows more about these topics than I do to correct me on any of the particulars.
It seems like really the two limiting factors at this time are the lack of good sequestration tech, and the lack of a market. But I also believe that in terms of Nanotech we are at about what is analogous to 1989 was for Computers and the Internet.
I fully believe in man-made global climate change, and I do think itś going to be as bad as the worst-case predictions from the reports.
Having said that, I don support Copenhagen or any resolutions that come out of it. There are no balls or teeth there to effect change.
Personally, I love for there to one day soon be a nanofactory that gets plunked down near the equator somewhere, that just pulls carbon out of the atmosphere and simultaneously spins a space elevator. Two birds with one stone!
Then the same nitwits would complain about Global cooling. The point is to reduce our impact. I don’t really want to ride the unintended consequence train indefinitely because we were fucking with the macro-climate. 
As for Copenhagen. It’s not balls and teeth I am worried about, it’s brains. Even if I did believe in MMGW, I don’t, I am agnostic due to ignorance on my part, I still do not believe that we know enough to fuck with the macro-climate or to start imposing economic restrictions. Socialist power grab is naked.
It’s not a matter of belief. It’s not a matter of socialism, or a power grab. It’s about data, and conclusions drawn therefrom, and plans to deal with those conclusions.
One of the byproducts of ignorance, whether self-admitted or not, is the relegation of science and responsible conduct to the same level of credibility and reality as “belief” and “ideology”.
You’re better than this. Please stop it.
The only thing in that article about getting hydrogen from hydrocarbons is about steam reforming. Of course there are a few fundamental flaws with this. For one thing, it doesn’t produce carbon, it produces CO2. Also, since carbon already has a rather large number of sources, a new carbon source is not going to stimulate growth in any way. Quite seriously, we don’t need new sources of carbon, it is very very common.
You’re getting it backwards. I am not expecting supply to stimulate demand, but demand to stimulate supply. And we’re not talking about ‘new sources of carbon’, we’re talking about taking carbon from a source that’s outputting it and needs to be brought to null emissions. What better way of doing that than monetizing the carbon as a resource?
You’re right though, my cite wasn’t good. I’ll continue to look into this.
Maybe for the diagnosis. It’s the prescriptions I am concerned about.
Ever hear of ‘The Cure is worse than the disease.’? That’s what concerns me.
I’ve banned the OP because he was a spammer, but I’ll leave the thread open.
If this is a reference to my post, I didn’t say that global warming claims are an ideologically motivated scam; I started by admitting that AGW is almost certainly real. The “socialism” part comes in the “plans to deal with those conclusions”. I’m serious. Atmospheric CO2 content is being presented as a “Tragedy of the Commons” scenerio, requiring that the stupid selfish short-sighted peasants do what the good wise leaders tell them to, because personal freedom is against the best interests of the collective. That amounts to socialism in my book. The proposed remedies for global warming if fully enacted would amount virtually to imposing a global set of sumptuary laws. And that’s not even counting the really far-out fringe who are insisting that the Industrial Revolution was a mistake and that we should all go back to being peasants living in spiritual communion with the land.
I’d be more worried if it wasn’t, as I said earlier, absolutely impossible that this could be imposed by any government less fanatical than the Khmer Rouge. Leaders that insisted on it would be voted out of office. Governments that tried to impose it would face massive civil disobedience. People are just not going to volunteer to make themselves poorer. It’s just not going to happen.
The science has been done and the results continue to pour in. Obviously, previous threads have addressed this topic in detail.
However, if your concern is that technocrats are implementing policies that are not comprehensible to the average citizen, perhaps we ought not have given out $14 trillion in bailout money to the banks? And, moreover, perhaps IMF and World Bank policies should be put to a popular vote by those who are affected by them?
But, in response to the OP, the emissions cuts are certainly not at the necessary <2 degrees Celsius increase, and the methods used to achieve these cuts are grossly unfair:
How do you figure? In both Capitalism and Socialism elites decide how resources are distributed without consulting the peasants.
Voting is bread and circuses anyway. Your vote is meaningless.
Ok, mswas, what IS your solution to the Tragedy of the Commons problem? You’ve been quite energetic about disparaging any attempts by anybody to deal with it, but you haven’t proposed anything else. Do you really simply prefer to let the tragedy occur, in the cause of some nebulous “personal freedom” to MAKE it occur?
I don’t know if I have a solution, but I am not convinced of:
- Warming is apocalyptic and MUST BE SOLVED BY DRASTIC MEASURES!!! ZOMG!!!
or
- That heavy restrictions on first world industry will accomplish much, as carbon output in first world nations declines due to the adoption of alternative energy sources.
So at most I’d look into ways to accelerate the adoption of next-gen tech.
When you become willing to address the problem too instead of simply denouncing those who already are, let us know, okay?
Empty rhetoric, imo.
If everyone stopped using coal and oil immediately and could grow their own food maybe we’d have chance.
Instead we have 80% of the world’s population struggling to ape the 20% who consume most of the world’s energy. We are about to face an exponential decline the availability of oil compounded by an exponential rise in population clamoring for a middle-class lifestyle. China adds two coal-fired power plants a week.
Start moving inland.
Some worthwhile points here. I don’t know what will be the outcome of AGW – whether Chicken Little’s right or it’s just a mild shower from that fluffy white cloud there, or anything in between. So:
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I’m sick and tired of the people who convert it into a political issue. It’s a question of science, dammit, even if it means, O plutocrat, that your company’s production and sales are going to plummet. (That’s obviously an apostrophe to certain businessmen, not addressing Erek.)
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More research and study is needed, in particular ways to more accurately model it. Using the 150 years for which we have detailed weather information and writing models that would have, in 1880, more accurately predicted the weather of 1881-1900, might be a good first step.
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If, as a useful first cut, we take the IPCC data to suggest a rise of sea level on the order of a meter over the next dozen years, and that, on average, tropical storms will be more common and more severe (not that they will necessarily be a major problem in any one single year, but taken over the decade plus…), then we can begin to make some reasoned decisions about what to do about it. E.g., the below-sea-level parts of New Orleans, as they’re rebuilt, might well be required to be built like oceanfront homes on the Outer Banks, with an open carport/storage area between pillars at ground level and the house proper elevated ten feet or so above ground level by those pillars. Plan to lose low-lying shoreline and help the people who live there relocate. Improve hurricane response programs – hire ex-Boy Scouts who are prepared, not Brownies who aren’t. Things like that.
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Try to assign probabilities to the different scenarios. The ZOMG! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE one is fairly low But what’s the probability of multimeter sea level rise over the next century? We all can guess – but let’s not stay ignorant and guess, let’s try to get some probabilistic analysis addressing it. And that ought to include the zero-case scenario so beloved of the deniers – “It’s all coincidence, owing to natural solar cycles!” Don’t just pooh-pooh it – get some figures to support or refute it.
That’s what I’d see as practical. If the Netherlands needs to beef up their dikes, tropical storm danger zones need to be increased and more public education about storm response instituted, etc., then all well and good. But let’s find out – and begin work on the most-likely-needed-anyway issues while we’re finding out.
Polycarp
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All of the solutions I’ve heard of put a burden on first world industry. Which means what will happen is industry will just be further outsourced to the third world to no net benefit, hurting the first world economically. The idea that the first world should bear more of the burden simply shifts the problem around. But at the same time it’s unfair to hold the third world to first world standards. Thus: Focus on the acceleration of next-gen tech. If next-gen tech can be made cheaply enough then the third world can skip adoption levels and get into the game with a cleaner model.
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As far as I know even the Pro-AGW scientists predict that the sea levels will rise at 1" per year. That’s one meter in 39 years, assuming that the trend won’t experience any sort of levelling off or anything of that kind. People seem to just be assuming a linear progression that will get steadily worse. The models for predicting what proportion of the temperature change is man made and what is due to the other contributing factors seem to be all over the place. I’ve seen way too much conflicting data on this. As I understand it we have yet to surpass the Medieval Warm Period.
I’m glad we’re starting to understand our impact on our environment species wide, but I am not convinced that we understand it well enough to start ham-stringing the economy which could lead to mass starvation and economic stagnation. Nor am I convinced that we understand it well enough not to get some Mad Scientist Geo-Engineers funded so that they cause some massive catastrophe by going with some crazy counter-measure that’s an untested theory but doesn’t work out they way they expected it too. There’s a lot riding on this, and ‘oops’, will not be a welcome word.
Can you point to the mechanism that will stop the rise after 2100? While it is true we as individuals will not be here, countries will still be. And the latest reports on the rate of ice melting shows that we can not depend on the low end of the predictions.
Nope.
The mechanism is that the atmosphere eventually scrubs the CO2 out. If our rate of CO2 emission declines, eventually the atmospheric concentration will decline - sometime in the next 20-200 years. There is a still a very wide range of estimates on how long it takes CO2 to get sequestered permanently after it has been released into the atmosphere.
And I think it’s safe to say that it’s unlikely that we’ll be using fossil fuels for our power needs 100 years from now.
See, I have a problem with this kind of assertion. We’re talking about very long term trends here. If global warming is happening at the ‘best guess’ rate from the IPCC, then we’re talking about somewhere around .5 degrees per decade. That warming signal is completely swamped by short-term variation. In the case of Arctic ice, the 2007 summer melt was the deepest that had been recorded, and kicked off a whole lot of articles about horrific levels of ice loss. However, the 2008 and 2009 summers completely recovered. Short term variance.
When global warming skeptics point out that there has been very little warming in the last decade, the AGW crowd (rightly) points out that the short-term variance in climate can easily cause a 10 year flat or cooling trend even if substantial warming is happening. But then, if some effect happens that looks bad, like an apparent acceleration of ice melting, suddenly they have no problem whatsoever in blaming it on global warming.
If one assertion is false, so is the other. If you want to claim that November being the hottest month or arctic ice summer melt is the fault of global warming, then you can’t hand-wave away the fact that warming in the last decade was either nil or at least tracked way under what the models predicted.
As for the Medieval Warm Period - this is still in dispute, no matter what the people at RealClimate want to claim. Until the late 1990’s, it was assumed by the scientific community that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were global phenomenon. It was Mann’s hockey stick that was the outlier, and since then there have been several papers that attempted to show that the MWP and the LIA were local phenomena. But there is other evidence that this is not the case. So you don’t get to just dismiss this out of hand.