Scylla on Global Warming

Great Debates
1

There will be no cites here, those others may feel free to provide them. Much of what I have to is the result of long conversations of a good friend of mine who is currently appointed in a two year government environmental energy policy commission.

There goal is to come up with an energy policy since Bush/Cheney really don’t have one that could be articulated.

My friend is a liberal in the finest tradittion, a brilliant individual who has foregone personal gain to make the world a better place. He is a relentless seeker after truth, and always capable of putting himself in the shoes of selfish and self-motivated people, and finding what’s best in them.

I on the other hand am… Well, somewhat different. And, we’ve discussed these things over many beers and nevertheless remained great friends.

Over much time we’ve come up with some points that we’ve come to agreement on. Without any further ado, I’ll share these, and point out our remaining bones of contention.

One further aside: My friend knows what he’s talking about. Any innacuracies are surely my own.

  1. “Global Warming” is at best a misnomer, and at worst represents the dangerous ignorance that surrounds this phenomenom. As misnomer, and apt simile might be to describe a vehicular collision as “paint damaging.”

The earth heats and cools on its own. Within boundaries this is neither a startling nor ominous revelation, nor should the strong possibility that our actions as humans are contributing to this phenomenom be a cause of alarm.

It shows ignorance by the people pushing the alarm button on this issue, and it causes those who examine it to dismiss it.

After all, how bad is global warming?

The oceans may get higher over time, and we might not need a sweater in the fall. These are the implications of climate change. Of course, there are disasters and problems, and even severe ones to be contended with a rapid global climate change, but they are not insurmountable or horribly alarming.

Most people think it might be reasonable that we would be able to deal with rising waters (to a certain degree,) and that a change in temperature is also a consequence of ongoing modern life that does not present an unreasonable burden compared to the benefits of industry and progress. While these side effects are both severe and undesirable, they are ultimately livable.

This is why global warming is a poor name for the industrialization phenomenom. It doesn’t address the actual issue which is the buildup of greenhouse gasses, most specifically, carbon dioxide.

  1. While the measurements and effects of the warming environment are difficult to attribute and predict, there is no such ambiguity with the buildup of carbon dioxide that the earth is experiencing.

That the earth’s carbon dioxide levels are increasing is an indisputable fact confirmed by testing of air samples trapped in ice of known age.

The earth has not always been inhabitable, and there is no reason to suspect that it will always stay inhabitable no matter what we do.

The buildup in Carbon dioxide is attributable to the fact that industrial society’s burn stuff to do work and create release useful energy. Furthermore, the fact that what we often burn are the very plants that remove carbon dioxide from the air causes a short term acceleration of this increase.

  1. To date Western society has been responsible for the majority of industrial gases released into the atmosphere. However, this is not the problem. We have used industrialization and a growing technological base to advance to the point where we will be able to mitigate our effect on the environment by burning things cleaner, more efficiently, and eventually by deriving our power from other sources. Contrary to popular belief, automobiles are not the major issue in Western Society, they remain coal plants, "free burning, (which is people just burning stuff,) and the proliferation of inefficient two cycle engines of the type used in lawnmowers, leaf blowers, weed whackers, and such. Your average automobile is fairly efficient and clean compared to these. My friend and I both seem to agree that within the next 30-50 years western society will be able to pull itself up by the bootstraps, develop and use alternative energy sources that are “clean,” and continue to progress.

  2. The problem is that on a scale of privilege or industrialization, the bottom half of the world’s population is not in the same boat as western society. The bottom 2-3 billion people in the world’s population are going to want the benefits and privileges of industrial society, and to get it they are going to need to burn stuff.

Figures for how long oil are going to last are all across the board, and environmentalists have made a joke of predicting how long the supply will last, but the bottom line is that nevertheless it is finite, and likely to run out or become severely diminished within the next 50 years or so.

But, all across Asia, and specifically in India there is lots and lots of coal. Two billion Indians and Chinese are going to want to burn that coal to provide the energy needed to industrialize themselves.

They are apt to take it badly when Western Society informs them that it already burnt all the fossil fuels the earth is able to handle in order to industrialize itself and recieve the benefits of a modern technological society, and that therefore they should forgo the privilege for the common good.

So, when we talk about things like automobile pollution and living cleaner and more responsibly here in the US. that is a good thing. It’s a scratch, and it’s a scratch that needs tending, however it is not the dangerous wound. It is not the wound that is gushing blood.

The killer problem is and remains the industrialization of the third world. As they fuel their way to a better and modern society they will release catastrophic amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

  1. What happens here, when they do is a toughy. We know that we can burn our way to an unbreathable atmosphere absent any other effects, but there are other effects to consider.

Civilization may simply suffocate itself. That’s a possibility. Another reasonable possibility is that the proliferation of Carbon dioxide combined with things like acid rain, and the proliferation of nitrates is likely to create tremendous algae blooms.

The earth is full of buffer systems that maintain it in balance, and one of these is the algae bloom which may grant us a temporary reprieve from our atmospheric problems, but with it’s own consequences.

Algae proliferates in an aqueous environment rich in nitrates, sunlight, and carbon dioxide. Anybody with an aquarium by a window knows as much. Algae though can turn the seas and waters of the world upon which we depend for food into a desert, choking out all other life. On the surface of a body of water, it also slow evaporation. Less evaporation in the oceans means less rainfall. This translates into both a shortage of freshwater and the drying up our arable lands.

So, there is the possibility that we may be saved the death from suffocation by greenhouse gas, but at the cost of turning the land across the world into a desert.

If this eventually comes to pass; a world of diminishing food and potable water, it may be a self-correcting process. The bottom third to half of the world’s population may simply starve or die of thirst.

On the other hand it seems reasonable to think that they will seek to take the benefits of well-to-do Western society for their own, and we will face a class war unlike anything any Bolshevik ever imagined. The half of the population of the world that is starving and thirsty may simply try to take what there is from those who have it, i.e. Western Civilization.

No matter what happens it seems pretty clear that the future problem does not lie with Western society, but with the industrializing societies. Or rather that is the source of the problem. It is everybody’s problem.

One thing my friend and I are in total agreement about. No matter what happens, it is going to be very very hard on the bottom third to half of the world’s population.

  1. A solution to this problem of greenhouse gases, does not lie in what Western Society does or consumes, now, or in the future. Frugality is a good thing of course, and every little bit helps, but really, what we do is a mere blister compared to the sucking chest-wound of third world industrialization.

We should do better with what we use of course, but our primary focus needs to lie on the primary problem.

What will be putting the greenhouse gases into the air as we speak and through the forseeable future in such quantities as to make our efforts appear trivial is third world industrialization, and that is where our focus with the issue needs to be.

  1. In the final analysis, all the energy we use takes the Sun as its source, and that’s what we need to develop. We ourselves need to transition quickly to the next level and develop the use of hydrogen engines, hydrogen fuel cells for storage, and ultimately fusion power. We need to develop space and the asteroids, and get our energy sources off the earth. Our industrial population will continue to grow, and that consumption will have consequences on earth in terms of greenhouse gases and waste that we can ill afford.

  2. As we do this, we need to industrialize the third world at our own expense, and jump them to our new level as we attain it. If they try to do it themselves, by the same process we did, they’ll kill the earth in doing so.

  3. Hopefully we are on the cusp of this technological change in Western Society. In the end we can only hope. Either we are or we’re not. We really have no choice but to assume that we are. If we are not, we are like Leonardo Da Vinci making drawings of helicopters and flying machines centuries before their time, hopeless dreamers lacking the technology to actualize our dreams, and there is not a good end in sight.

Because their is no useful alternative to contemplate we must assume that we are, and that we will at the cusp ourselves, that within the next fifty years or so we can develop these energy sources.

That’s only half the battle though. With this assumption in mind, right now, the best thing that we can do is help the rest of the world industrialize and create the technological infrastructure necessary, so that they are with us and not one step behind, So that they don’t try to do it themselves. They need to be able to implement the technologies that we develop as we develop them. We cannot afford for China, India, Russia, and Africa to build their infrastructure on coal, oil (even if there’s enough for the purpose,) or any fossil fuel.

In other words, we have to pull them up, and share the wealth. The best way to do this of course is through a symbiotic relationship. It would be nice if we can get something out of this to, and those benefits may be labor, basic goods and services, trading partners, etc.

This brings us to the scary part, where my friend and I diverge, and it becomes a shouting match.

I see no other way to this path than through some kind of manifest destiny, where basically the entire world becomes westernized.

I see us industrializing the world and spreading the wealth through greed for Pokemon and Madonna CDs, some sort of capitalist crusade. My friend on the other hand beleives we should somehow be able to do it without destroying the cultures we must lift technologically into the 21st century.

I think it’s noble and worthy, but ultimately naive. This thing gets done by capitalism and self-interest, or it doesn’t get done at all. It fails.

At this point my friend feels betrayed. Here we’ve hashed out agreement for so long, identified these problems, shared these concerns, and now he feels that I’ve turned my back on him betrayed him his candor and honesty.

“But these problems were created by capitalistic western industrialization!” He cries out righteously.

“So why shouldn’t it solve them?” I reply. “What other force has the chance? Do you think we will simply share out of the kindness of our hearts and the willingness to promote the common good? Do you visualize some kind of global welfare program? What alternative do you provide?”

“It is asinine to assume that the status quo that got us into this will also just naturally get us out?”

“I agree.” I say. “It needs to accelerate. We need to export our culture, and the benefits of industrialized technology as we develop them. We really can’t do one without the other.”

I’m not sure what his answer is here because I’m not listening and neither is he. We’re just arguing at each other.

That’s where we were five years ago. That’s where we are now.

Thoughts?

2

The “Western Society” of 2002 is not the same “Western Society” that sent Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, Magellan, and others out to bother the inhabitants of other lands. It is also not the same “Western Society” that spurred Watt and his contemporaries to begin spewing things into the air.

There is no reason to assume that “Western Society” needs to recolonize the rest of the world in order to “lift them out of their poverty/ignorance/whatever.” Some modified forms of capitalism and a general movement toward representative government will probably be necessary to bring the undeveloped nations up to the levels of development where they can leap over the “dirty” technology, but there is no reason to assume that they will choose the “Western” expressions of those developments unless we impose them, ourselves. Holding up our gains as examples while letting them choose the specific paths will allow them to alter they own cultures in their own ways.

For example, despite its current gloom, Japan is not on the edge of a permanent decline. The Japanese retain a basically robust society. In many ways they have beaten “the West” at its own game on several occasions–but they surely retain their own culture.

The problem with the viewpoint of your friend is that he perceives any change to non-Western society as neocolonialism. It does not have to be.* Just as “Western Society” changed and reshaped itself to achieve its current status, other societies should be allowed the opportunity to change and reshape themselves. By insisting that we not “impose” our culture on others, your friend risks committing the opposite crime of forcibly restraining other cultures, imposing a time-freeze on those societies to prevent them from changing, thus changing them from living and dynamic cultures to large tourist villages. Such attitudes ignore the fact that if one studies the four hundred years of history prior to the arrival of the Europeans in each culture, one will find that they have already undergone many changes on their own–often cruelly or brutally.
*Obviously, there is a risk of neocolonialism. We practiced it in Iran, to our regret, and there have been periodic calls for a similar approach in Afghanistan. It is entirely possible that Afghanistan will do better for some period under a rule by collective clan leaders rather than by general elections and a federal form of government. Imposing a cloned U.S. (or German or Italian) Constitution on Afghanistan would be a neocolonial mistake. However, we can still encourage participatory government without demanding Western government.

3

Notwithstanding the political impacts, but have you considered global warming and the food chain?

  1. Which regions of the planet are primary food producers? Do you belive this will change with global warming?

  2. How will global warming affect growing seasons of land crops?

  3. Will any major food groups be adversely affected more than other food groups? For example, if global warming causes a major reduction in grain yields in current grain-producing countries, do you think this will have an adverse impact? Are there other food groups that will “pick up the slack” to feed everyone?

  4. What about fresh water resources?

I’m sure we can debate the socio-political aspects of global warning until the cows come home, but what about micro- and macro-climatic changes as they impact food production and fresh water? Last time I checked, political rhetoric does not fill hungry bellies.

4

Great OP here, Scylla. I can see that both you and your friend have done some great thinking here. I find myself agreeing with pretty much all of what you say, up until the end anyway.

Forgive me for pointing this out if you’ve already talked about it. I’m sure there are many related subjects you and he have already discussed and dealt with that you didn’t relate here, but as you were talking about Third World development I couldn’t help but think of John Kenneth Galbraith and his book The Affluent Society. Has this book entered your discussion at all? I think that much of what it has to say bears on your discussion… not necessarily directly on the issue of greenhouse gases and climate change, but more to the point of Third World development and the best model by which to accomplish it.

In The Affluent Society, Galbraith says something about how we’ve solved the problem of production through industrialization, but that doesn’t mean we (Western society) are finished developing. He suggests that industrialization is not the end-all, beat-all of how to get things done. I’m paraphrasing because I’m at work and don’t have the book with me, but perhaps you’ve read it and know what I’m talking about.

This interview with Galbraith might help. It seems to be on-point with what you were talking about, specifically here:

It seems to me that this addresses the environmental issue as well as many others – that we can’t expect to press Western culture and habits on other, less-developed cultures and expect their development to match ours. It also seems to me that “accelerating” their development to an even faster rate would only exacerbate the problem that already exists.

If the problem in less-developed industrialized nations is that they’ve tried to fit into our model too quickly, then wouldn’t speeding them up more simply make it even worse?

Then comes the issue raised in The Affluent Society, whether industrialized society is even appropriate as an ideal to be aspired to by other countries. Let’s not forget, we (“Western culture” again) had our own “gaping wound” period not so long ago. The explosive development of the late 1800’s and first half of the 1900’s was unfettered consumption, production, and pollution. It’s only in the last 30 years or so that we’ve become “responsible” about our actions and their effect on the world. Can the Earth really hold up under another, similar period of explosive growth from the Third World? That’s what we’re seeing now. It is the example we have set. Is this the example we want to set?

I suppose this puts me on the side of your friend, Scylla, because I think we can do better than making other cultures follow our flawed example of unfettered industrialization. In fact, I think to do so would be disastrous. Based on my reading of Galbraith (and others, but he was the first to come to mind), there should be a better way to encourage other countries to improve. Our example may have worked for us, but I don’t think that makes it ideal by any means.

Sorry if you and your friend had already discussed this angle in your debate. Consider it grist for the mill if that’s the case… just trying to offer an alternate perspective. Either way, I’d be interested to know what your thoughts (and his, if you think he’s amenable) are on the subject.

5

Just one comment:

It’s spelled “phenomenon.” It ends with an “n.” (Just ask John Travolta!)

6

Yet another reason why we really, really, really need to develop cheap solar power. The vast majority of our energy requirements – or the energy requirements of people living in 3rd-world countries – can be taken care of merely by tiling people’s rooftops with solar cells.

7

Scylla.

Regrading your point the seventh:

I agree that fusion would be a wonderful thing for us to achieve and would make things much cleaner. But I have a question about hydrogen fuel cells that I wonder if you and your friend ever talked about this issue.

The question is this: If we converted all the cars and power plants in the world to fuel cells and the fuel cells were more effecient than oil or other sources of power, what would the impact of the fuel cells be? The reason I ask is that a whole lot of people point to hydrogen fuel cells as the Holy Grail of tech that would make energy cheap and clean. At the same time no one seems to think about what pumping all that water into the environment, the byproduct of fuel cells, would do.

My first thought is that it wouldn’t matter all that much because I believe that the CO2 and other man made emissions are not harming the earth in any big way. I think that the earth, overall, will regulate itself. (Specific accidents and man made messes like Exxon Valdes aside) Assuming that I am wrong and that the emissions of us humans does impact the environment in a big way it seems to me that pumping a bunch of water into the air could be just as damaging as any other emission. The reasoning runs along the lines of this; more water in the air increases humidity which will increase the cloud cover which will block sunlight which will lower the earths overall temp leading to global cooling.

Now I know my little thought experiment is simplistic. At the same time no one, at least that I have read about, seems to think about the possible outcome of various global warming fixes. If anyone has any info about this area I would love to hear it.

Slee

8

Tomndeb:

You did a better job of articulating my friend’s point of view than I did. Sheesh. You don’t even know the guy. Anyway, I’m more of the mind that our culture will ultimately be exported as a consequence of industrialization, and he maintains there’s a method for doing it that allows the different cultures to maintain their cultural integrity.

Japan is a tough example, because while they’ve maintained elements of their own culture they have imported a tremendous amount of Western culture. I’ve been to Japan, and I feel very at home culturally other than language. They’ve become more like us than you think, and apparently (though I wouldn’t know,) bear little resemblance to the pre-WWII culture.

Who knows? I think it’d be nice, but I just see cultural influence as inevitable.

Duckster:

Again, the issue isn’t global warming. There’s little you can predict about the effects usefully other than rising sea levels. It’s reasonable to think that as the climate changes some areas will become less arable, but others more arable. What the net effect is anybody’s guess, but it seems to be livable if not desirable.

The real issue that effects survivablility is carbon dioxide levels which seem to be increasing exponentially.

Avalonian:

I have not read the book. Perhaps I will. You make it sound interesting.

Sleestak:

Fuel cells come in two flavors, those with a reformer and those without. Those without we can generally consider as batteries whose net effect on the environment is zilch.

The easiest way to get hydrogen is to run a current through water. This produces hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is stored either as a pressured gas, or in a metal hydride, and the oxygen is released into the atmosphere. When the fuel cell needs to produce power it takes the stored hydrogen and combines it with oxygen from the atmosphere. So, in the storage phase water is taken out of the environment, and the power phase it is put back in. This is basically a way of storing power generated by other means.

The kind with a reformer uses methane or perhaps even gasoline, and removes the hydrogen from it to combine with atmospheric oxygen to produce power, adding net water to the system. Additionally such a system generally also produces Co2 as a byproduct which if not recaptured is added to the atmosphere. It’s still a much much preferable system to burning fuel as the efficiency is very high comparativel speaking.

The addition of water though is not seen as particularly meaningful or problematic, though who knows?

9

sleestak:

I will attempt an answer to your question that is more along the lines of an educated guess. First, I think that the amount of water vapor in the air is a lot higher than that for CO2 and some of the other greenhouse gases so the human contribution is probably less. Probably more important is the issue of timescales…There are huge amounts of water being cycled in and out of the atmosphere so that the equilibration rates are quite fast. For CO2, I believe it is much slower. So, our contribution to the cycle is building up in the atmosphere for CO2 but not for water. [In fact, my impression is that if we stopped emitting CO2 into the atmosphere today (and neglecting land use contributions for simplicity) that the atmospheric levels would be expected to eventually return to their pre-industrial values. The problem is with the word “eventually”…I believe that the time scales are on the order of something like a thousand years. For water, the equilibration timescales are simply much faster.]

By the way, I think plenty of our industrial processes already emit water vapor into the atmosphere and our land use presumably also effects the amount of evaporation, etc. I think there are believed to be measurable effects of this but on more local levels (both in space and time).

10

For a really opposed school of thought on Global Warming, you can’t do much better than “The Carbonist Manifesto” (archived at http://www.phact.org/e/z/carbonism.txt).

The basic idea behind the author’s notion of “carbonism” is that dumping lots of extra CO[sub]2[/sub] into the atmosphere and causing lots of global warming is, in the long run, good for the biosphere.