What are the odds of the us successfully combating climate change?
April 12th, 2010 | 
Author: For the record, I believe in AGW.
I have no faith that humanity will be able to combat it because of who we actually are.
Have there been any studies on the odds of actually succeeding in combating climate change?
Are people wanting me to throw all my money on a horse that’s likely to finish in last place?
Well, at least one guy with multiple profiles answered this one twice, possibly three times.
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"about the same as everyone in the world joining hands and singing kumbaiah"
That actually happened in 1968.
We know how to combat climate change with present-day technology. The engineering has been worked out. We don’t know if we have passed any significant tipping points in the climate that would prevent us from completely reversing the effects we’ve already created. We do know that the longer we wait to do something, the more likely that will pass such tipping points.
Success now doesn’t depend on science or engineering, it depends on politics and law to implement the necessary changes. Since the governments of the world are engaged in competing ideologies when they aren’t catering to the sectors of their economies with the most clout, the odds look pretty bad.
On the other hand, if we don’t deal with the problem, it is going to cost us an awesome amount of money. In the face of that fact, trying to implement something to combat the problem seems like a pretty good idea.
edit Wassamatta Starbuck, feeling the mosquito bites?
Well humans have absolutely no way to combat climate change in any way, shape or form. Its the sun that controls out climate and says will it be cold or hot and we people that live on this world have no way to do anything about it. For 300 years almost since 1720 the sun has warmed the world out of the little ice age to reasonably decent and comfortable temperatures. Not as hot as the last 3 or 4 times I grant you but comfortable. But now the sun has gone into the lowest minimum ever recorded and the world is now receiving less heat than it needs to maintain a comfortable climate. The 300 years of heat stored in the worlds oceans will help keep us from cooling off to fast, but in not to many years we will reach first Dalton minimum temperatures and then if the sun stays quiet Maunder Minimum temps. From there we will know if we are heading down into a full ice age or if we have one or two small warm spells available before the next ice age cycle. The worlds biggest problem today is liberals who should be farm workers playing at being climate scientists and royally screwing things up.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/12/another-parallel-with-the-maunder-minimum/
http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/lisa3/beckmanj.html
http://www.deadfishwrapper.com/fish_wrapper_wont_publish_global_cooling_study
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTlhOTNiOWFlMmMzNmJkOWM3ZTk5NWJkNTU2Nzk5NWI=
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/nasa-study-shows-sun-responsible-for-planet-warming/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volumetric_heat_capacity
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle
http://www.c3headlines.com/climate-change-non-co2-causes/
http://green-agenda.com/globalrevolution.html
Close to zero. Glaciers will eventually cover much of Canada, United States and Norther Europe. There is nothing we can do to stop it. Since you have been sold on AGW, at the current rate of CO2 increase and the inflated sensitivity used by the current scientific activists, to forestall a new ice age it would take us about 8000 years to put enough CO2 into the atmosphere.
The people currently running the publicity campaign do want control of you, the easiest way to do that is by controlling (taxing) your money.
1000/1 -or did you want to see the tote?
about the same as everyone in the world joining hands and singing kumbaiah
There is no global warming just Gov. hype and BullSh*t wanting your money which will be
little more than legalized extortion.If it were true they couldn’t do anything about it.
One thing that would help would be to stop cutting down all the Forest.
The odds are small at this point, but if we give up, we’re toast. I’d rather live humbly for something I believe in, regardless of the apth of humanity. Every revolution starts with one person faithful to the heart.
If we learn to control the output of the sun than I say we may.
No chance at all, climate change is driven almost exclusively by solar activity!
I think the odds are pretty much zero.
But let’s simplify your question a bit. What do you think the odds are that we could successfully reduce CO2 emissions, even if the majority of people around the world thought that it was driving climate change.
Since the world economy is so heavily tied to burning fossil fuels, I suspect there would still be very little chance that we could reduce CO2 emissions in a meaningful way.
You can start by commanding the Ocean , Mountains and wild animals.
My god, did you read Virtual idiots answer below? This person is a radical nutcase of the massive kind. Any rational person should read and study his answer and think for yourself who the person is that wrote it. This person has some major psychological problems and if he is allowed he may and his ilk destroy this world and its people.
I akin him to some of the most evil people in history. Beware folks.
With an ever increasing population something will eventually happen.
Not good… but we have to try something. And apathy isn’t it.
I’m not sure anyone has ever tried to calculate the odds of us combatting climate change, if they were to do so then I am pretty sure they would be long odds.
I gues also it depends on what would be considered a success.
If the target were to be to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions to a naturally sustainable level then the odds are practically zero. Natural processes can absorb 4 billion tons of CO2e* per year, in 2008 we produced 42 billion tons of CO2e. We’d need a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in excess of 90% of our current levels, unless we go back to living in the Dark Ages we can’t possibly do this. Further, we’d have to start a cull of the human population. By the year 2021 the population of the planet will be such that our very existence will overload natural sequestration levels.
Given that it’s all but impossible to rely on a natural solution I beleive we have no alternative other than to turn to science and technology. To this end there are a number of schemes in various stages from concept to full evaluation that are looking at ways of either a) removing greenhouse gases from the atmopshere or b) reducing the effects of the Sun. Collectively such schemes are often referred to as geoengineering.
If (and it’s a big if) we do turn to a technological solution then yes, it is quite feasible that we will combat climate change. We won’t cut our emissions completely but at least we’ll be able to do something about them.
My own feeling on this issue is that we need to reduce emissions wherever practical and economically prudent to do so whilst at the same time developing a fully controllable and safe system for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
* CO2e is greenhouse gases measured as their CO2 equivalence