Space? No: Stratosphere!

Reading articles about space tourism, there are a couple of terms that are thrown around – more as marketing slogans than for anything else. "Near space", "upper atmosphere" and "high altitude", just to name a few. But what do they usually mean? I would like to attempt to put them into perspective, so that we can see them for what they really are.

First of all, space (meaning "outer space"):

Where space begins is a matter of definition. The usual definition is everything not within the earth’s atmosphere. Of course we could get particular and exclude the surface and atmospheres of other planets, but from our perspective from "down here", we usually just throw the other planets and celestial objects into the grab bag of "space". This will probably start changing once it’s normal for people to be flying around up there and once leaving space for them means to stop off on any old planet/settlement, not only earth.

At any rate, leaving the earth’s surface might be the start to a journey into space, but the journey is only completed once the earth’s atmosphere is left. This means that we first of all need to define the term "atmosphere". Generally speaking, this is "where there’s air". The only problem is that this is quite a gradual condition, so that we have to then define how much air we’re talking about.

For practical purposes, a consensus in the scientific community has been built at around the 100-kilometer mark. Or, English, 60 miles. But since scientists don’t use miles, we’ll keep to the metric system. The only problem is that this "break" is in a part of the atmosphere called the ionosphere. There is an ionic atmosphere (atoms and electrons stripped of their connection) both above and below this point, it just decreases as one moves farther and farther away from earth’s surface. A satellite orbiting at 110km will fall from that position within days, simply because there is too much friction, too much air floating around. Even at 300km, for instance, a satellite will gradually experience too much drag to stay up there forever.

Meaning, most space junk will take care of itself within years, perhaps decades – simply because there’s "stray" atmosphere up there!

Of course, you have to draw the line somewhere, so I really have no problem with the 100-kilometer mark.

Now – back to the marketing. If you look up high-altitude flight, you’ll sooner or later realize that they’re talking about anything which flies above international airliners, meaning above 12,000 meters. High-altitude flight, however, doesn’t even reach up to 20,000m, or only a fifth of the way up in the official atmosphere and only a bit more than twice as high up as Mt. Everest. I mean, I agree that this is not exactly "low altitude", but do you really want to call it high? It’s true that we don’t have jet engines that can fly in the thin air up there. NASA is, of course, working on Ram- and Scram-Jets to compress the air a bunch before it’s used for ignition.

Then, of course, there’s near space. This usually means reaching levels even higher than "high-altitude" – anything between 20km to 100km, or 4/5ths of the height of the official atmosphere!

Now I’m not going to say that there isn’t a reason for this. For someone hovering around in "near space", it’s hardly any different from outer space. The view is similar and one certainly needs a space suit to stay alive. Gravity, on the other hand, is like being on the earth’s surface – for only when one is in orbit is there weightlessness. Just to demonstrate the similarity of the stratosphere and of space, here is a picture:

 

So, which is it? Space, or the stratosphere? The only give away is that (at least in this non-panorama view) there is no curvature on the horizon. This picture was, as far as I know, below 30,000 meters altitude, or around three times as high as Mt. Everest. I would not mind looking out of my capsule window at this view and at the stars (which you can’t see in this picture), that you can see even in the middle of the day.

Now, how about the real thing:

 

 

There you go. Recognize the curvature? The same clouds, but less atmosphere on the horizon? I'll admit that the resolution is much higher for the second picture.. But if you didn’t put the two pictures side by side, you could think of both of these as space, right? In this picture you can’t see the stars either, even though this is the view that one would have from the orbit of the Hubble Telescope – meaning that here there is absolutely nothing between you and the stars.

And there’s another difference. When looking down from the vantage in the first picture, the ground doesn’t change – meaning you’re not moving. Of course there’s day and night, cloudy and clear weather, but the landmarks remain the same. In the second picture, you can see the same spot on the ground every hour and a half. In the first picture there is absolutely no motion while in the second one, the surface of the earth speeds by at 36,000km/h!

Now, if you really want to go to near-space, you would at least have to go above the ozone layer, at about 33 kilometers, where ultra-violet light is filtered out. You would be, however, still "only" in the middle of the stratosphere. A purist, on the other hand, would have to go up twice that high, into the middle of the mesosphere – or, "middle sphere" - meaning, the sphere between earth and space. Well, actually, between atmosphere and exosphere, that awful thing that puts drag on our orbitting satellites.

At the top of the mesosphere (or even in the middle of it), for all intents and purposes, you really are at the "edge of space", but only if you don’t listen to the marketing. For them, the edge is in the lower stratosphere, at least 50km lower.

Now, I know this might be a bit tedious, but it does help sometimes to differentiate!

The Next Layer of Air

Walking up to the top of Mt. Everest, one would find that the air is not only thin, but that it's technically too thin for most humans to breathe in. Good that it's not another 500 meters higher, otherwise it would really not be possible without oxygen.

At the same time, air pressure there is three times as high as on the Martian surface, meaning that it's still relatively thick for a rocky planet.

Twice as high as Mt. Everest, however, is where the real fun begins. For that's about where what we know as the troposphere ends. Above it, there is no life, no weather (wind, snow or rain), no moisture, no clouds - only very cold, very thin air. Welcome to the stratosphere.

If you book a "near space" flight, this is where it will take you.

But if you think that this no longer constitutes an atmosphere, then you are highly mistaken. Compared to space, this is even a "thick" atmosphere - of course all such matters being relative. While the Stratosphere reaches from about 18km (at the equator) to 50km, this is not even the layer of air in which space dust/particles burn up as what we know as "falling stars". That's the next layer, the Mesosphere (meaning "middle orb"), where everything from outer space either burns up because of the friction the air here causes or is slowed down enough that it can usually make it to the earth's surface as a meteor. This is where the space shuttle blew apart on re-entry.

No, the Stratosphere is so thick that it even stops light from reaching earth's surface. Well, not much light, but enough to make it safe for us to run around outside. Right in the middle of the Stratosphere is the ozone layer, which stops a good bit of the high-powered ultraviolet light from the sun, turning it into low-powered infrared light - what we usually just call heat. Or at least warmth.

And surprise! At the top of the Stratosphere, it's warmer than on top of Mt. Everest!

And warmer than many a cold winter's day here in the temperate zones on the surface. But don't worry, water would not freeze or even turn to liquid up there because the air is quite thin (again, relatively speaking in relationship to the earth's surface), and because there's no water in the air anyway.

So what we find is really a world between worlds - absolutely nothing going on. The first satellites (and space junk) are flying by at about 100 Kilometers higher, at 10km/s by the way. Ten Kilometers per Second! 36,000 Kilometers per Hour! But if those satellites have to stay at that low orbit for very long, they will slow down quickly, because of atmospheric drag, and soon fall back out of orbit, burning up / breaking apart in the Mesosphere before traversing through the Strato- and Troposphere on their way to the surface.

If we put a floating object in the atmosphere, it would not move. Relative to the earth's surface it would stay in one spot, except for gradual drift resulting from the fact that the earth rotates. Other than that, the object would not even need to be tethered to the earth's surface. That means that an object put above Timbuktu would stay above Timbuktu, needing only occasional adjustments because the earth spins.

Nothing moving, nothing around, no space junk, acceptable temperatures, thin air. The latter point can be solved only with a space suit or a pressurized capsule. Is it any wonder that I think the stratosphere should be our first goal, long before we try populating space?

Stratosphere First!

I haven't posted for a while, probably because I've been concentrating on too many things at once. Connecting now to a number of posts I did almost a year ago, I think I've gotten "stuck" on a subject that I will be on for a good a while. The pieces have now come together and I've caught a grand vision..

Stratosphere First

On our way into space we forgot one incredibly important stop: Our own atmosphere.

Our atmosphere is viewed as something to get through on the way to somewhere else. We fly through it when we go continent hopping, for instance. And although it protects us from much of space's junk in the form of meteors, we only want to get through it on our way to low-earth orbit (above ca. 150km). We see the atmosphere more as the drag that it is for these satellites than as a resource for human settlement - except, of course, in the form of cartoons like the Jetsons.

Now, there are many places on and around the earth that could be colonized - the oceans, under the ocean, high mountains, underground, deep underground, Antarctica, low-earth orbit etc.. There is one "area", however, which should be the focus of all earth and space lovers: The Stratosphere.

For a Space Lover, the Stratosphere is like a different planet - one that you would love to land on but have no suitable surface to do so. What to do? Either stay in orbit and make no direct contact with the planet or drop down into the atmosphere and set up shop. There is usable air, although it is even less than on the Martian surface, but it can be compressed, filtered and be used. Admittedly, there's almost no water that can be used. But otherwise, in the case of the earth's stratosphere, the air doesn't even need to be filtered! Except for extracting the ozone in the ozone layer.

Of course you need a space suit from the lack of air pressure, if you want to go for a "walk". Only, since you're not in orbit, you better be tied on well - or have a good parachute - just in case you slip over the side. Gravity is about the same up there as it is on the surface of the earth.

Besides, isn't it a thousand times cheaper being only 20-50km away from your supplies than thousands to billions of kilometers? Getting to and fro might be a challenge (being above where normal airplanes fly), but it's nothing like trying to supply the ISS. And underneath the ozone layer (ca. 31-34km), at least, one is protected from much of the ultraviolet radiation that the sun is throwing at us permanently.

The view is great: The sky is black so that you can go stargazing even during the day. 99% of the atmosphere is below you, so there's hardly any air to reflect all the sun's light racing by to the earth's surface. When looking down, one sees the earth as a foreign object. It covers half your view - but what curves!

For the Earth Lover: Yes, this is part of the Blue Planet. Everything that's blue (and white, if it's a cloudy day) is below you. Sunlight is a bit stronger here and there are no clouds to get in the way of your solar panels. And, since there is absolutely no wind, while the air (what little there is) is dry as a bone, thin solar can become a hard reality. There is absolutely no weather to disturb solar collection. Here you can build your house of cards as if you were inside and not have to worry about the slightest wisp of wind to knock it over. This means that after a surface has been built to lay them on, the panels, which can be built as thin as aluminum foil on a stiff sheet of plastic, only need to be laid out. They could look like stiff, blackish cold-cut packaging lying around and don't even need to be tied down!
And why not just use all that excess energy to make a bit of ozone to help out the earth rebuild what aerosols took away? This could certainly be a goal especially for the (southern) Australian inhabitants.

Here you likewise have the unique opportunity to combat global warming. Just by your very presence you would be blocking some of the sunlight which is about ready to hit the greenhouse below. Stretching out a thin, dark film (collecting energy?) would catch the sunlight pounding on the earth below. My prediction is that the global warming war will be won or lost in the stratosphere.

Besides, there's an enormous amount of research which needs to be done there: Hubble-like telescopes (meaning they are hardly disturbed by the atmosphere), weather observation, other earth observation, experiments with high altitude flight, etc..

Do you think we'll be able to keep the military away from this?

So whether you are a dreamer or a practical person, the stratosphere has something to offer everyone. It will change the way we think about "getting off the ground", building an important intermediate step before trying to colonize the solar system.

As one can see, I'm convinced. Now, who is going to join up to boldly go where no man has lived before?

The Problem with Malthus

The human population explosion of the past two and a half centuries (which has begun a dramatic wind-down) has given many people a stick to shake or at least plenty of food for thought. And beginning at about in the same timeframe as the population explosion, people have warned that we're not going to have enough food to feed us all. The father of this school of thought, Thomas Malthus, basically said that the way populations are growing, it won't take long for population to outpace food production - because there is only so much land that can be put under the plow.

Now, I've heard arguments today that sound quite similar to Malthus's from over 200 years ago, and I've heard critiques of these and of Malthus himself – and it seems to me that both sides seem to be missing something essential. Besides, most of what both sides say is just putting words into Malthus’s mouth as a straw man for the other side’s argument.

The first thing to deal with is: How could Malthus been so wrong in the first place? For his argument seemed so logical.

Let me start my comments about today's cornucopians, on the one side, and the over-population fanatics, on the other, by looking at what went wrong with Malthus. For he saw around him a development which he considered unsustainable: For every funeral he had (he was an Anglican cleric), he had 6 baptisms. (If I went by these statistics today in Germany, the relationship wouldn't exactly be turned around, but there are starting to be more deaths than births in a great number of populous countries.)

Now, what strikes me most, is that Malthus was not interested in explaining the phenomenon that he observed around him but rather to discover a general pattern behind it and to find out where it would usually end. Now, he makes an assumption that might be the reason why he has so many critics today: He assumes that it is normal to have more births than deaths; and that famine, plague and war reduce these population surpluses in due time – meaning, if people were left to themselves. With this assumption, he goes on to explain the mechanics to how an uncontrolled (exponential) population progression works: There can be an (incrementally increasing) economic/nutritional surplus for a good while, but sooner or later, the population will be checked back to the carrying capacity of the land.

Now, instead of accepting the checks that would naturally occur once the situation got out of hand, Malthus made a plea that birthrates should be controlled. It is exactly this plea that most of the developed world has fulfilled this plea and has adopted it as its own.

But why did he make the plea at all? Because he saw that the people who were having most of the babies were quite poor, infesting the city with more poverty.

In that sense, the goal of his essays was to help get rid of much of the poor and of the situation that promotes poverty. For if fewer people were born, more of them would be able to be absorbed into the workforce, escaping poverty. At the same time, if there is a smaller pool of poor people outside the workforce, wages will rise, making the workers more valuable while decreasing poverty dramatically. Of course, some poor are always there, he said. But the reason so many of them were around was a result of the great surplus in the food supply that existed at the time.

So we see that Malthus was more interested in physio-economic processes than in any “collapse” or impending famine that would necessarily (eventually) result from such a continued development.

At the same time, he (like most of the economists at the time who were looking for generally applicable models) failed to see the deeper reality of what was going on around him. Now, what I am proposing would have helped him (at least for his historical inheritance) is for most of us quite risky anyway. For basically he should have looked to see if the observed phenomenon of his environment fit the pattern that he saw repeating itself throughout history, or if the situation was a new one, saying "This time it's different".

Well, anyone who has considered economic movements, especially bubbles on the stock market, for instance, knows that claiming that it’s different this time around is almost a sure sign for being wrong. Prices/valuations only grow to the heavens when they are in a bubble which sooner or later will burst. And Malthus, of course, assumed that this time around was not really different than the other times in history – although it was mostly because that was not his primary question or concern.

Well, it was different that time. It was not only the early years of the Industrial Revolution – which is common knowledge nowadays – but there were a number of other elements which made that era in history different than any other:

1. Agricultural production per acre had been rising for a good century, especially in Great Britain, so that many more people could be fed and a much smaller portion of the population needed to work in the fields (by that time less than 50%!)
2. Transportation (later becoming part of the industrial revolution with the railroads) infrastructure was being greatly extended, so that food, and of course other production surpluses, could be more easily brought to food-hungry regions and urban populations
3. General hygiene and medicine practices were improving, so that especially infant mortality was beginning to fall dramatically
4. War had become the sole domain of the state – piracy and hoarding bands (especially from the Russian Steppe) were removed, allowing for greater prosperity

In short, what Malthus was seeing was the beginnings of a brand new trend. The old rules were not completely being replaced but rather being placed in a new framework and – until the limits of the new system were found – out of effect for a while. It's as if an isolated island country were to discover a new, empty continent and then try to say that things would return to the old limits quite soon – once the extra deer there were hunted off, for instance. But a continent has much more than just deer, and that continent will not just disappear. In the case under study here, industrialization was adopting new methods while fossil fuels, the real source of our new wealth, were just beginning to be exploited at all. Since then, the per capita amount of energy being used has grown about 100 times. Back then, one man rode a horse, e.g. which is exactly one horsepower. Nowadays one would drive a car – which usually has at least 100 horsepower.

In short, we can say that humanity, starting with Great Britain/ Northwestern Europe, was certainly moving into uncharted waters. For this was not the periodic (and in the long run, gradual) growth which Malthus assumed to be taking place. We were not simply populating a few new empty territories, as the Portuguese had done, for instance, four centuries earlier when they discovered the mid-Atlantic islands, increasing population capacity incrementally. No, with the new industrial methods and the new energy resources, we were able to multiply the amount of energy put to our personal use in comparison to before the Industrial Revolution.

So what does that mean for us today? Calling on Malthus’s ghost in and of itself usually doesn’t help for either side. For, was he generally right but only 2 centuries early in calling on natural population checks? World population has grown almost ten times since he began writing and will probable increase another 50% until we’re done. And are we in the process of finding the new limits to the world system which Malthus couldn’t even guess existed? Or, as his model would suggest, are we in a severe overshoot which is only waiting for the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse to rear their ugly heads?

Of course there is the opposite view, that it is futile to try to find limits in a world that doesn’t actually know any. This view works against most of history – in the long run! – where two steps forward are usually followed by one step backwards and sometimes is followed by two or more backwards, but not usually. At the same time, we can generally agree that homo sapiens is the one species that has continued to push all “natural” limits into some distant future: The energy of sunlight was replaced (supplemented) by fire, natural selection by breeding, scavenging by agriculture, bodily abilities by tools, direct communication by speech, by writing, by recording, by databanks etc., etc..

Water is not a barrier, heights and depths are reachable, hot and cold can be breached, and we’ve been experimenting with airless environments for the past 50 years. The five continents are becoming “boring”, so that we’ve even invented a brand new continent: cyberspace. At the same time, the limits we seem to be reaching right now are of elementary/chemical nature: Phosphorus, potassium, helium, rare earths, oil and fresh water.

Malthus himself was not worried about any definite limits. His opinion was that there are limits but that we cannot really know where they are. Rather, we should control population without worrying about the limits – and by doing so controlling poverty. It sounds like the path that China took fifty years ago and that most of the West and Japan have been on since at least the 1970s with the adoption of the use of the pill, while some have been on it (e.g. France and then Germany) for over a century as their populations have stabilized and are even beginning to drop.

Well, some days I think we’re in a Malthusian “trap” as the peak-oilists, the environmentalists and the population fanatics believe. And sometimes I’m sure we’re moving onto another brand new continent, into a new paradigm as the cornucopians, the singularists and most economists assume. There is most certainly evidence for both: On the one side limits in the amount of primary energy being produced (and with esp. oil production beginning a long fall in production) and on the other side methods which have the promise of transforming our intensely energy- and transportation-based paradigm into something new. Digitalization has made some transport simply redundant.

These are the two elements that have and will continue to be discussed ad naseum by their respective proponents, both calling on Malthus’s ghost.

Global Warming - No Home for Me

Up til now, I've mostly avoided the issue of global warming, simply because I don't seem to have a view that can be swallowed by most people. And recently I discovered an insightful article that suggests where the discrepancy lies. Basically it discusses the concept that the discussion on climate change is a social/political discussion instead of one concerned with science and process modeling. Quite often, the science is instead used as an alibi to promote and reinforce one’s existing political positions and social attitudes.

Attempting to categorize the social/political relationship of people to the subject of climate change, the article differentiates into 6 different categories.

And you know what? I don't fit into any of them!!

I am neither on the "left" nor on the "right" of the scale. But I'm hardly in the middle either. Actually, it would surprise me if there were many people who would claim to fit right into one of the categories. And like most poll-related statistics, the answers that we give depend on the questions.

Nonetheless, here is the linear scale that the author presents:

The Progression of six categories in the climate change debate. For a description of the positions, click to this graphic: Six Americans.

So what are my views in comparison to the above?

First of all, I can most certainly imagine that burning fossil fuels has raised carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere. The measurements are clear that CO₂ content is rising. I can also imagine that this is causing more heat to be trapped on the earth's surface, creating a type of "greenhouse" effect, as the phenomenon is being advertised. And rising global temperatures will most certainly change overall weather patterns, evaporating more water from the oceans' surfaces into the lower atmosphere. Climate patterns will most certainly develop accordingly, creating draught for instance on the US's central plains while causing more precipitation and more extreme weather/storms elsewhere.

Now, so far, with these tendentially "certain" views, I would fit into the author's categories of either being an "alarmed" or a "concerned" citizen, meaning I'm pretty far to the left. The others in these two categories, when they talk to me, certainly wouldn't count me as being one of their own. To the "doubtful" or "dismissive" (meaning, to the far "right"), on the other hand, I would appear to be on that far "left" side.

And what about the two categories in the middle? The "cautious", for instance, are "somewhat convinced" of the science of climate change but their "belief is relatively weak", so that they could easily change their minds.

Of course, for me, if climatologists were to show that carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) does not have as much effect on surface temperatures that we have taken as established the past 25 years, then I wouldn't have much of a problem with the evidence either. I have no horse in the race regarding global warming and am not playing politics with the issue - at least not in the assumed way.

I don't think, however, that we need to worry about the scientific community changing the general consensus anytime soon. For, as it stands, recent events (those in the laboratory called "earth") are cementing this consensus and confirming that the modeling has been pretty much correct so far (drought in the US, methane plumes in Siberia, smallest ice cover over the Artic for millennia – or at least since the warm High Middle Ages).

So why should anyone try to dismiss the science as not being "proven"?

And slowly we are getting to the author's actual issue, that the debate on global warming is not a debate in the realm of climate scientology but on the level of social science. Only, the author is trying to deal with a different phenomenon: How can very smart people on the Right deny the "proven" scientific consensus on global warming? And rightly, he says in the paper itself that it really has nothing to do with the science in and of itself.

This is the reason I was amazed at the six categories that the author constructed, for they have to do with how one believes in the science of global warming - except in the extreme positions. In the social sciences, the question is a completely different one: What are the morals concerning the climate and environment and what should our political consequences be regarding these?

And this is where the linear categories proposed by the author hardly help anyone, which appear to me to be different than the text of what he's saying. For what makes a difference how convinced I am of the science if I don't agree on what the meaning and moral of the science is and of what should be done about it?

Therefore, I would suggest putting a y-axis onto the graph which at least attempts categorizing us, the constituents, by how we interpret the science. Because then, not only I myself would find a spot - and I might just find out that a (probably even double-digit) number of people think like I do.

So here's my proposal for the graph:

The x-axis deals with the science, going from -2 to +2.

 



The X-axis considers one's relationship to the science of climate change. -2 is completely convince while 2 is convinced that the science of climatology is not correct.

On the far left are those who think that the science cannot be doubted and that human activity and CO₂ emissions are by far the strongest component in driving global warming.

In the middle are those who think there is probably some correlation to observed warming and CO₂ emissions, although there should be a good element of doubt involved. The scientific community's systemic doubt (scientific doubt) is also interpreted as real uncertainty to the events surrounding and causes of climate dynamics.

And on the far right are those that either think that the science of global warming is wrong, hype invented by the environmentalist (if not directly an academic/green conspiracy aimed against industry in general), and that the correlation between CO₂ and global temperatures is most certainly accidental. For in the past 2.7 million years there have been periods that have measured up to 6°C higher temperatures (interglacials) without human activity, so probably sun activity and cosmic radiation has more influence on temperature than any million parts of a common atmospheric gas – which historically has followed the temperature curve anyway, instead of leading it.

Now, if you look at this first axis, it would seem that the global warming debate is already summed up. But, like the author likewise points out, there is a whole other level to the discussion: What should we do about it, who should have the say about it, what relationship do we have to the scientific community and what does it mean for us locally and for the globe? Usually we can call this the political side of the discussion, while the author calls it the sociological debate.

For myself, like I've already indicated, the science of global warming is mostly clear cut. At the same time, I think that for political reasons from much of the scientific community, which does not want to sow doubt of the importance of "greenhouse" science (let's not confuse anyone by including the 18,000 other components which have an influence on climate!), such phenomena as cosmic rays and other cloud seeders are very underplayed. But this seems quite human: If you have a message, keep it very, very simple. Otherwise, nobody will understand what you're trying to convey. With these caveats, I would not place myself all the way to the left but pretty far: -1/-1.5 when only concerning the science involved.

At the same time, I would place myself on a political scale pretty right of center - meaning I usually disagree with greens and leftists who are calling for strong government action - not that I necessarily agree with the Right's conclusions, but they are much closer to my own sensibilities.

I most certainly see a much different future than is painted by those on the Left in regards to global warming.

For I think that the results of humanity's handiwork could only possibly be calculated into the future, as the ICPP is trying to do, IF we keep living the way we have up to now. IF we only extrapolate the present into the future, the scenarios could certainly come to pass. And, of course, the next 50 years have probably already been determined by our relationship to and actions regarding fossil fuels during the past 50 years. The problem is, I really don't think carbon dioxide will be our problem in 50 years! By then we could just as well be worrying about global cooling! Well, not quite so soon, but perhaps in 100 years..

Just think - the scenarios assume that humanity will continue burning just as much or more fossil fuels as we are now. But what about fossil fuel restraints? Being in the peak oil camp, I am of the general opinion that mankind will never burn significantly more in fossil fuels than they are doing today. IF it were to stay like this and continue a century, we would most certainly have problems. But if we were only able to continue like this, say, 15-20 years?

Not only with this simple example of disagreeing on the other elements of the future can we begin to guess what the real problem here is. There are simply a plethora of opinions, reasonings, interests and sensibilities which play a part in forming one's political stance on global warming. For the discussion presented by the author, though, we can use the American political landscape to describe the sociopolitical side of the coin.

Let's say that on the "left" there would be those who are of the opinion that:

·         Environmental concerns and economic equality are the most important issues facing mankind

·         Overpopulation is the basic root of CO₂ emissions as well as other pollution subjects, and therefore birth control should be a quite high priority of governments

·         CO₂ emissions should be strictly regulated and controlled by the government

·         Global warming needs a global answer, especially concerning the rich West

·         International governances like the United Nations should be given more powers to control national regulations

·         Government should be very active in promoting and subsidizing renewable energies and other substitutes which replace emitting technologies

·         Scientists should be brought into government to help construct sound policy

·         Mining, drilling and construction should be highly regulated, so that the environment and atmosphere suffer as little as possible

·         Economic growth should be restricted to necessities while consumption should be curbed

 

I'm sure I've missed a number of points, but the general tendency becomes clear: climate and emissions regulation fit into a broader sociopolitical framework, while government (esp. international) should be powerful enough to make the necessary changes. If this is not done, mankind will end up destroying itself.
 
Then there's the middle ground:

·         Global warming probably won't be as bad as the extremist claim

·         National Governments should do what they can and force the car industry to raise gas mileage standards and improve efficiency in industry and household

·         Atomic power is probably one of the better answers/replacements

·         Governments and industry should be morally committed to voluntarily make the needed changes

·         Recycling should be made easier - then maybe I would do it too

·         Overpopulation and environmental-misuse issues (except, of course, for CO₂ emissions) are mostly problems of the Third World, surely we can donate money and help teach them how to do it right

·         We've dealt with other issues, why won't we be able to deal with this one along the way? Global "warming" is only another way of saying that things change!

 

In Summary: We don't need more (or less) government to deal with this or any other issue - our national governments and industry just have to focus more on easy solutions a bit. Besides, we'll deal with it probably just fine when we get there.

With myself, I notice a number of tangents to the way I think. Here are a few examples:

I certainly think it's a shame that people in Bangladesh and New Orleans will be flooded more often than they have been in the past. At the same time, isn't it convenient that we have someone to blame for all the problems in the low lying, poor areas of the world? Why do they have to build at/below sea level anyway?

As my wife put it quite simply (without any influence from yours truly!): Haven't there always been climate changes and bad weather? Didn't we always have to adapt?

And here, the historian comes out in me. Just think of the Egyptian capitals which had to move after only two centuries because the canals silted up and the waterways in the river delta changed course? Partially changes in the amount of water in the Nile were responsible for this .Who knows what was going on upstream, causing floods and draughts. So why should we be any different in having to move our low lying cities? If it's built low, it will flood. The Mayans, the Anasazi and Ancor Wat were all societies built on constant rain falls/water flows. Once they faltered (of course after having built their societies on best-case scenarios), the societies began faltering as well. Nowadays is no different. Why should the world-wide low lying cities not have to pay/move, irregardless of how wealthy they are?

Or, one only has to think of the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago to see drastic swings of a couple of degrees temperature change in only decades, not centuries! Some of these swings helped kill off the mammoths, for instance, and horses in N. America – their place of origin. Back then, most people were still going with the flow, wandering/migrating back and forth with the weather and seasons. Some were already starting to divorce themselves from the short-term effects of the weather by adopting agriculture - and thus becoming more dependent on the long-term patterns.

On the other hand, over the last 10,000 years we have probably had the most stable temperatures for the longest time the earth has known in the last 2.7 million years, since the days that North and South America united, creating the ice-age era that we're still in. Is it really so bad, that this quiet phase might be coming to an end for a while?

25,000 years ago, as the last glacial passed its peak, the ocean was almost 120 meters lower. 120 meters!! And we should be worried about 1-3 meters in the next hundred years?

This means, that I might not disagree with the science, but I have problems with the alarmist results, with what we should do about the scientific modeling. What I certainly do not agree with is the idea that we are making the earth uninhabitable. Temperatures might rise – but there is no way that our few hundred ppm carbon dioxide will touch off a runaway green-house effect. Desertification in places, yes. Extreme weather in many places, sure. An ice-free North Pole and a colder Europe because of it, why not? War over the new habitable zones? Sounds human to me. But extinction? Not because of warmer weather.

It’s all a matter of proportion.

The second issue is that of other "obvious" consequences. What actions should government take, for instance? Should so-called carbon credits be traded? Well, that sounds complicated. Should fossil fuels be taxed so that they become uneconomical? Why, yes, why not?! Concerning the political debate that the author was referring to: What should government do because of climate change? What should government look like because of it? Should it become all-invasive in the way we live, turning into a moral agency? No. Right now, government (local and national) and its role doesn't need to be changed because of a “bit” of global warming.

Generally I agree: The government should pass prohibitive laws and tax unwanted behavior. For tax dollars go back into the economy, fueling other activities, while behavior slowly changes. And government should remain as small and simple as possible.

And finally, what solutions should be offered to protecting the planet from such global results?

Well, none.

Although I do like some of the geo-engineering ideas out there. Long live the techno-freak!

Sure, everyone should do their part in cutting down their use of everything, including energy, while improving efficiency. But to suggest the typical geo-engineering solutions or world-government approach is really barking up the wrong tree. Besides, what good does it do for someone growing corn in the Midwest to worry about the rainforest in Amazonia? Instead, local corn growers should feel free to use local resources to defend its growing season. Or to change the crop it's growing – but not to have a monopoly on water supplies and to pollute the streams with pesticides. Yet these are local and national concerns, not world ones. Certainly there should be regulations on the national level regarding the effects of their actions downstream in New Orleans.

Now with this idea, let's go back to Bangladesh.

A river flows through Bangladesh, taking the Monsoon-rains that dump their moist air onto the Himalayas back to the ocean. Much of the country ends up being under water. Year for year. And this is nothing new. The river, though, has become dangerous, destroying much of the landscape it's flowing through. And silting up the delta, just like in ancient Egypt. Why – because of global warming?

Well, the rains have become stronger, but the real problem is that the forests along the river in the mountains have been and are continuing to be cut down, so that the effect of the rains are now being magnified along the river. Meaning: Most of the answers to the effects of global warming lie not directly with fighting global warming but in fighting the immediate causes (in this case deforesting).

It's on these grounds that I find myself in the political middle, perhaps leaning to the right, but not necessarily.

And then there’s the right. The right can be characterized by a number of other attitudes:

·         CO₂ is not a pollutant but a basic building block for life - "plant food"

·         The science of global warming is far from being obvious and could be explained by a great number of anomalies and/or causes. Temperature rises correspond with the general end of the Little Ice Age.

·         Global warming is a ploy to disempower especially the benign American world military presence, the pax americana

·         For that case, global warming rhetoric is used as a ploy and a moral lever for a number of things: To loosen American middle class affluence; to give more power to national and especially international instances; to take power away from the free markets and give more to a socialistic government; to take moral authority away from religion and give it to the state

·         It's also an excuse for redistributing wealth to a morally strengthened third world

·         It's an excuse to take power and wealth away from industry and give it to central authorities, i.e. more socialism

·         Socialism is the reason for Europe's economic woes today

·         Economic stimulus to private corporations is much more important than wasting money on "alternative" energies, which btw are not alternatives all. They're just more expensive and produce less energy

·         CO₂ emissions might be high now. If it really is a problem, technology will certainly be able to deal with it in the future. Energy scarcity is the same myth as the others promoted by environmentalists

·         We should not be passing "prohibitive" laws (thou shallt not emit CO₂). On the contrary, offshore drilling, etc.. should be allowed, so that we have the energy we need in order to be able to make the changes we need.

·         Markets should be free to decide if solutions are needed or not

·         Human ingenuity and market forces will cancel out resource restraints and pollution problems - meaning we can deal with such things in the future, if it really is a problem

 

Well, now that we have two linear progressions from left to right, how about we turn the social/political orientation on its head, showing those on the political Left, which tends to be the Green position as well, on the bottom (-2); those on the political Right on the top (2), so that we can make a nice grid of the two, combining the scientifity with the politity of the situation. This is especially for myself important as someone who does not fit on either of the linear schemes - meaning left is not Left and right is not Right.

 

 

Double axis graph: X-axis remains the same, concerning the science of climate change, while the y-axis measures the social/political orientation of one's views.

When we plot the views of the six categories presented by the author, we would expect a straight line from the lower left to the upper right. It seems to me that this line has a certain bend, like the one I've plotted:

 

This tells me that the author's attempt to distribute the different views gets caught up too much on the amount of belief that one has in the science. In his world view, the population is most certainly bent (like in the graph) toward ignorance to and/or disbelief of the science. Therefore one's task, to right the situation, would be to evangelize to a belief in the science of global warming. Well, that sort of negates the insight that the author is presenting: That especially in America, people are more caught up in the politics of climate change (non-consensus) than in the science.

Secondly, on a graph like the one I've constructed, it appears more possible to find one's own spot in the whole discussion. Like for myself: Science views more "left", while my political views are more "right", so that my opinion can be found in the left-upper corner (the blue spot). Other positions are possible as well, like someone who doubts that CO₂ has a lot of effect on the climate but is in favor of a government that has an increasing role in society. Yes, mandatory health care should become law, for instance. This is plotted as red on the graph.

I am very interested in following the climate change debate. In 20 years, we'll probably have a completely different understanding of how weather works. And I doubt that CO₂ will neither lose its role as driver of climate change nor it being the central element in the debate. Just think of Kyoto - how long ago was that?!

And I expect the world to be a touch warmer in 20 years than it is today.

On the other hand, I expect to see the world being much more resource-challenged than it is today. The search for the next round of alternative energies, fossil fuels and nuclear will be well under way. The natural gas abundance in the US will not be completely gone - just restrained and falling unabatedly again. Basically we will use everything we've got and can get our hands on. Energy will be even more expensive - but doable.

But right here and now I want to make a prediction that I have not seen anywhere else – a long-run game changer.

It will be our search for energy which will either make the CO₂ situation worse or better. Sooner or later, though, we will have to move away from hydrocarbons, just because they will get too expensive to produce. And in our search for renewables, we will have to get bigger and bolder: The bigger the engine, the better energies will be able to be collected and harnessed from it. At the same time, we will begin moving up in the atmosphere: Our wind mills will get taller and perhaps bigger. And solar will be collected somewhere above our heads instead of in fields on the ground: Above the rooftops and above the trees. And someday above the clouds.

Now, in 20 years, the trend to "higher" will be noticeable, but still so little, that it of course will not have any effect on our climate. As the years go on, however, it will begin blocking off sunlight that would otherwise hit the earth's surface. Like in a forest, the ground does not heat up as much as in pasture or especially in the desert. In 100 years’ time, perhaps, the newly created shade might start to make a temperature difference, perhaps balancing out the warming done by CO₂. Not long after that, it might even be making such a temperature difference that the fears of global warming will be forgotten. Who knows, maybe the ghost of global cooling will start haunting us.

Granted, this is only one of many possible futures.

But it should demonstrate that it's not at all possible to extrapolate the present situation with our emissions and our fossil-fuels way of life too far into the future, the way the thinking on global warming does today.

For others who believe in the abundance of things, this view would praise the ingenuity of human innovation. But for someone like me, it will have more to do with unintended consequences. Global warming is most certainly an unintended consequence. And I think the end of it will be just as unintended.

For this reason, I think it is even dangerous to give elected governments more power to make the preparations for a future which would - irregardless of our actions to "fix" the CO₂ problem - have no relevance. (Back to topic: this puts me into the political right.) At the same time, I think fossil fuels should be well taxed - if only to fund research on how to get out of the fossil fuel business. Otherwise, subsidies should be kept down to a minimum - while the government should be forced to get rid of the ethanol mandate (which forces food "to be burned"). For if corn is not profitable, why grow it? Of course, there should be help in "doing the right thing" like planting trees and letting nature and natural vegetation return.

But that's me preaching again.

Anyway, if you didn't find yourself in one of the six categories presented by the author, I just thought I would let you know you're not alone. 'Cause I didn't either.