This is precisely why I’m wary of any grand geoengineering, especially GMO-unleashed. Nonetheless there is an enormous upside if we ever are S.O.L. I’ve read on somewhere like physorg that if the atmospheric temperature reaches 65C, some sort of physical process terminates us. If runaway warning seriously threatens (an ice age has onset in decades or less so it is reasonable to be open to the potential a melted W.Antarctic glacier or ocean current changes or ocean/permafrost clathrate release, may sharply trend temps up.
If this threatens my Dysonian suggestion is to utilize GMOs to create a floating mat on oceans that has an albedo much higher than ocean’s 7%. More challengingly, regrowing glaciers and ice sheets may be possible if a GMO mat can be created on the surface of ice sheets to insulate them from a warming atmosphere/sea. The metabolism would be harder on the surface of an ice sheet as air nutrients might not be enough. The GMO glacier mat would function anologous to how the surface soil insulates permafrost from warm air. The benefits of regrowing the Himalayas 2100 or restoring a 1900 climate in 2200 may be huge, but as hapa commented: you don’t want Iceball Earth.

The problem with relying on alternative energy sources to fix the problem is that, if the pessimistic global warming models are correct, it’s too late for that. If the pessimistic models are correct, now is the time to figure out how to deal with the problem, not how to avoid it in the first place.

I am a lawyer (also a CPA, with an MBA) by profession, but just because that’s how I earn a living doesn’t mean I cannot be well informed about other matters. In fact, sometimes intelligent non-specialists can see the big picture better than the specialists who become mired down in a certain way of looking at the world.

My undergraduate minor was chemistry, and as a hands-on gardener I have studied organic systems since I was a child. I think using organic systems to capture carbon is a great idea — one would not want to focus SOLELY on the plants — you would also need to cosider the organisms that break down dead vegetation: small animals such as earth worms and snails; bacteria, etc.

With respect to looking at the economics — far from trivializing the problem, considering the costs is the ONLY reasonable way to begin to actually DO something. As Dyson’s review says, you can tell when someone isn’t really serious about doing something when they DON’T consider the economics. Most of my clients are small businesses. I know very well what it takes to get from dream to reality. Doing the financial stuff may be dry and boring, but it’s VERY necessary in order to have any reasonable chance of success.

Finally, since all the other commentators have been groaning and grmbling — one of the things I find most irritating about arm chair environmentalists is the way they are so eager to preach deprivation and penance for everyone else, while they drive their SUV’s two blocks to an airconditioner restaurant where they consume antibiotic-laden animal flesh produced in vile meat factories. Have you people ever stopped to think that a large % of the carbon emissions in the U.S. are produced by our agribusiness system? (I believe agriculture and food processing account for around 20% of the fossil fuel used each year in the U.S.) Are you willing to pay reasonable (meaning much higher) prices for your food in order to eliminate the food chain’s reliance on cheap corn and fossil fuel? Are you willing to forego strawberries shipped from New Zealand to New York? Are you willing to walk a mile to the store instead of driving?

Dyson says 8% of atmospheric CO2 is recycled through vegetation. Maybe so, maybe not. The “evidence” he cited doesn’t support that conclusion.

He says, “The great virtue of Nordhaus’s economic analysis is that it remains valid whether the majority view is right or wrong.” I haven’t read the Nordhaus book, but I know how to do a net present value calculation, and that cannot be correct. If the deniers are right, then the future costs of a business as usual scenario would be very small compared to the costs associated with the catastrophe scenario. If the present costs are the same and the future costs are different the NPV has to be different.

Similarly, and Nordhaus would be vulnerable here, dramatically different assumptions about costs, and especially the timing thereof, could make the NPVs of the 5 scenarios come out in a different order.

According to Dyson, Nordaus says “climate change is unlikely to be catastrophic in the near term,” which I interpret to mean the 1 or 2 centuries the model addresses. So, that’s where Nordhaus put the rabbit into the hat–assume there is no problem and the computer model will prove a solution is unnecessary. So very econometrician of him.

Largely left out of the discussion about GCC is explicit and sober acknowledgment of uncertainty and the implications of uncertainty. The deniers seem to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which some of them might admit is irresponsible if the consequence of being wrong would be a catastrophe. Maybe some headway can be made with some of them with a frank discussion of risks and the appropriate degree of (un)certainty that is appropriate under the circumstances. If they were living next to Three Mile Island as it melted down, would they wait until a Chernobyl style eruption was predicted to be 99% likely before they got into their cars and drove 100 miles upwind? How certain do you have to be that a downed power line is de-energized before you grab it?

Nordhaus uses a 4% discount rate in his NPV calculations. NPVs are extremely sensitive to the chosen rate and one often does iterations with different rates. Nordhaus apparently says 4% is the right number to avoid economic “inefficiencies.” But Nordhaus’s co-author, Paul Samuelson, said, “Every good cause is worth some inefficiency.” http://www.nytimes.com/ 2004/ 09/ 09/ business/ worldbusiness/ 09outsource.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position=&oref=slogin I’m going with the older and wiser guy on that.

I would agree with Dyson that some of the actual public discussion is based on one secular religion or another, but no group is more practiced at fervently believing the unbelievable than economists.

Congratulations, Joe, on the page view milestone. Keep on keeping on.

Our choice is simple. We either use existing and nearly market ready technologies to free ourselves from fossil fuels now — and improve our current accounts deficit by more than half a trillion per year, clean up the air, avoid potentially catastrophic warming (even if you only admit a 1% chance of the scientists being right, any rational risk anlysis would say take action to avoid such a calimity — certainty is not necessary) as side benefits.

Or,

We wait for oil and other fossil fuels to either run out or get so expensive we wish they were gone (if you look at demand projections, coal will soon be joining natural gas and oil as an exploding cost) then make the switch.

Either way we will have to make the switch. The only difference is — do we iavoid all those horrendous costs and do it now, or do we incurr them all and do it later/

As for costs, Nordhaus et. al haven’t faired very well — the IPCC, the Stern reports and most of the analysis of them have come dwon firmly on the side that acting to cut GHG will cost relatively little, while failing to act will impose a permanent drain on the GDP equvalent to the Great Depression.

Finally, for folks who love the power of the private market, there’s a whole lot of “Can’t do.”

Yes, it will be hard to match the energy density of fossil fuels – but with a little ingenuity our economy can become much more efficient, as can the so-called energy dense technologies.

Case in point — Boeing is kicking butt in sales right now because their plane is more efficient.

At any rate, I’d rather use out collective national smarts to get off of the stuff that’s causing us problems, than use it to figure out some way to keep on using it.

Another analogy: Inventing ways to keep on using fossil fuels makes about as much sense as donning a helmut so you can continue to walk into the wall, rather than simply going around it.

As I said, fatuous, in the extreme.

Do you want read my “Fossil Fuels are Forever” comment? Just think about fossil fuel usage. I’ll post it again if you are curious.

There are a great many activities for which there are no substitutes for fossil fuel, for example, the really heavy hitters suchas boats, planes, trucks and trains, machinery of agriculture, mining, and forestry, industries that manufacture building and construction materials, all food processing, emergency vehicles, etc.

There is no way around the high heat required for cement, metal smelting, ceramics of all types, pizzas, etc.

And don’t me going on diamond, gold, sliver mining! Or the military-industrial complex. Can you imagine the amount of CO2 emitted on behalf of the Tiffany crowd?

If you live in a climates that can get darn cold, you want a rock solid supply of electrcity for the blower motors of furnances and for essential services. Coal-fired electrical power plants are that type of technology.
Can you imagine the amount of electricity required to operate all the elevators in NYC? Or modern telecommunications systems?

France gets about 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, but you hear no sqauwking from the enviros or no reports of any major accidents. Many countries could have had this technology, but the power companies have been blocked from constructing these plants by these totally, hopelessly and perpetually clueless enviros, whose only goal in life is to avoid hard physical labor like tying rerod on the thirteenth floor of a high rise under construction when it is 2 deg C and just pouring down rain. There is joke there, but these downright stupid and #!@&%?* ignorant enviros would never get it.

The botton line is this: There ain’t no free lunch!

Come to super natural, beautiful British Columbia where all the electricity is generated by hydro.

ATTN: John Massey! Tell John about “The Best Place on Earth!”

2. Has the IPCC 5 came out yet that explains the 10 year break in the action yet? I’ve read the reports, We’re almost completely off the IPCC predictive charts now.

3. At 40.oo a ton I’m taxed 400.00 a year, considerably more then 0.1 % of GNP. And that is the thin edge of the anti-carbon jihad.
3.B How has the US economy grown so much in spite of the war in Iraq- 60% increase in GNP. Quit spreading the big lie about the US economy.

4. A. part time power via solar, wind, B. switching costs from working power to unknown. C. Loss of freedom due to collapsing economies. D. Mass reduction in freedom of movement with concurrent reduction in earnings. E. artificially increasing energy costs for ever with irrational laws. F. The very books Dr. Dyson reviewed cover this issue in depth. G. Many countries will go negative with a 0.11% reduction in growth thus causing the four horsemen to ride again, millions or billions doomed to poverty and early death. The carbon scare has already reduced the USA economy much more than 0.11% without any environmental gains. H. your recruiting of ZPGers, Sustainability cultists, et Al prove you will allow the end of the current growing Western economic model for a slight crisis.

Disagreement is NOT disinformation, I think you are transferring your behavior to me. If my alleged Disinformation is so patently false, show me how/why. A because I say so isn’t sufficient.
Your emotional anti nuclear bias (”geniuses” pushing project ORION) by the way that is practical nuclear physics, Your writing is literally directly above.

If your claims were not so disruptive our society, you would be just another eccentric who wants to run the world. Your intentions might be pure (I highly doubt it) but your actions place you on the fast lane to damnation.

It is my duty to actively oppose evil(wrong), even evil(wrong) based on good intentions.

I am starting to relate to Trotsky’s ghost when the NVD came around and razor bladed out of all Soviet texts and references mention of Trotsky. Deletion of my posts will not repair the logic flaws and factual errors of carbon forced AGW.

Please.

Buying compact fluorescents, solar cells and wind turbines creates jobs and produces economic stimulus. We’re not going to stop using oil and go back to living in caves, the point is to replace the carbon-dependent economy with one that is not. If you want to profit off of it, buy shares in FSLR. The GDP doesn’t need to get damaged at all.

And the Keynesian pump priming could actually be a better course than any other after the last 8 years — log term job growth into new industries is what we badly need.