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How will we govern future climate?

Should humans govern the future climate? Isn't that an excessive degree of control?

I understand that people (in fact any intelligent being) will seek control of their lives and environments, but it often reaches a level where people almost inevitably seek a desire to play God. I don't believe in God, but just because there isn't a God, doesn't mean that humans should try to be God.
 
INRM said:
Should humans govern the future climate? Isn't that an excessive degree of control?

I understand that people (in fact any intelligent being) will seek control of their lives and environments, but it often reaches a level where people almost inevitably seek a desire to play God. I don't believe in God, but just because there isn't a God, doesn't mean that humans should try to be God.
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Humans are already controlling the climate, albeitly incidentally, I don't know of anyone advocating direct and deliberate control of climate, merely the self-control of our own incidental effects upon climate and perhaps some "clean-up" of messes that we have made. Its called being responsible for one's actions.
 
I'd just like to point out again that combating current climate change is not about controlling climate, but about reseting the impact humans have already had on climate.

In the far future, if human beings acquire the technology to control the climate on the earth at will, I could see ethical opposition to this, but I don't think that could be stopped if it is argued that using it would prevent damaging (to human life and or comfort) natural changes.
 
macdoc said:
Hardly given the "rest of the planet" has adapted to that climate as well and we, last time I checked are dependent on the biome that has adapted to the Holocene.

WE are instituting changes in a time frame few other species can adapt quickly enough to cope with ....on top of our destruction of their habitat.

The least we can do is keep the atmosphere sane and attempt to reduce the habitat destruction.
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I don't think anyone in this thread is disagreeing with that.

macdoc said:
No one is talking about "freezing things in one state" - it's returning the atmosphere to the composition before we ****ed it up.

If future generations wish tinker further that is their choice to make.
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How they'll make those choices is what I want to talk about.

uke2se said:
I'd just like to point out again that combating current climate change is not about controlling climate, but about reseting the impact humans have already had on climate.
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But my hypothetical climate controlling technology could accomplish that.

uke2se said:
In the far future, if human beings acquire the technology to control the climate on the earth at will, I could see ethical opposition to this, but I don't think that could be stopped if it is argued that using it would prevent damaging (to human life and or comfort) natural changes.
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Who would best be in charge of such technology? I can't see the UN doing a better job of running it than they have their own dysfunctional organization. A legion of scientists perhaps? Preferably ones without megalomania issues that live in volcanoes.
 
Travis said:
But I'm not talking about issues with the short term (like AGW, which in my hypothetical has already been dealt with) but with the long term. If we decide to maintain our planets climate in a certain state for times that generally exceed natural oscillations (like 30,000+ years) at some point there would be consequences. What that might be I can't say for certain which is why I posed the question.

On the other hand change is natural. By freezing things in one state we may keep certain species around but we also will be preventing the evolution of new ones. Imagine Earth if Deinonychus had become a technologically advanced species and froze things to be like the early Cretaceous.....we wouldn't be here for one thing.
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Change and stasis are both 'natural' in that they both occur.

Until we understand how climate works and how it affects ecosystems far better than we do now, and until we can arrive at a rational reason to try to alter the climate, science-based methods for doing so safely and effectively, and fair and just targets for the changes, I'm not at all interested in optional climate change for the sake of change or for the sake of perceived good.

This should not be misunderstood - I think we need to make significant and rapid changes in our behavior so that the current changes in climate can be slowed or possible reduced.

I simply don't want us to 'play' with the climate without superior understanding, adequate reasons, and plans B, C, and D.

Furthermore, I don't want us do anything that gives priority to human considerations.

Humans aren't my favorite species but, even if we were, considering human interests balanced against those of the other species on this planet, I'd opt for the extinction of humanity over signficant damage to the rest of life on this planet.

According to my moral system, we don't have the right to risk or commit some of the climate-altering actions that I think are being considered in this thread. It isn't just our world - we share it with an immense number of other species.
 
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+1
minor nit pick - "your ethical position"
...people have ethics societies have mores....one can hope your ethos and mine, as I agree with your position, become the emergent morality for society in general
 
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macdoc said:
+1
minor nit pick - "your ethical position"
...people have ethics societies have mores....one can hope your ethos and mine, as I agree with your position, become the emergent morality for society in general
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I tend to think about the use of these words somewhat differently, but that is neither here nor there.

Thanks for the friendly words. I'm waiting for the outraged hordes to thunder on through...
 
Travis said:
But what is the global temperature that Earth Climate is going to be constantly kept at by us into perpetuity?
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When the situation stabilises, that will be climate which people look to perpetuating. And will pay attention to it. They'll also know a lot more about climate than we do. We're looking mostly forward to the experiment, thay'll be looking back on it.
 
T'Shaitanaku,

I meant like direct and deliberate control of climate
 
Travis said:
Why should it matter that our civilization happened to develop in that temperature range?
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Because our civilization is tuned to exist in that temperature range, and is highly unlikely to work outside of it.

Suppose, hypothetically, that humanity had arisen during a freak climatic excursion.....wouldn't it then be to the detriment of the rest of the planet for us to try and keep things in the mode of that excursion?
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No, for several reasons. First, "humanity" is not "civilization." Second, a "freak climatic excursion" is unlikely to last long enough to permit civilization to develop for a long enough time to be able to achieve any sort of useful technology (it's taken us something like 12,000 to progress from agriculture to today -- and if we had had a sudden and drastic climate change halfway through that, we'd be back to hunting-and-gathering).

And third, "the planet" doesn't care. It's an inanimate object with no opinion.

You bring up an interesting point, what if modification benefits some areas over others? For example it can eliminate hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico but will increase aridity in Chad.
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Then there will be some very interesting diplomatic discussions between Chad and Jamaica.

But if you scale up enough the Holocene Optimum was itself part of an oscillation.
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But scaling up that far is a rather stupid thing to do. Which is why smart people wouldn't do that.
 
We don't need to "alter" the climate at least not yet, that might change come the next glacial) we just need to ensure our actions DON'T alter the climate.
 
Travis said:
On the other hand change is natural.
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So is eating your meat raw, sleeping naked in the crook of a tree, and dying in childbirth at the age of fourteen.

By freezing things in one state we may keep certain species around but we also will be preventing the evolution of new ones.
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So?

Imagine Earth if Deinonychus had become a technologically advanced species and froze things to be like the early Cretaceous.....we wouldn't be here for one thing.
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In which case we wouldn't get a vote. We wouldn't have gotten a vote. Why should the opinions of nonexistent creatures matter?
 
So far our tinkering....say with the the Mississippi for instance has had mixed to horrendous results.

We can't even agree not to toast the planet with C02 - how in any scenario can you envision agreement on a "set climate"?

Now who is the one being unrealistic?
 
The point I was trying to get at was that I'm scared of Earth being transformed into a huge zoo exhibit. Where things are kept in a stasis regardless of what might have happened naturally so that we can keep things looking the way we think they ought to look. My basis for this is my continuing efforts to return Yosemite Valley to it's pre-discovery state. This would require a lot of tree removal and for that reason it is continually opposed because people think the cliff to cliff trees "look better" even if it is only so because of human intervention.
 
Travis said:
The point I was trying to get at was that I'm scared of Earth being transformed into a huge zoo exhibit. Where things are kept in a stasis regardless of what might have happened naturally
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Well, considering that a lot of the things that "might have happened naturally" are downright nasty, I'm bang alongside keeping things in happy and healthy stasis.

My basis for this is my continuing efforts to return Yosemite Valley to it's pre-discovery state. This would require a lot of tree removal and for that reason it is continually opposed because people think the cliff to cliff trees "look better" even if it is only so because of human intervention.
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Well, my not dying in a smallpox epidemic is also only so because of human intervention. I happen to think that cities and landscapes that aren't covered in dead bodies "look better" than the alternative, and I have no problem spending a fair amount of effort to keep the landscape unnaturally corpse-free.
 
drkitten said:
Well, considering that a lot of the things that "might have happened naturally" are downright nasty, I'm bang alongside keeping things in happy and healthy stasis.



Well, my not dying in a smallpox epidemic is also only so because of human intervention. I happen to think that cities and landscapes that aren't covered in dead bodies "look better" than the alternative, and I have no problem spending a fair amount of effort to keep the landscape unnaturally corpse-free.
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True, but you, at least, call it what it is. None of the pretending that something is "natural" just because it's prettier.
 
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