The RIght Move, the Wrong Move, and the Man's Move

Jersey Cynic has an interesting post at Blondsense about climate change.

Bear in mind that you or I personally can see about as big a portion of the global climate as an ant on an anthill. The world's that big. But unlike an ant, we can model what's going on.

If there was ever a chaotic system hard to model, it's the global climate.

Given the steady increase of atmospheric CO₂, the deglaciation of mountains and the progressive receeding of the poles, an uninformed biomedical scientist like me would be inclined to say, yes, there is some strong evidence for global warming.

Remember: when ice melts it sucks up a lot of heat. So it wouldn't surprise me that there are some regions with abnormally cool air while the polar oceans are abnormally hot.

On the other hand, some of the ideas to deal with it are pretty stupid too.

Yes, Ice Ages probably did come on relatively fast in the past- after a slow deterioration of the average temperature over several thousand years. Ever see ice form in supercooled water?

An Ice Age would be far worse than a melting pole for most forms of life. But then, humans ripping up the Artic and its ocean for oil might be pretty hard on this planet's biosphere too. After all, we've already precipitated the greatest mass extinction since the asteroid that ended the Mesozoic.

On the other hand, biologically speaking, the times the poles were melted have been some of the most diverse species-wise the world has ever seen.

Its just getting there that will be disasterous. But just as disasterous could be some of the schemes designed to stop it. Dimming the sun is not a good idea, but may be one a secretive administration might try anyway.