Topic: Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming? - page 5. (Read 30176 times)

That's a major flaw in your argument. The oil built up over millions of years. It's possible that oil deposits come and go, and if left untouched would vary within a stable range over time.

Carbon is not normally a gas. It only causes global warming in CO2 form, which requires a chemical change, no violation of conservation of elements.

Another species has actually done something just like this before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_catastrophe

Generally, yes.
I don't know, but it's irrelevent to the point.  It was all there before life came to exist, (excluding that which was in the mantle, core and crust; but that's still there and will continue to be even if we burn every scrap of fossil fuels in the world, which is also not practially possible) so the concept that putting a portion of it back wince it came would result in a ELE is rediculous on it's face.

Yes, to a degree.  But that's the point I'm trying to make.  It was multicellular life that became oil, natural gas and coal.  It is probable that a single celled form of life was important in the chemical changes that resulted in their present forms, but the vast majority of the carbon sequestration occured by multicellular plant life.


That is, in fact, exactly what I wrote.

Okay, so what is to prevent the current presence of plants from doing the same in the future?  What I'm asking is, under what basis is the assumption that carbon dioxide, even though it's a greenhouse gas, that CO2 doubling in the atmosphere is catastrophic for life?  After all, as you have pointed out, before life evolved the Earth was far hotter until the magma on the surface cooled.  Since the Earth is a closed system, the amount of oxygen present then is roughly the same as it is now, just like the amount of carbon dioxide.  Under such conditions, it's practially impossible for any significant amount of the carbon to have been sequestered in any other form than CO2.  So practically speaking, all of the carbon was part of the atmosphere in Earth's own history, and yet the Earth still cooled and life still came to dominate the surface of the Earth.  If it's all a matter of speculation, then it's just as likely, if not moreso, that consuming all of the fossil fuels available to us (which wouldn't come close to putting all of the carbon back into the atmosphere) would result in a warmed climate only comparable to the Medivel Warm Period, which was far from catastrophic for humankind.


Could be, but based upon what?  After all, by many respects humanity is far more resilient a species than any of the dinosaurs were; because our human intelligence permits us to develop clothing and housing that permits us to live in the harshest of conditions found on Earth if we desire to.  There is an entire town in Australia that is underground in the outback to escape the heat, while there are semi-permanent encampments in Antartica for scientific research teams.  The Vikings lived in areas of the world that didn't see a sunrise for 5 months at at time, much less a spring thaw.  I contend that even a truly catastrophic degree of global warming, to the worst case scenario, isn't a threat to the majority of human life of this planet; althought it could be to a great many.  I also contend that a much more mild degree of warming is more likely, on the order of 1 to 1.5 degree C, and would be a net improvement for human life on this planet.  After all, such a more moderate form of climate warming would result in the warming of the majority of the land mass that remains uninhabitable on Earth; most of which is the Canadian Northern Territories, Siberia in Russia and Greenland.  Greenland could literally be green, and the loss of coastal landmass would be neglible compared to that expansion of habitable space and agricultural landmass.  And at less than +2 degrees C, even the worst case climate models don't result in a statisticly significant increase in major weather patterns.  Nor would the change in climate become too hot near the equator, since the majority of the warming occurs in the higher latitudes.  (This is largely because the greenhouse effect occurs from long wave infrared bouncing off of CO2 in the upper atmosphere, and the general scatter of reflected light spreads in all directs evenly; if the heat then returns to Earth at the equator, it's a net zero change in heat at the equator, but if it returns at the northern latitudes, it's a net gain for the northern latitudes while a net loss for the equator)

I haven't scientifically analyzed this thought all the way through, but hundreds of millions of years ago during the time dinosaurs were living, the world was a lot hotter than it is now. As living matter pulled carbon out of the air, died, and turned into oil, the earth cooled.

"how could a closed carbon cycle with a finite amount of carbon in it possibly cause a catastrophic warming trend when it didn't do that when the plants were alive?" - It was hot in the past and it wasn't catastrophic then, but there was a very different profile of life on Earth than there is now. A heat level that was not catastrophic to dinosaurs could very well be catastrophic to humans.

Are we assuming that at some point most of this carbon was in the atmosphere as CO2 at once? When was the last time this was the case? I had always thought most of it was contained within life, rocks, or oil since Earth was very young and didn't support multicellular life. Also, it's a closed carbon cycle, but not a closed CO2 cycle.

I find this kind of debate amusing.  The question about whether or not global warming is caused by human industrial activities or not is an irrelevent one with regards to the outcomes.  Either an increase in the CO2 in the atmosphere will cause catastrophic warming or it will not, that is the only detail that matters.  So I ask the partisans on this thread the following questions...

Where did the carbon encased into fossil fuels come from?  My understanding is that they originally came from dead plant material, but if so, where did the plants get it?  The obvious answer is the air, but I'm open to speculation about alternatives.  If the carbon came from the air, and we presently live on this planet, how could a closed carbon cycle with a finite amount of carbon in it possibly cause a catastrophic warming trend when it didn't do that when the plants were alive?

So far, I've posed this same quandry to a great many people that I have met, and the most credible alternative that I've yet been presented with came from a fundamentalist Christian conservative, who responded that the carbon wasn't in the air before because God created the Earth with the oil in the ground.  I've literally seen dyed-in-the-wool tree huggers distort their own faces with the cognative dissonance.

You know the only other reason I come back here other than injecting some reality into this conversation - is to see how many childish insult fits you will spew out over a couple links. Certainly convinces me of your knowledge of the facts.

Well that pretty much rules out every known strategy to combat global warming. Any attempt to restrict CO2 emissions would be climate engineering on a previously unheard of scale.

There is no substitute for carbon burning energy like coal, oil and gas.  Its incredibly efficient and there is nothing even remotely close to consider as a substitute. 

If something, for example nuclear fusion, could be got to work, oil would go out of use just like the horse drawn cart.  But as it stands, we are utterly dependent on oil, coal and gas.

A lot of people think in the other direction. "I invest values now (making a debt), so my children and grandchildren will have a better live."
And I don't think, that most of the people don't have the feeling, that burning oil causes a "debt".
We know that a technology can be substituted by another one. So, why not using oil. Our grandchildren will use something else.

I didn't get, which liberitarian society we are talking about.

Are enforceable rules possible? Are judges allowed?
For me yes.

A real example:
In Japan every year experts are checking which electronic products are the least consuming ones. They best ones are the standard for the next year. And after some years (2 or so), no product less than this standard are allowed. No costs, just better products. This can be applied for a lot of products (cars for example).

Just ideas:

Every year/month/week there is a vote how much a kilometre on the street is. Every car-driver has to pay for it. The revenue is divided and payed to all voters.

An "exchange" for carbon-licences:
When you want to use a carbon-containing resource (oil, coal, wood, ...) you have to buy a license for it. Anyone who produces electricity or has trees is allowed to "mine" licenses following defined rules, and trade it on a stock-exchange.

Every company has to explain, how the product was produced. Which steps, from whom, where, ....
If a fault in the chain is found by anyone, rules like for cigarette-manufactures are applied: No commercial, no sponsoring, warnings...

Companies have to find a rating-agency, which controls the competitors.
The results of the agencies have to be public and handed out when ever you are buying a product. If not, all products in the shop are free.

There are platforms for p2p-financing of improvement-projects. For every liter of oil, which is bought, you have to decide, which project is financed and how much you are paying (at least 2%? of the price). The retailer has to double the amount.