I don’t know anything about Happer, but I have no problem with skepticism in science, as long as that is based on real research and real science (as opposed to a paid flunky for the oil and gas industry, for example).
Is anyone familiar with this guy’s background? I plan to RTFA article when I get back home, I just can’t get to it for a couple hours.
One tidbit: he has public stated that, as a climate change skeptic, he is being persecuted like Jews during the Holocaust.
Ah. Enough said. :)
Atomic physicist, which means he’s likely got as much formal education in the pertinent fields as your average PubG player (slight correction - he probably has a better understanding of fluid dynamics). In that respect, basic skepticism is fine; he should know what he doesn’t know as ask for clarity to get a better understanding instead of just hand-waving along the claims of others. But of course that’s not what he’s doing. He’s turned into a caricature, claiming climate science is akin to a cult, touting the wonders of CO2 and how we should really want more of it, etc…
At least he doesn’t deny there was a Holocaust.
Ohhhh, I didn’t know the name but I’m familiar with the guy. Thanks. Seems to be a perfect fit for the Trump administration.
The Professor must have been edumacating this guy.
We understand that fighting climate change will only be taken seriously if it’s a way to make people rich or once it’s obvious that something must be done? I’m talking having Flat Earth people going “Yeah, we need to do something about the climate”. As long as fighting climate change is a money loser, it’s going to be too “difficult”.
I think it’s inevitable that someone will turn to these risky geoengineering measures, they’re cheap enough that a Musk can do it for fun, or any not particularly rich country once it’s desperate enough.
Say you’re the Seychelles. You give a call over to the Maldives and the Bahamas. Say:
‘Hey guys, we’re going to be wiped off the map here in a few years. We got a few hundred mil in tourist money, and if we do this it may prevent our entire countries from disappearing. So what do you say we each throw a quarter mil into the kitty, and shoot up some salt. If it fails, our countries are fucked anyhow. If it succeeds we can keep our countries from going away completely, and we’re tropical so any unintended consequences probably won’t matter to us’
If you’re then, aren’t you at least floating that idea?
Isn’t it already obvious? Or do you mean “my house is under water” obvious?
For some, this is literally what it takes.
But if you are already rich and powerful, there is always someplace not ruined yet you can move to. This won’t be solved by avoidance, by running away from the problem. It may take running TOWARDS the problem, by attacking it as something you can make more money from.
When I was a kid, my dad hit a cow beef animal with his truck. It was horrible. Blood and grass everywhere.
New rule, we must send school children on field trips to butchers. Some of them may never eat meat again, but they will certainly not leave there believing if you cut up a cow, grass pops out.
I just… I just don’t even.
You know what they were trying to say, but it’s pretty funny how badly they managed to mangle it.
The Uninhabitable Earth makes the point that the climate on Mars is a millions times worse than the worst case scenario here on Earth, plus, it’s really far away. (I know you were in jest but…) Which got me thinking about why colonizing Mars seems like a viable and perhaps the preferred escape route for people like Elon Musk and I realized it’s because of what Mars doesn’t have which is billions of poor people whose lives are being destroyed.
Of course, a well positioned bunker here on Earth would be cheaper and more viable but then, Elon Musk is convinced we live in a computer simulation because if it’s theoretically possible it must inevitably have happened because the arc of technology, like the arc of history, bends ever forward or some such shit.
The Middle East. They have the wealth and means to do it and will be among the earliest and hardest hit. And the technology is not difficult enough to require a steady state to support it.
Interesting. I wonder what the effects will be. I wonder if it will be effective enough, and the consequences manageable enough, to avoid societal collapse. Invest in breathing masks and indoor agriculture I guess!
I initially had Dubai in here instead of the Bahamas, for that reason. But it was thematically more cohesive to do all Island tourist destinations.
There are a few measures that are money making, or at the very least, right people money making. Stuff like taking carbon from the air and making fuel with it, using hydrogen as fuel, a few more.
At the very least they’ll allow people who currently can’t produce their fuel to produce it, so, Germany might be all on board with it, France, Japan, maybe China, pretty much any country that doesn’t have oil.
But I doubt these technologies will be enough to revert the damage, maybe enough to minimize it, keep it in the current “Maybe it’s us, maybe it isn’t, I’ll believe whatever allows me to keep my living standard”…