Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Ice Ages and Carbon Cycle Engineering
Some good climate news, for once: a study using ice-core data to suggest we may have thousands of years till the next natural ice age.
Ice ages are a fact of life on Earth in our era; human civilization has arisen and flourished in a single interglacial period, and it remains to be seen whether that civilization can survive an ice age, or at least weather it without massive population shrinkage.
Climate change has a human component and a natural component, the relative sizes of which are much contested. I could care less who causes climate change; I am more concerned with trying to maintain a stable, conducive environment. In other words, the day will come when Nature will try to kill us. We should prepare for that day by getting really good at engineering the carbon cycle, among other things. This report suggests we may have a bit more time to get ready.
We'll need it---managing the climate is the public good problem to end all public good problems.
Ice ages are a fact of life on Earth in our era; human civilization has arisen and flourished in a single interglacial period, and it remains to be seen whether that civilization can survive an ice age, or at least weather it without massive population shrinkage.
Climate change has a human component and a natural component, the relative sizes of which are much contested. I could care less who causes climate change; I am more concerned with trying to maintain a stable, conducive environment. In other words, the day will come when Nature will try to kill us. We should prepare for that day by getting really good at engineering the carbon cycle, among other things. This report suggests we may have a bit more time to get ready.
We'll need it---managing the climate is the public good problem to end all public good problems.
