

Mammoth dung, prehistoric goo may speed warming - ingenium
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1076886120070917?pageNumber=1

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axiom
What's always bothered me about the global warming debate is that everyone
seems more concerned with who to blame, rather than how to solve the problem.
One side is spewing absurd doomsday scenarios completely out of touch with
reality, and the other side is just pretending the problem doesn't exist.

The doomsday side is essentially advocating atavism - shutting down economic
activity, and relying on grossly inefficient sources of power (how many
environmentalists advocate the only sane option i.e, nuclear?) This will
obviously have profoundly negative economic consequences. Especially in
developing nations. No serious economist disputes this. In effect this
argument is like saying that because car accidents cause a lot of deaths, the
solution is to stop driving.

The "ignore it" side is basically claiming that this isn't a problem and we
should just keep doin' what were doin'. So if this problem does end up biting
us in the ass, we would be completely unprepared to deal with it.

But there are numerous solutions here. Nuclear power is probably the simplest.
Helping developing nations industrialize is another - it's pretty well
established that industrialization = wealth = less pollution. Then there are
more radical solutions like installing CO2 scrubbers. The point is that
technology always has costs associated with it. Nothing is free. What we
should be concerned with is how to deal with the costs, rather than eliminate
the life saving technology.

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rms
Wait, isn't the industrialization of China/India greatly contributing to
carbon emissions? Without any industry, what is there to do the pollution?

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axiom
Russia, China and India are some of the worst polluters. So are many countries
in Africa. The problem is that when you're absymally poor, you don't have the
resources to worry about how clean your wealth production is. Which is why
they clearcut their forests without replanting and don't process their waste.
And you can forget about things like recycling.

Here's an interesting fact that you rarely hear. Air and water quality in the
US has been going up for the last 80 years. Right through all the
industrialization and double digit increases in life expectancy and
productivity. The reasons are simple - improved waste management, more
efficient production, better recycling programs etc.

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gwenhwyfaer
Which kind of suggests that the future of _every_ planet with life on it is
runaway global warming, doesn't it? So what, we should stop trying to regulate
our emissions because we're facing certain doom anyway?

Well, according to the article, it's surfacing now because the permafrost
isn't so "perma" any more... something in which humans are directly
implicated. So gee, it might well be too late for us now - but it wouldn't
have been 50 years ago.

...Oops.

Perhaps everyone of any influence in world affairs at all since World War II
needs to get together and figure out _precisely_ how best to say to our
generation, "Sorry about your planet".

 _edit_ : Turns out the 500 billion tonne figure is a one-off, worst case
release. Not an annual figure. Remind me, what's 500/7 again? And why exactly
does "thanks to human development, mass extinction might suddenly leap one
lifespan closer" mean either "it's not our fault, really it isn't, nature is
evil and killing us all" or "see, there's nothing to worry about, humanity is
barely having any effect at all"?

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brlewis
Title doesn't match the article:

"Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which can fast turn into
greenhouse gases," Zimov said.

Only a fraction of that carbon will ever be converted to CO2.

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gwenhwyfaer
In fairness, the title says "carbon", not "carbon dioxide". The article itself
fingers methane, though, which is even worse.

Not that the title here isn't quite misleading enough, of course - it's just
not misleading in that particular way. ;)

~~~
brlewis
It's not misleading at all now, but it originally spoke of 500B tons released
into the atmosphere yearly.

