PhilGoetz comments on Stanislav Petrov Day - Less Wrong

35 Post author: gwern 26 September 2011 02:49PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 26 September 2011 06:37:14PM * 19 points [-]

The research commented on and linked to in some threads below don't pass the sniff test. It claims that 50 air-burst Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons would cause a terrible nuclear winter and a new ice age. Yet neither the 3 weapons at Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, nor the 528 air and ground-burst nuclear weapons set off over the next 35 years, most having more explosive power than 50 Hiroshima-sized bombs, had observed effects on the weather. Neither did the many German and Japanese cities that the Allies burned at least as thoroughly via conventional weapons. Much more area burned in Tokyo and Dresden than in Hiroshima.

If they were talking about ground bursts of high-yield weapons, I just might give them some credibility... but 50 15-kt air-bursts?

The Castle Bravo test was a ground-burst test with a yield of 15 Mt, 1000 times the yield of the bomb used on Hiroshima. A ground burst throws much, much more dust into the air than an air burst. I'm not aware that any effect on weather was observed. Perhaps this is explained by there not having been a lot of combustible material at the site of the explosion.

"Heavy fire damage was sustained in a circular area in Hiroshima with a mean radius of about 6000 feet and a maximum radius of about 11000 feet." That's 4 square miles. We have burned an average of 5800 square miles of Amazonian rain forest every year since 1970, again with no observed temperature drop.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 September 2011 02:43:55AM 2 points [-]

Has no one put those 500+ nuclear winter causing blasts into the atmospheric models for historical global warming? What of the burning of the Amazonian rain forests?

That could make for some interesting arguments.

Comment author: lessdazed 28 September 2011 02:55:56AM * 6 points [-]

When it comes to damaging the environment, bet on destructive systems to do more harm than countable events.

This includes invasive species, urban sprawl, and overfishing in one group and volcanoes, tidal waves, nuclear tests and oil spills in the other. I think it's more important than the natural/man-made dichotomy that is the way I am instinctively inclined to think of these things.

Comment author: wedrifid comment score below threshold [+] (14 children)

Comment author: TobyBartels 28 September 2011 05:06:21PM 2 points [-]

I don't know what it means for something to be good for an environment in the absence of people living in that environment.

Perhaps you mean that wild animals (say mammals) would be better off. Many domesticated animals arguably have lives not worth living so would be better off. However, many partially domesticated animals would be worse off; think of the rats in New York City, for example.

Comment author: wedrifid 28 September 2011 05:15:14PM -1 points [-]

I don't know what it means for something to be good for an environment in the absence of people living in that environment.

Why ever not? It means the same thing as it does when humans are there. Good for the environment isn't conventionally defined purely by what is seen by the local humans.

Perhaps you mean that wild animals (say mammals) would be better off.

No. I mean the environment.

Comment author: TobyBartels 28 September 2011 08:31:51PM * 1 point [-]

I don't know what it means for something to be good for an environment in the absence of people living in that environment.

Why ever not? It means the same thing as it does when humans are there. Good for the environment isn't conventionally defined purely by what is seen by the local humans.

It isn't??? An environment is something that surrounds something else. Many environmentalists are so precisely for the benefits that a good environment gives to humans, although others also care about other animals (and even plants, although I don't really know what it means for something to be good for plants in themselves other than just helping them to grow). I'm not trying to be cute here, I really don't understand what you mean!

Perhaps you mean that wild animals (say mammals) would be better off.

No. I mean the environment.

That links helps a bit; it suggests that you mean that nature would be better off without humans, which is along the lines of what I was thinking. (I focussed on mammals simply because it's most clear to me what it means for something to be good for them in themselves.) However, it doesn't really explain how we know what's good for the natural environment. Please tell me what you mean!

Possibly you mean these items in bullet points. In my opinion, these things are good only because they are good for humans or (at least some) other animals. Obviously, your values may differ. If you mean, for example, that high biodiversity is good in its own right (or at least good for some reason not dependent on humans), then that's fine; please confirm or say instead what you do mean.

Comment author: lessdazed 28 September 2011 09:02:25PM * 3 points [-]

Many environmentalists are so precisely for the benefits that a good environment gives to humans

In my experience this tends to be a fake justification, though it is sometimes true.

Comment author: dlthomas 28 September 2011 09:37:41PM 1 point [-]

I'm an environmentalist because I don't want mercury poisoning from my sushi...

Comment author: JoshuaZ 28 September 2011 09:40:11PM * 7 points [-]

Assuming minimal to no regulation what do you estimate would be the probability of getting mercury poisoning from your sushi?

continue this thread »

Comment author: buybuydandavis 29 September 2011 03:54:07AM * 1 point [-]

That links helps a bit; it suggests that you mean that nature would be better off without humans, which is along the lines of what I was thinking.

If you unpack what most people mean by good for the environment, they mean how the environment would be if humans weren't around, or more particularly, if humans never developed reason.

Both of the bullet points in the wiki summary for Natural Environment explicity exclude effects of human activity - "without massive human intervention" and "not originating from human activity."

Comment author: wedrifid 28 September 2011 08:54:23PM -1 points [-]

If you mean, say, that high biodiversity is good in its own right (or at least good for some reason not dependent on humans), then that's fine; please confirm or say instead what you do mean.

High biodiversity is a necessary but not sufficient component of what it means for 'the environment' to be in a state labeled commonly referred to as 'good'. Other requirements are that it maintains many or most of those things which are aesthetically or ideologically pleasing and that these things for most part exist in relatively stable equilibrium. Note that 'aesthetically pleasing' does not constitute a reference to local human preferences but rather refers to another fuzzy concept that has its own inherent meaning.

Concepts like "good for the environment" represent a lot of information but given that most people within the same subculture will understand what you mean when you use them they serve their intended purpose well.

Obviously, your values may differ.

Yes. And my philosophy of knowledge.

Comment author: TobyBartels 29 September 2011 08:20:14AM 4 points [-]

H'm, now it sounds like by "good for the environment" you didn't necessarily mean anything that you would consider good for anything at all, but just what a fairly unreflective person off of the street would mean by "good for the environment" in that context. In that case, I agree that the absence of humanity would be "good for the environment", although I don't particularly care what's "good for the environment", which is merely an instrumental value that would largely no longer apply. (That's just me, however.)

So thanks for explaining!

Comment author: wedrifid 29 September 2011 05:28:32PM 0 points [-]

H'm, now it sounds like by "good for the environment" you didn't necessarily mean anything that you would consider good for anything at all, but just what a fairly unreflective person off of the street would mean by "good for the environment"

I cannot accept that as representative of my position.

continue this thread »

Comment author: MugaSofer 26 September 2012 12:27:18PM -2 points [-]

neither the 3 weapons at Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, nor the 528 air and ground-burst nuclear weapons set off over the next 35 years, [...] had observed effects on the weather.

Or did they?! Dun dun duun!

PhilGoetz comments on Stanislav Petrov Day - Less Wrong

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