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turchin comments on Open Thread, Aug. 8 - Aug 14. 2016 - Less Wrong
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I just published my new map about ways of preventing global warming on EA forum here: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/10h/the_map_of_global_warming_prevention/
TL;DR: Small probability of runaway global warming requires preparation of urgent unconventional measures of its prevention that is sunlight dimming.
Abstract: The most expected version of limited global warming of several degrees C in 21 century will not result in human extinction, as even the thawing after Ice Age in the past didn’t have such an impact. The main question of global warming is the possibility of runaway global warming and the conditions in which it could happen. Runaway warming means warming of 30 C or more, which will make the Earth uninhabitable. It is unlikely event but it could result in human extinction. Global warming could also create some context risks, which will change the probability of other global risks. I will not go here in all details about nature of global warming and established ideas about its prevention as it has extensive coverage in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation). Instead I will concentrate on heavy tails risks and less conventional methods of global warming prevention. The map provides summary of all known methods of GW prevention and also of ideas about scale of GW and consequences of each level of warming. The map also shows how prevention plans depends of current level of technologies. In short, the map has three variables: level of tech, level of urgency in GW prevention and scale of the warming. The following post consists of text wall and the map, which are complimentary: the text provides in depths details about some ideas and the map gives general overview of the prevention plans.
The map: http://immortality-roadmap.com/warming3.pdf
You should also research some of the existing methanotroph bacteria studies, there are some strains available without GM.
One of the most interesting is the Antarctic researcher who was studying the ice cores. He used some weird culture when his regular supply ran out, and found that every single core he tested was inbued with methanotrophs. They were dormant in the cores, but they were still metabolizing very slowly, and they where in all of them. This points to the major possibility that the "historical" high levels of CO2 everyone points to in the record, were actually methane gun events, that upped the methano's, then as the level dropped due to predation and conversion, we are left with the gas bubbles people are studying now, which show very high levels of CO2 before industrialization.
and as i posted before , the Ridiculously Resilent Ridge atmo high is still in place, we are getting a winter storm front right now in AZ. Gonna be 4 years soon, and we know about emplaced highs, we get one most every summer for 4-6 weeks.
So you mean that historic CO2 cores are flawed and current CO2 is much more dangerous?
That is exactly the danger.
One of the biggest drivers in the denier argument is the historically high CO2 in the ice core record, and the pore sizes of plants stomatas. Both of those could easily be explained by a methane gun event.
What is most interesting to me, is how did so many methanotrophs get airbourne?
Most likely to me is undersea volcanoes lofting seawater loaded with them, because if there was enough methane in the air, to support evolution of an airbourne bacteria just to fill a niche, it would take longer than the 7 year life of methane in the atmo....
http://astrobiology.com/2016/08/specialized-life-forms-abound-at-arctic-methane-seeps.html
edit: add
https://aeon.co/videos/how-airborne-microbes-ride-clouds-hop-continents-and-even-make-it-rain
Interesting. But there is also a bacteria which is able to produce methane and it was suggested as one of the reason of extinction event 250 mln years from now.
I read just last year that the most abundant organism on the planet can become a methanogen when conditions arise, the tiny, seabourne S11