A practising Engineer explains over unity or free energy misconceptions

[Ratchit]

Hello,

I dont think i could have said it any better myself. That's why we can not allow the money argument. I dont like it either, but if both are making money, then the argument about money cancels out, yet you keep bringing it up to support your view of no man made warming.

I said that money is the reason why there is even an argument, not that it proves one argument is correct or not. Nothing is cancelled out, because money does not address whether man-made global warming is valid or not. I bring money up to validate my claim that those who should know better advance their view of blame in the face of contradictory evidence.

I believe the prudence argument trumps unless you can prove that trying to enforce a change actually makes warming speed up, and i dont think anyone believes that.

Prudence trumps nothing if its costs are prohibitive.

Ratch

 

[steveB]

Prudence trumps nothing if its costs are prohibitive.

True prudence must factor costs and all other relevant considerations.

 

[Ratchit]

There is more than one question implied here. There are probably many, but there are two key questions in my mind. I think both questions are hard. Perhaps you can claim that one question is not hard, but I don't think you can claim that both questions are are not hard to answer.

The first question is whether the present level of CO2 increase, which is clearly caused by recent human activity, is impacting the climate now. I think this is a hard question, even though many people think they know the answer and think the question is easy. I can find people on both sides of this issue that feel the question is easy and think they know the answer. Just this fact alone proves it's a hard question. But, really I have no right to argue with you if you say it's an easy question, or if you say it's not a hard one, because I have not devoted the time (and it is a great amount of time required, in my opinion) to understand all existing data and research on this subject. I do research in my own field of study and this takes most of my time.

The second question is whether a continual increasing of the CO2 level (which is clearly going to be caused by human activity) will eventually (in the future) cause a serious problem and maybe an irreversible catastrophic problem. You can't possibly know the answer to this and you can't possibly call this an easy question and I would dismiss anyone with that opinion as completely unreasonable. Well, there is one sense that this could be viewed as an easy question. If we just keep on dumping CO2 in the environment and we wait hundreds of years, then we will know the answer. But, that's the dumb guy's way of making a hard question easy.

If you dismiss this second question, then you reveal your complete ignorance about the difficulties in modeling climate and being sure that you have factored all processes into the calculations. You are showing that you don't understand nonlinear dynamics very well because you don't realize that some nonlinear systems can have critical parameter sensitivities, and small changes can completely alter the character of the system. There can be counterintuitive effects that make changes go backward from what common sense would say, and there can be runaway effects if positive feedback loops are triggered by a critical small change.

Addressing the first question, no, it is not clear that mankind is causing the increase of CO2. As I pointed out before, the increase of the Earth's temperature, probably from the increased solar activity, is forcing the CO2 out of the oceans and elsewhere. So what is the cause and what is the effect? There is also a lot of CO2 produced by volcanic activity and soil bacteria. That's hard to control. In the past, the Earth was a lot warmer now with no man-made infusion of CO2. As the Earth warms, more heat is radiated away. As CO2 increases, plant life benefits and produces more oxygen. CO2 can increase multiple times and still be a miniscule part of the atmosphere. Then there is water vapor which swamps out CO2's effects. All that talk about not understanding nonlinear models is only valid if a correct model exists, which I don't think does.

Want to worry some more about things you cannot affect? How about this? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...llapsing-affect-climate-wipe-power-grids.html. Some planetary scientists think Mars lost it magnetism, and thereby most of its atmosphere.

Ratch

 

[MrAl]

I said that money is the reason why there is even an argument, not that it proves one argument is correct or not. Nothing is cancelled out, because money does not address whether man-made global warming is valid or not. I bring money up to validate my claim that those who should know better advance their view of blame in the face of contradictory evidence.

Wow, either this makes no sense at all or my brain is frozen today (cold in this area outside today).
You can not bring up money if money does not address the issue, as you stated yourself.
If you have a function like f(a,b,c,m) then clearly the function depends on 'm', but if you have a function f(a,b,c) then clearly the function does not depend on 'm', so you can not say that 'm' is important to the function, in any way, shape, or form. You shouldnt bring up 'm' because it has nothing to do with this new function, and it's just doesnt make sense to talk about 'm' in any way. Also, it sure sounds like you are using money to support your claim of no warming due to man because of the way you worded your previous posts. If you claim that there is spending to support carbon control and that is one of the money problems, then you must be trying to support non carbon control.
I think what you are trying to say here is that money is the reason for the argument in the first place, and if it was not for money then there would be no reason to think there was man made global warming. But if the money goes for both sides, then where is no way we could determine who is right or who is wrong from that information alone. If i got 100 dollars and you got 100 dollars we cant tell why either party got the money unless we solve the primary issue first, which is whether or not there is really global warming. So money cancels there as well.

Prudence trumps nothing if its costs are prohibitive.
Ratch

What costs? Apparently the costs are not prohibitive, they are just not comfortable. You heat your house in the winter because it is uncomfortable. If you didnt do that you'd use lots of blankets or something. If the cost for heating was prohibitive, it would not be a question of whether you wanted to or not, you could not do it. If the cost is simply uncomfortable, you still pay for it, although you dont like the cost.
Having contempt for doing something is not the same as not being allowed to do it at all.

What Steve is talking about is the positive feedback mechanism that can kick in, or even just having the system go to an uncontrollable state. For example, the predator prey model where we have a population of foxes and rabbits. If the foxes eat the rabbits too fast, the rabbits dont have time to produce new offspring to feed the foxes, so the rabbits die and the foxes are left with nothing to eat so they die too. If the foxes ration their meals (if they could of course) then they would go on to live much longer.
The main point here however not that the foxes die it's that their death can be predicted long before all the rabbits disappear using the model. Once the rabbits and foxes reach a certain state, even though there are still plenty of them around, their death both rabbits and foxes, can not be prevented.
In a more advanced model the foxes might be able to modify their behavior, but only to a certain extent. If they do it soon enough they can prevent the rabbits deaths. If they wait too long, their control power becomes too low to change the outcome.

 

[Ratchit]

Wow, either this makes no sense at all or my brain is frozen today (cold in this area outside today).
You can not bring up money if money does not address the issue, as you stated yourself.

I never said that money does not address any part of the issue. I said it does not prove the correctness of the issue one way or the other. In other words, money only address one aspect of the issue, mainly the existence of the issue. If it were not for financial reasons, this argument might still exist, but not at the size it is now.

If you have a function like f(a,b,c,m) then clearly the function depends on 'm', but if you have a function f(a,b,c) then clearly the function does not depend on 'm', so you can not say that 'm' is important to the function, in any way, shape, or form. You shouldnt bring up 'm' because it has nothing to do with this new function, and it's just doesnt make sense to talk about 'm' in any way. Also, it sure sounds like you are using money to support your claim of no warming due to man because of the way you worded your previous posts. If you claim that there is spending to support carbon control and that is one of the money problems, then you must be trying to support non carbon control.

An issue in not a cut and dried function. It can have many aspects. Money does have something to do with man-made CO2 warming, but not with the veracity of the claim. I thought I made that clear in my previous posts. Yes, I did say there was spending to support carbon control? Didn't I give examples like carbon credits, hardware such as smoke stack scrubbers, and above all, lots of government regulation. Doesn't that cost money? Until it is proven that CO2 is a culprit, I am in favor of cleaning up the known pollutants and leaving CO2 alone for now.

I think what you are trying to say here is that money is the reason for the argument in the first place, and if it was not for money then there would be no reason to think there was man made global warming. But if the money goes for both sides, then where is no way we could determine who is right or who is wrong from that information alone. If i got 100 dollars and you got 100 dollars we cant tell why either party got the money unless we solve the primary issue first, which is whether or not there is really global warming. So money cancels there as well.

Money is the reason the man-made CO2 argument is the size it is now. Otherwise it just be an academic disagreement. I don't know what point you are trying to make with the $100 example. I already said that money does not determine the veracity of the claims. In that respect, money does not cancel, it is just irrelevant.

What costs? Apparently the costs are not prohibitive, they are just not comfortable. You heat your house in the winter because it is uncomfortable. If you didnt do that you'd use lots of blankets or something. If the cost for heating was prohibitive, it would not be a question of whether you wanted to or not, you could not do it. If the cost is simply uncomfortable, you still pay for it, although you dont like the cost.
Having contempt for doing something is not the same as not being allowed to do it at all.

I already enumerated some of the costs. They are not yet prohibitive to wealthy folks because they have not been fully implemented yet. They should not even be proposed until we have proof that CO2 is a problem.

What Steve is talking about is the positive feedback mechanism that can kick in, or even just having the system go to an uncontrollable state. For example, the predator prey model where we have a population of foxes and rabbits. If the foxes eat the rabbits too fast, the rabbits dont have time to produce new offspring to feed the foxes, so the rabbits die and the foxes are left with nothing to eat so they die too. If the foxes ration their meals (if they could of course) then they would go on to live much longer.
The main point here however not that the foxes die it's that their death can be predicted long before all the rabbits disappear using the model. Once the rabbits and foxes reach a certain state, even though there are still plenty of them around, their death both rabbits and foxes, can not be prevented.
In a more advanced model the foxes might be able to modify their behavior, but only to a certain extent. If they do it soon enough they can prevent the rabbits deaths. If they wait too long, their control power becomes too low to change the outcome.

The foxes had better learn to eat something else. I think the CO2 global warming alarmists are making much out of little.
1) They know we are in a warming cycle, but we have been through several warming cycles through the ages, many of them more severe than currently.
2) The CO2 level is higher now than before, but it is still miniscule. And, the warming cycles were still present before man-made CO2.
3) It is not proven that CO2 caused the warming trend, or the warming trend caused the CO2.
4) There are mitigating factors like increased radiation from a warmer Earth sent back into space, higher plant activity to use up more CO2, and water vapor activity to produce more clouds.
5) There is good evidence that the warming and cooling Earth has better correlation with solar activity than with CO2.

I already sent steveB a link about something that could be more important to worry about.

Ratch

 

[steveB]

I already sent steveB a link about something that could be more important to worry about.

I've been aware of that one for a long time. It is very unlikely we are near a period of reversal of the poles, but yes it is always possible. I don't worry about these things because it's nature and we can't control it. If it does happen we will deal with it as best we can. A large asteroid or comet collision with earth is another one, but that is one that we might be able to do something about proactively. With time, effort and money directed towards identifying and tracking any potential "planet killers", we can know beforehand, and the sooner we know, the more likely it is that we can provide a man-made small nudge to veer the object to another trajectory that misses the earth. Again, prudence is the driving force and a full analysis reveals the proper action we humans should take.

1. Magnetic Reversals? - Do nothing because we have no capability to stop it

2. Planet Killers? - Do something, within reason, that is not too costly but gradually helps us identify more and more objects, put them in a computer data base and track them.

3. Global Warming? - Ratch says it's no problem, so all mankind should listen to him and we should not waste our money lol

OK, joking on number 3, but I say we need to at least look at it and study the issue and take simple low cost precautions. Also, we should develop new energy technologies because that's what humans do anyway, and it could be needed in the future to help combat global warming if it turns out humans are having an impact.

 

[JoeJester]

There are at least 100 times more scientists that agree that global warming is at least partly due to man's activities ...

And there are 100 times more people proclaiming overunity.

Just because someone says it 1000 times, it doesn't make it true.

Climate is cyclic. No doubt about it. So, what caused the warming before? Let me guess ... the dinosaurs emitted too much methane.

Again you bring up money when it has already been established (by Steve) that there are money issues on both sides, so that should level the argument to a draw (no win either side).

Let's see, government funded research or private sector research ... it is NOT a draw. Government has the power to tax and they think their funds are limitless.

Prudence would be NOT stating a change in 0.X C is "global warming" when you have a miniscule of probes that have a tolerance of less than 1C. You would not accept 1000 readings using 921 meters whose tolerance exceeds the tolerance of the reading.

 

[tcmtech]

Kinda coincidental that when one global catastrophe is milked to its end by the governments and big business a new one pops up right behind it?.

Remember global cooling then the ozone hole that is now seen to be a normal highly predictable annual cycle that comes and goes in the fall/winter of every year in a very predictable time frame and probably has since before we figured out it was even there once the governments and big business couldn't squeeze any more money out of it?

I wonder what will be next once the overall populace gets to the point of figuring out that they are being scammed for more than just making life better for themselves on something we have no really way of accurately measuring or controlling?

 

[steveB]

Let's see, government funded research or private sector research ... it is NOT a draw. Government has the power to tax and they think their funds are limitless.

When I think of the "opposing" money, i think of the oil industry and other vested interests, not the private sector research.
Look how they used to fight the research that identified lead contamination. It took science to uncover the truth about what lead gas was doing in the environment. Look how the tobacco industry tried to fight the science research that proved the health hazards of smoking.

The money argument is moot. There is plenty of money on both sides.

Prudence would be NOT stating a change in 0.X C is "global warming" when you have a miniscule of probes that have a tolerance of less than 1C. You would not accept 1000 readings using 921 meters whose tolerance exceeds the tolerance of the reading.

My argument about prudence is not based on this kind of data.
It is based on something more fundamental. The CO2 increase is man-induced, and the amount will eventually double and even triple if no changes are made. The rate of change is much greater than anything nature has done. Carbon dioxide is used by plants and is the biggest component to the green-house gases if water vapor is excluded. The exclusion of water vapor is important because the other green-house gases affect how water vapor behaves and water vapor concentration can change on time scales of days as opposed to CO2 which takes decades to come out of the atmosphere once it is put in there. To say that CO2 cant have an effect, without doing the research work, is crazy. It is a question that must be studied, and cant be dismissed off the cuff. It's a question to be answered with a lot of work by scientists working over decades. It cant be quickly dismissed by amateur arm-chair thinkers.

Just as Clair Patterson's research (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson) revealed the truth about lead contamination, scientists will one day provide that answers to this question about what CO2 increase is doing to our climate. Detractors and big money from oil interests wont stop the answers from being uncovered, but they will try like hell to slow the process down, and they will succeed in slowing the process down.

 

[MrAl]

Hello again,

Ratch:
Im sorry but you dont seem to understand the idea of creating a simple hypothetical situation as a thought experiment so we can better understand the more complex issues. You dont seem to know how to stay "inside the box" when you are supposed to. Yes it is great to think "outside the box" but when we create scenarios with limited choices it is because we are limited in choices with the original issue too.
For the fox and rabbits illustration, you clearly jumped outside the box.
For another example, if we are given a choice between two 'colors' of paint to paint someones house, either white or black, you would probably choose 'grey', even when it is clear from the start that we could only use black or white. Or you'd come up with some other color for some other reason which you would like to invent, such as, "The sky is blue so lets paint it blue"
When we design these kinds of questions and scenarios we do it to illustrate a point about the main issue. I dont know why you cant follow this logic. You insist on changing the whole question/scenario to try to illustrate your own point and miss the entire point of the question.
The foxes can not find anything else to eat, period. That's because it is a closed system and that should have been obvious from the context. We are stuck with certain behaviors and have to deal with that, and that helps us understand something far greater.

So it looks like you cant understand that the foxes die at a certain point.
It also looks like you cant understand why we have to cancel money completely out of the picture.
I dont know what else to tell you, im sorry.

I am very happy though that you do not have control over how this plays out in real life, and i guess you are happy that i dont have that kind of control either
We have to put up with whatever the governments decide to do about all this.
Bill Gates is pushing a one-world-government with the hopes of dealing with issues like this that affect all of humanity. Whether or not that is a good idea is another subject for debate

 

[Ratchit]

Hello again,

Ratch:
Im sorry but you dont seem to understand the idea of creating a simple hypothetical situation as a thought experiment so we can better understand the more complex issues. You dont seem to know how to stay "inside the box" when you are supposed to. Yes it is great to think "outside the box" but when we create scenarios with limited choices it is because we are limited in choices with the original issue too.
For the fox and rabbits illustration, you clearly jumped outside the box.
For another example, if we are given a choice between two 'colors' of paint to paint someones house, either white or black, you would probably choose 'grey', even when it is clear from the start that we could only use black or white. Or you'd come up with some other color for some other reason which you would like to invent, such as, "The sky is blue so lets paint it blue"
When we design these kinds of questions and scenarios we do it to illustrate a point about the main issue. I dont know why you cant follow this logic. You insist on changing the whole question/scenario to try to illustrate your own point and miss the entire point of the question.
The foxes can not find anything else to eat, period. That's because it is a closed system and that should have been obvious from the context. We are stuck with certain behaviors and have to deal with that, and that helps us understand something far greater.

So it looks like you cant understand that the foxes die at a certain point.
It also looks like you cant understand why we have to cancel money completely out of the picture.
I dont know what else to tell you, im sorry.

I am very happy though that you do not have control over how this plays out in real life, and i guess you are happy that i dont have that kind of control either
We have to put up with whatever the governments decide to do about all this.
Bill Gates is pushing a one-world-government with the hopes of dealing with issues like this that affect all of humanity. Whether or not that is a good idea is another subject for debate

I made that remark about the foxes as a joke. A better real world example would have been the decimation of the passenger pigeon and the almost extinction of the buffalo. A good counter example would be the cyclic population swings of certain rodent species like lemmings and rabbits who don't become extinct.

Which government would the "Will of the Bill" select? His Billness certainly has enough money to starter fund it.

Ratch

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

He he, thanks for the joke, very funny, especially "His Billness"

Well, i dont think He (note capitalization ha ha ha) wants to select one gov, but wants to make what we call the United Nations be what it should have been all along. His idea is that some sort of global control has to be implemented to try to solve or help issues like climate change and the spread of disease. We know the argument over the climate change all too well now, but if anything was to be proven what would it take to get other countries to comply, when if they dont comply it means we get hurt too. And probably what sparked this idea was the recent outbreak of ebola and how we found out that it can spread to other countries in so many ways, and other governments did not seem to deal with it properly in the first place. If they were forced to deal with it it could not spread as easily.

Will it work? I dont know, because today, more than ever, costs for any kind of major control of anything are extremely high. The other countries might not be able to handle the financial burden. We will be left footing the bill for that too

From what i can see though, we already have something similar to this. If one country does anything too far out of whack some of the other countries impose sanctions. Does that work? I dont think that works as well as it should either

 

[JoeJester]

Steve,

One day science will have all the answers for "today's problems." Unfortunately, today's remedies become tomorrows problem, and science still will get funding to solve "those" problems. It's a never ending cycle.

One can not predict the future, as they can only infer what the future holds. This is especially true in climate studies, as the climate is cyclic. Look at the predictions of the earth cooling which became global warming, which is now "climate." Is there a cause and effect? I don't mean a controlled experiment, but one on a global scale? The "climate" ... please keep me funded crowd ... haven't been too accurate on their predictions so far. The margin of error is too great.

The methane gas scare, where the government wanted to, and probably did, fund a study for a scientist to collect cattle flatulence.

The Environmental Impact Studies that had people spending more money to pick up dead birds that hit a tall tower or it's guy wires. Then having to "freeze" the birds as evidence for future studies.

The end metric has not been realized. Of course, if you want it on a global scale, there will be a "one world government." That might happen is a few hundred years, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Daniel Huff wrote a book titled "How to lie with statistics."

 

[steveB]

And the flip side is that you could be wrong and CO2 increase will cause runaway climate issues. The bad way this can go is very very bad. Even if the chance were less than 1 in a 1000, some effort has to be made to do the science. And there is a lot of information that indicates the odds are higher than that, if odds even make any sense here.

I would have thought that reasonable people would only disagree on the exact amount of money which should be directed at this, not whether or not any money should be directed at this.

 

[Ratchit]

And the flip side is that you could be wrong and CO2 increase will cause runaway climate issues. The bad way this can go is very very bad. Even if the chance were less than 1 in a 1000, some effort has to be made to do the science. And there is a lot of information that indicates the odds are higher than that, if odds even make any sense here.

I would have thought that reasonable people would only disagree on the exact amount of money which should be directed at this, not whether or not any money should be directed at this.

And what, pray tell me, are we going to do about it? Even if we reduced our CO2 infusion to zero, we could still get a heating surge. It has happened before in the past. No amount of money is going to change that.

Ratch

 

[steveB]

And what, pray tell me, are we going to do about it? Even if we reduced our CO2 infusion to zero, we could still get a heating surge. It has happened before in the past. No amount of money is going to change that.

Ratch

This objection is riddled with issues.

You imply, in your first sentence, that man is impotent. He can cause problems, but he can not find solutions to those problems. I hope you are wrong about that.

The second sentence, tries to reduce the potential for a catastrophic problem to a mere "heating surge". This winter is damned cold and I would not mind a heating surge in a New England winter. The potential problem is a runaway green-house effect, caused by a positive feedback loop, not a heating surge.

The third sentence implies that the past changes means that changes now cant hurt us, or are not in any way undesirable. The earth has gone through huge changes and many of those changes man would have not survived had he been around then. When man was around, he has survived many earth-wide changes including caldera eras and ice ages. We struggled greatly in those times. Humans are thriving now, but there is no certainty that will always be the case. The earth will be just fine and it can tolerate huge changes without problem. Humans and any one species is far less resilient than the earth itself. And human economy and present ways of life are even less resilient that human kind itself.

Your last sentence is a statement without proof. Why can't money change it? Money is a measure of human effort. Money implies many humans banding together to target a specific problem. History has shown that if people decide something is important and group together with hard work and positive attitude, they can do amazing things. Those that do amazing things have more hope than you show in your response here.


To answer your question, what we would do depends on how bad the consequences would be. Let's say (hypothetically) we eventually discover that a threshold of 2 times present level of carbon will trigger a runaway effect with unacceptable consequences. Would you recommend a change in what we do, based on that? Or, do you say, no amount of money can change that. It seems to me we would slow the rate as much as possible, and develop alternate technologies. We would want to do it in a way that preserves the economy and maintains our lifestyles, but allows the tragedy to be avoided. If there is enough time, then this may be done. Just like the case of planet-killing-asteroids, the sooner you know, the sooner you can act and the better the chances of success.

Perhaps the research could uncover that we are screwed. Maybe it's too late to avoid a problem. If we stop our activity fast enough to prevent a climate catastrophe, then we collapse the economy. If we dont try to stop then the climate goes wild and our economy collapses for other reasons.

We dont really know. But, "dont know" should not imply " dont try" because humans are built to try and never quit.

 

[MrAl]

I would have thought that reasonable people would only disagree on the exact amount of money which should be directed at this, not whether or not any money should be directed at this.

And you would have been correct

 

[MrAl]

And what, pray tell me, are we going to do about it? Even if we reduced our CO2 infusion to zero, we could still get a heating surge. It has happened before in the past. No amount of money is going to change that.
Ratch

Hi,

We might all die tomorrow so lets not doing anything about anything.

It's a simple equation, where we have two different sources for a problem X, x1 and x2:
X(t)=x1(t)+x2(t)
x1 is random, but x2 is under our control. Too much X means we all die. x1 has been known in the past to stay within certain limits even though it is random. Do we do nothing to try to control x2?

Possible answers:
1. We do nothing, and nothing goes wrong.
2. We do nothing, and x1 takes over and we all die.
3. We try to control x2, and nothing goes wrong.
4. We try to control x2, and x1 takes over and we all die.

So do we do nothing or do we do something?

I am glad that Steve brought up the asteroid issue. It took a long time for anyone to be convinced this was a serious issue that had to be dealt with. Finally, there is now a concerted effort to develop asteroid deflecting technology.

 

[MrAl]

Steve,

One day science will have all the answers for "today's problems." Unfortunately, today's remedies become tomorrows problem, and science still will get funding to solve "those" problems. It's a never ending cycle.

One can not predict the future, as they can only infer what the future holds. This is especially true in climate studies, as the climate is cyclic. Look at the predictions of the earth cooling which became global warming, which is now "climate." Is there a cause and effect? I don't mean a controlled experiment, but one on a global scale? The "climate" ... please keep me funded crowd ... haven't been too accurate on their predictions so far. The margin of error is too great.

The methane gas scare, where the government wanted to, and probably did, fund a study for a scientist to collect cattle flatulence.

The Environmental Impact Studies that had people spending more money to pick up dead birds that hit a tall tower or it's guy wires. Then having to "freeze" the birds as evidence for future studies.

The end metric has not been realized. Of course, if you want it on a global scale, there will be a "one world government." That might happen is a few hundred years, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Daniel Huff wrote a book titled "How to lie with statistics."

Hi,

Think about "preventive planetary medicine". Earth might not catch the flu, but then again it might. Doing nothing means if there is a natural process where the Earth can catch it, it will surely catch it if we do nothing. If we do something, at least we have a chance to stop it. We're just trying to survive as a civilization, that's all, and we are doing all the reasonable things that anyone reasonable would do for their own health, unless of course they see a conspiracy in everything around them.

 

[Ratchit]

This objection is riddled with issues.

You imply, in your first sentence, that man is impotent. He can cause problems, but he can not find solutions to those problems. I hope you are wrong about that.

For some things mankind can do much. But not for everything.

The second sentence, tries to reduce the potential for a catastrophic problem to a mere "heating surge". This winter is damned cold and I would not mind a heating surge in a New England winter. The potential problem is a runaway green-house effect, caused by a positive feedback loop, not a heating surge.

Where or what is the feedback loop? There is only so much solar heating we can obtain from the Sun, unless we move the Earth in closer. The atmosphere can only trap so much heat, and the higher the temperature gets, the more heat is lost to outer space. The CO2 idea is sketchy because it is such a small amount. The added water vapor will probably produce more clouds.

The third sentence implies that the past changes means that changes now cant hurt us, or are not in any way undesirable. The earth has gone through huge changes and many of those changes man would have not survived had he been around then. When man was around, he has survived many earth-wide changes including caldera eras and ice ages. We struggled greatly in those times. Humans are thriving now, but there is no certainty that will always be the case. The earth will be just fine and it can tolerate huge changes without problem. Humans and any one species is far less resilient than the earth itself. And human economy and present ways of life are even less resilient that human kind itself.

Humans have survived greater warming surges than present. Europeans used to grow crops further north than they do now.

Your last sentence is a statement without proof. Why can't money change it? Money is a measure of human effort. Money implies many humans banding together to target a specific problem. History has shown that if people decide something is important and group together with hard work and positive attitude, they can do amazing things. Those that do amazing things have more hope than you show in your response here.

Because money and human effort cannot do everything. It cannot change the solar level, for instance.

To answer your question, what we would do depends on how bad the consequences would be. Let's say (hypothetically) we eventually discover that a threshold of 2 times present level of carbon will trigger a runaway effect with unacceptable consequences. Would you recommend a change in what we do, based on that? Or, do you say, no amount of money can change that. It seems to me we would slow the rate as much as possible, and develop alternate technologies. We would want to do it in a way that preserves the economy and maintains our lifestyles, but allows the tragedy to be avoided. If there is enough time, then this may be done. Just like the case of planet-killing-asteroids, the sooner you know, the sooner you can act and the better the chances of success.

I don't think that multiple amounts of CO2 will make any difference because it is such a small amount in the first place. Also increased plant activity will tend to remove it, especially the plankton in the oceans. I would want to be sure that bad changes are coming before I commit a large amount of treasure to try to solve a problem. I would rather suffer the consequences than be fooled.

Perhaps the research could uncover that we are screwed. Maybe it's too late to avoid a problem. If we stop our activity fast enough to prevent a climate catastrophe, then we collapse the economy. If we dont try to stop then the climate goes wild and our economy collapses for other reasons.

First we have to determine if our climate is really going wild or just in one of its periodic cycles.

We dont really know. But, "dont know" should not imply " dont try" because humans are built to try and never quit.

Knowledge first, worry afterwards.

Ratch