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THE_HERETIC
August 7, 2010
Added stuff from: July 14, 2009
Rev: December 21, 2010
One of Freeman Dyson's latest causes
is to play global warming "heretic".
DYSON
He argues that we're worrying too much
about global warming right now.
His analysis is that:
o the computer models are really not
that adequate, the damage inflicted
by our release of CO2 is not that
easy to estimate.
o by the time we succeed in fixing it
the hard way, there will be an
easier way.
His method of arguing the second case is twofold:
o He emphasises the scale of the biosphere,
pointing out that it's an easily accessible
short-term carbon sink.
o He sketches out speculative scenarios of
different technologies that might be developed,
e.g. carbon-eating trees.
JUGGLING
There are two things about this
that are of interest:
(1) if he's correct, the climate
science community has been backed into
a premature certainty, and what we're
looking at is a duel of religious Ultimately, these
fanaticisms, not a tale of science issues are our biggest
vs. ignorance. problem -- how is is
possible for a
(2) It's extremely difficult to concerned citizen to
deal with speculative scenarios deal intelligently
in a reasonable way... Dyson's with these issues?
hypothetical proposals seem to How do we increase our
have almost universally rubbed collective intelligence?
people the wrong way.
Freeman Dyson made a
minor splash when he
"came out of the
closet" on this and I gather he approached this move with
stood revealed as a some trepidation: around the same
Global Warming time he published a lot of more
Skeptic (albeit of an general work about the need for
unusual sort). Scientific Heretics.
Afterwards there was an The *idea* of being a
immediate attack by a non-conformist rebel
round of liberal always sounds good to
commentators who had no us in the abstract.
idea who he was, and When you hear the
could barely grasp what details, then we begin
he was saying. To them to wonder.
he was yet another
odd-ball, all too willing
to dive into a subject
where he's unqualified to MERCHANTS_OF_DOUBT
speak. Another tool of
the conservative denial This may be the saddest aspect of
machine... the entire affair: at present,
many of us are getting used to the
Was this guy bought, idea that the conservative rulers
or is he insane? of the mainstream are the masters
(He certainly *sounds* of deceptions and lies.
insane, doesn't he?)
But knee-jerk reactions are no better
if they jerk left than if they jerk
right. Myself I think Dyson deserved
a fairer hearing.
The first thing to undestand: as far as
credentials go, Dyson's are pretty good. He isn't
a climate specialist, but he *was* one of the
first physicists to look into the subject, and he
does appear to have been keeping up with it. He
knows more about this than I do, and certainly
knows more than his most vociferous critics.
Dyson's critique of Global Warming
doctrine is a little subtle:
He has reservations about the
reliance on computer modeling The complaint about computer models I'm
of the climate, but his main afraid sounds immediately like part of
point is not that it Global the usual conservative litany.
Warming isn't happening or even
that it isn't human induced... Nevertheless, some very extreme
claims were made with computer
His point is mainly that the models that turned out to be
ship of the global climate completely wrong ("Club of Rome",
steers so slowly that the "Limits to Growth").
things we can do now are barely
worth doing compared to the Let us hope that the modelers
costs, and that we may very are doing a better job now.
well be better off waiting for
new technical developments to
open up new lines of attack on I suspect that the weakest
the problem. point of Dyson's argument is
that he has to trust someone
Further, he goes on to else's estimates of the costs--
speculate about the and here he arguably *is*
kinds of things we beyond his direct expertise.
might be able to do in
the future, using as an Many of the things we might
example genetically do to combat global warming
modified crops to are worth doing anyway, for
increase the thickness other reasons.
of top soil.
MITIGATE
I think Dyson was in a bind:
if he left the field of
possiblities a blank, there's
nothing there to catch the
imagination, and the natural
response to a vague gesture
towards some future techfix
would be "like what? what
kind of stuff are you talking
about?"
But by filling it in some blanks, and
presenting some actual scenarios, it all
seems fantastic, fanciful, and he comes
off as some sort of crazy. (You're going
to bet the planet on *that*?)
The idea that a Known Evil like genetically
modified crops might save us from another
Known Evil did not go over well.
WHATS_GOOD_FOR_GM
And so, Freeman Dyson may be the first
person in history to make environmentalists
angry by arguing that top-soil management
is really important.
"The Question of Global Warming"
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"Our Biotech Future"
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A New York Times Magazine profile of Dyson:
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