On Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 9:02:59 PM UTC+3, VSim wrote:
> OK, back to business.
>
> I have some bad news to report. I did the calculations and it seems it is indeed impossible by the method I thought of.
> Long story short, it turns out that Callisto is the easiest extractable Jupiter moon, not Europa.
> Even with Callisto, the SM needed to extract it would be about 2/3 its mass, which is about as big as our Moon. Way too big.
>
> If anybody is interested to review my calculations you'll have to say so, and then I'll post them here. But I don't think anybody will. I'm pretty sure I got it right, but of course I might have done some error somewhere. I'll probably review them myself once more these days but I don't expect anything to change.
>
> Conclusion, who knows, maybe somebody will think of a better way to produce a flyby object that can change our orbit the desired way. Or maybe our best hope in the near future is that God has mercy of us and sends us the moon-sized asteroid we need from outside the solar system, and we just need to deflect it a little bit to put it into the desired orbit. Other than that, hopefully the doomsday scenarios of the ecologists won't materialize.

Or maybe we could use Pluto or Eris, or both.

As you may know, these are dwarf planets. They're small, about 20% the mass of the Moon each. They are at the margin of the solar system and have very elongated orbits. And being very far from the Sun they move very slowly. Maybe we could stop them by means of atomic explosions, or at least slow them down so that then they get deflected by other planets and into the right orbits.
They're small so we would need more flybys, perhaps 5 - 10 in total. But maybe we could engineer something like one every 5 years, from both of them (one every 10 years from each of them) so it would last something like 25 - 50 years (from the moment we'd get the first flyby which won't be tomorrow).. In a way it would be better because we'd have more time to see the effects and adjust things as needed.

I'm not going to do any calculation on this possibility :), way above my expertise. But I can't help thinking that the idea is interesting enough to deserve a proper study. NASA should take over from here.

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 10:48:21 AM UTC-6, VSim wrote:

> Or maybe we could use Pluto or Eris, or both.

The mass of Pluto is 1.309 * 10^22 kilograms. The delta-V is 11.8 kilometers per second.

So the amount of energy required is 1.54 * 10^26 joules.

This amount of energy could be produced by carrying out deuterium-tritium fusion
with 4.583 * 10^11 kilograms of fuel.

Since the mass of the Earth is 5.97 * 10^24 kilograms, this is an insignificant part of
the Earth's mass. I still wouldn't say that this makes it feasible.

John Savard

In article <cffd7963-54c1-44c5-8ab7-fb4c964bc194n@googlegroups.com>,
VSim <intelnav@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 9:02:59 PM UTC+3, VSim wrote:
>> OK, back to business.
>>
>> I have some bad news to report. I did the calculations and it seems
>it is indeed impossible by the method I thought of.
>> Long story short, it turns out that Callisto is the easiest
>extractable Jupiter moon, not Europa.
>> Even with Callisto, the SM needed to extract it would be about 2/3
>its mass, which is about as big as our Moon. Way too big.
>>
>> If anybody is interested to review my calculations you'll have to say
>so, and then I'll post them here. But I don't think anybody will. I'm
>pretty sure I got it right, but of course I might have done some error
>somewhere. I'll probably review them myself once more these days but I
>don't expect anything to change.
>>
>> Conclusion, who knows, maybe somebody will think of a better way to
>produce a flyby object that can change our orbit the desired way. Or
>maybe our best hope in the near future is that God has mercy of us and
>sends us the moon-sized asteroid we need from outside the solar system,
>and we just need to deflect it a little bit to put it into the desired
>orbit. Other than that, hopefully the doomsday scenarios of the
>ecologists won't materialize.
>
>Or maybe we could use Pluto or Eris, or both.
>
>As you may know, these are dwarf planets. They're small, about 20% the
>mass of the Moon each.

As I know, both are substantial bodies well beyond human ability to
redirect over any plausible time span. Pluto is 1.3x10E22 kilograms.
Eris is about 1.6x10E22 kilograms. Very roughly speaking, that is
100,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the Earth to LEO payload of the
SLS launchers. In universal terms, it is the size of a giraffe that
is the size of Pluto.

As well, they are far enough from the sun that a minimum energy orbit
would take decades. 45 years for Pluto.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 3:09:36 AM UTC-4, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On 25 Jul 2023 23:55:25 GMT, Jaimie Vandenbergh
> <jai...@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
>
> >On 25 Jul 2023 at 21:58:48 BST, "Scott Lurndal" <Scott Lurndal> wrote:
> >
> >> VSim <inte...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 2:03:59=E2=80=AFAM UTC+3, William Hyde wrote:
> >>>> On Monday, July 24, 2023 at 5:39:25=E2=80=AFPM UTC-4, VSim wrote:=20
> >>>> =20
> >>>> It is also a standard claim of theirs that they are not GW deniers, just =
> >>> anthopogenic GW deniers. Sound familiar?=20
> >>>> =20
> >>>> So tell me, do you believe that anthropogenic warming is happening and is=
> >>> significant?
> >>>
> >>> Yes, of course. But you want me to believe that it's basically the only GW =
> >>> that's happening and that I don't. As I told you, from all I know nobody wi=
> >>> th authority says what part of it is human-generated and what part is natur=
> >>> al.
> >>
> >> Good news! You can find someone with authority tell you exactly
> >> that in section 2.1.1 (page 6) of the IPCC_AR6_SYR_LongerReport.pdf.
> >>
> >> "Global surface temperature was around 1.1°C above 1850­1900
> >> in 2011­2020 (1.09°C [0.95°C­1.20°C])7, with larger increases
> >> over land (1.59 [1.34 to 1.83]°C) than over the ocean (0.88°C
> >> [0.68°C­1.01°C])8. Observed warming is human-caused, with warming
> >> from greenhouse gases (GHG), dominated by CO2 and methane (CH4),
> >> partly masked by aerosol cooling (Figure 2.1)."
> >>
> >> "The likely range of total human-caused global surface
> >> temperature increase from 1850­1900 to 2010­20199 is 0.8°C
> >> to 1.3°C, with a best estimate of 1.07°C. It is likely that
> >> well-mixed GHGs contributed a warming of 1.0°C­2.0°C, and other
> >> human drivers (principally aerosols) contributed a cooling of 0.0°C­0.8°C,
> >> natural (solar and volcanic) drivers changed global surface
> >> temperature by ±0.1°C and internal variability changed it by ±0.2°C."
> >
> >I suspect this report is too technical for the poor chap, given it has
> >not only
> >degrees celsius but also decimal points. So for that reason he'll ignore
> >it.
> Heh heh - on the other hand, I (who have no problem with Celsius or
> converting back and forth to Fahrenheit etc) tend to strongly mock
> anybody who says climate change is ONLY due to one factor (in this
> case homo sapiens).
>
> No question we're part of it but the whole thing? I think not

On what grounds?

and
> given what a controlled experiment would entail to see what the
> temperature would be with no human life on earth I'm skeptical.
>
> Frankly if the climate is a problem does it matter whether it's human
> beings, natural long term climactic change or little green men from
> outer space?

If it is not due to humans, then there is some huge factor driving
climate that we are missing entirely. And so any proposed solution
would not take that into account, and any effort we make might
well exacerbate this unknown cause.

The challenge is to keep it something human beings can
> maintain a reasonable civilization without the sort of fluctuations
> that puts our future at risk.
>
> Whether the human contribution to the climate is 0.1 deg C

... in which case physics is wrong and we might as well do nothing.

All denialist arguments aim at our doing nothing, this is no
exception.

William Hyde

It occurs to me that as long as math and basic physics is being
tossed aside as hopelessly tainted by informed expertise, a much
simpler solution for climate change presents itself. The sun
can be covered by a thumbnail at arm's length. So can a marble.
It follows therefore that the same basic method used to flick
marbles could be employed on the sun to send it far from Earth
and spare us its radiance.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 2023-07-29, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 3:09:36 AM UTC-4, The Horny Goat wrote:
>> On 25 Jul 2023 23:55:25 GMT, Jaimie Vandenbergh
>> <jai...@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
>>
>> >On 25 Jul 2023 at 21:58:48 BST, "Scott Lurndal" <Scott Lurndal> wrote:
>> >
>> >> VSim <inte...@yahoo.com> writes:
>> >>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 2:03:59=E2=80=AFAM UTC+3, William Hyde wrote:
>> >>>> On Monday, July 24, 2023 at 5:39:25=E2=80=AFPM UTC-4, VSim wrote:=20
>> >>>> =20
>> >>>> It is also a standard claim of theirs that they are not GW deniers, just =
>> >>> anthopogenic GW deniers. Sound familiar?=20
>> >>>> =20
>> >>>> So tell me, do you believe that anthropogenic warming is happening and is=
>> >>> significant?
>> >>>
>> >>> Yes, of course. But you want me to believe that it's basically the only GW =
>> >>> that's happening and that I don't. As I told you, from all I know nobody wi=
>> >>> th authority says what part of it is human-generated and what part is natur=
>> >>> al.
>> >>
>> >> Good news! You can find someone with authority tell you exactly
>> >> that in section 2.1.1 (page 6) of the IPCC_AR6_SYR_LongerReport.pdf.
>> >>
>> >> "Global surface temperature was around 1.1°C above 1850­1900
>> >> in 2011­2020 (1.09°C [0.95°C­1.20°C])7, with larger increases
>> >> over land (1.59 [1.34 to 1.83]°C) than over the ocean (0.88°C
>> >> [0.68°C­1.01°C])8. Observed warming is human-caused, with warming
>> >> from greenhouse gases (GHG), dominated by CO2 and methane (CH4),
>> >> partly masked by aerosol cooling (Figure 2.1)."
>> >>
>> >> "The likely range of total human-caused global surface
>> >> temperature increase from 1850­1900 to 2010­20199 is 0.8°C
>> >> to 1.3°C, with a best estimate of 1.07°C. It is likely that
>> >> well-mixed GHGs contributed a warming of 1.0°C­2.0°C, and other
>> >> human drivers (principally aerosols) contributed a cooling of 0.0°C­0.8°C,
>> >> natural (solar and volcanic) drivers changed global surface
>> >> temperature by ±0.1°C and internal variability changed it by ±0.2°C."
>> >
>> >I suspect this report is too technical for the poor chap, given it has
>> >not only
>> >degrees celsius but also decimal points. So for that reason he'll ignore
>> >it.
>> Heh heh - on the other hand, I (who have no problem with Celsius or
>> converting back and forth to Fahrenheit etc) tend to strongly mock
>> anybody who says climate change is ONLY due to one factor (in this
>> case homo sapiens).
>>
>> No question we're part of it but the whole thing? I think not
>
> On what grounds?
>
> and
>> given what a controlled experiment would entail to see what the
>> temperature would be with no human life on earth I'm skeptical.
>>
>> Frankly if the climate is a problem does it matter whether it's human
>> beings, natural long term climactic change or little green men from
>> outer space?
>
> If it is not due to humans, then there is some huge factor driving
> climate that we are missing entirely. And so any proposed solution
> would not take that into account, and any effort we make might
> well exacerbate this unknown cause.

William, while I applaud your efforts and intent, you are overstating
your case here and in previous messages (or not understanding the
point being made.) There are no scientific papers that claim to prove
*all* of the climate warming we see is due to human effects. Eg, no
papers that purport to rule out (probabilistic scientific "ruling out")
the possibility that 0.1% of the warming is due to natural causes,
with 99.9% due to humans.

Certainly the paper cited above doesn't rule it out given Scott's
excerpt from it says natural drivers could contribute +0.1C and internal
variability +0.2C (which seems pretty standard nowadays from the papers
I've read.)

Indeed, given normal error bounds of our knowledge, such a paper would
basically have to *prove* that if humans did not exist, the expectation
is that temperatures would be currently decreasing!

I certainly believe such natural warming effects are negligible, but we
are a long ways from proving such negligible effects don't exist, and to
claim otherwise just fuels distrust of science and hurts your cause.

>
> The challenge is to keep it something human beings can
>> maintain a reasonable civilization without the sort of fluctuations
>> that puts our future at risk.
>>
>> Whether the human contribution to the climate is 0.1 deg C
>
> ... in which case physics is wrong and we might as well do nothing.
>
> All denialist arguments aim at our doing nothing, this is no
> exception.

A pretty vacuous and uncalled-for statement since nobody you're
responding to is denying humans affect climate.

Chris

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 6:37:51 PM UTC-4, James Nicoll wrote:
> It occurs to me that as long as math and basic physics is being
> tossed aside as hopelessly tainted by informed expertise, a much
> simpler solution for climate change presents itself. The sun
> can be covered by a thumbnail at arm's length. So can a marble.
> It follows therefore that the same basic method used to flick
> marbles could be employed on the sun to send it far from Earth
> and spare us its radiance.

John McCarthy: "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to
talk nonsense."

VSim seems to be the poster child for this.

Pt

On 7/29/2023 10:08 AM, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 9:01:54 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> On 7/28/2023 5:06 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:17:36=E2=80=AFPM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Don't worry, if things get really bad, I know a guy who launches around=
>>>> =20
>>>>> ten tons of satellites just about every week. He has launched about=20
>>>>> 5,000 of them now, mostly LEO but a few up to geosync orbit (GSO) also.=
>>>> =20
>>>>> I am sure that he can put a few space umbrellas up there to shield the=20
>>>>> Earth from a few of Sol's rays.=20
>>>>
>>>> I wonder if you or your friend have an approximate idea of the cost of send=
>>>> ing up enough
>>>> umbrellas to reduce solar input by one percent.
>>>
>>> I presume the "friend" he is referring to is the current owner of the
>>> waste of time formerly known as twitter, i.e. the head twit.
>>>
>>> The estimates I've seen are in the trillions of dollars.
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0608163103
>> Cool paper. I will print it out and read it someday.
>>
>> Yup, do you know a single other entity launching spaceships weekly ? He
>> is the D. D. Harriman that Heinlein wrote of. Until recently, I would
>> have deemed $50/kg as way too low. Now, I consider it to be high as
>> Musk's goal is about half that for Starship.
>
> China, seems pretty close.
>
> Watch any of the frequent roundups on YT. Scott Manley and Marcus
> House for example.
>
> Pt

Got stats ? China makes a lot of claims including a claim that they
have a manned Moon spaceship going soon.

Lynn

On Saturday, 29 July 2023 at 15:01:19 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 1:09:36 AM UTC-6, The Horny Goat wrote:
>
> > Whether the human contribution to the climate is 0.1 deg C or some
> > larger number isn't the point - it's dealing with the overall effect
> > without letting it get to the point that our survival isn't in
> > question.
> Actually, the question of whether climate change is caused by humans or
> is caused by natural processes is significant in a number of ways to solving
> the problem.
>
> That's because it affects two crucial questions about solving it:
>
> - is it something we _can_ solve, and
> - what kind of solution do we need?
>
> If it isn't mostly human-caused...
>
> then
>
> 1) is it even clear we _can_ solve it? Humanity isn't omnipotent, and
> so a natural change in the weather might be beyond our power to counter; and
>
> 2) if we caused it, then of course we can solve it (maybe with unacceptable
> lag time, since a gradual approach to equilibrium is involved) by ceasing to do
> what we did to cause it. If not, but it can be solved, then the solutions would
> lie at least partly in the realm of "geoengineering".

Point 2a is not quite right. Since we have put
extra CO2 in the atmosphere, the sky is letting in
more solar energy than it lets out (this may be not
quite right either). If we suddenly stop adding
more CO2 to the atmosphere, the sky still will be
letting in more energy than it lets out, and the
Earth will continue to get warmer, until the extra
CO2 relative to "natural" equilibrium is removed.
When will that happen? Well -

<https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials>
refers to "increases in atmospheric concentrations
of CO2 that will last thousands of years."

<https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2017/11/13/where-is-all-that-carbon-dioxide-is-going/>
asserts "Only about 50 percent of the CO2 from
human emissions remains in the atmosphere.
The remainder is approximately equally split between
uptake into the land biosphere and into the ocean."

This seems contradictory, but, for one thing,
I suppose there is a separate equilibrium between
CO2 in the atmosphere and CO2 dissolved in
the ocean. What I mean is that if God suddenly
took all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, then
CO2 in the ocean would leak into the atmosphere.
But then again, some CO2 goes into the oceans and
then is chemically converted and trapped, not to
be released in that way.

Nevertheless, as Nina Simone remarked, neither
the rocks nor the sea are going to save us from
the consequences of our previous behaviour.

> As far as the weather in a particular year is concerned, of course the natural
> El Nino/La Nina cycle - the Pacific Decadal Oscillation - will have an influence.
>
> But I haven't really heard any credible claim of a natural process that causes
> global warming which is currently in effect. Instead, what natural cycles have
> in store for us is a new ice age, when the current interglacial comes to an end.
>
> John Savard

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 9:05:25 PM UTC+3, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 10:48:21 AM UTC-6, VSim wrote:
>
> > Or maybe we could use Pluto or Eris, or both.
> The mass of Pluto is 1.309 * 10^22 kilograms. The delta-V is 11.8 kilometers per second.

Where did you get that number ? As I see here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

they give an average orbital speed of 4.74 km/s. I don't suppose they got the wrong speed.

> So the amount of energy required is 1.54 * 10^26 joules.

I don't follow. By what formula ? Kinetic energy is (m v^2) / 2 if I haven't suddenly forgotten all physics I know.

Also, it should be considered that Pluto naturally crosses Neptune's path, in such a way that it's never very near Neptune itself or it would be deflected by it. They're in sync, I found out these days. Interesting. But it follows that if Pluto was slowed down by just 10%, it might get close enough to Neptune for our purposes. It's just an estimative number, I haven't done any calculation and I won't.

In any case the numbers are huge, as they're supposed to be, and even if we could bring them down by a few 0s, they probably would still be too big. This part I don't dispute.

> This amount of energy could be produced by carrying out deuterium-tritium fusion
> with 4.583 * 10^11 kilograms of fuel.

Well, given how you did the previous calculations excuse me if I don't trust this one very much. But the idea is the same, the numbers are probably up there, way too big, no argument.

All I'm saying is somebody with proper expertise should take a look at it. The solar system is pretty big and full with objects of various sizes and a ton of special effects. A solution might be possible, or maybe not. Then again, if they don't they probably consider it a non-starter too so that's it.

On 7/20/2023 4:06 PM, William Hyde wrote:
....
> So you propose to chill down nuclear armed Russia, while suppressing rainfall in nuclear armed India, and possibly China.
>
> I wonder if the spacecraft, space stations, and manufacturing you're going to need to move planets around could possibly
> be vulnerable to hydrogen bombs?
>
> > And the side effects hopefully are minimal.
>
> Sure, just duck and cover.
>
> William Hyde

Yeah, we ducked and covered when I was in elementary school in Oklahoma
in old cinder block buildings in the 1960s. I did not think much of it
then and still don't.

We really don't need a good case of canned sunshine. I would not
implement my XXXXX Pournelle's plan until we got 5 C or 10 C above the
previous average. And then only as a joint effort between nations.

Now solar power satellites, I think that we should do those today in the
USA. When SpaceX gets their super super heavy (Starship) going, we
should be able to lift entire assemblies into orbit. I don't have a
clue where the best place for a solar power satellites is, LEO or GSO.

Lynn

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 10:03:38 PM UTC-4, Chris Buckley wrote:
> On 2023-07-29, William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 3:09:36 AM UTC-4, The Horny Goat wrote:
> >> On 25 Jul 2023 23:55:25 GMT, Jaimie Vandenbergh
> >> <jai...@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On 25 Jul 2023 at 21:58:48 BST, "Scott Lurndal" <Scott Lurndal> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> VSim <inte...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >> >>> On Tuesday, July 25, 2023 at 2:03:59=E2=80=AFAM UTC+3, William Hyde wrote:
> >> >>>> On Monday, July 24, 2023 at 5:39:25=E2=80=AFPM UTC-4, VSim wrote:=20
> >> >>>> =20
> >> >>>> It is also a standard claim of theirs that they are not GW deniers, just =
> >> >>> anthopogenic GW deniers. Sound familiar?=20
> >> >>>> =20
> >> >>>> So tell me, do you believe that anthropogenic warming is happening and is=
> >> >>> significant?
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Yes, of course. But you want me to believe that it's basically the only GW =
> >> >>> that's happening and that I don't. As I told you, from all I know nobody wi=
> >> >>> th authority says what part of it is human-generated and what part is natur=
> >> >>> al.
> >> >>
> >> >> Good news! You can find someone with authority tell you exactly
> >> >> that in section 2.1.1 (page 6) of the IPCC_AR6_SYR_LongerReport.pdf..
> >> >>
> >> >> "Global surface temperature was around 1.1°C above 1850­1900
> >> >> in 2011­2020 (1.09°C [0.95°C­1.20°C])7, with larger increases
> >> >> over land (1.59 [1.34 to 1.83]°C) than over the ocean (0.88°C
> >> >> [0.68°C­1.01°C])8. Observed warming is human-caused, with warming
> >> >> from greenhouse gases (GHG), dominated by CO2 and methane (CH4),
> >> >> partly masked by aerosol cooling (Figure 2.1)."
> >> >>
> >> >> "The likely range of total human-caused global surface
> >> >> temperature increase from 1850­1900 to 2010­20199 is 0.8°C
> >> >> to 1.3°C, with a best estimate of 1.07°C. It is likely that
> >> >> well-mixed GHGs contributed a warming of 1.0°C­2.0°C, and other
> >> >> human drivers (principally aerosols) contributed a cooling of 0.0°C­0.8°C,
> >> >> natural (solar and volcanic) drivers changed global surface
> >> >> temperature by ±0.1°C and internal variability changed it by ±0.2°C."
> >> >
> >> >I suspect this report is too technical for the poor chap, given it has
> >> >not only
> >> >degrees celsius but also decimal points. So for that reason he'll ignore
> >> >it.
> >> Heh heh - on the other hand, I (who have no problem with Celsius or
> >> converting back and forth to Fahrenheit etc) tend to strongly mock
> >> anybody who says climate change is ONLY due to one factor (in this
> >> case homo sapiens).
> >>
> >> No question we're part of it but the whole thing? I think not
> >
> > On what grounds?
> >
> > and
> >> given what a controlled experiment would entail to see what the
> >> temperature would be with no human life on earth I'm skeptical.
> >>
> >> Frankly if the climate is a problem does it matter whether it's human
> >> beings, natural long term climactic change or little green men from
> >> outer space?
> >
> > If it is not due to humans, then there is some huge factor driving
> > climate that we are missing entirely. And so any proposed solution
> > would not take that into account, and any effort we make might
> > well exacerbate this unknown cause.
> William, while I applaud your efforts and intent, you are overstating
> your case here and in previous messages (or not understanding the
> point being made.) There are no scientific papers that claim to prove
> *all* of the climate warming we see is due to human effects. Eg, no
> papers that purport to rule out (probabilistic scientific "ruling out")
> the possibility that 0.1% of the warming is due to natural causes,
> with 99.9% due to humans.
>
> Certainly the paper cited above doesn't rule it out given Scott's
> excerpt from it says natural drivers could contribute +0.1C and internal
> variability +0.2C (which seems pretty standard nowadays from the papers
> I've read.)

I largely agree.

Of course there is internal variability. The ENSO cycle, for example.
Another equatorial volcano like Pinatubo will cool the world noticeably,
with most of its effect in the next year, but small effect lingering
for decades.

However, when all known non-human forcings are put into climate models
the resulting climate change is negligible. Up to the last runs I am
familiar with, circa 2005, a slight cooling was predicted.

One can cogently argue that the models are not sensitive enough to
distinguish between a slight warming and slight cooling and that
statistically a small warming cannot be ruled out.

But the null hypothesis in this case is that there is no warming without
human influences, and I've seen nothing that refutes that hypothesis.

Note, I still use "refute" in it's earlier meaning of "show to be wrong",
rather than the new usage of "oppose", which seems to me to render
the world useless. Rather than trash "refute", I'd even rather they
use "refudiate", ugly as it is.

> Indeed, given normal error bounds of our knowledge, such a paper would
> basically have to *prove* that if humans did not exist, the expectation
> is that temperatures would be currently decreasing!

There is no proof in science. We long ago came to terms with that.

>
> I certainly believe such natural warming effects are negligible, but we
> are a long ways from proving such negligible effects don't exist, and to
> claim otherwise just fuels distrust of science and hurts your cause.
> >
> > The challenge is to keep it something human beings can
> >> maintain a reasonable civilization without the sort of fluctuations
> >> that puts our future at risk.
> >>
> >> Whether the human contribution to the climate is 0.1 deg C
> >
> > ... in which case physics is wrong and we might as well do nothing.
> >
> > All denialist arguments aim at our doing nothing, this is no
> > exception.
> A pretty vacuous and uncalled-for statement since nobody you're
> responding to is denying humans affect climate.

When you've debated denialists as long as I have, you get to recognize
them before they unmask themselves. Whether they are anti GW,
anti evolution, or anti vaccine, such rarely start a discussion with
an honest statement of their positions.

Somtimes they give themselves away immediately:

"Well, I am a firm believer in evolution but I don't see how dogs can give
birth to cats". Talk.origins has actually received posts in that mold, but
usually they're a little more subtle. I far prefer open creationists.

Significant natural warming, and the effects of the current interglacial, were important
unresolved scientific questions perhaps circa 1970. But in the decades since then
no significant source of natural warming has been found. And since the nature of
the warming since then follows the patterns the models predicted as early as
1965, which it wouldn't unless this "natural warming" happens to follow the
pattern of anthropogenic warming, we know that there is no significant
natural warming.

And we have known this for a long time.

In this context, when I meet people who cite "natural warming" and "interglacials",
without naturally giving the slightest hint at what this NW is, I see that they
are following the denialist pattern closely. And as in the old duck-analogy,
I regard them as denialists. They are free to deny that they are not.

If I am less temperate in this than I once was, well, so is the climate.

William Hyde

On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 4:54:58 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 7/20/2023 4:06 PM, William Hyde wrote:
> ...
> > So you propose to chill down nuclear armed Russia, while suppressing rainfall in nuclear armed India, and possibly China.
> >
> > I wonder if the spacecraft, space stations, and manufacturing you're going to need to move planets around could possibly
> > be vulnerable to hydrogen bombs?
> >
> > > And the side effects hopefully are minimal.
> >
> > Sure, just duck and cover.
> >
> > William Hyde
>
> Yeah, we ducked and covered when I was in elementary school in Oklahoma
> in old cinder block buildings in the 1960s. I did not think much of it
> then and still don't.
>
> We really don't need a good case of canned sunshine. I would not
> implement my XXXXX Pournelle's plan until we got 5 C or 10 C above the
> previous average. And then only as a joint effort between nations.

Well, that would make it easier as at 10C there would only be a few nations left.

Mind you, it would be hard to implement the design without workers. The global
population, I suspect, would be a few million, what with most of our
current farmland too hot or under water and the seas too acid for plankton..
The probable nuclear wars wouldn't help either.

On the other hand perhaps ten C would be enough to trigger a runaway
greenhouse. I suspect so. I which case, hello Mars! By 3000AD we might
have the human population back over a million!

William Hyde

In article <d21f9cf7-17ae-4731-ae4b-2fbf8ddfaa44n@googlegroups.com>,
William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>When you've debated denialists as long as I have, you get to recognize
>them before they unmask themselves. Whether they are anti GW,
>anti evolution, or anti vaccine, such rarely start a discussion with
>an honest statement of their positions.
>
>Somtimes they give themselves away immediately:
>
>"Well, I am a firm believer in evolution but I don't see how dogs can give
>birth to cats". Talk.origins has actually received posts in that mold, but
>usually they're a little more subtle. I far prefer open creationists.

Funny, I was just wondering what Ted Holden was up to...
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

In article <d21f9cf7-17ae-4731-ae4b-2fbf8ddfaa44n@googlegroups.com>,
William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

(SNIP!!)(

>
> But the null hypothesis in this case is that there is no warming without
> human influences, and I've seen nothing that refutes that hypothesis.
>
> Note, I still use "refute" in it's earlier meaning of "show to be wrong",
> rather than the new usage of "oppose", which seems to me to render
> the world useless. Rather than trash "refute", I'd even rather they
> use "refudiate", ugly as it is.
>

I entirely agree that "refute" is being misued. But, doesn't "rebut"
mean oppose?

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 10:10:34 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> China makes a lot of claims including a claim that they
> have a manned Moon spaceship going soon.

Who knows? Maybe they do.

I mean, it's not like those people who say the end of the world will come
on such-and-such a date, where we don't have to wait until the date has
passed to know, from the experience of so many others, that it isn't
happening.

After all, China seems to have caught up with, and even surpassed, the
level of technology the United States had in 1969. So they probably could
send a man to the Moon, if they wanted to badly enough.

John Savard

On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 7:37:08 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> Point 2a is not quite right. Since we have put
> extra CO2 in the atmosphere, the sky is letting in
> more solar energy than it lets out (this may be not
> quite right either). If we suddenly stop adding
> more CO2 to the atmosphere, the sky still will be
> letting in more energy than it lets out, and the
> Earth will continue to get warmer, until the extra
> CO2 relative to "natural" equilibrium is removed.
> When will that happen? Well -

Things aren't as bad as that.

If we suddenly stop adding more carbon dioxide
to the Earth's atmosphere, but it stays at an elevated
level, yes, the atmosphere, at that time, will be letting in
more heat than it lets out.

But that won't stay the case forever, even if the level of
carbon dioxide doesn't change. As the Earth gets warmer,
it radiates more heat into space, and at shorter wavelengths.
So eventually it will reach a new equilibrium where, at the
higher temperature, even with too much carbon dioxide,
it will still radiate out as much heat as it gets in.

John Savard

On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 3:56:00 PM UTC-6, William Hyde wrote:

> "Well, I am a firm believer in evolution but I don't see how dogs can give
> birth to cats". Talk.origins has actually received posts in that mold, but
> usually they're a little more subtle. I far prefer open creationists.

Well, dogs don't give birth to cats. Evolution proceeds by very slow and
gradual changes. So someone posting such a statement is telling the
truth - and shouldn't necessarily have to be a Creationist in disguise.

John Savard

On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 12:10:34 AM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 7/29/2023 10:08 AM, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 9:01:54 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >> On 7/28/2023 5:06 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> >>> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>>> On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:17:36=E2=80=AFPM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Don't worry, if things get really bad, I know a guy who launches around=
> >>>> =20
> >>>>> ten tons of satellites just about every week. He has launched about=20
> >>>>> 5,000 of them now, mostly LEO but a few up to geosync orbit (GSO) also.=
> >>>> =20
> >>>>> I am sure that he can put a few space umbrellas up there to shield the=20
> >>>>> Earth from a few of Sol's rays.=20
> >>>>
> >>>> I wonder if you or your friend have an approximate idea of the cost of send=
> >>>> ing up enough
> >>>> umbrellas to reduce solar input by one percent.
> >>>
> >>> I presume the "friend" he is referring to is the current owner of the
> >>> waste of time formerly known as twitter, i.e. the head twit.
> >>>
> >>> The estimates I've seen are in the trillions of dollars.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0608163103
> >> Cool paper. I will print it out and read it someday.
> >>
> >> Yup, do you know a single other entity launching spaceships weekly ? He
> >> is the D. D. Harriman that Heinlein wrote of. Until recently, I would
> >> have deemed $50/kg as way too low. Now, I consider it to be high as
> >> Musk's goal is about half that for Starship.
> >
> > China, seems pretty close.
> >
> > Watch any of the frequent roundups on YT. Scott Manley and Marcus
> > House for example.
> >
> > Pt
> Got stats ? China makes a lot of claims including a claim that they
> have a manned Moon spaceship going soon.
>
> Lynn

Handy chart here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_in_spaceflight#By_country

Successful orbital launches in 2022: US 84, China 62, Russia 22.

pt

On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 6:04:25 PM UTC-4, William Hyde wrote:
> On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 4:54:58 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > On 7/20/2023 4:06 PM, William Hyde wrote:
> > ...
> > > So you propose to chill down nuclear armed Russia, while suppressing rainfall in nuclear armed India, and possibly China.
> > >
> > > I wonder if the spacecraft, space stations, and manufacturing you're going to need to move planets around could possibly
> > > be vulnerable to hydrogen bombs?
> > >
> > > > And the side effects hopefully are minimal.
> > >
> > > Sure, just duck and cover.
> > >
> > > William Hyde
> >
> > Yeah, we ducked and covered when I was in elementary school in Oklahoma
> > in old cinder block buildings in the 1960s. I did not think much of it
> > then and still don't.
> >
> > We really don't need a good case of canned sunshine. I would not
> > implement my XXXXX Pournelle's plan until we got 5 C or 10 C above the
> > previous average. And then only as a joint effort between nations.
> Well, that would make it easier as at 10C there would only be a few nations left.
>
> Mind you, it would be hard to implement the design without workers. The global
> population, I suspect, would be a few million, what with most of our
> current farmland too hot or under water and the seas too acid for plankton.
> The probable nuclear wars wouldn't help either.
>
> On the other hand perhaps ten C would be enough to trigger a runaway
> greenhouse. I suspect so. I which case, hello Mars! By 3000AD we might
> have the human population back over a million!
>
> William Hyde

ITYM 'Hello, Venus'.

pt

On Sun, 30 Jul 2023 15:54:51 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 7/20/2023 4:06 PM, William Hyde wrote:
>...
>> So you propose to chill down nuclear armed Russia, while suppressing rainfall in nuclear armed India, and possibly China.
>>
>> I wonder if the spacecraft, space stations, and manufacturing you're going to need to move planets around could possibly
>> be vulnerable to hydrogen bombs?
>>
>> > And the side effects hopefully are minimal.
>>
>> Sure, just duck and cover.
>>
>> William Hyde
>
>Yeah, we ducked and covered when I was in elementary school in Oklahoma
>in old cinder block buildings in the 1960s. I did not think much of it
>then and still don't.

The film /The Iron Giant/ contains an excellent satire of the concept.
>We really don't need a good case of canned sunshine. I would not
>implement my XXXXX Pournelle's plan until we got 5 C or 10 C above the
>previous average. And then only as a joint effort between nations.

An article claiming that this summer is on track to be the hottest
summer in 120,000 years (based, after the first 200 years or so, on
ice cores and tree rings) noted that the extreme temps in the American
Southwest are or nearly are 1.5 degrees Celsius above whatever is
being used as the starting point. IOW, the push to keep global warming
under 1.5 degrees Celsius is a push to avoid having that sort of heat
around 24/365 (366 in leap years).

>Now solar power satellites, I think that we should do those today in the
>USA. When SpaceX gets their super super heavy (Starship) going, we
>should be able to lift entire assemblies into orbit. I don't have a
>clue where the best place for a solar power satellites is, LEO or GSO.

Ah ... beaming large amounts of energy at the Earth. That can't
possibly go wrong!
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>On Sun, 30 Jul 2023 15:54:51 -0500, Lynn McGuire
><lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 7/20/2023 4:06 PM, William Hyde wrote:
>>...
>>> So you propose to chill down nuclear armed Russia, while suppressing =
>rainfall in nuclear armed India, and possibly China.
>>>=20
>>> I wonder if the spacecraft, space stations, and manufacturing you're =
>going to need to move planets around could possibly
>>> be vulnerable to hydrogen bombs?
>>>=20
>>> > And the side effects hopefully are minimal.
>>>=20
>>> Sure, just duck and cover.
>>>=20
>>> William Hyde
>>
>>Yeah, we ducked and covered when I was in elementary school in Oklahoma=20
>>in old cinder block buildings in the 1960s. I did not think much of it=20
>>then and still don't.
>
>The film /The Iron Giant/ contains an excellent satire of the concept.
>>We really don't need a good case of canned sunshine. I would not=20
>>implement my XXXXX Pournelle's plan until we got 5 C or 10 C above the=20
>>previous average. And then only as a joint effort between nations.
>
>An article claiming that this summer is on track to be the hottest
>summer in 120,000 years (based, after the first 200 years or so, on
>ice cores and tree rings) noted that the extreme temps in the American
>Southwest are or nearly are 1.5 degrees Celsius above whatever is
>being used as the starting point. IOW, the push to keep global warming
>under 1.5 degrees Celsius is a push to avoid having that sort of heat
>around 24/365 (366 in leap years).

The "Global Average" temperature is what the IPCC 1.5 degC is referring
to, not local temperatures. There is no expectation that sort of heat
will exist 24/365 (except perhaps in isolated locations like death valley)
globally or even regionally.

Note that the July 2023 "Global Average" temperature is 62.9 degF, which
is something like a degree and a half C over the long-term average for
the month.

On Monday, 31 July 2023 at 07:57:55 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 3:56:00 PM UTC-6, William Hyde wrote:
>
> > "Well, I am a firm believer in evolution but I don't see how dogs can give
> > birth to cats". Talk.origins has actually received posts in that mold, but
> > usually they're a little more subtle. I far prefer open creationists.
>
> Well, dogs don't give birth to cats. Evolution proceeds by very slow and
> gradual changes. So someone posting such a statement is telling the
> truth - and shouldn't necessarily have to be a Creationist in disguise.

I think we're considering a possibly hypothetical someone
who claims that evolutionary theory says that dogs give
birth to cats. They possibly might be misinformed, but they're
probably creationist or intelligent design-ist - which means
"creationist and lies about it".

And here are actual examples from the good old bad times:

https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB805.html
"If evolution was true, there would not be species, there
would be a spectrum of cats and dogs and every form
in between."

https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901_1.html
https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH350.html
"Every species has a kind and it cannot evolve to be
a different kind [like cats from dogs]. The origin of each
kind is God."

https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html
"No new species have been seen" (like cats descended
from dogs).

https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB801.html
"Species are rubbish."

On Monday, July 31, 2023 at 12:46:16 AM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:
> In article <d21f9cf7-17ae-4731...@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> (SNIP!!)(
> >
> > But the null hypothesis in this case is that there is no warming without
> > human influences, and I've seen nothing that refutes that hypothesis.
> >
> > Note, I still use "refute" in it's earlier meaning of "show to be wrong",
> > rather than the new usage of "oppose", which seems to me to render
> > the world useless. Rather than trash "refute", I'd even rather they
> > use "refudiate", ugly as it is.
> >
> I entirely agree that "refute" is being misued. But, doesn't "rebut"
> mean oppose?

To me a rebuttal must contain cogent arguments, or at least a good imitation
of same. These arguments will not be definitive, but will carry the debate on.

Those in opposition may be providing a serious rebuttal, but alternately they
may cite no evidence at all beyond their gut feelings, or may make up arguments
that are transparently nonsense.

Of course I am not the OED.

In chess, assuming nobody is playing to lose, every move is in a sense a
truth statement: "This move does not lose", which may be why chess
annotators so love the word "refute", when they can show that the
move loses, and the statement is false. It is in this context that
I generally see the word "refute".

Of course, humans being human, many a refutation gets refuted itself.

William Hyde

On Monday, July 31, 2023 at 10:18:50 AM UTC-4, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 6:04:25 PM UTC-4, William Hyde wrote:
> > On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 4:54:58 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > > On 7/20/2023 4:06 PM, William Hyde wrote:
> > > ...
> > > > So you propose to chill down nuclear armed Russia, while suppressing rainfall in nuclear armed India, and possibly China.
> > > >
> > > > I wonder if the spacecraft, space stations, and manufacturing you're going to need to move planets around could possibly
> > > > be vulnerable to hydrogen bombs?
> > > >
> > > > > And the side effects hopefully are minimal.
> > > >
> > > > Sure, just duck and cover.
> > > >
> > > > William Hyde
> > >
> > > Yeah, we ducked and covered when I was in elementary school in Oklahoma
> > > in old cinder block buildings in the 1960s. I did not think much of it
> > > then and still don't.
> > >
> > > We really don't need a good case of canned sunshine. I would not
> > > implement my XXXXX Pournelle's plan until we got 5 C or 10 C above the
> > > previous average. And then only as a joint effort between nations.
> > Well, that would make it easier as at 10C there would only be a few nations left.
> >
> > Mind you, it would be hard to implement the design without workers. The global
> > population, I suspect, would be a few million, what with most of our
> > current farmland too hot or under water and the seas too acid for plankton.
> > The probable nuclear wars wouldn't help either.
> >
> > On the other hand perhaps ten C would be enough to trigger a runaway
> > greenhouse. I suspect so. I which case, hello Mars! By 3000AD we might
> > have the human population back over a million!
> >
> > William Hyde
> ITYM 'Hello, Venus'.

I was thinking of the human remnant going to Mars. Optimistic, I know.

Perhaps if we got lucky it would evolve into Varley's eight worlds universe,
without the hostile aliens. Just hostile humans.

William Hyde