[tt] CHE: A Noted Physicist's Contrarian View of Global Warming

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A Noted Physicist's Contrarian View of Global Warming
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i41/41b00401.htm
From the issue dated June 20, 2008

Compiled by EVAN R. GOLDSTEIN

The debate about global warming has become too narrow and opinions have 
become too entrenched, according to Freeman Dyson. "The worldwide 
community of environmentalists 
 holds the moral high ground and is 
guiding human societies toward a hopeful future," Dyson, an emeritus 
professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, recently wrote 
in The New York Review of Books. But he took to task activists who have 
"adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the 
greatest threat to the ecology of our planet," and who criticize skeptics 
like himself who believe that global warming is distracting attention from 
more-urgent crises like nuclear proliferation and social injustice.

Relying on a computer model designed by the Yale University economist 
William D. Nordhaus, Dyson compared the effectiveness and economic 
feasibility of various options for addressing climate change — from 
ambitious proposals like those championed by Al Gore and enshrined in the 
Kyoto Protocol, which call on developed countries to restrict emissions, 
to a "low-cost backstop" policy that assumes technology capable of 
removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will soon become available. 
Dyson's conclusion? He dismissed the more-ambitious approaches as 
"disastrously expensive" and advocated the "low-cost backstop" 
alternative.

The science of genetic engineering is advancing rapidly, he argued, and 
"genetically engineered carbon-eating trees" will probably be a reality 
within 20 years. "After we have mastered biotechnology," he concluded, 
"the rules of the climate game will be radically changed." Dyson's 
much-discussed quasi-contrarian approach to global warming has been mocked 
by some critics as overly optimistic, while others have found merit in his 
nuanced approach to environmental security.

David Archer, professor of geophysical sciences, University of Chicago: 
Ah, the famed Dyson vision thing, this is what we came for. 
 The problem 
here, unrecognized by Dyson, is that the business-as-usual he's defending 
would release almost as much carbon to the air by the end of the century 
as the entire reservoir of carbon stored on land, in living things, and in 
soils combined. The land carbon reservoir would have to double in size in 
order to keep up with us. This is too visionary for me to bet the farm on. 
(Real Climate)

Patrick, blogger: Dyson is certainly correct that biotechnology is going 
to change our lives 
 in the coming years, more than computers, certainly 
more than any industrial technology, and his thoughts on politics (the 
idea that China and India are going to cut emissions and go back to a 
1970s economy is ludicrous) and technology make most of the people arguing 
about this problem look rather short-sighted. But then, scientists of the 
"great man" type like Dyson seem to be a rarer breed these days. (Popehat)

Nick Gillespie, editor, Reason.com: I'm more than a little unsettled by 
Dyson's casual equation of socialism and environmentalism, and the 
relatively uncomplicated assertion that greens hold the moral high ground 
(just as, one supposes, the socialists did?). However, I think Dyson is 
surely correct in a purely descriptive sense and there's this odd twist 
that might just make policy discussions more wide-ranging and meaningful. 
When an ideology becomes the background assumption, it's often easier to 
start discussing the limits of that system, or at least to start talking 
about meaningful differences again. (Hit & Run, Reason Online)

Eric Posner, professor of law, University of Chicago: Climate scientists 
and other spoilsports predictably charge Dyson with bad science — as 
though it were such a big deal to replace a forest half the size of the 
United States with carbon-eating, liquid-fuel-excreting trees that haven't 
yet been invented. (Perhaps the trees could also be designed so that they 
can give directions to lost hikers.) Rather than carping about the 
details, the critics should stop and ponder the implications of Dyson's 
optimism about technology for all the other problems that the world has 
not yet been able to solve.

If we think of all the complex, expensive, and not very effective treaty 
regimes that already exist for solving multiple problems — nuclear 
proliferation, the depletion of ocean fisheries, the destruction of the 
ozone layer, war, international terrorism, trade protectionism, etc. — we 
immediately see that all of these problems, like global warming, could be 
more easily addressed with a technological advance than with regulation. 


Meanwhile, we could solve virtually all of our environmental problems 
through the simple expedient of genetically engineering human beings to be 
four inches tall. 
 Four-inch-tall people would consume fewer of the 
world's resources, ensuring sustainable development for the benefit of our 
tiny descendants living thousands or even millions of years in the future. 



Here's a prediction. One hundred thousand years from now, a wise and 
prosperous race of four-inch-tall, carbon-neutral people, whose atmosphere 
has been scrubbed clean by forests of carbon-eating, 
liquid-fuel-excreting, fireproof trees that give directions to lost 
hikers, will look back at us with bemusement and pity, wondering why we 
troubled with climate treaties, lawsuits, cap-and-trade programs, and 
other expensive, unnecessary sacrifices, all for their benefit, when we 
could have lived it up and left technology to clean up our mess. 
(Convictions, Slate)

Stentor Benjamin Danielson, adjunct professor of cultural geography, Pima 
Community College: I'll say up front that of the geoengineering proposals 
out there, some form of carbon capture and storage is the most reasonable, 
and I think worth pursuing in some form. 
 Nevertheless, I think Dyson's 
plan for carbon-capturing trees (CCT) is a bad way to approach the 
problem.

Most of the ridicule has centered on Dyson's optimistic estimates of how 
quickly the technical barriers could be overcome. 
 I'm willing to grant 
him that, because what's more interesting to me is to try to imagine how 
the political ecology of implementing the technology would play out. We 
have enough experience — from reforestation schemes in India, ecological 
reserves in Brazil, palm oil plantations in Indonesia, old-growth logging 
in the USA, etc. — to make some reasonable predictions on this front. 


If we have CCT seeds, and money to make planting them profitable, the last 
thing we need is a place to plant them. The search for this land is likely 
to result in significant social injustice. It would be simple if we could 
just replant the extensive areas of the earth that have been deforested 
over the past couple of centuries. But forests are not simply cut down and 
abandoned — that land gets used for other things (farms, homes, etc.), and 
the people living there may, rightly or wrongly, not be keen on having 
their land reforested. (debitage)

Joseph Romm, senior fellow, Center for American Progress: I cannot imagine 
what possessed The New York Review of Books to have theoretical physicist 
Freeman Dyson review two books on human-caused global warming. It is a 
subject completely outside of his expertise and one that he has repeatedly 
said is bunk. 


As long as influential publications like The New York Review publish such 
unmitigated disinformation, it's going to be a long time before this 
country is ready to take the actions needed to avert catastrophic climate 
outcomes. (Climate Progress)