Freeman Dyson: Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society

If you feel like watching more hopeful content on the subject, there is Allan Savory's TED talk about how to stop desertification[1], and Freeman Dyson's speech called "heretic thoughts about science and society"[2]. Basically, those speakers suggest climate change is an issue that can be solved with better land management . Soil is extremely good at absorbing Carbon Dioxide. Isn't it why there is so little CO2 in the atmosphere (0.04%)? We just need to make sure the process does indeed happen. When one looks at the map of Earth, the vastness of the desert areas is scary. Yet there are reasons to believe this is relatively recent. The Sahara was wet few thousands years ago, the American deserts became so mostly because of the considerable environmental changes brought by Europeans. Desertification is much scarier than climate change, and it did not wait for the industrial revolution to happen. Reversing desertification is probably not impossible (after all it is being attempted already in many places around the world, like in Africa[3] and China[4]), and it might very well reverse climate change as a bonus. I personally wish more effort and public attention was diverted to it. 1. [link] 2. [this video] 3. [link] 4. [link]

I disagree about him hand-waving away quantitative arguments. I’ve watched a number of relatively lengthy interviews and presentations he’s given that have been about or have touched on the topic of climate change, and he consistently references measurements of carbon’s effects and emphasizes the importance of real world measurements. His criticism is of abstract models of climate that attempt to make long term predictions. If you’re most familiar with his positions through quotes and third hand reporting, I encourage you to listen to videos of him. I found him quite enjoyable to listen to. He was not the partisan he was sometimes painted as, although he was interviewed by people that were, but rather seemed genuinely curious and interested in truth and exploration. Here are a few videos. [link] [this video] [link] His core claims appear to be that A) Increased CO2 has measurable, beneficial effects B) CO2 is one of many factors contributing to a complex system effecting climate that we don’t fully comprehend C) The positive or negative effects of climate change we’re observing depend on the region D) It is better to create a wide range of practical engineering solutions to deal with the effects of a changing climate than to think we can fully control it or know what effect our interventions or lack thereof will do in the future. Some of those claims might be wrong, but I think it’s inaccurate to say they weren’t scientifically based.

"[...] all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. [...] There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. I am not saying that the warming does not cause problems. Obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it better. I am saying that the problems are grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are more urgent and more important, such as poverty and infectious disease and public education and public health, and the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans, not to mention easy problems such as the timely construction of adequate dikes around the city of New Orleans." Freeman Dyson, heretic thoughts about science and society. [this video] [link]