I'm flabbergasted at this, as well. It talks in the article about the attitude this guy takes, "Don't say what SHOULD happen, look at the data, let the data talk to you and tell you what's going on!"

With the caveat that we must be cautious not to use statistical analysis of the data to lie outright, I want to say:

Any attitude that does not at least INCLUDE the one Russ George advocates about LETTING THE DATA TELL YOU what is going on is ANATHEMA to science, Western Society, and human life in general.

Seriously.

Politicizing science is always bad. But James Hansen seemed quite determined to do that. It's even possible to note that NASA has an interest in Mars missions.... although that seems extremely farfetched. But who knows?

If iron seeding works and causes no calamity we can't handle, we'd be derned fools not to do it at some point, assuming we need to of course.

Then again, what is the preferred equilibrium for the planet and how do we know that? There wasn't always widespread environmentalism and I've heard the idea that environmentalism in its present form emerged only after computers became more widespread ( from "All Watched Over By Machines..." by Adam Curtis.)

Is that crackpottery or is it a salient observation? I can't even tell any more.

I don't really get to term myself an environmentalist at all, because I'm absolutely in favor of a "stewardship" model of using the earth's resources- meaning, in this case, that if we see fit to set the equilibrium point to some other level, then we should do so guiltlessly- however, my major concern is that we haven't successfully managed to create long-term viable ecologies via planning yet. We don't understand the many complexities associated with organisms yet -we understand a LOT, but there is a LOT MORE to understand before we can replicate nature through artifice!

Under that view, things like biodiversity are valuable because they contribute to systemic stability - we can exterminate a species if we need to, nobody has to give us any further 'right' to do so (as in a typical attidue, "What gives you the right to play God with Nature?!")- but it is wise to take a preservationist attitude until we have a proven track record of creating long-term, moderately stable ecological systems - until we can replicate our 'Starship Earth,' we'd do well to keep from destroying it! In other words, at least for me, the currently preferred equilibrium point is one that maintains a semblance of the historical ecology's relative balance, because that's the kind of point where I and my descendants get to not go extinct, and once we can reliably replicate and control such ecologies, it won't matter much anymore, we'll be in a position to choose what happens to which things - right now is the tender point where can destroy naturally developed situations, but cannot reliably replicate them.

But we have much about which to be humble. It's always the sort of thing where - if we can do it and it causes less harm ( and we're dead certain that this is true ), then do it.

The shock from "All Cared..." is - what stability? Which equilibrium? If we choose them, how do we defend our choices? Obviously, nobody was doing this 70,000 years ago ( at least presumably not consciously ) and here we are, so...

To a single-digit approximation, all species are extinct. Is it hubris to think we're smart enough to keep from destroying ourselves, or that we're powerful enough to destroy ourselves?

Suppose we add Pigou carbon taxes. Does that mean poor people suffer more? So can we exempt them? Then isn't that sort of ... Empire-ey, the sort of thing a 19th Century Brit like Rudyard Kipling wrote about?

I find the various anthropic principles to be of good use for this sort of thing.

And the strange thing is nobody is actually preventing people who dump billions of ton of plastic in ocean with this much vigour.

It's millions of tons a year, not billions.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150212-ocean...

More details on that study here: http://jambeck.engr.uga.edu/landplasticinput (10.1126/science.1260352)

Total worldwide production of plastics looks to be about 250 million tons, and they are estimating that about 8 million tons per year make it into the oceans. From the paper, but not the gloss, is that fact that China is by far the leading offender in this, followed by Indonesia, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. India is in 10th place, and the US in 20th. Coastal Europe combined is about the same as the US.

No one is "dumping" plastic on the ocean. It's million of litterers and maritime equipment malfunctions.

Cosmetic companies include microbeads in many products. These end up in the sea. The plastic soaks up some pollutants, and is also eaten by fish. It makes its way into the human food chain. It's a serious problem. Individual consumers didn't really know that they were dumping plastic into the ocean. The manufacturing companies did know, absolutely, that they were dumping hundreds of billions of these microbeads.

Acrylic clothing sheds microfibres. These are too small to be caught by washing machine filters, and they end up in the sea doing the same thing as plastic microbeads.

> Cosmetic companies include microbeads in many products.

Those are now banned, no?

In the US, maybe. About to be banned in the UK. I have no idea what's banned anywhere else.

Is there a way to pull that out of the ocean? Some kind of sifter on the front of a ship? Has anyone tried it?

I had the same thought. This article was published two years ago, surely that's enough time to measure the effect.

The global warming crowd is often linked to an anti-industrial puritanism. They see geo-engineering that deals with their supposed harm mechanism while simultaneously allowing fossil fuel based economic development as "cheating" and ipso facto immoral, like chugging liquor and avoiding the hangover.

If that's the case, I'd expect a "bootleggers and Baptists" equilibrium to form. Maybe it's happening out of sight but I certainly don't see it.

But a plank in your favor - the people who settled the regions where environmentalism has its most fertile soil are on a line of thinking from the old, rock-ribbed Congregationalist and Unitarian preachers from New England. ( source: "American Nations..." ISBN-13: 978-0143122029 )

Ethical standards exist for a reason.