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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

jorian319 - 12:21pm Jul 2, 2003 EST (# 12805 of 12818)

It is naive to think that humans can benefit from an effort to control global climate at this juncture. We don't know what's causing the measurable changes that we see, nor do we know what will be caused (if anything) by a given effort to mitigate that change. Efforts to increase carbon sequestration are probably harmless, and probably completely ineffective. Natural sinks dwarf the biggest dreams of buried hay that Robert can conjure. (If it's good quality, though, I'd LOVE to buy some for $40/ton!)

The only way to reduce our exposure to the whims of global climate is through much more intensive study, requiring vastly greater funding. As both political sides of the climate debate stand to lose more than they stand to gain, I am skeptical that appropriate funding levels will be attained any time soon.

rshow55 - 01:44pm Jul 2, 2003 EST (# 12806 of 12818)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Well golly. Maybe you're right. But as Ries and Trout, and mnay other marketing gurus will tell you - it is perception that matters. And somehow, the perceptions of the scientific community - and most political leaders outside the US - is that CO2 IS the cause of global warming.

Why would you want to bury good quality hay? For carbon sequestration, you'd want to bury carbon just as cheaply as you could.

Your skepticism about funding is, of course, well founded.

But on the 29th I wrote this http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.cwXtbLOcmMb.0@.f28e622/14406

Stages have different costs. If a permanent solution to the world energy problem was pretty certain after a few hundred thousand bucks, nearly certain after a million or two - and very certain at all technical levels after a billion dollars was spent - but then required a very large investment (fully amortized in a few years) would it be worth doing? And actually doable?

Perhaps the answer is "yes."

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.cwXtbLOcmMb.0@.f28e622/13626

I'm working to get a presentation together that might actually motivate action in the real world. Having some fun working out the engineering details. My guess is that, if someone with REAL power wanted this job done - we could be CERTAIN that the job could be done within 12 months of today - have hydrogen on line at significant volume in 3 years - and have as much hydrogen as the market could reasonably absorb within a decade. I'd like to see that done, and am working to try.

That's still my guess. I'm still working on the presentation, and think I've made some headway.

The job of actually getting "Eisenhower scale" solar energy in place might be a somewhat "easier sell" if global warming were controlled, too - and that looks possible to me - (and I think will look possible to a lot of other people.)

jorian319 - 03:02pm Jul 2, 2003 EST (# 12807 of 12818)

Why would you want to bury good quality hay?

Who said anything about "bury"? I'm just sick of paying $6.50/70lb small bale! I have some hay processors (horses) that can turn all that carbon into methane and deposit it back in the atmosphere.

...getting "Eisenhower scale" solar energy in place might be a somewhat "easier sell" if global warming were controlled...

First, a yardstick needs to be established. There is little agreement even now, regarding the extent/direction of global climate change. Without better measurements, we'll never really know what the state of the current climate is, let alone what effect our efforts at changing it are having. "Controlled" global warming implies that there is an agreed-upon parameter that would allow us to exhibit such control - there is not. Would the object be to establish an unprecedented era of global climate stability? (Talk about messing with nature!) Upper and lower bounds for average global temperature? Weather control?

Of course, if perception is everything as you allude, then what more do we need than some fancy looking Rube Goldberg contraption that talking heads agree is controlling global warming. Everyone goes home happy, and nothing need be done.

rshow55 - 04:06pm Jul 2, 2003 EST (# 12808 of 12818)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Posted some on the Guardian yesterday http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/453

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