Absolutely, that should be part of it. Fleets of drones planting forests. But artificial photosynthesis modules in the desert and engineered algae could also play a huge role.
The cost of taking carbon out of the atmosphere by not burning it is going to be far cheaper than taking it out of the atmosphere directly, for a long time. Hell, a lot of the things we are failing to do now are outright profitable through reductions in energy costs even without any costing in of carbon emissions.
The cost is not entirely relevant, even putting aside the need to take out the carbon that we have already emitted. There is a power law distribution of wealth, and people on top have just about all of the financial and technological means to combat global warning, but limited means to convince the people on the bottom to use their tools. Deforestation, automotive and agricultural emissions are just not going to stop fast enough. It's faster, easier and probably more morally sound to build something like a Gigafactory for carbon sequestration modules than to wage (even economic) war on countries that emit too much greenhouse gas.
Thank god for negative feedback loops eh? I'm actually glad we have more CO2 in the atmosphere, because it will increase biodiversity and agricultural yields. I don't see any evidence that climate change is proceeding at a fast enough pace to cause damage.
There's a pretty solid factual case for quantifiable damage here: floods in Louisiana, Texas, India, West Virginia and France and fires in California, Portugal and Canada. There's also decreased crop yield due to droughts and decreased fish yield due to ocean acidification. This is non-zero.
Almost all of those cases can have explanations that are not global warming related.
For example, in Canada those fires were huge because of too-efficient fire suppression methods. Not enough controlled fires were done in that area and Fort Mcmurray expanded beyond its Fire Protection zone.
Not every weather-related catastrophe is caused by global warming, that just harms the credibiltiy of that argument
Under conditions of increased CO2 availability, plants tend to decrease waster usage and sequester more carbon. Growth rates are faster, but require increased mineral availability. Unfortunately, nitrogen levels in plants decrease in high-atmospheric CO2 conditions, which leads to lower protein concentrations. As a result, consumption crops provide less energy and nutrition when consumed.
So, all in all, the downsides outweigh the upsides -- faster growth, lower nutrition, more aggressive soil depletion, and increased water runoff. On the bright side, carbon sequestration increases up to 40%, so the efficacy of planting forests as a sequestration measure will increase.
As for biodiversity -- well, dieoffs are already outpacing speciation. Unless you believe in abiogenesis, the trendline is moving sharply downward.
You're going to extrapolate from lower nitrogen levels in plants in higher CO2 conditions (without a citation, might i add) to higher CO2 levels causing overall lower nutrition? and more aggressive soil depletion? Keep in mind that obviously more plant growth means more plant decay which cycles back int othe ecosystem.
Are you trying to suggest that we should be decreasing agricultural yields so as to prevent soil depletion? There are better ways.
It's well established that increased CO2 leads to increased plant biomass, thereby satisfying my claim that it leads to increased agricultural yield (as per greenhouses for example).
My claim that increased CO2 leads to more biodiversity is more tenuous but is more likely than a decrease in biodiversity, all other factors being controlled for.
Typical double standard, your speculation is perfectly reasonable but the other guy's claims need scientific backing. Annoying, and not very convincing!
You must have never delved too much into science then. There are certain claims that have been well established for so long that citations are no longer needed. For example, we don't need citations to state the order of colours in a rainbow. Likewise, I don't need a citation to state that plant biomass increases with a greater concentration of CO2. That's basic science, it's unequivocal and not controversial. On the other hand, the previous dude made wild speculation about increased CO2 causing increased soil depletion. I'm sorry if you don't see the difference. Not everyone is suited to being a scientist.
Searching around, it looks like what you say is often the case, but is not guaranteed, and the full effects of increased CO2 concentration on real-world crops is still very much up in the air. For example:
Yes, CO2 was into the single-digit parts per thousand for much of the dinosaur era. I have no idea how that affected plant growth, but even if that's the cause, it seems tenuous to look at Mesozoic plant growth and assume modern agricultural crops will imitate them. Certainly far more tenuous than the evidence that climate change is causing damage and will cause more.
So you think that rising temperatures may be good for agriculture?
From a website:
As climate change leads to more frequent and intense natural hazards, it is expected that climate displacement will only increase in Bangladesh. The best estimates suggest that up to 18 million people may be displaced by sea level rise alone. http://displacementsolutions.org/ds-initiatives/climate-chan...
Europe us really struggling to deal with the migrants and refugees from Syria. I do wonder how we'll cope with future migrations. It really brings into perspective the idea of a border. Of a country. Just a man drew a line on a map.
It is not tenuous to suggest that modern agricultural crops will yield more in a higher CO2 environment (look into greenhouses). It is actually far less tenuous than speculating that CO2 is causing runaway global warming.
Hey Nikhil, I am interested in what you are using drones for in agriuculture. I was using drones about 2 years ago for farming and helping farmers optimize different things and am curious how far it's come since then.
Back then, we were just beginning to see the possibilities. Of course we'd do drainage mapping, NDVI maps (as a yield-correlate), we found success mapping field trials and monitoring field trials.
There were alot of possiblities we could've gotten into, but we found it hard to totally commercialize. For example, trying to map chlorophyll content, or water content. Water content was an easier sell, but I got the feeling that drone-assisted precision agriculture was very much still in its infancy at that point, more hype than substance. I am wondering what you think now? What are you actually using your drones for, commercially, but with specific regards to the actual agriculture decision-making.
Hi James, great question. We have used drones of all shapes and sizes, including off-the-shelf (DJI Phantom, S1000) and custom fixed-wing aircraft (modified X8 flying wing, 11-ft wingspan composite plane).
We're using them to take measurements at the beginning of the growing season (e.g., stand percentages), middle of the growing season (e.g., custom-built sensors to hunt for specific diseases), and finally, tying that back to the quality of the crops that are coming out of the ground. With that last component, we can be very confident when we say our data assists with agricultural decision-making.
I'm curious what the custom-built sensors for specific diseases are? Are you using hyperspectral cameras? I know there was a lot of research into spectral fingerprints of specific diseases.
Also, in regards to the data from the end of season, where you monitor the quality of the crops coming out of the ground. How do you think that assists agricutlrual decision-making? E.g. are you able to predict the quality of the grain and that, in some way, makes it easier to manage?
Hi James. This is Eddie, the CTO of Raptor Maps. We figured out the combination of wavelength bands we need, and combining that with image recognition we can identify particular diseases. We had to do a lot of iterations and correlations to chemical samples to build up confidence that this can actually work. We can only do a few specific conditions today in potato farming, so I can't say this works for every disease everywhere, but we'll keep getting better over time and are working quick to do so. The sensor package is optics-lab style cameras tuned for wavelengths we know have the best signal to noise ratio.
With regards to harvest monitoring, by knowing the exact yields and locations we can correlate remote sensing data to the yield. This type of information will help with management in the coming seasons. But it can also help today. For example, you want to move your lower-quality inventory more quickly so it doesn't affect the good stuff, so you want to put it by the door of the storage facility.
I was wondering when image recognition was going to play a stronger role in the use of drones for agriculture. When I was doing it, it was simply using combinations of spectral bands and not really delving into pattern recognition. Sounds like that's the right way to be headed. Obviously just at the beginnings of it and I appreciate that you know the current limitations of the technology. But still, that's impressive.
Also curious if you are using satellite imagery in any contextual way or to train your image recognition in any way? Or if you are using the lIDAR already available at all? I imagine you are collecting higher-resolution LIDAR when you fly over?
Anyway, good luck with this, sounds like you guys are doing it right.
Really? You're going to deny online access to people with emotional issues? That's like, the entire population. That's not even a slippery slope, that's just falling off the cliff entirely.
I'm from Canada, and all I can say is I wish the doctors up here actually listened to your opinion on your own medical condition.
While it is important to consult and listen to doctors, I do think people trust their doctors too much. People should always field second opinions, especially before major interventions. Also, people shouldn't discount their own understandings of their condition.
But seriously, up in Canada I feel like we have a 3rd world medical system for dealing with chronic health conditions. For acute medical conditions, we're amongst the best in the world. But if it's chronic? Or if we cannot diagnose it? Good f'n luck, my friend.
Problems with dealing with chronic health conditions seems to be more of a trait of modern Western medicine, which in a lot of cases is about treating symptoms only. In a first world country with free medical care it is very hard to actually die, but you may quietly suffer all your life and won't be treated because it is not perceived as being critical, and critical patients have priority.
If only there was a more holistic approach to treatment actually backed by science. For example, Chinese traditional herbal medicine is supposed to treat the underlying cause of problems, but unfortunately it is based entirely on myth and superstition. The thing is, it actually works sometimes, and helps people who have been told to "learn to live with it" by Western doctors.
My general impression of why people like (and are willing to pay out of pocket, often without any kind coverage) for alternative medicine is that they feel like they are being listened to - ironically they are paying by the hour for that, too, but the rates are better.
Traditional Chinese Medicine is an interesting mix, I wouldn't say it's "based entirely on myth and superstition" though it has plenty of that (hence the ghastly use of bear bile, tiger bone, etc. [1], though at least there are some attempts at reform), it also is partly the result of hundreds of years of trial and error experimentation with a wide range of plants on a very large number of people (proto-scientific, at the very least). It seems likely that some of its efficacy comes from placebo effect (but many pharmaceuticals aren't much better).
>Or if we cannot diagnose it? Good f'n luck, my friend.
I think this is a problem for all doctors. In some countries (the USA) they'll happily spend tens of thousands of dollars doing MRIs and other procedures to rule out various conditions.
The main problem seems to be chronic pain/fatigue conditions, which in many cases are stress related. Patients naturally want to rule out other conditions, and many patients also don't like the stress explanation because they incorrectly feel it means the illness is "all in their heads" (or perhaps they just don't understand how stress causes physical symptoms).
I live in Canada and generally I find the medical system is very good, and evidence based.
Canada's gatekeeper model can be infuriating. I have various issues that I'd like to address but I've become so fed up with the long waiting times, and often lazy doctors that I keep deferring visits. It's reached a point where I don't trust or respect doctors at all.
But I wonder if the different provinces have a different system - I'm complaining about OHIP specifically.
Wow, we must've watched different shows then. I thought the cinematography was incredible! easily beats out almost anything hollywood produces otherwise. A beautiful show perspecitve-wise.
I just really don't agree with your interpretation, but to each their own. Great show all around.
No, a toxin is a poison, usually produced for predation or defense. As Wikipedia correctly notes,
In the context of quack and alternative medicine the term "toxin" is used to refer to any substance supposed to cause ill health.
What the body produces and might need to eliminate is metabolic byproduct or waste, nothing to do with "toxins". The term used in this context makes me cringe.
what...? Do you not know any biology at all? Of course the lymphatic system is meant to eliminate toxins... Jeez, take some bio 101 before posting, you sound like a quack
They are taking issue with the term "toxin" - not the functionality of the lymphatic system. Their comment explicitly said `metabolic byproduct or waste, nothing to do with "toxins"`.
But of course it the lymphatic system eliminates toxins too. I mean, obviously this is all getting into semantics, but the lymphatic system helps to eliminate more than just metabolic products and waste, it will also help eliminate dead bacteria, heavy metals, etc, which could certainly be called toxins
I would take a guess that anc84 is accustomed to CS, and James001 is accustomed to bio. "Papers" in each of these fields are entirely different animals, and require a different mental skillset to quickly grok.
> The specific makeup of Lichens though, is an extremely niche field, that doesn't affect the broader field of Biology in any significant way.
Well you would be wrong. This guy almost single-handedly led the way to enabling the cultivation of lichen in laboratory conditions, something that has had very limited success up until now.
What are the benefits of cultivating lichen? It's another way to farm biological molecules. As it turns out, Lichen are actually composed of 2 fungi not just 1. Basidiomycetes and Ascomycete. So that's a huge crop of potential medicines, or manufacturing catalysts that can be economically produced now.
So give this guy a lil more credit. Just because you don't care about lichens, doesn't mean "most biologists don't care about it". He has literally, no hyperbole, overturned 150 years of biology. It is that significant.
Also, it's very arrogant of you to suggest that most biologists do not care about this discovery. At the very least, it is humbling to all biologists. And as such, most, if not all, biologists will care about this discovery precisely because it shows that we can be missing something so fundamental for so long.
