When will we know that we have reversed Global Warming?

I doubt that any of us will be around to see that. (But, as my brother says, we’ll all have great tans when we die.)

There is far more to environmental science than just temperature.

~ When the environmentalists have fed enough from the public trough. ~

I think we will never reverse it. We’ll have to learn to live with its effects.

We won’t. Mankind will end it’s existence before that happens.

We can’t reverse it only slow it down and even that won’t happen until the oil and gas runs out.

When the second derivative of the 5 year global temperature average goes to zero and turns negative.

I don’t think we will ever “defeat” it. Not unless we can get that terraforming thing like they had in Aliens up and running. Otherwise it will continue until the next downward turn of the cycle.

Will there be a reverse?
I heard we already have too much CO2 to fix it. Now it just keeps getting worse, it’s just matter of time to the end.

When polar bears stop shaving?

The only way to try to reverse it is to discover the secret to time travel. That would also have unintended consequences.

We won’t, because, as unfortunate as it may be, too many people love money so much that it will never happen. (And by people loving money I mean digging up fossil fuels, and selling it so that we can drive around, polluting the street.)

If we can’t do anything about it, why is everybody worried about it?

@joise Who says we cant do anything?

@wsxwh111

You, for one

I heard we already have too much CO2 to fix it. Now it just keeps getting worse, it’s just matter of time to the end

I thought we would get a group text announcing it

Yet we can try to make the end comes later. For example if we delay the time limit from 50 years to 500 years human will have enough time to figure another solution. Like moving to another planet or other ways

Under any circumstance, there’s nothing wrong about trying

Using existing technology and knowledge, it cannot be reversed, only slowed. It’s pretty much a matter of time until the end. But certainly not an end that anyone alive today will live to see. By drawing warming out as long as possible, we give future generations a chance at reversing our mistakes.

The pollution that was killing waterways and vast swaths of wildlife in the US in the 1970’s was slowed, and gradually reversed. There’s still much to be done, but we’re headed in the right direction.

With luck, we’re at the apogee of global warming and we can find a way to halt it, and allow the Earth to gradually heal itself. Because, ultimately, that’s what this is all about – the Earth fighting the disease that is humankind.

@ibstubro Great, great answer!

@ibstubro while I agree with the gist of your post, I feel you do a dis-service when using the term “end”. Using the term end implies that there is a specific target or goal that can and should be reached and that if we can just get to it we can change everything back to “normal”. There is no end, just a maximum point where there is a reversal and the Earths climate begins to cool down again. What the maximum is and when it occurs are variables that we can, probably, influence technologically. We cannot stop the climate from warming up, the best we can do is limit its extent and make societal adjustments to compensate for the change.

You stated that “The pollution that was killing waterways and vast swaths of wildlife in the US in the 1970’s was slowed, and gradually reversed. There’s still much to be done, but we’re headed in the right direction.” You know, this occurred because, under the free market system, the businesses developed a social conscience and, damn the cost, made the adjustments for a better world not because the people, using their combined power in the form of “government” stepped in and instigated laws and regulations that curtailed the environmentally detrimental activities of the polluters. The same thing will happen to help curtail global warming. The people do not need to get involved.

I meant the end of the human race, @rojo. I thought that was understood from @wsxwh111‘s post above, and @josie‘s reaction to it. I’m confident that once the Earth has eliminated the problem – human’s – it will straighten itself out.

Yeah, yea ole altruistic free market system:
“Rachel Carson highlighted the dangers of DDT in her groundbreaking 1962 book Silent Spring.”
“Her work attracted outrage from the pesticide industry and others. Her credibility as a scientist was attacked, and she was derided as “hysterical,” despite her fact-based assertions and calm and scholarly demeanor.”
And thus the EPA was born.

And the global warming deniers are promoting the return of DDT. Sheesh.

@rojo

Kentucky is arguably the epicenter of opposition to U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan because “93 percent of power generation comes from burning coal.”

Never mind that legislators are fighting for coal miner’s right to die.