From the Andrew Lillico (via Bishop Hill) the costs of terraforming Mars -vs- mitigating Earthly climate change seem to have similar values and timescales. Josh provides a cartoon as well.
We can terraform Mars for the same cost as mitigating climate change. Which would you rather?
One frequentlyquotedstudy of the global costs of mitigating climate change put them at around $3 trillion by 2100, with the main benefits being felt between 2100 and 2200. Here is alternative way to spend around the same amount of money with around the same timescale of payback: terraforming Mars. A standard estimate is that, for about $2-$3 trillion, in between 100 and 200 years we would be able to get Mars from its current “red planet” (dead planet) status to ” blue planet” (i.e. a dense enough atmosphere and high enough temperature for Martian water in the poles and soil to melt, creating seas) – achievable in about 100 years – and from there to microbes and algae getting us to “green planet” status within 200 to 600 years.
There are two standard objections to such terraforming. First, it is said to be too expensive, altogether, to be plausible. Second, it is said to require too long a timescale to be plausible. Both of these objections appear decisively answered by climate change policies and indeed energy policies in general. Between now and the 2035 alone, global investment in energy and energy efficiency (in many cases with a many-decades payback period) is estimated at about $40 trillion, of which $6 trillion is in renewables and $1 trillion in low-carbon nuclear. We are willing to spend many trillions on projects that could take over a century to come to fruition.
Josh is on the case:
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Love “Total Recall”. A great science fiction cartoon. Are we sure the generator is not pumping out terraforming CFCs as well oxygen? 🙂
“We can terraform Mars for the same cost as mitigating climate change. Which would you rather?”
‘Mitigating’ something natural that’s been changing by itself and self-moderating un molested for several billion years. This is a gag right?
Pamela Gray says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:36 pm
Is there a glitch in the giddyup? All of my comments (or most of them) are going directly to moderation since yesterday.
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Same.
[Yes, there are many more dozens comments dropping into moderation the past few days than normal. The clause of the cause for the pause in the queue for the many is not clear right now. 8<) .mod]
Clovis, MCourtney, others,
We know. 🙂 But talking about terraforming Mars is more fun.
Absolutely in favor of nuclear propulsion
denniswingo says:
Thanks Dennis! Interesting stuff.
Didn’t the governator do this in a movie? But they needed an ancient-alien construct to get it done…
“Plausible”? I think he means “feasible”.
Even better – terraform Jupiter, 2001-style.
Just compress the gasses in Jupiter’ atmosphere by turning them into carbon compounds, so that Jupiter gets dense enough to fuse and become a sun. And then you get a complete new solar system on our doorstep.
See 2001, a Space Oddysey (the book version). Probably would not work, but it was a good read.
R
I doubt humans will evolve naturally any more. We change our environment to suit us, instead of changing to fit into our environment. Regressive genes are allowed to prosper instead of dying off as they used to. And no, I’m not proposing Eugenics or anything of the sort. Just stating an observation. I mean, look at Jersey Shore and Climate Science. No way we’re evolving.
Making Jupiter a sun is not terraforming. Europa was the new “earth”.
Divert an ice heavy asteroid, or more likely a comet, into a collision course with Mars. If it was big enough, the impact would add heat and several cubic miles of water to the surface system. It might take a few solar orbits for the debris to settle down, but afterwards the atmosphere of mars would be much thicker and wetter.
Sounds like a good project, but I need to see what the models show and will need the 97% thumbs up before it is a go. Changing the Angry Red Planet into the Loving Blue/Green Planet will make all the greenies happy.
I suppose, Lewandowsky did the review for this project. If I had the choice, I wouldn’t spend my money on any of these two idiotic plans.
We make a fleet of “planet skimmers’ that orbit between Venus and Mars. They just dip into the Venus atmosphere enough to pick up a (velociy compressed on board and refrigerated to liquid) load of gas, then at the Mars end they vent it (in such a way as to boost velocity). With enough of them, and enough time, both planets get more comfy 😉
Nuclear power drives the refrgeration / rocket thrust… any leakage will be long decayed by the time folks move in…
Mark Bofill says at August 20, 2014 at 6:44 am…
I’ve no objection to talking about terraforming Mars. It is wildly speculative and so fun.
My comment was meant for those who thought the original article genuinely proposed terraforming Mars. It wasn’t doing that, of course. It was using the example to put Climate Change mitigation costs into perspective.
(Which I thought was quite a clever piece of writing)
I wonder if the topic somehow got reversed on the way to the forum. The EcoLoonies are hell-bent on Marsforming the Earth to the extent they’d like to ride it of genus Homo sapien. Surely, Homoforming Mars would be off the table as they’re already in a lather that we’ve Homoformed Earth.
Actually, scientists have recently announced teleportation of an electron. Once they get up to CO2 size, they will be able to transfer the CO2 on Venus to Mars and we will wind up with three habitable planets in the solar system.
Terraforming Mars………!!!!
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I am not sure and I do not know about the rest and the many, but when it comes to myself and self measuring and evaluation I try to keep always in mind one particular effect, which I call it the “mirror” effect. Is the ability of one person to try and be able to see and measure where it stands, how he “looks”, how is performing, and how exactly he fits with the rest of the world, the environment, or the universe for that matter, by means of reflection of it’s own and it’s own deeds,achievments, action and reactions.
Same I think may hold true for a group of people or even a civilization of an inteligent enough specimen..
Said all this, when it comes to the “Mars terraforming” I see only one thing concerning us the civilized humans, as we stand at the very moment………..the perfect blend of mediocracy and megalomania.
Trying to run and break records before been able to walk and while actually only able to badly craul is the best recipe for failure.
It seems to me like humanity is in a very desparate need for that “mirror”, so much desperate that the brighter minds are struggling to invent and create any possible such effect regardless of it been only an illusion and unreal.
From my own observations I see that this has been so thik lately.
Especially while “Terraforming Mars” is put and linked in the context to the climate change, from my point of view the handicap becomes even more obvious.
First thing that comes to mind when exposed to an argument as such is…….. a desperate attempt to runway and escape from reality.
We know next to nothing about our own Earth system, probably that’s one of the main handicaps of failure to understand the climate system, and in the same time we confidently pretend on terraforming Mars like that is so simple and easy….matter of fact !!!!!
In the end, from my point of view it seems like a good desperate talk for nothing at all……except for it reflecting our own shallow and mediocre approach to a problem as climate change….
cheers
The planets are worthless. The larger asteroids can be tunneled out to the equivalent land area of the US each and give up trillions worth of resources.
Let me get this straight. According to climate scientists, melting polar ice caps will destroy Earth but save Mars. Talk about irony.
Jeff Alberts says:
August 20, 2014 at 7:31 am
Humans are not only evolving, but doing so quite quickly, given our rapid population increase.
Jeff Alberts says:
August 20, 2014 at 7:33 am
Jupiter would need on the order of 100 times more mass than it has in order to sustain fusion. This wasn’t well understood when Clarke wrote “2001”.
Tim Obrien says:
August 20, 2014 at 10:13 am
Ceres (2.85 million km²) has about the surface area of Argentina (2.78 million km²), but, you’re right, borrowing into asteroids makes more sense than surface colonies. Vesta’s area is about the same as Pakistan’s (~800,000 km²). Pallas is around the combined size of the Pacific Coast COW states, ie California, Oregon and Washington, plus Nevada.
Collisions still happen in the asteroid belt, as of course out of it as well.
Jeff Alberts says:
August 20, 2014 at 7:31 am
Humans are not only evolving, but doing so quite quickly, given our rapid population increase.
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+1
That is ex-act-ly the reason why adaptation will always beat that bungling with CO2 emission by far. It’s the alarmists that are incapable of learning this and so, I hope, they will soon become extinct.