In that case the issue of a given side being exposed to the sun for a given time far longer than the other seems no issue at all: Temps are the same on both sides, so whether a planet with a very hot/cold side retains more heat than one where the two frequently switch orientations is moot.

But since Venus evidently does the latter, and to an even greater degree than Earth, that's irrelevant here. Albedo seems more important.

A LOT of this seems irrelevant if there's no significant difference between the un/lit sides of Venus; I'm beginning to wonder why you even mentioned the longer days if the greater pressure means they have even less effect on temperature variations than our own 24 hour days. I've bent a few pieces of wire in my day, and I know what happens; I can't recall ever spinning in circles while doing so, so I can't be sure that wouldn't make a difference, but if there is one that analogy fails to demonstrate it. Likewise, convections effects on heat transfer within the planet are irrelevant if pressure is already maintaining an essentially constant temperature across the globe. Regarding the example, is it really accurate to treat the cold and hot sides of a globe as if they were two separate bodies? I'm not convinced albedo is a sidetrack at all, but since heat radiated from planets is almost entirely heat they first absorbed (minus things like the heat of gravity compressing its mass) I was thinking a lot about it and reflected heat from the start.


Maybe it's just because I'm the Tangent King, but saying your analysis "doesn't even include the effect" a magnetic field and rotation have on weather seems more like an allusion to an allusion than actually covering it. I'm not asking for a geo or astrophysics primer here, but you're not giving me much reason to consider the magnetic fields effect on Earths heat loss beyond the friction between it and the solar wind or a flare.

Yeah, I know the law, just hadn't stopped to think that Venus really is that much closer to the sun; my bad there. Whether or not I'm understanding the preceding properly, that alone should make an apple to apples comparison impossible. Of course, since water boils a long time before lead melts, it doesn't let us off the hook either.

Sure, but skepticism doesn't equal inaction, in fact, it actually means you hedge your bets, which is what taking steps to reduce our undeniably and dramatically increased CO2 emissions in the last two centuries would be. Setting that aside for the moment, however, I can think of several HUGE downsides to ignoring accurate predictions of significant warming:

First and foremost, I can walk from the Prime Meridian to the International Dateline a lot faster in Antartica than I can in Guatemala: The amount of tundra we'll reclaim is dwarfed by the amount of equatorial land that would become uninhabitable desert. In addition, not only do very few people live on that tundra now, but a LOT of people live in those equatorial regions. I don't think you'll be able to sell Brazil on global warming by telling them all to move to Canada (for that matter, it might make Canada a hard sell, too. ) That brings us to another problem: A disproportionate amount of the worlds population lives near the coast, and even more of it lives near SOME source of water, fresh or salt, and the best part is it's often the most impoverished and therefore least capable of adapting to drastic climate change. If the oceans rise and the Himalayas flood the Ganges India is in a very bad way, and the solution is not to move into the Himalayas; lukewarm barren rock is still barren rock. Until/unless equatorial temperatures reached the point where rainfall was rare, the monsoon rains resulting from the melting glaciers would be brutal as well. For coastal populations (which is a LOT of people) any sea level rise is dangerous, because water always finds its level: A sea level rise of just a few inches could permanently drive the shoreline 50 miles inland. The question isn't how much of FL is above sea level now, but how FAR, and for most of it the answer is "not very".

Then there's the ice caps. I try not to think about the ice caps, because they act like a natural thermostat, absorbing a great deal of heat when they melt, then accumulating frozen precipitation when temperatures drop. You know the drill: Until the ice melts it can't get above 0 centigrade, and it takes almost as much heat to accomplish that state change with NO temperature increase as it does to boil the water once it's melted. So long as there's snow on the ground here even the ambient temperature won't get more than a degree or two above freezing, and the ground will remain frozen throughout that time. Once the last of it's gone though there's nothing to absorb that heat in a state change: More energy means higher temperatures, period. Well, until we reach the point where all the water turns to steam, but one way or the other that won't be a problem for humans....

It really doesn't matter though. Whatever part of the current socio-economic system we look at that those running it have little incentive and thus little desire to change anything, so they'll continue to find reasons why they not only can but MUST do nothing. It doesn't matter that less waste and clean renewable energy are in everyones best interest, because cheap power is anathema to those who sell it for a living (cheap labor, OTOH.... ) That's why consumers will insist on poisoning, choking and roasting themselves BECAUSE IT COSTS THEM LESS. Once again, that's why businessmen whose only bottom line IS the bottom line accuse academics of greedy bias. It's like Lindsay Lohan ignoring her drug treatment counselor on the grounds that addicts can't be trusted.

Love of money is the root of all evil, and if I pinned my hopes on Earth or any place visible from it I'd be very depressed. As it is I'm just debating how ethical reproduction is in a world where each generation is going to be increasingly screwed AND under increasing pressure to reject salvation.