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Alaskan Village Sues Over Global Warming

hightower_40 writes to mention that a small Alaskan village has sued two dozen oil, power, and coal companies, blaming them for contributing to global warming. "Sea ice traditionally protected the community, whose economy is based in part on salmon fishing plus subsistence hunting of whale, seal, walrus, and caribou. But sea ice that forms later and melts sooner because of higher temperatures has left the community unprotected from fall and winter storm waves and surges that lash coastal areas."

120 of 670 comments (clear)

  1. Mistargeted law suit? by DrLang21 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IANAL. It would seem to me that if you are going to sue someone for causing you harm, you would need to sue everyone involved. In this case, that would mean sueing almost everyone in the world. It's not fair to target one small group just because they have money. IANAL.

    --
    I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
    1. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 2, Funny

      I would start with Al Gore, the amount of hot air and smug that comes from him must have had some effect on the environment.

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    2. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by KublaiKhan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      True, but bear in mind that lawsuits like this seem mostly intended not as an actual reparation of damages but to make a large public statement.

      Attention whoring, in a way.

      So they've already won what they wanted: to get attention for the difficulties that they and their neighbors have been having.

      IANAL myself, so take this comment cum grano salis.

      --
      In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
      A stately pleasure dome decree
    3. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This parallels the "Big Tobacco" cases. The oil companies are the ones who have profited and lied about the side effects of their product.

    4. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by snarfer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In fact they're even using some of the same people and organizations that the tobacco compa nies used. "Doubt is our product" is the famous quote from a tobacco memo about their front-groups. They managed to put off a reckoning for decades by making people think that the science about cigarettes causing cancer was not clear.

    5. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by pyat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not a lawyer either, but I had some law lectures during engineering school and one particular comment by the lecturer stuck with me and is quite apposite to your remark.

      He said "always follow the money". If someone doesn't have money, or at least insurance, don't waste your time and lawyers' fees suing them. Instead look for the richest parties who can be held responsible for the damage and sue them.

      I cannot comment myself on how valid my teacher's comments were, but he at least was a lawyer.

    6. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      if the US government had been willing to take a stance a decade ago, real progress could have been made by this point. Trouble is, you can't conclusively prove that either.
      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    7. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This parallels the "Big Tobacco" cases. The oil companies are the ones who have profited and lied about the side effects of their product. In fact, it is burning coal, not oil, that is the main cause of the CO2 emissions that contribute to the anthropogenic component of global warming.
      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    8. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by zippthorne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The main difference is that smoking tobacco doesn't really benefit anybody wheras burning coal and oil has literally driven the engines of production creating tremendous wealth for the whole world. We still have some distribution problems resulting in a number of people not being able to take full advantage of this wealth, but that number is decreasing all the time.

      Even if coal and oil use is causing noticeable and net deleterious effects, there is some argument that they should be forgiven past liability and even protected from some amount of current liability, as long as they are taking reasonable steps to mitigate deleterious effects, now.

      The earth can support 6 billion modern people. It already does. It cannot support 6 billion cave-men.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    9. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by SacredByte · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Good call on Gore; People like him disgust me. They run around saying we should do all kinds of things "for the environment," and then at the end of the day don't follow their own advice.

      Between his large house (high electricity usage), usage of multiple fuel-ineffecient vehicles (gas guzzlers), and frequent usage of commercial airliners (the horror... the horror...) he is a perfect example of the "do as I say, not as I do" mentality that one often sees in/with politicians. To top off his outlandish claims, he was captured on camera saying that he "took the inititive in creating the internet."

      With all that we had best make sure he stays the hell away from San Fransisco.....

    10. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by snarfer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Gore's house is entirely solar and wind now, FYI.

    11. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by SacredByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Offsetting one's "carbon footprint" is just about the stupidest thing I've heard in awhile. Its called riding a bicycle. I do it (durring the summer, anyway). I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, in a comfortable home (4 bedroom, 2.5 bath). Mr. Gore's home is several times the size of mine, and uses more electricity in a month than my home uses in a year.

      My comment was not meant to say "Gore does no good" but was meant to say "Gore says there are things you should do, like using fuel-efficient vehicles, and he doesn't even follow his own advice."

      I have absolutely no problem with someone telling me that they think I should so something--Like drive a fuel efficient car (I do BTW: 1994 Corola)--just as long as they follow their own advice. Mr. Gore does not but, as you say: Why let the facts get in the way?

    12. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Bryansix · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oil companies don't try to defend against the argument that using petroleum based products for transportation and heating causes pollution. It does do that. What it doesn't do is CAUSE global warming. People should be moving away from oil because it FUNDS terrorists.

    13. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by jejones · · Score: 4, Informative

      Gore is chairman of Generation Investment Management, the company that he buys carbon offsets from (see here for details), so he is paying himself.

    14. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by jo42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The cleanest (and cheapest) power plants are nuclear. So, in other words, you are volunteering to have nuclear waste buried in your back yard..?
    15. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by trolltalk.com · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you have any idea how many trees he would have to plant for even ONE flight? And how much energy would be used to plant those trees?

      If Gore really wanted to reduce his carbon footprint, he'd use the internet to "meet" with people - but that wouldn't generate as much $$$$ as personal appearance do.

      Then add up all the extra energy used by people who drive to each of his "events".

      Al Gore really is a "do as I say, not as I do" politician. Maybe that's what it takes, but it is hypocritical to some of us. Want to encouraging telecommuting at work? Point to Gore as an example of how telepresence works ... oh, wait - he doesn't do that sort of thing - he wants ATTENDANCE and MEETINGS and MONEY!

    16. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by brian0918 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "The term "cancer sticks" was first used in the 1800's."

      What is your source for this? The first source listed in OED for "cancer stick" is from 1959. Cassell's Dictionary of Slang says it's from the 1950s. Google Books shows nothing to support your claim either.

    17. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Bartab · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why not? Food. Even if you keep modern advances in agriculture when the rest of society falls down to caveman status, you would be unable to move food in sufficient quantities to feed these six billion people.

      So, keeping agriculture advances or not, billions of cavemen starve to death and you no longer have six billion.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
    18. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by snarfer · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Offsetting one's "carbon footprint" is just about the stupidest thing I've heard in awhile."

      Maybe you do not understand the concept. Here is what offsetting is: When you can't avoid using fossil fuels, you contribute to a fund that builds wind, solar and other alternative non-carbon energy infrastructure. So your use of fossil fuels now is OFFSET by the future non-carbon generating capacity you are helping to develop.

    19. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If Gore really wanted to reduce his carbon footprint, he'd use the internet to "meet" with people - but that wouldn't generate as much $$$$ as personal appearance do.

      Also, if you're a large company or a government considering future development, the slick oil exec with a private jet is going to win you over if the only alternative voice is an eccentric vice-president who lives in a one-room apartment trying to videoconference with you over iChat. Gore, like many people, needs air travel to do his work. Since Gore isn't asking anyone to forego air travel entirely he's not at all a hypocrite for not doing so himself--especially when his doing so is part and parcel of convincing others to take action against global warming.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
    20. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by dietdew7 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Maybe he meant 'coffin nails' my great-grandfather said that they used that term at least as early as the 20's.

    21. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Informative

      He's probably confusing it with "coffin nails", which *is* documented back to the late 1800s. Cassell's claims it's only based on a resemblance, but I don't think so. While the linking of tobacco and cancer only goes back to the 1950s and 60s, there's always been a widespread perception that it's only common sense that breathing burning smoke on a regular basis *can't* be good for your lungs. Autopsies of smoker's lungs blackened by tobacco smoke go back that far.

    22. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by maxume · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We are engaged in an ongoing experiment to find out whether the earth can support 6 billion people on a continuous basis. It might only be able to support 6 billion people for 100 years or whatever.

      Using current technologies and given current resource consumption patterns, 100 years is optimistic, but we aren't stuck with those, hence the ongoing part of the experiment.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    23. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by SacredByte · · Score: 3, Informative

      No. I'm saying that propaganda you have been fed about the dangers of nuclear power are largely untrue, and that there isn't anything to worry about.

      Now before I go any further lets step back and compare pictures of coal plants to nuclear plants:

      Coal plant: Plant is DWARFED by a MOUNTIAN of coal. This is a 50-60 day supply.

      Nuclear plant: Every single ounce of fuel that plant has ever used is still in that picture (in holding tanks).

                Now that we've seen the difference, lets talk about it. Most of the fuel used by the coal plant gets released directly into the atmosphere, and we have to breathe it in. In large quantities the gasses released by a coal plant can be harmful--And there are numerous examples of neighborhoods around coal plants having very poor air quality.
                Now lets look at the nuclear plant again; Every ounce of fuel it has ever used is contained within the plant--that spent fuel is much denser, and harmful than the gasses released by a coal plant, but the likelyhood of actually coming into such contact with it are slim to none.
                Have you ever seen what they did when they tested those containment casks? They placed a trailer carrying a cask across a railway. Then they launched a rocket-train at it. The train hit the trailer at > 70 MPH. the cask was dented, but maintained containment. Then they put it and the train engine next to each other in a pool of jet fuel and let it burn for > 30 minutes. Temperatures on the outside were freakin' hot (as you'd expect) but temperatures on the inside didn't get nearly high enough to melt the spent fuel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel_shipping_cask

      So, basically what I'm saying is that I don't worry about nuclear power because there is nothing to worry about. Aside from one major accident (And that in Russia) there have been no major accidents (where containment was lost) at any nuclear power station.

    24. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by SacredByte · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And here is why it is stupid:

      To create these solar/wind farms is a net loss in terms of environmental impact. Not only do you have to use "fossil fuels" to construct them, you also have to clear large amounts of land.

      Couldn't those cute little bunnies and spotted owls use that land better?~

      But I digress: Nuclear is much better for the envioronment than wind/solar power. It is that simple.

    25. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      the only thing stupid is that people actually believe those carbon offset fee's they pay are actually going anywhere but the company's bottom line.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    26. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      On the other hand, that puts him above most chaircritters, in that he is actually consuming his own company's products!

    27. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by aurum42 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Right, random moron mouthing off on slashdot with the usual "correlation not equal to causation" bromide (which you didn't phrase accurately) must be believed over the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming/climate change. Regarding solar output variability and the recent rise in average global temperatures: read this.As for "I don't understand where these people are coming from saying that warmer temperatures are bad", try asking the people in coastal areas and island nations such as Tuvalu, who have already been displaced, what they feel.

      --
      "The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
    28. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My question: Why not?

      Sibling caught the first one: Food.

      #2 would be living space. Cities exist today because transportation can support them. Cities are also where the vast majority of people happen to live overall.

      Put it this way - if the laws of electricity were somehow revoked tomorrow morning at 9am sharp, within a year at least 1/2 of humanity would be dead, even if everyone knew up-front how to live like a caveman. Starvation, Disease (no medicines anymore), exposure (wanna live in a cave up in North Dakota? Me Neither, but all the ones in southern California are taken), dehydration (places like Las Vegas and Phoenix only exist because we can send a whole lot of water there), predation (from both animals and from really hungry humans), etc etc.

      I'm not even counting the wars that would immediately generate because of new scarcities like food, salt, firewood, and the like.

      By the by, the resource demands would certainly drop for things like petroleum, but they would rocket for things like plants (for food, clothing and fuel), animals (food and clothing), clean water (no modern sewage treatment anymore, and everybody taking a dump outside will eventually affect the local water table)... Also clean air would be hard to come by. Nobody wants to die of hypothermia, so everyone's gonna burn whatever wood and plants are handy come winter... this means way less trees to go around once everyone gets done stripping the forests for whatever they can lay hands on.

      The Gaia worshippers can talk a good game, but the stark fact is, you'd have to reduce the population to roughly 10% of what it is now in order to have any sort of sustainable hunter-gatherer type of lifestyle. This means 90% of everyone else has to go.

      (personally, I'd like to see that 90% eventually living in space colonies w/ Earth as one gigantic recreational park, but that's going to take some time...)

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    29. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The oceans are currently absorbing 7 billion tons of CO2 more than they outgas each year, with terrestrial absorption at 5 billion tons net per year.

      http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/CarbonCycle/carbon_cycle4.html (NASA's Earth Observatory site is currently offline)
      (alternate link) http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=95

      Solar irradiance does directly track historical temperatures; however, the past 30 years have shown increasing temperatures with steady solar irradiance.

      Direct satellite measurements of solar irradiance find no rising trend since 1978, the start of measurements. Sunspot numbers have leveled out since 1950. The Max Planck Institute reconstruction shows that irradiance has been steady since 1950 and solar radio flux or flare activity shows no rising trend over the past 30 years.

      An increase solar irradiance would warm all layers of the atmosphere as there would be more heat radiating through all atmospheric layers back out to space. An increased greenhouse effect would reflect more heat to the surface, thus warming the lower atmospheric layers and cooling the upper atmospheric layers. The second case is what is being observed.

      http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c153.pdf
      http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant
      http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers_png
      ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY.PLT
      http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Solar_Cycle_Variations_png

    30. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ok, so, a 15 kW fan will cost about $30,000. This includes the tower. If you place it properly, you'll get full-power for ~10 hours per day, so 150 kW/h. It will do so for the next twenty years with little if any maintenance. That's 1,095,000 kW/h for $30,000. That's $0.0274 per kW/h. Less than three cents.

      All this, and NO TOXIC WASTE.

      Go, propaganda.

      --
      I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
    31. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Socguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually Geothermal would then be the cheapest and cleanest way to go. Nuclear is a non-starter everywhere but /.

    32. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Socguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Perhaps I don't understand you, but how could Nuclear not include a cost to operate? At base, You have to mine and process the nuclear fuel.

      As for cost of disposal, don't forget you also have to factor the eventual cost to decommission a nuclear power plant.

    33. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Atario · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In equally shocking news, Bill Gates uses Windows -- the very OS made by his own company! DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!

      Please.

      You could just as easily say the reverse: Al Gore doesn't just buy carbon offsets, he participates in an entire company whose whole purpose is to replace CO2-emitting activities with equivalent non-CO2-emitting ones.

      Actually, come to think of it, that wouldn't even be a frame on the issue -- it would be the truth.

      --
      "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
    34. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1: A wind turbine needs space--air free of foliage or other debris that could damage it.
      It goes up about 80 feet, so... check.

      2: A wind turbine needs to be situated on real estate that actually gets wind.
      It goes up about 80 feet, so... check.

      3: You need to spend time (and by extension money) maintaining the conditions of my first point.
      Right... once a year, trim some branches. Oh, the humanity.

      4: The environmental cost of manufacturing & erecting the turbine.
      Some aluminum tubes, some plexiglass vanes, and a simple motor. Check.

      5: The environmental cost of disposing of the turbine at the end of its lifespan.
      Less than toxic waste, heavy water, and radioactive gasses. Check.

      6: The environmental cost on wildlife due to lost habitat.

      Sixty four square feet. Check.

      Seems fairly simple to me.

      --
      I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
    35. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, because solar and wind farms are built in forests. Good grief, have you ever seen any of these? They are located:
      - off-shore
      - on ridges
      - in plains with heavy prevailing winds
      - in deserts
      - on rooftops

      In short, no place that actually needs to be cleared of anything. Not to mention that building ANYTHING requires the use of fossil fuels. ESPECIALLY your precious nuclear plants, whose fuel has to be dug out of mines with giant excavation equipment.

      Seriously. There are plenty of reasons to rail against Gore and environmentalists, but your reasons are not part of it. Not to mention that they make absolutely no sense.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    36. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by thekm · · Score: 2, Funny

      oh, piss off... if you can't put up with others to mis-quoting, taking out of context, paraphrasing and or even completely rewriting the post you're replying to, it's you who doesn't belong on slashdot!

      I welcome our new radioactively contaminated overlords!

    37. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Rukie · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's a difference between air warming and surface warming. Sure there are obnoxious amounts of CO2 being released, along with methane and other "greenhouse gases." Everything depends on minute details. First, we don't have records that go back much more than 100 years on a world wide scale. We don't know that much about the weather, if we did, the meteorologist would never be wrong. Air warming (actual air, nitrogen, oxygen, etc) has seen a small increase over the past 100 some years (as records show from studies by NASA/etc) However, surface warming (the actual planet, ground, iron, granite, etc, solid forms instead of gasses), has not seen a steady increase as would be expected. The surface undergoes cooling periods, warming periods, I believe end of the 70's it went down. The majority of our own greenhouse contributions happened when, after 1930's? 1940's? I think thats when 70-80% of human greenhouse gases come from. So if 20&% is before 1940, then the earth's atmosphere must have been warming on its own quite well to keep the trends. The sun goes through cycles, which could easily affect earth and it's cycles. We know the sun has periods where there are high amounts of sun spots, and low amounts. These could attribute to the earth raising and lowering in atmosphere temperature. There are THOUSANDS of reasons why temperatures could be changing, and human made greenhouse gases do NOT seem like the most likely reason to me. Feel free to bash me, i said people were ignorant. Before you accept the media's interpretation of things, check stuff out for yourself. I'm not saying I have any insight not available to anyone else, I just think too many people have jumped on a political bandwagon after lots of misinformation. I'm sure there's information out there that I do not know about, and it might just change my opinion. But from what I've read and learned I disagree with the majority of people, does that make me a bad person? I guess so. Maybe I'll just sign those referendums to jail people who don't believe in global warming!

      --
      Support the source, Open Source! An entire site developed with OSS
    38. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by bdjacobson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How about we just build breeder reactors? I'd much rather have those than some mountain full of waste that will be radioactive for 10k years.

  2. Surges That Lash Coastal... by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... coastal what?

    --
    I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
    1. Re:Surges That Lash Coastal... by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 4, Funny

      It got washed away.

  3. The funny thing... by Otter · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The funny thing is that villagers like these use enormous amounts of fuel and create tremendous pollution (per-capita, anyway) with their snowmobiles and poorly insulated houses. And how many times do you figure the lawyer pushing them into this suit has flown in from Boston?

    I do love the part where they're complaining that global warming is keeping them from hunting "whale, seal, walrus, and caribou". Maybe Leonardo diCaprio should make a movie about that!

    1. Re:The funny thing... by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yea I was wondering if they used any fossil fuels themselves? Are they taking any money from the State? In Alaska they pay you a reverse tax each year from all the oil that is exported from Alaska.
      If so I would say... If you are part the problem then why should you sue?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  4. More about money grubbing lawyers... by bagboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    than anything else. I live in Alaska and can tell you the driving force behind this is actually "The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and the Native American Rights Fund -- plus six law firms." The natives in the village use gas-powered vehicles for transportation and (generator) electricity for their homes, suing the people who provide the source for those items.

    Shoot, why don't we all climb on board. Oh, wait - I drive a car to work and use natural gas to heat my home, plus electricity to power my net activities...

  5. Re:Yes but... by sheepofblue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes it is http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm The same idiots were screaming ice age in the late 70's to early 80's. Further they are using it to proposed government initiatives at a global level. Good bye freedoms and even the pittance of accountability we have now have once the UN (majority tyrants) get control. This is junk science at its worst.

  6. Re:Erm by gatzke · · Score: 4, Informative


    Or at least before we switch back to "Igloo effect" hysteria!!!

    http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm

    I was taught about climate change in middle school from a book that managed to have both cooling and warming in it, so I am always skeptical...

  7. Re:Yes but... by bunratty · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course. I always value the scientific opinion of the founder of The Weather Channel over the consensus of hundreds of climate scientists.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  8. I'm going to sue the Sun! by tjstork · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've been working so hard to warm the planet up, with my CO2 belching truck, but the lack of sunspots has made this year the coldest and snowiest winter since the 1960s....

    --
    This is my sig.
    1. Re:I'm going to sue the Sun! by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 2, Informative

      Local weather does not refute a global climate trend.

      I'm pretty sure that freaking SUNSPOTS probably create global climate trends. You know, unless you have a few sunspots caged up in your backyard.

    2. Re:I'm going to sue the Sun! by bunratty · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So why is it so hard to believe that a continued waning (solar activity is still going down, lower than the amounts that stabilized the temperature) will help drop the temperature?
      Because we're very near solar minimum, so this is about all the cooling we're going to get. Now for another ten or so years of rising, followed by perhaps another plateau.
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  9. Enjoin the Sun by Migraineman · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I hope they enjoined the Sun as a co-defendant.

    The lawsuit invokes the federal common law of public nuisance, and every entity that contributes to the pollution problem harming Kivalina is liable
    If anything is substantially responsible for increasing the earth's temperature, it's that nuclear-reactor-in-the-sky.
    1. Re: Enjoin the Sun by Sciros · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are you serious? You do know that global warming is caused by trapping heat FROM THE SUN, right? This year has been far colder than usual, and indeed scientists say that it's due to reduced solar activity. You can pump all the CO2 into the atmophere you want, but you'll need to get some heat to retain in the first place.

      --
      I like basketball!!1!
  10. "Alaskan Village" by ajs · · Score: 4, Informative

    The term might mislead some Slashdot readers. Please see:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Native_Claims_Settlement_Act

    which established:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Native_Regional_Corporations

    We're talking about the established tribal "village," which is a legal entity representing a group of natives for purposes of interacting with the Regional Corporations, not the traditional meaning of the word. The easiest comparison would be if you took recognized Native American tribes from the lower 48 and segmented them up into "villages" of roughly the size of a rural town.

  11. nice timing by syrinx · · Score: 3, Informative

    Good (for some values of "good") timing on their part, what with the news that the world is actually cooling, including the most snowfall in 50 years in North America, and record levels of Antarctic sea ice.

    Here we are, trying to keep our planet warm with a nice, insulating layer of carbon dioxide, and the darn ol' sun has to go and become less active.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
    1. Re:nice timing by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here's the Hadley Center's global temperature record. Each of the past 6 years of decreasing solar activity, the waning side of solar cycle 23, have been in the hottest 8 on the 158 year record.

      Antarctic sea ice is at record high levels, while Antarctic land-based ice loss speeds up (full paper).

    2. Re:nice timing by gnuman99 · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

      *Maybe* looking at something more than a few months is more valid when looking at long term trends like Global Warming trend???????? You know, a few weeks or months of cold doesn't mean "global cooling".

      Also, the sun just started a new 11-year cycle this year. The solar output was marginally dropping for few years now and now it will increase. Cheers and enjoy more denying in spite of reality.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum
      http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm?list862664

    3. Re:nice timing by Saige · · Score: 2, Informative

      Interesting.

      Go directly to the NASA GISS site and check the data. It shows that 2007 is tied for second warmest since they've been tracking. The other temperature sources show the same thing. Daily Tech is either using bad data or deliberately lying.

      --
      "You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
  12. It's not "mis-targetted" by trolltalk.com · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're looking to cash in on the "environmental windfall lottery",

    ... 390 people ...

    ... Relocation costs have been estimated at $400 million or more.

    Just follow the money.

    A million bucks each and they'll go away happy. It doesn't cost a million bucks a head to relocate people, unless you're relocating them to the ISS.

    1. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by jameskojiro · · Score: 2, Funny

      Relocate them to the moon, it may take 1 billion per head but maybe it will send the message that after these alaskans die of asphixia on the moon that you don't sue over dumb ass shit like this.

      --
      Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
    2. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by Kenoli · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Launching them into space does sound like a pretty good plan actually.

    3. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by Himring · · Score: 4, Funny

      Quick eskimo jokes:

      How do you kill an polarbear? Kick him in the icehole....

      A baby seal walks into a club....

      Um, all I have for now

      Try the veal

      --
      "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
    4. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by Stanistani · · Score: 3, Funny

      That was very insensitive.

      I suppose you walrus hurt the ones you love.

    5. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by geekoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How do you relocates a culture? History?

      There is no place similar to relocate these people and some of them won't be able to function in a city.
      So you have relocation, retraining, integration, etc . . .

      ONOH I'm sure you think you can just pick someone up, plop them anywhere and that's the end of.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    6. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh, you think $1e6 per capita is too much? Wait until you see the claims of people with eroding property in California, Florida, and New York in a few years. I'm not saying the lawsuit is just or winnable, but I'll bet it is the first of many larger ones to come.

    7. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by trolltalk.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

      they aren't living in igloos. They have rifles, snowmobiles, 4x4s, satellite tv, etc.

    8. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by keineobachtubersie · · Score: 3, Informative

      "How do you relocates a culture? History?"

      Are you saying that culture is tied to a place? So nomads can't have culture and history?

      So these people have no culture or history?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people

      What about these people?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers

      Or these?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeniche_(people)

      Sorry, that's a thinly veiled excuse, and it doesn't fly at all.

      I'd have a lot more sympathy if these people hadn't been taking money from the oil companies for years.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

      As it is, they have a 40 billion+ fund for things like this. Give back the money you so greedily took when you didn't care about the consequences, or use the money you've saved for this purpose, but don't expect us (and it WILL be us, the customer who gets the cost passed to them) to pay you off again.

    9. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by EvilNTUser · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cultures don't have a right to live. People have a right to live.

      If your culture becomes unviable, you move on. It's not the rest of the planet's job to help you to live like a carbon copy of your father. We find this self evident with business models, but cultures evoke silly emotional reactions.

      --
      My Sig: SEGV
    10. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by keineobachtubersie · · Score: 2, Informative

      "We are living and walking around on soil that we took from Native people by force.

      Why don't you develop some respect."

      Thanks, any chance you could reply to something I said, or a point I made, or just not with a total no sequitur?

      Thanks in advance.

      "We are living and walking around on soil that we took from Native people by force."

      And THEY got it from the previous natives by force. Why don't you learn something about history before you comment on it?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture

      "The Dorset culture preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. Inuit legends mention the Tuniit (singular Tuniq) or Sivullirmiut ("First Inhabitants"), who were driven away by the Inuit. According to legend, they were "giants", people who were taller and stronger than the Inuit, but who were easily scared off and retreated from the advancing Inuit."

      You're welcome.

    11. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by spun · · Score: 2, Insightful

      People have a right to be free from the unwanted impact of other people. I don't have a right to hit you in the face, or pollute your land, or fuck up the atmosphere we all breath. Destroying someone's culture impacts them personally, in a way that is not right or just.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    12. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by trolltalk.com · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We are living and walking around on soil that we took from Native people by force.

      Go back far enough in history, and your ancestors can make the same claim to someone elses' ancestors. AND vice versa.

      At some point, the statute of limitations has to come into effect.

      We cannot turn back the clock. Time to move on.

      For example, the descendents of the Irish and Scots and French who were forcibly settled in N. American aren't going back to the "mother countries" and kick out the descendents who are still living there ...

      Really, its time to move on. If you didn't make a claim before the end of the last century, forget it.

  13. Re:Yes but... by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Informative

    Of course. I always value the scientific opinion of the founder of The Weather Channel over the consensus of hundreds of climate scientists. Would believe raw data?

    Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

    No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. That's from HERE. They provide a nifty graph to go with it HERE

    It appears to me that those who said that the SUN was causing global warming due to increased sunspot activity, that has recently subsided, were correct. And all those scientist that claimed it was solely man made were wrong.

    Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  14. IANAL by Clay+Pigeon+-TPF-VS- · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I am not a lawyer (yet), but it looks as if the villagers are going to have a hell of a time proving duty and proximate causation. I wonder if this case is anything more than a publicity stunt.

    --
    Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
  15. How far back? by jamesl · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are they going to sue us back to the last ice age?

  16. Re:Yes but... by snarfer · · Score: 4, Informative

    You are linking to a site that is funded by Exxon, in case you didn't know.

  17. Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling by blueg3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Alternately, they could break out a book on statistics and explain how temperature is noisy at that scale.

  18. Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sure they'll be delighted to know that last year was not only one of the coolest on record, but that the trend was so pronounced as "to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."[dailytech.com] So, we're supposed to reject the nigh-universal consensus of climate scientists because a blogger tells us to?
    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  19. Re:Yes but... by jonnythan · · Score: 4, Informative

    NASA's GISS just said that 2007 was tied with 1998 for the second-warmest year in the past century.

    Their data also shows that I think 8 months of 2007 were warmer than the corresponding months in 2006 - and all months of 2007 were at least as warm as the corresponding months in 2000.

  20. simple really .... by Brigadier · · Score: 5, Funny



    cost per person to relocate inhabitants = $30,000
    cost per person to have lawyers sign moving agreement = $970,000

    going to law school and specializing in environmental law .. priceless

  21. In other news... Exxon trying to nor pay damages by Nexus7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Exxon is presently trying to get the SCOTUS to overturn $2.5B punitive damages awarded to fishermen and other interests affected adversely by the Valdez spill (interesting story... drunk driver, I mean captain). Anyhow, it is related because punitive damages are weird.. they got $2.5B earlier, the court may reduce it, to what $1.25B? And Exxon wants to pay $0. How much is appropriate?

    At least in the oil spill, one defendant is involved, Exxon. In global warming, who is culpable, and to what extent? Who suffered, and what dollar amounts? And what is an appropriate punitive damages number? Adn think of the endless appeals.

  22. Re:Yes but... by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hey, look at me! I've got a few years worth of data! Now I can make wide reaching conclusions about the work of hundreds of scientists!

    Temperature changes are well understood to happen more gradually than a few years. If the next decade would show cooling that still wouldn't mean anything about the long term trend. Short term reversals of some trends can and do happen. A volcano spewed sulfur into the atmosphere? Solar output decreased very slightly? And so on...

    This doesn't invalidate the long term warming trend and the science behind global warming, at all.

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
  23. Re:Erm by xaxa · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's why it's called climate change -- higher temperatures in some places, lower temperatures in others. Ocean currents play a big part, and changing the temperature of the ocean changes the place warm water ends up, so a previously warm place (e.g. western Europe) could get colder, and a previously cold place (e.g. Greenland) warmer.

  24. Re:Who do I cheer for? by smooth+wombat · · Score: 2, Insightful
    1) Global Warming is untrue. (most of those melted ice caps have reformed, no real data beyond the normal climatic cycle, etc.)


    Bullshit. Global warming is happening. The facts (i.e. temperature readings) show it is. The question is whether the warming is normal, man-made or some combination of both. No, the melted ice caps have not reformed. Take a look at Kilimanjaro, Greenland and the fact there may be a Northwest Passage through the polar ice.

    2) If drilling were allowed in Alaska and other locations, the price of oil would come down, jobs would be created, there would be more wealth in the economy, we would not be supporting the UAE.

    Double bullshit. The same thing was said when oil drilling was first introducted in Alaska. Know what happened to oil prices? Nothing. Know why? Because the bulk of the oil had high sulphur content and so was shipped to Japan where their environmental laws were more lax than ours were at the time. Very little went to the U.S.

    Yes, some jobs would be created but in the grand scheme of things, not enough to make up for the staggering losses to manufacturing jobs that have been experienced in the last ten years, let alone since the Carter administration.

    As far as wealth, the vast majority of wealth would go to three populations: the oil companies themselves, the heads of those oil companies and the shareholders of the companies. A small amount would go to the Treasury but certainly not enough to change people's lives, especially with all the tax breaks and credits that oil companies still receive despite there being no need for the breaks.

    Ok, so we don't support the UAE. How about Saudi Arabia where they wanted to flog a woman because she was with an unrelated man even though she had been gang raped?

    3) No matter how much you dislike an entity, frivolous lawsuits are harmful to everyone.

    Finally, something we can agree on though with one minor quibble. The only ones not harmed are the attorneys. They get paid either way.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  25. I wonder how much global warming... by wattrlz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Will be created by clearcutting whole tree farms to make the paper a case of this magnitude requires.

  26. Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 4, Informative

    This blog post seems to be a denier's primary point today.

    Here's the Hadley Center's global temperature record. Each of the past 6 years of decreasing solar activity, the waning side of solar cycle 23, have been in the hottest 8 on the 158 year record.

  27. Re: Yes but... by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I asked if you would believe raw data.
    You answered:

    Not in the absence of competence to interpret it. Then you say:

    Meanwhile both poles are melting faster than anyone feared. What TFA I linked says:

    Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. What the Goddard Space Flight Center shows:

    While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to bring up the opposing argument (from 2003):

    Australian scientists yesterday revealed new evidence of global warming, suggesting that sea ice around Antarctica had shrunk 20% in the past 50 years. So if decreasing sea ice proves global warming, wouldn't increasing sea ice DISprove global warming? I mean, I am not a climatologist and all, but I am a thinker.

    I'm not saying that the climate didn't change or isn't changing. It is always changing. I'm saying that it is natural, not man made and that the "hockey stick" predictions of future climate models were dead wrong.

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  28. Steven Seagal will make another movie... by Nicolay77 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where the villagers win and the big corporations lose.

    Fight global warming with aikido!!!

    --
    We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
  29. Re:Yes but... by MacDork · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You are linking to a site that is funded by Exxon, in case you didn't know.

    That's called an ad hominem attack, in case you didn't know.

  30. Re:that is ridiculous by sm62704 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, I see where you got your information!

    --
    mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
  31. speaking as an Alaskan by element-o.p. · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope there IS global warming. This winter was frikken cold!

    --
    MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
  32. Re:Yes but... by snarfer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "attack the group"

    I just pointed out that you were linking to an Exxon-funded front-group, so people can evaluate what they are seeing.

  33. Re:Yes but... by RobertM1968 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The simple facts that elude everyone on each side of this argument (regardless of which side is correct) are:

    • As a species, we should be trying to make our technology be as harmonious with nature (and it's built in checks and balances) as possible to avoid creating these or similar issues (thus, drastically or even not so drastically but still noticeably changing the composition of our atmosphere is "probably" not a good idea).
    • Humans live better, longer and with less health issues when breathing a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere - unpolluted with CO emissions and such other byproducts (regardless of which are possible causes of global warming)
    • While trees may thrive in an atmosphere with higher CO2 levels, humans don't. And with the amount of deforestation we do, increasing CO2 levels for the sake of plants is not the solution... keeping them at a balanced level to support animal and plant life would be far more wiser (in conjunction with proper care of our plant kingdon).

    It does baffle me that instead of looking at the other valid reasons (and I listed only a few that quickly came to mind) people dismiss this "issue" because it is possibly targeting the wrong problem created by the issue. Lowering emissions is still just as relevant simply to maintain a clean, properly balanced atmosphere... anyone remember SanFran a few decades ago? It is obvious we can make a difference in our environment - negative or positive - but it is up to us to choose - and pretending CO2 and CO emissions aren't a problem simply because they may not cause global warming; when we know they do cause various other health and environmental problems is not the step in the right direction.

  34. re: The funny thing - Eskimo cars by z80kid · · Score: 5, Funny
    An Eskimo is driving when his car starts to make a noise. He takes it to the garage and the mechanic looks at it. "Hmm, looks like you've blown a seal."

    "No," says the Eskimo, "it's just frost on my mustache."

    ~~~
    (What the hell, I've got some karma to burn.)

  35. Re:Yes but... by ArcherB · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This doesn't invalidate the long term warming trend and the science behind global warming, at all. You are correct. There has been a warming trend over past 20 years or so. What this data does is support the notion that worldwide temperatures change constantly. That means they are either going up (global warming), or going down. It always has and always will. The point is not to freak out and wreck worldwide economies and deprive people of their basic freedoms because of a few degrees change one way or the other.

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  36. Re:Yes but... by snarfer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, I think readers deserve to know that a site offering what they purport to be a scholarly and independent analysis of science is actually funded by a corporation with an interest in distorting the facts. Especially when it turns out that the analysis offered by that site is contradicted by the scientific community.

    "Doubt is our product" was the strategy used by the tobacco companies to pollute public understanding of the science about cancer. More than 100 million people have been killed by tobacco.

    Now the oil and coal companies are using the same strategy - even some of the the same people and PR firms - to try to keep people from understanding what is happening with global warming.

    So I think it IS important for people to know who is spreading this stuff, and why.

  37. Re:Erm by gatzke · · Score: 2, Insightful


    But how much of the change is anthropomorphic?

    Is climate change driven by solar activity or CO2 levels or other or all?

    Is humanity responsible for an appreciable amount of the CO2?

    At one point I thought hurricanes were going to kill us all and we were blaming global warming. The last two years have been very quiet... You should not extrapolate noisy data.

  38. If you took money from the APF, you're out by keineobachtubersie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How many of these plaintiffs took money from these very same oil companies by way of the Alaska Permanent Fund? Where were the complaints then? Should the people who took money be liable? I think so.

    I suggest we use the APF to pay this lawsuit, then watch how fast it gets forgotten.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

    "The Fund grew from an initial investment of $734,000 in 1977 to the current sum of approximately forty billion dollars as of July 13, 2007. "

    I find it more than a little distasteful that these greedy s.o.b's think they can collect on both ends.

  39. In a time long ago(the 70's) by geekoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    These effects where noticed, many hypothesis was bantered around,and the media reported what they read on the day.

    SOme people thought there would be cloaud cover, and therefore less heat on the earth, some believed the heat would be absorbed. both would create significant climate change.

    As time marched on, more and more data was collected, many ideas were discarded.

    Now we have gone from a split, to a consensus. It is working exactly like science should, data is collected, tested, Theories get refined, or discarded.

    Bearing in mine the 'global warming' i.e. climate change doesn't mean everything stays the same, it's just a few degree's warmer. It means the flow of the Ocean will change; which can radically change the overall climate.

    Being skeptical is fine, as long as it's balanced by studies.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  40. Re:Who do I cheer for? by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1) Global Warming is untrue. (most of those melted ice caps have reformed, no real data beyond the normal climatic cycle, etc.)

    Huh? You are saying that because it hasn't been proven, then it isn't true. That's just stupid. Even the "global warming sceptics" have a consensus that the average temperature is increasing. I get handed radical right stuff by coworkers all the time, and I actually manage to read more of it than they do. Most global warming nay-sayers are really nay-saying the contribution by man, or CO2, or whatever, and the number of people that say "Here is proof that the world is getting colder" is roughly 0, and the number of people saying "here is proof the world is the same temperature" seems to be about 5% of the anti-global warming nuts. All the rest are "we don't know, so it can't be true" or "it is true, but we didn't cause it" or "it is true, but it isn't going to be a problem". Most documents I've seen "proving" global warming doesn't exist really end up being personal attacks on Al Gore or something else like that, and contain absolutely zero content about what is happening.

    2) If drilling were allowed in Alaska and other locations, the price of oil would come down, jobs would be created, there would be more wealth in the economy, we would not be supporting the UAE.

    Drilling is allowed in Alaska. How are you oil prices doing right now? There is an area that was deemed to be protected land about 100 years ago with zero proven oil reserves which it is suspected holds oil. There are some arguemnts over how much the protections should cover or whether to find out how much is there before determining what to do about the protections. And even if we went there and started extracting it now, it would be years before a pipeline was finished to connect it with the existing Alaska Pipeline. So, for your oil prices next year, ANWR has nothing to do with them. Any statements to the contrary are lies.

    3) No matter how much you dislike an entity, frivolous lawsuits are harmful to everyone.

    What's frivilous about it? If they can prove in court that global warming exists, is caused by CO2, and the defendants contributed CO2 to the atmosphere knowing that it could or would cause problems, they should win. This is the perfect example of Libertarian pollution controls. Someone gets harmed by pollution, so they sue. Keep the government out of environmental regulations and let the free market sort it out. If you don't like this, then it is a great example of how Libertaniranism is doomed to failure. I point this out because so many people that I've seen against this suit also say things that make them appear to be Libertarian.

  41. Re:Yes but... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Humans live better, longer and with less health issues when breathing a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere - unpolluted with CO emissions and such other byproducts (regardless of which are possible causes of global warming)

    Did you mean "unpolluted by CO2 emissions"? Because I don't want to breathe much carbon monoxide either. (And, fortunately, I don't.)

    If you did, though, please consider! The Earth's atmosphere already has billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Human emissions have increased this some, and this increase may or may not be Bad and Cause Global Warming, but calling CO2 "pollution" is like calling the ocean "polluted with salt".

    CO2 is there. Naturally. In far, far greater quantities than Man ever put there.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  42. Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling by ncc74656 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, we're supposed to reject the nigh-universal consensus of climate scientists because a blogger tells us to?

    Consensus != science...and even if it were, it's hardly as universal as Algore and his Grünsturmabteilung would have you believe.

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  43. Re:Erm by MPolo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    However, the linked article says that the GLOBAL temperature (presumably mean) has dropped precipitously in the past year. There are some graphs here that at least apparently back this up. According to the article in the Daily Tech, this is enough to offset all the increase in the last 100 years.

    I have no way of testing the data, indeed, no way of knowing if they are talking about mean or median temperature in the articles, but just to be clear: the article that is linked is not saying "some places are colder, global warming is wrong", but "the whole planet is colder, global warming is wrong". That's an entirely different animal.

  44. Re: Yes but... by ncc74656 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Climate change" means that we will see more extreme weather, including more regional snowfall in some places. So yes, more snowfall in North America actually shows that global warming IS occurring.

    ...and now we get to the core of the Grünsturmabteilung's argument: the unfalsifiable hypothesis. It's the intellectual equivalent of "heads we win, tails you lose." What's next? Are you going to tell us that anthropogenic global warming turned you into a newt, but that you got better?

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  45. Re:Yes but... by snarfer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You have a knack for finding Exxon-funded stuff to link to. Why is that? This time you linked to something by Richard Lindzen.

    Wikipedia: "According to a PBS Frontline report, "Dr. Lindzen is a member of the Advisory Council of the Annapolis Center for Science Based Public Policy, which has received large amounts of funding from ExxonMobil and smaller amounts from Daimler Chrysler, according to a review [of] Exxon's own financial documents and 990s from Daimler Chrysler's Foundation. Lindzen is a also been a contributor to the Cato Institute, which has taken $90,000 from Exxon since 1998, according to the website Exxonsecrets.org and a review Exxon financial documents. He is also a contributor for the George C. Marshall Institute."

  46. Re:But they are targeting everyone! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    See also: Brilliant plan by Democrats, announced today, to tax the profits of the evil oil companies.

    Quite frankly, if I were an oil company, and had politicians getting elected promising to ram a pitchfork up my ass, all the while they claim they're gonna decimate oil with alternative fuels, I'd be dragging ass too in constructing new oil pipelines, infrastructure, refineries, and the like, when, if said politicians have their way, much of that new stuff'll be useless in a few years as oil use decreases and thus you cannot recoup your billions.

    Screw that government and the people that elect it. Raise prices!

    Do not mark this flamebait. This is a serious analysis. That it upsets you, well, read my .sig.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  47. Re:Erm by FatMullet · · Score: 2, Informative

    This might place the graph in that article into a little more context http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/simple_average/> The bottom graph show the HadCRUT3 monthly mean timeseries from 1850 onwards. Some of the big peaks and troughs in the monthly mean timeseries of global surface temperature are from El Ninos (when the Tropical Pacific warms) and La Ninas (when it cools), e.g. you can see the big peak in global temps during the 1997/98 El Nino. We're presently going through a La Nina, http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html> which partially explains why the global surface temperatures are so cold. When La Nina ends in a few months time expect the global temps to go back up. Global warming (aka climate change) is the long term upwards trend in global surface temps.

  48. Re:Yes but... by jejones · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Al Gore is the chairman of Generation Investment Management, a company that sells carbon offsets (in particular, he buys his carbon offsets from his company. Does that make him biased as well?

  49. Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A scientific consensus describes, not proscribes, the accumulated data & scientific theories. Read that again; descriptive, not proscriptive. Denying a consensus with nothing more than bluster and ad hominem retorts is a blatant denial of science. Provide relevant & complete evidence or you are no better than the creationists.

  50. Re:Global Warming is bullshit by CTilluma · · Score: 2, Informative

    Interesting... When looking at images at http://nsidc.org/ - There is distinctly less ice now in 2008 than there was in 2006...

  51. Climate Change. by MaWeiTao · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The big push for at least a decade was that we were being threatened by global warming. The ice caps were going to melt, the seas were going to rise and who knows what else was going to come with that. All we hear about is some impending doom initiated by humanity. Except that it never actually arrives; it's always going to happen some day soon.

    On now that evidence is arising that discredits the notion of global warming the terms get switched around on us. So now it's climate change. The nice thing about this term is that it's so all-encompassing. Any time we get weather a bit out of the ordinary it's chalked up to be due to climate change, specifically man-made climate change.

    Last month is snowed lightly in Baghdad for the first time anyone can recall. You'd think so impressive an event would be covered more than it was. I eventually found a brief Agence France-Presse story about it. Predictably they stick a bit in there about how this was due to climate change. Like there's a set temperature for any spot on Earth.

    I guess the implication is that the Earth's climate has always been static. I can't help but think that Creationists should be the most ardent believers of man-made climate change given that they're convinced the Earth is only 6000 years old.

    Forecasters can barely predict the weather into next week and I'm supposed to accept has fact incomplete computer models that predict the weather in the next 50 or 100 years. More importantly, I'm supposed to subscribe to the belief that a global temperature increase is inherently a bad thing.

    A while ago I was reading about the history of Japan, specifically the Jomon period. It turns out that between 4000BC and 2000BC temperatures tended to be several degrees Celsius higher then they are today and the seas are believed to have been 5m higher. The fascinating part was that the people living in Japan at the time thrived during this era, having developed rice-paddy farming and government control. When the climate cooled the population of these people declined dramatically. This trend is reflected around the world. Europe endured famines in the 1300s during periods of cooling and glacial expansion.

    Unfortunately, it seems to be taboo to argue against man-made climate change. Any evidence critics put forward is dismissed off-hand. The double-standards are laughable. A believer will use a localized event as evidence of climate change. A critic does the same and their argument is discredited for being based on local weather.

    So now we have these eskimo pulling what is essentially a publicity stunt. Well, it's worse than that. Behind them are a pack of scumbag lawyers looking to line their pockets.

  52. The culture isn't being destroyed by keineobachtubersie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Destroying someone's culture impacts them personally, in a way that is not right or just."

    I'm sorry, culture is a function of the people who create it, so unless you're going to fabricate some great genocide here, the culture isn't destroyed at all, just altered.

    Hyperbole like yours is for weak ass arguments.

  53. Re:In other news... Exxon trying to nor pay damage by Dachannien · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't forget to mention the part where Exxon has incurred $3.4 billion in cleanup expenses and fines, and has already paid the compensatory damages (nearly $300 million) to the plaintiffs in the case. The point of punitive damages is (supposedly) to punish, not to be a windfall for the plaintiffs.

  54. Cult of the Church of Gore modding today by keineobachtubersie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I knew the second I had the audacity to ask tough questions about Gore that his acolytes would mod me down.

    Of course, they know what the answers to the questions I asked are, and would hope to see me modded off the plant in order to avoid answering them.

  55. Re:Yes but... by quantaman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You are linking to a site that is funded by Exxon, in case you didn't know.

    That's called an ad hominem attack, in case you didn't know.

    From your link

    "An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument."

    I'd say the fact the entity making the claims about global warming is funded by an oil company is pretty damn relevant.
    --
    I stole this Sig
  56. Re:Yes but... by kabocox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You are linking to a site that is funded by Exxon, in case you didn't know.

    Does Exxon fund wikipedia now? Most of those looked like US Federal Agencies or universities. I know Exxon's a tax payer, but I seriously doubt that they pay for that much climate research. Damn, that's really impressive. I didn't realize Exxon funded
    Joint science academies' statement 2007
    Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006
    American Meteorological Society
    American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    That actually makes Exxon look like the greenest company around.

  57. Re:Yes but... by MacDork · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd say the fact the entity making the claims about global warming is funded by an oil company is pretty damn relevant.

    Right... that's what they all say when reproducing the experiments fails to verify that data you wanted us to ignore. Oh, you haven't reproduced the experiments? Wow, so you're saying their experiment is junk only because of who paid to have it done? Well then... classic ad hominem.

  58. WHy do prpoents of wind power by geekoid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    assum getting energy from the wind comes at no cost?

    TYhere are uisually put where there are strong winds; which are often migratory paths for birds. The Wind farm in califormia kill 1000's of birds a year.

    The wind slows down, so what efect does taking energy from the wind have? does it change rain fall patterns? certianly, does it change bird migration? wetlands? inland rainfall?

    I'm not saying we should try it, just thet we should remember that we don't get something for nothing. Also,'renewable energy' is a marketing phrase.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  59. Re:Your trend is too short by justechn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The Speed at which it's changing is the problem. What has happened over 100 years would normally have taken 10s of thousands of years."

    I guess it is good that we had this cooling period then because according to the article the cooling was "a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years."

  60. Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling by BlueParrot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Consensus != science....


    He never claimed it was, you made that strawman. What the GP DID claim was that if you are in a position where you are unable to comprehend the actual science ( as most people probably are ) then it is more rational to trust a vast majority of climate scientists, peer reviewed articles in scientific journals, and our national institutions, than Joe Blogger making a random claim without backing it up at all.

    With regards to how large the consensus about global warming is... well, all science will have disputed points, always, even gravity ( yes , we are not completely certain how gravity works ) but this doesn't mean that you can't have an overwhelmingly large consensus that a certain phenomena is real, and while you will likely find that climate scientists may disagree about the effects of global warming, it will be about things along the lines of "will it take 20 years or 100 years to get X degrees of warming?" or "will sea levels rise 1m or 10m within the next 100 years?" what very few scientists question is that human emissions of CO2 have an impact upon the climate, and that these effects are in many cases going to cause quite severe damage. Sea level rise alone is enough to justify a sentence along the lines of "There is an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will cause severe damage to ecosystems and human populations across the globe.".

    My main point is that, yes, there are disputed features of global warming, but these are about finer points. That human CO2 emissions will cause widespread damage across the globe is doubted by a VERY tiny minority of climate scientists.
  61. Re:Yes but... by RobertM1968 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    and the data supporting your statements are where?

    To support which part of it? That people's concern over plant emissions can be targetted to known issues in that respect such as the toxic byproducts they introduce into the atmosphere?

    That since there is an endless debate whether we are causing global warming or not, why not realize that the other concerns (increased CO, CO2, sulfur emissions) are still an issue. That they are still an issue even if global warming is just a fantasy?

    What data do you want to support things I am sure you know? Burning oil or coal releases CO, and a bunch of other pollutants into the atmosphere - as well as of course CO2 - which the SMART thing to do (regardless of the validity of global warming) is to try to live in balance with the way the earth was before industry grew to the point it is at now.

    Do you really want data that says breathing CO or sulfur emissions or such is harmful and a bad thing? Do you really want data saying that burning coal or oil produces such emissions? Give me a break.

  62. And nuclear only produces 30% of the greenhous gas by tsjaikdus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    >> So, basically what I'm saying is that I don't worry about nuclear power because there is nothing to worry about.
    .
    And nuclear only produces 30% of the greenhous gasses for the same amount of energy put into the grid. As the resources deplete rapidly in the next 50 years, the less economic the minerals, the harder it gets to extract the uranium, the more CO2 will be produced.