Slashdot Mirror


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."

57 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 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
    2. 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.

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. 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
    6. 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?!
    7. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by snarfer · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    8. 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?

    9. 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.

    10. 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.

    11. 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.

    12. 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.

    13. 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.

    14. 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?
    15. 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

    16. 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.
    17. 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.
  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!

  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.
  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.
  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.
  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 Kenoli · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    2. 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
    3. Re:It's not "mis-targetted" by Stanistani · · Score: 3, Funny

      That was very insensitive.

      I suppose you walrus hurt the ones you love.

    4. 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
    5. 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.

    6. 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.

    7. 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.

    8. 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
  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. How far back? by jamesl · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  15. 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.

  16. 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
  17. 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.

  18. 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

  19. 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.

  20. 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.

  21. 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.
  22. 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?
  23. 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.

  24. 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.

  25. 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.)

  26. 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.
  27. 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.
  28. 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.
  29. 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.

  30. 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.

  31. 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