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The Global Warming Heretic
theodp writes "In The Civil Heretic, the NYT Magazine takes a look at how world-renowned scientist Freeman Dyson wound up opposing those who care most about global warming. Since coming out of the closet on global warming, Dyson has found himself described as 'a pompous twit,' 'a blowhard,' and 'a mad scientist.' He argues that climate change has become an obsession for 'a worldwide secular religion' known as environmentalism. Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, calling him climate change's chief propagandist and accusing him of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models and promoting 'lousy science' that's distracting attention from more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet."
Dyson himself wrote about the need for heretics in science not long ago.
in fighting the prevailing wind. Credibility will end up tattered, but when your alternative is wage parity with taxi drivers, not such a bad choice. Rail on you rebel you.
Funny how since the beginning of history, groups of people have been claiming that the world is going to end. And it keeps not happening.
will of course prove him right. But that wont stop the scam that is going on. Im all for conservation and greener technologies. But this is not what is driving the Global Warming folks. Its good old MONEY/POWER. History will show Dyson to be a man of enlightened thinking, a beacon of reason. Course it will be only long after hes gone. Ask Galileo. It takes a truly great society to accept the great thinkers in their time. Plato?
. I love the sound of burning women and screaming rubber....
It will take another decade or so before the global warming fad dies.
the Zealots are always willing to burn a heretic.
Dyson is one of the greats and as Einstein said:
"Greatspirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
And God knows there are a sh*tload of mediocre minds involved with gerbil wormening
Not to mention with Lefties, politicians, movie stars..
If movie stars are in favour of it, it pretty much guarantees it's a bad idea.
Freeman Dyson has, apparently, angered all the right people.
FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Princeton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country's most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming "out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned," as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors' letter boxes and Dyson's own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as "a pompous twit," "a blowhard," "a cesspool of misinformation," "an old coot riding into the sunset" and, perhaps inevitably, "a mad scientist." Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred "carbon-eating trees,"
His most useful contribution to science was the unification of the three versions of quantum electrodynamics invented by Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga.
Wikipedia on Freeman Dyson
Although Dyson has won numerous scientific awards, he has never won a Nobel Prize, which has led Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg to state that the Nobel committee has "fleeced" Dyson. Dyson has said that "I think it's almost true without exception if you want to win a Nobel Prize, you should have a long attention span, get ahold of some deep and important problem and stay with it for 10 years. That wasn't my style."
Dyson worked as an analyst for RAF Bomber Command at RAF Wyton during World War II, where he would come to create what would be later known as operational research. .... his major awards and accomplishments run for pages....
Dyson Sphere, Project Orion - on and on.,.
his home page:
http://www.sns.ias.edu/~dyson/
I dread the day we stop questioning ourselves
You can include Owsley Stanley amongst the naysayers. While its hard to imagine billions of humans and their herds not farting up the globe dissent and criticism are always a good thing.
Global Warmin is bad science, as a general rule. If you look at most studies past the title they all play fast and loose. There is some good work being done for sure; but its been turned into a Religion, and the facts are thin, and or simply made up.
After it was revealed the Hocky-stick report was done with largely fictious data I don't understand how the public can stick behind this garbage. They just cling to the hope of their lord and master Barrack and the Queen of the Damned herself Nacy; and gobble up anything their pathetic pitchmand Gore says. You know he actually was quoted saying "I am not going to let science get in the way", why anybody takes anything these people say seriously without first independantly verifying it is beyond me.
Dyson on the other hand is a great thinker who has done great science, real science and knows how its suppose to work. Hopefully people will take him as seriously as they do their false prophets.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
A heretic is a person that believes in the same thing, but has their own angle not following the exact doctrines. However, the church has managed to change the public perception of the word into something so extreme, it's as bad as falling out of the devil's bottom and calling yourself jesus or some other mythical character.
1960s Environmentalists: Hey, maybe we like, shouldn't piss in our own drinking water and stuff.
Entrenched corporate interests: Fuck off, hippies.
1970s Scientists: Hmm, we probably shouldn't piss in our own drinking water.
Entrenched corporate interests: Fuck off, hippies.
1990s Scientists: Hey, we're really pretty sure about this not-pissing-in-drinking-water thing now.
Entrenched corporate interests: Fuck off, hippies.
Everyone else: Hey, so I saw this Inconvenient Truth thing, and I gotta say, this not-pissing-in-drinking-water kind of makes sense.
Entrenched corporate interests: Fuck off, hippies.
in before science!
A lot of time in Science, you see people get aggressive towards dissenters of the popular opinion. Not aggressive in a good way, mind you. Heretics are GOOD because they strengthen or destroy good/bad science.
Just remember that next time you read an ID article ;-)
Unfortunately, he also happens to be wrong. He is a lone voice who has never published or conducted any research in Climatology; it is not his field. Those who insult and demean Dyson because of his views engage in abhorrent rhetoric. But the fact that some crazy people engage in abusive conduct does not make Professor Dyson's scientific views on this issue correct. It simply means that some people are assholes.
I'm sorry. There is a strong sentiment among slashdotters that Global Warming is bunk. Which shows just how ignorant the population at slashdot really is (never mind the general public).
Its all about control and taxation. Taking from the haves and giving it to HAVE NOTS by force. SUN SPOT cycles have more control over our environment than all humans combined. The Earth has had COLD and WARM cycles centuries before the SUV was created.
-------- Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. --Ozzy
Oh look. Another non-climate-scientist who thinks nearly all of the climate scientists are wrong about the climate.
Non-experts who disagree with experts are a dime a dozen in any field, but for some reason, global warming seems to be the only field where they make headlines. Wonder why that is.
The sports writer who for some reason was tasked with writing this science article let Dyson get away with a couple of groaners. One was his comment:
Climate scientists will be the first to tell you that global warming affects the poles disproportionately. That doesn't make it "local" -- and the fact that those words are not in quotes suggests to me that Dyson never said it. Dyson seems well aware that the climate is, in fact, warming.
Dyson's wrong to repeat the "global cooling" myth, and in his Salon interview a couple of years ago, he was wrong to assert that polar bear populations are increasing. But then, he didn't almost win the Nobel Prize for Polar Bears. He's undoubtedly a genius when it comes to physics, but why does the media love to find global-warming contrarians who are not experts on global warming? There's a question I'd like to see explored.
I'm sure this discussion will be flooded with global warming deniers, but if you actually read Dyson's opinions, he believes that global warming IS happening and we ARE to blame.
His only complaint with the science is that he feels that some of the computer models are fudged to make the results look worse than they might actually be.
Of course, his opinion on this seems utterly pointless to me. The man is a physicist, specializing in solid-state and quantum physics. He's no more qualified to analyze the science behind climate change than an electrical engineer is to build a bridge.
My biggest personal problem with global warming is that it is so cold all the time. In Portland, Oregon, it snowed in March, even though it usually doesn't snow at all. In another city with which I am familiar, in the southern hemisphere, there was no summer, only two warm days.
Global warming is politically difficult to sell to people when they are experiencing record cold.
Good personal attack against Liberals there.
While I will wholeheartedly agree that there are dogmatic idiots on both sides of this issue. And while I have no personal experience or knowledge on how, what and why things happen the way they do; I feel that those supporting doing nothing and ignoring any potential problem related to global warming and increased pollution are sticking their heads in the sand.
This isn't just about Environmental Nutters (though there are plenty of those); it's about responsible use of our resources and how to dispose of any waste generated. Continually, and increasingly, dumping chemicals and pumping exhaust from cars and factories into the atmosphere is not a positive thing. Our planet is big, and the problems related to increased pollution builds up over time; but it is absolutely clear in my mind that we can't keep doing what we do; there are simply too many people on the planet for it to magically absorb and breakdown all our waste (especially at the level we now generate and discard it).
Basically my point is that investing and researching more energy efficient ways is a good thing. Cutting down on consumption, and perhaps thinking a bit more about the stability and continuity of our ecosystem is a good thing.
The Long Now Foundation
Watch whether any of the reports on Dyson mention that there hasn't been warming for several years now. And much of the previous warming was just a recovery from the "Little Ice Age"... at least I hope that "Little Ice Age" temperatures aren't normal.
He hasn't lost his mind, it just ain't particullary rooted in reality. Never was.
His solution should CO2 become a problem? Plant trees.
Forest around the world are being cut down. Where would we plant not just the trees to replace the ones we had last year but the ones we need extra? He doesn't so much deny that CO2 is a potential problem but seems to think planting lots of trees is the answer without apparenly ever having thought about how we are supposed to do that. Great minds are like that, they can think about immense and complex things we can't fathom, but can't quite grasp that the world can't just turn farmland into forests.
"Bio-tech, he writes in his book, Infinite in All Directions (1988), offers us the chance to imitate natures speed and flexibility, and he imagines the furniture and art that people will grow for themselves, the pet dinosaurs they will grow for their children, along with an idiosyncratic menagerie of genetically engineered cousins of the carbon-eating tree: termites to consume derelict automobiles, a potato capable of flourishing on the dry red surfaces of Mars, a collision-avoiding car."
A potato that grown on Mars. How nice. And how do we get there einstein? This is the kind of stuff we read about 20 years ago that would be with us in 20 years. It is flying cars. As well all know, they don't exist and probably never will. Why? Because they are practical.
Enviromentalists like Al Gore have to be practical. They are dealing with the very real effects of ricing sea levels NOW because you can't just build higher dikes when they have been destroyed by a storm. That is for instance the problems in Holland right now. As a country we are more then rich enough to raise the dikes but we need to do it NOW when the danger is years or even decades away because it will take years and even decades to finish and worse, if the predictions are to conservative, then those higher dikes might be needed sooner rather then later. You can't just plant a lot of trees if Dyson is wrong in 30 years. By then it will be to late.
That is the real problem with the supposed climate change. Say we follow Al Gore and there turns out not to be a problem. We would have wasted lots of money. Say we don't follow Al Gore and he is right, then we are in deep shit and it is to late to do anything about it. That is roughly the left and the right. The left want to be save and pay insurance now. The right wants to keep their money and their childeren be damned.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
'After it was revealed the Hocky-stick report was done with largely fictious data'
According to this the report was later endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences after a concerted effort to discredit its findings and the reputation of its authors.
Gore says. You know he actually was quoted saying "I am not going to let science get in the way"
Where did he say that and in what context. Citations ??
davecb5620@gmail.com
It is one thing to oppose an idea because you dislike it or you distrust it. There is no shortage of people running around claiming global warming to be total FUD.
However, there is a distinct shortage of people who are actually able to provide DATA to support their opposition to it. There is a significant difference between saying "I don't agree with that data" and "I have this data set that shows that data set is wrong". Global warming, by definition, is based on the global mean temperature of the earth. Plenty of people try to go for statements like "it snowed in Atlanta, so global warming must be BS"; though of course a statement like that ignores the global aspect of global warming.
As I don't have a NY Times account, I could not read the article provided. Can anyone tell us, did he actually provide meaningful data, or is he just criticizing the existing data?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Ummmmm, every ideology has a subset of people who behave this way.
Saying stuff like this helpfully labels you as being the kind of rabid fundamentalist you're accusing your opponents of being.
Photos.
...and human-caused, Dyson has far more credibility with me than Gore does.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Any time someone has a dissenting opinion against a liberal the liberal only seems capable of defending their argument with insults and threats.
And how is this different from how a "conservative" deals with the same situation? There are dogmatic believers on both sides (and honestly there are far far more sides than just Liberal/Conservative). People that believe you have to chose between Liberal or Conservative are already taking a step into a world of Us Vs Them that instils in their followers a world view that scares me; and leaves many of them incapable of dealing with Reality in a reasonable and pragmatic manner.
People are people whatever party/faction/group they support. The Us Vs Them mentality is the death of debate, reason and democracy.
The Long Now Foundation
Heeeey! I remember Frosty
What?
that's because 'global warming' is a badly chosen term. the average temp may go up, but lots of places are going to get colder, hotter, drier, wetter for longer periods.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Yes, all liberals are that way. Thanks to whoever modded-up such a blanket political statement. Lets also mod-up replies such as "all Republicans are rich old men", "all Greens are hippies", and "all Slashdotters are male virgins who live at home."
Could also be the result of a cognitive dissonance. They may have the high level thinking abilities, but those thinking abilities are in conflict with their left-wing dogma. They are able to see the data and understand that it does not support man-made global warming, but their mental investment or desire to believe in the myth creates internal problems. There are only two ways to overcome the problem 1) reject the myth, or 2) refuse to be presented with correct data. It appears that number (2) has won out.
Now this appears to be true only for the "believers." The folks at the top of the scam have probably rejected the myth, but understand the power that it wields and so perpetuate it.
Any time someone has a dissenting opinion against a liberal the liberal only seems capable of defending their argument with insults and threats.
In all fairness, that statement is equally correct when written:
Any time someone has a dissenting opinion against a conservative the conservative only seems capable of defending their argument with insults and threats.
And is more accurate when written as:
Any time someone has a dissenting opinion against an ideologue the ideologue only seems capable of defending their argument with insults and threats.
Few of us have the integrity and intellectual curiously to acknowledge our bias and challenge our own ideas.
Global warming is politically difficult to sell to people when they are experiencing record cold.
That's because people tend to take 'global warming' as literally meaning that 'everywhere gets hotter'. Of course, some places get warmer and some get cooler but the average global temperature increases and the planet experiences more erratic and extreme climactic behavior as a consequence. 'Climate change' is a more useful term.
Global Warmin is bad science, as a general rule
And that statement is bad English, as a general rule. The word is Warming, not Warmin. If you want to be taken seriously please avoid slang.
facts are thin, and or simply made up
Can you provide a specific example?
the Hocky-stick report was done with largely fictious data
OK, you gave an example, that is a start. Care to tell us why you call it "largely fictious" (sic) data? Can you point to a data set that specifically disproves it?
I don't understand how the public can stick behind this garbage
You aren't helping your cause when you just keep criticizing people without providing a reason to believe your argument.
their lord and master Barrack
You really are doing yourself a disservice, here.
And the first name of the current President of the United States is Barack. Please, learn to spell it correctly.
Queen of the Damned herself Nacy;
Cute. Her name is Nancy, if you are talking about the speaker of the house.
Though again you do yourself no service by going for insults rather than information.
pathetic pitchmand Gore says
I suspect you wanted the word pitchman?
You know he actually was quoted saying "I am not going to let science get in the way"
Do you have a source for that quote?
why anybody takes anything these people say seriously without first independantly verifying it is beyond me.
You would do yourself well to take your own advice and provide some verification for your own claims.
Dyson on the other hand is a great thinker who has done great science
Again, a source would be nice.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is what Kuhn was saying in the Structure of Scientific Revolution. Paradigms, as defined and used in the book, not in the modern sense corrupted by brain dead executives, are created by an elite group of scientists and these paradigms are mistaken for truth. It is a priori truth instead of a posteriori truth, but if we are actively searching for the ultimate nature of the divine, and not just the static representation, then truth is of no use.
History has shown that our static representations of the truth are always incomplete. In An Incomplete Guide to the Art of Discovery Oliver asserts that such incompleteness can be the basis of science. By finding the one verifiable phenomena that does not seem to fit perfectly, we can do science, either by showing an error in the measurement or interpretation of the phenomena or showing that the theory used to describe the phenomena is incomplete.
Which is to say we should really think about what we are talking about. For the most part when scientists argue about this stuff, they are fighting over old and new paradigms. It is often not about whether humans are impacting the climate, which is a conclusion, but often how we go about collecting data and developing the processes used to quantify those changes. Because the average person only cares about conclusions, they really don't see the subtle difference, and they just see a person who says that people they disagree are wrong. But it is not about right or wrong. It is not about really about whether the earth is 10,000 years old or 10,000,000,000. It is about whether we are being honest and developing ideas that reflect the observations we make, and not just what we are raised to believe.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Any time someone has a dissenting opinion against a conservative the conservative only seems capable of defending their argument with insults and threats. In the past, some scientists who have came out against the war actually received death threats. The sad thing is that the evidence for war is subjective and yet people think they should make death threats to defend it. The same immature responses occur when conservatives are arguing about evolution. They believe they are always right and if you aren't on their side you must be stupid, your PhD backing your credibility is actually worthless, and you must be a member of the sheeple party. Conservatives don't have a higher level of thinking to get past the subjectivity of the evidence they rely on to make their case. That very well may be the reason they attack those who do have the higher level of thinking. That hearkens back to school days where the stupid kids are the bullies. A lot of times those kids also had broken homes but a correlation I believe exists between their intelligence and their personality trait that makes them lash out as their only defense mechanism.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
How long a period does your "all the time" cover? Decades? Centuries? We've had quite a cold winter here in Western Wisconsin, but twenty years ago it would have been average.
Global warming is not about your local weather over the past week.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"And God knows there are a sh*tload of mediocre minds involved with gerbil wormening
Not to mention with Lefties, politicians, movie stars..
If movie stars are in favour of it, it pretty much guarantees it's a bad idea."
woosh
own opinion, man. Just cause he might be more educated than most, doesn't mean he's right! And, I got proof. Right here: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/1a4af347eb/eco-commando-episode-1
Skeptics, here in the Netherlands, are almost exclusively people who are not working in even a related field, or retired. Now, being retired means you have no more career/position to worry about, and for many such people apparently the 'old boys network' of friends is more important than actual science. It's nicely summed up here in a response to an article in the Volkskrant (2007.1.11) about some "scientists who say the cimate problem isn't caused by humans":
http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/bericht/100021
But on examining their credentials, they aren't really scientists, or if they are, well, they actually *were* (i.e. retired) or the few that still are, are so in some completely unrelated field. Then their arguments don't hold up (because they don't actually give hard facts and reasons), etc. The article that was published in the paper is what's referred to as an 'opinion piece".
I've checked out several other people on the 'skeptic' side, and never seen a proper argument, but plenty of nonsens and unbelievably inane arguments that would be a disgrace to a five-year old kid.
What Dyson himself said in a previous slashdot article makes me see him in the same light:
Dyson: There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global
No need: due to extra CO2 more energy is being stored in the earth, could be water warming up, etc. Also, ocean currents could change, which would mean an ice age in Europe despite global warming is possible. The average temperature goes up though. And that's what's meant by global warming.
Dyson: When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories.
He shouldn't listen to public debates! That's almost always not where real science is done or shown.
Whether global global warming really is a problem or not, you need to take it seriously and try to pollute as little as possible, because it's moronic to gamble with this one ecosystem we have.
Actual Quote:
"science will not intrude on public policy"
Though, it is just a second-hand quote.
The Us Vs Them mentality is the death of debate, reason and democracy.
and people. see : Palestine, Iraq, ...
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Good personal attack against Liberals there.
Really? I didn't know I named any names to make it personal. It was a general statement and there are exceptions as with everything. It is general in the sense that not all liberals react that way but it is not general in the sense that a high-profile opponent of a high-profile debate always get personally attacked for their dissenting opinion. Dyson is an exception himself which is why he is being personally attacked. If someone on here is offended by my statement then that is there problem. Should I have said as part of my post "you know who you are" so that you would realize you could excuse yourself from being part of the target of my statement, if in fact you either aren't a liberal or aren't a liberal who attacks someone for disagreeing with you? You should be capable of excusing yourself anyway if someone makes a general statement that you know doesn't apply to you. My statements only described what actually happens (especially when it is easy to see because it forms a pattern) rather than describing what isn't actually true (e.g. calling someone a mad scientist when they really are not). It is sort of like profiling. Many people view it as bad but it is a way to predict when someone may do something based on previous patterns of people conducting similar activities. It has a high degree of success at the expense of some exceptions being included.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Actually you should be VERY concerned...
As I wrote in a previous part of this article, the fact that it is cold and it should not be should make you very concerned.
In Europe we have the same thing happening. This is actually part of the global climate change problem.
Do some research into the Atlantic conveyor and the ramifications of its change. Answer (and I read about this five years ago) exactly what you are experiencing now.
Thus you should become VERY concerned because once the conveyor changes whole sections of climate change will occur. My mother lives in BC and she is getting tired of the cold...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
There's no such thing like global warming! This is just bullshit for people by politics to make money. Periods of warming and cooling are periodical. In Poland in XIV-th century grapes were grown... And in XVI centruty Baltic sea was frozen all the year - so you can walk from Gdansk to Oslo on your feet. Most serious scientists say that warming depends on sun activity. No people activity. Human produces only 1% of CO2 comparing to CO2 that nature produces.
American and EU bullshit for fooling people...
I agree the focus on climate change seems to be distracting from more credible problems like pollution [which are supposed to be causing climate change, so we should fix that anyway], but it's not a religion. Much less a secular religion. What the fuck is a secular religion?
But with this climate change stuff, people argue about trends and highly subjective things. If you just focus on pollution as the problem, you can say "hey, there's smog. Clearly pollution must be a problem. People are dying here."
Nobody's going to say, "Oh, that smog is natural, which makes it acceptable" or "that smog isn't hurting anybody, it's just a political move by Al Gore, and political moves never happen to be valid problems."
here on Slashdot. Some of the same things, and for the exact same reasons.
...can actually have a significant effect on the atmosphere and climate really have no idea just how large the atmosphere is and just what natural events pump into it normally on a yearly basis.
Interesting enough he's also a believer im the theories of Tommy Gold which propose that there is an abundance of OIL in the earths mantle and was not produced by biological processes in ancient times. So we should all carry on our current energy policies and use OIL in the certitude that none of these activities will have a serious impact on human life on this planet. Of course if he's wrong humanity will be reduced to a pre-industrial marginalized existence.
This reminds of certain utterances by James Watson regarding the inferior intellect of the non-white races. Just because you're clever in one area don't mean you necessarily know anything in another.
'There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global'
Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'
Ice-free Arctic could be here in 23 years
In the past 60 years or so human activity has contributed to the deterioration of the ozone layer
davecb5620@gmail.com
--
People who claim we can't influence climate should be locked up in a garage with a running engine.
I can tell by your sig that you in no way can possibly be considered to have a quasi-religious fervour about this topic. Nope. Not you. No way.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Because Liberals are allowed to get away with it and call it news.
Yeah, go ahead, name a Conservative ideologue. Ah, but wait - you can't name Rush Limbaugh or anyone who works for Fox News.
Liberal ideologues get to post stories to Slashdot, get to post stories to the New York Times, get to have their stories broadcast using taxpayer money on public radio and TV, and generally get to call it news.
Conservative ideologues, on the other hand, always get called out as ideologues by the very liberal ideologues who don't seem to recognize the hypocrisy!
Well, anymore than they guy next to you on the subway. As far as I know, the whole global warming issue comes down to computer modeling which extrapolates historic data (for which we have an exceptionally short, well documented data set). There's no simple, theoretical mathematics which describes the interaction of human activity with the global environment. Tight now, the most effective way we have of predicting long term climatological trends is via computer simulations, which happen to vary in accuracy based on the time scale seen, the boundary conditions, the granularity of the simulation, and our ability to model accurately.
I happen to side with the camp which says we're affecting the system, and that life on earth has grown accustomed to the current conditions. I won't argue what the "best" conditions are, just that the current conditions (less human population growth) appear to be conducive to human life and overall stability. I'm not really of the mind that accelerating a change away from this local equilibrium is a smart bet. Sort of "a bird in the hand" take on environmentalism.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
First off I want to say Freeman Dyson is a brilliant physcist and we should all be grateful for his work in physics, he is not however a climate scientist, climate scientists have a rather different view of the whole thing:
"IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
(Peer reviewed science journal Science)
So do some research about the mainstream of climatology before jumping on the Dyson bandwagon.
And yes Al Gore is often an exaggerated propagandist and he isNOT helpful in this debate, that doesn't however mean that there isn't real climate science out there pointing to the anthropogenic origin of observed climate change.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
'"all Slashdotters are male virgins who live at home."'
You were on a roll with your righteous anger and then you go and blow it at the end.
Particularly unfortunate then that the real data over the last decade has been showing across several indicators that the reality of warming is worse than the consensus model interpretations are predicting.
So he may be right that the models are inaccurate, but the general theory of the greenhouse effect is simple and correct, and is impacting us more than models guessed.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Bravo Freeman! It's about time a scientist of this stature declared that the emperor has no clothes. This is an issue that has NOT been driven by science, but driven by control freaks in government and fearmongers in the press.
Lest you immediately rush out to stone me, I am not denying that climate change is occurring. I know the climate is changing, because that is what the climate does! Yet I am still skeptical of the details that the press and government have oversensationalized.We have had significant warm and cool spells in recorded history, as significant as what we are being warned against. Yet the planet was not destroyed.
Even the silly non-science doesn't bother me much. What I object to are the government "solutions" to this crisis. I've seen solutions that range from banning black cars, to banning all cars entirely. They all involve using police and courts and jails to take freedom away from people. Government isn't about helping people, it's about controlling their lives. Government does perform some useful services, but above a certain size it all gets drowned out by the evil.
The real heresy isn't denying global warming, it's denying that government is the appropriate solution to every problem in life.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
so people who disagree with anthropomorphic global warming are not only flat earthers, now they're racists?
lose != loose
The only person I see here throwing around insults is you. Take your head out of your ass and maybe you'll notice that you're accusing others of doing what only you are doing.
... and get this sentence engraved on every global-warming sceptic's monitor. It will be big news when a climatologist actually publishes research disproving global warming in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Waddya mean, Offtopic?? Your damn memory that bad? Or is your sense of humor completely shot? Or you just hate me. *sniff*
What?
Your ad hominem attack on the parent poster shows you are a prejudicial bastard that few people would want to be around. Yes. Yes you. Yes way.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Can't we just invent a way of collecting the heat and turning it into energy? I mean, Dyson is the guy who proposed similar solution (with solar energy) on a solar system scale, right?
Why is a person who is aware of and opposed to the large-scale destructive effects and massive alterations we are having on Earth's ecosystems and climate called a "nutter" (translation for US audience: "Crazy wackjob")
whereas
someone who is either ignorant of these problems, incapable of comprehending them and rationally analyzing them, or willfully denying our negative environmental effects in order to selfishly further a comfortable but unethical and unsustainable lifestyle,
is presumeable called a normal sane member of society?
Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
In the past, some scientists who have came out against the war actually received death threats.
Never saw this in the news or heard of it elsewhere but if you say it then it must be true instead of only saying it to match the pattern of my message.
The sad thing is that the evidence for war is subjective and yet people think they should make death threats to defend it.
Again, never heard of any death threats being made in the news but if you say it then it must be true instead of trying to match my message tit for tat. Based on one AC's message, should I now complain that you made a gross generalization that anyone who supports the war made death threats against those who did not support it? Should I now be offended because I may have supported the war without making death threats to anyone? No, I'm capable of realizing that I'm an exception to your statement because I have a higher level of thinking and reasoning. Others should do the same with my original message.
The same immature responses occur when conservatives are arguing about evolution. They believe they are always right and if you aren't on their side you must be stupid, your PhD backing your credibility is actually worthless, and you must be a member of the sheeple party. Conservatives don't have a higher level of thinking to get past the subjectivity of the evidence they rely on to make their case.
Actually, the conservatives in general don't call people names. It any given conversation it is the evolutionist calling the creationist names. If you don't believe me then you obviously don't pay attention to those debates that happen on this very website. Conservatives do have a higher level of thinking about evidence. They don't make assumptions about evidence nor interpret evidence to fit needlessly complex ideas/assumptions to cover up, not fill in, all the gaps. It is not up to them to need a higher level of thinking however in order to make their argument. They only have to fight for their ideas when the evolutionists challenge them on those beliefs because evolutionists believe they have an agenda they must push to indoctrinate others. I'm sure you'll say that religious nuts (and I'm sure that would be similar to the name you would use because you would feel compelled to use an insult but deny it since I called you on it) are always trying to indoctrinate others. The difference is that religious *people* don't have to lie to get additional members and there is no agenda involved either.
That very well may be the reason they attack those who do have the higher level of thinking. That hearkens back to school days where the stupid kids are the bullies. A lot of times those kids also had broken homes but a correlation I believe exists between their intelligence and their personality trait that makes them lash out as their only defense mechanism.
Well, it is good to know you can copy/paste from other people's messages without making any modifications. I guess imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Seems to me like we are operating within historical parameters. We could even see it get a good deal warmer and STILL expect another "mini ice age" if you believe in natural cycles
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
Yes, one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century - a greater scientist than Freeman Dyson if one counts Nobel Prizes - and for years he kept banging on about Vitamin C as a cure for cancer. At one time, he even put his wife through the treatment. Vitamin C as a cure for cancer is baloney. Pauling wasn't a nutritionist.
If you dab your toe in a field outside your expertise, you're liable to get it bitten off. I wouldn't take the advice of a Doctor of medicine on writing PERL.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
My sig should tell you : I can't accept people NOT accepting the possibility that we can affect climate.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
I can't believe the stupidity of some of you. Why don't we switch over to C02 instead of helium for balloons? They would probably float much better than helium seeing that C02 is so light it all floats up to space damn near. This reminds me of the Monty Python skit in Quest for the Holy Grail when they are trying to determine if the woman is a witch based on her weight compared to a duck. Cause ducks float yah know.
-- People who claim we can't influence climate should be locked up in a garage with a running engine.
I fail to see how locking them in with a catapult will prove any points about global warming, anyways.
Well then I apologize for painting an entire group with a broad stroke using baseless claims.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
And keep doing things the easy, cheap, and unsustainable way,
you'd have to convince me that global warming denial or human causation denial is not just self-serving rhetoric.
Once we got past that problem in the debate, and were both willing to just open-mindedly say "Well lets see where the data takes us, using our best modelling techniques", then we could have an objective scientific debate about this sort of issue.
I really hate positions which run essentially like this: "I really really want/need things to be this way (X), so I will believe and try to convince you that (X) is the case." This is political manoeuvring, not rational scientific debate or investigation about what actually, and perhaps inconveniently, is the case.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Dyson spoke at our university recently. When one of our physics professors was asked if he was going to attend the lecture, he replied, "Meh. Dyson just reads the slides."
Dyson's opinions on climate are as valid as Shockley's on genetics.
The votes are in. The cutoff point for new knowledge has passed.
We have to have a cutoff point. Otherwise we might discover we were wr... wr... misinterpreted and taken out of context.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I posted my position on this on the Hungry Crustaceans topic the other day. Look at the graphs, look at historical records in the rocks. Ask yourselves, did we cause global warming or are we merely part of it ? I think the graphs speak for themselves. The hockey stick graph is a lie because it makes it seem as if the normal CO2 level was almost constant. This cannot be further from the truth.
Aim at surviving the consequences, or it will be too late to organise anything.
so he ok , he kinda saved City 17 so there
To believe the dogma, you must believe these things to be true:
1. The Earth is warming.
2. The warming is a long term trend.
3. Humans are causing the warming.
4. Warming of the Earth is a bad thing.
5. Humans can take counter measures to slow, arrest, or reverse the warming.
6. The counter measures must be radical and must be implemented as quickly as possible without opposition and without cost/benefit analysis.
A few thoughts:
The Earth is a non-equilibrium system. It is always possible to cherry pick measurements of a non-equilibrium system to generate a predetermined conclusion. Tossing about factoids is not likely to bring much enlightenment.
The majority of the noise being made about global warming is being made by non-climatologists or even non-scientists. The majority of climatologists are government funded and government funded scientists are more likely to make public statements than scientists supported by the private sector (other than those supported by non-profits which inevitably are promoting a particular political agenda).
There is nothing about being government funded that makes a scientist more credible than an industry funded scientist. Academic and bureaucratic scientists have non-scientific motivations of their own so statements like, "the overwhelming majority of climatologists believe humans are warming the planet", even if true, must be taken with a grain of salt.
NOBODY KNOWS WHETHER WARMING THE PLANET WOULD BE EITHER A GOOD OR A BAD THING. Point 4 from above is nothing more than an assertion. The motivations of those making the assertion should be carefully examined.
If humans are warming the planet, any proposed counter measures should be carefully scrutinized before any action is taken. If there is a problem, it did not arise overnight and any solution need not be implemented overnight. As America's founding fathers pointed out, the worst legislation is usually enacted rapidly under a crisis mentality.
Most proposed solutions to the alleged problem of human caused global warming in some way involves massive wealth transfer to poorly run countries and the crippling of the economies of capitalist countries. This strongly suggests that global warming alarmists are not really interested in global warming. Their agenda seems to involve something else entirely.
"they won't do it unless forced"..well, that can work, but it is the "stick" method, you get bludgeoned by government to do something, because they sayso and threaten you with dire consequences if you don't jump.
There *is* another method to bring about constructive change that the government can do, that is called the "carrot" method. You give tax credits for those technologies and practices that seem a lot better.
Now, what isn't going to work, but is what they want to do because it also gives them a lot more power over other humans, which is what they also really like to have, is force-instituting another huge global "market" skimming industry. Ya know, middleman traders who do nothing but buy and sell those "war on carbon" credits.
Looking at the biz headlines, seems we already have enough of them sort of money vampire dudes mucking up the economy as it is. And now they are going to want to tax you on top of that. The taxes will primarily go to running the new government (federal, UN global, whatever they scheme up) department of accepting the carbon tax monies department, to fund busywork "broken window economic theory" jobs.
I'm for conservation, clean air, clean water, diversified and decentralized alternative energy and so forth, and have been since I was a young man and got into solar power and so forth. The easiest way for people and corporations to afford this is to let them take a chunk of their money that now goes to the government busywork jobs industry and buy into newer cleaner and more efficient tech. Oh noes, gov gets less money! But the tech gets adopted then, and much faster than the double whammy of forced purchasing of carbon credits, then getting taxed on top of that. You make it a much better deal for people and companies to "go green", they will do it gladly and more or less voluntarily, whereas if you double whammy them on costs plus threaten fines and whatnot, they are going to look at the whole situation as another bogus ripoff and power grab, which the current schemes are, in spades.
Here's an example: You want to know why SUVs took off so much, even for people who apparently didn't need a big station wagon with 4wd? Joe government made it very lucrative for them with their tax deductions, they offered a bunch of carrots, it was cheaper for them to get those sorts of vehicles than anything else.
Now, if they want much better mileage cars and cheaper to afford, all they would need to do is offer a REAL tax credit incentive, and you'd see those car companies burning the midnight oil to get 20 grand cars that got 60 mpg and be plugins plus and were built good out there. Same with solar power, same with what I think makes the most sense today, retrofitting buildings to "superinsulated" levels, eliminating a lot of the demand for electricity and natgas, meaning less is burnt, meaning less of that e-vile greenhouse gas stuff. If it also helps the climate on a macro scale, it probably would, that's just frosting, more good news.
Carrot or stick, and who likes to be bludgeoned over being fed again? Ya, they are both examples of government social engineering, but which seems more attractive and more likely to succeed and cost the actual real consumer less, when you look at what they get? Tax money volume X is already a blackhole the way it is now, if you could have the same amount, and wind up with a cool ride in the driveway and solar panels on the roof, which would you rather have, that stuff, or knowing you were paying for more bureaucratic jobs? Either way, that loot is coming out of your wallet, so that's a wash. I will ponder on this.... me, I'd prefer the carrot and having the cool new high tech ride in the driveway and the solar panels on the roof.
Why is a person who is aware of and opposed to the large-scale destructive effects and massive alterations we are having on Earth's ecosystems and climate called a "nutter" (translation for US audience: "Crazy wackjob")
They aren't, well not by me anyway.
However those that done the mantle of environmentalism and then go too far; using their cause as the ultimate justification for anything and shouts mindlessly at any thing, or any one, that is perceived to either disagree or be "one of them!". That goes for people in all groups, political, social, sports related, and so on.
The Long Now Foundation
And it's 80 in Dallas in February.
The modern therometer was invented 1724 by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit. According to Noaa, the highest ever recorded temperature on Earth was 136 degrees on 13 of Sept 1922. There has never been a hotter day on planet earth sense. Predict/compute/average/seasonally-adjust/argue all you want, but the facts say that it was warmer 87 years ago than it is today.
You may be interested by this flying car.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article5489287.ece
Dr. Dyson is not by any means alone. An army of prominent self-appointed "journalists", "moderates", "experts", and "statesmen" may buy into the global warming bullshit, but I think a majority of the public bases most of their thinking on the weather outside either thinks global warming is empty alarmism and/or would angrily oppose any anti-global warming measure once they figured out how it impacts their quality of life.
Is this a comment on global warming, or on Dyson?
If he came out in support of the global warming theory, would he still "not be rooted in reality, never was"?
Ad Hominem attacks don't cut much with me.
Funny thing that the people who advocates the fear of "global warming"...are just misinformed, we are living on the tail of the last ice age, global temperatures have been an average of 22 degrees celsius for millions of years, we are living on an abnormal " chilly 12 degrees celsius average"... there is nothing wrong with temperatures going up, but there is a lot of wrong about uninformed people following suit of a dedicated scammer ( cough...Al Gore..cough) who wants to make a lot of money taxing people and governments on the basis that "we did it" when the reality is that the world will get warm and cold when time comes...its a cycle, its not man made.
700 nay vs 52 yea on the man made global warming lie ? Seems clear to me.
As to the, "it's a good thing, the end justifies the means" argument. Lying to our children in schools and making "change" based on fear is not a good thing no matter how you slice it or try to pretty it up.
[url=http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=af8f5b20-802a-23ad-49fb-8a2d53f00437]Senate.gov[/url]
[url=http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674e64f-802a-23ad-490b-bd9faf4dcdb7Senate.gov[/url]
We're also at a minima of the solar cycle.
Everybody lives at home.
I am skeptical about our ability to accurately predict the future using current mathematical models.
They can't even accurately predict the weather a week in advance.
That being said, I am an environmentalist. I strongly believe that we should stop burning coal and oil. I am also a big supporter of renewable energy.
I even write songs on the subject...
http://loudroundrecords.com/Light.htm
http://loudroundrecords.com/Oil.htm
Being a skeptic about predicting the future does NOT automatically mean that one believes in the philosophy of "drill baby drill".
It is possible to be an environmentalist AND be skeptical about our ability to predict the future.
There was a paper reviewing bona fide climatology paper, and it found 99%+ supporting the idea.
The 'Us vs. Them' mentality evident in the climate change debate is a shining example of the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy.
Personally, I'm glad that people like Dyson are around. Good science demands skepticism. It keeps the discipline honest. Personal vilification of one's critics, rather than satisfying their doubts with solid evidence and sound reasoning, is bad science.
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
So, Sir, Your signature advocates murder for those who disagree with your dogma?
There is more forest acreage today in the U.S. than there was in 1920. Our acreage is coming back! There's a reason for that, and you need to understand it before you start punishing the US for destroying the planet.
http://www.postal2020.com/?p=29
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/who-is-destroying-the-worlds-forests/
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Some call it "global wierding" instead, which seems more fitting.
They are dealing with the very real effects of ricing sea levels NOW
I'm sorry, what rising sea levels?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/19/despite-popular-opinion-and-calls-to-action-the-maldives-is-not-being-overrun-by-sea-level-rise/
it's in my head
My sig should tell you : I can't accept people NOT accepting the possibility that we can affect climate.
What your sig actually says: People who believe something contrary to what I believe (i.e. the possibility that we can affect climate) should be executed.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
"I really really want/need things to be this way (X), so I will believe and try to convince you that (X) is the case." This is political manoeuvring, not rational scientific debate or investigation about what actually, and perhaps inconveniently, is the case. You've just made a good point against FUD global warming.
This is Dyson saying himself.
Al Gore was reporting what climate scientists said. Therefore informed climate science. And so your point is ridiculous.
contributor of CO2 in our atmosphere, so what little we do to reduce it has no true effect on the condition. Why waste money on such an endeavor when there are far better things to spend it on (like clean water)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And I wonder how you manage to say all that whilst the climate scientists are being called "alarmist".
Your brain is broken, please return to depot for servicing.
I would have to agree with the man, consider this fact. The area in which I currently live was just 10,000 years ago covered by a glacier nearly a mile in thickness. Now we
certainly where not burning fossil fuels 10k years ago, yet somehow global warming caused the glaciers to recede and melt. Yes I do believe in global warning it has been going on for over 10k years, I do not
however believe that man is the ultimate and or major cause.
Got Code?
I recently saw an article titled this way on CNN. I can't grasp why this is the preferred global warming solution amongst "environmentalists". It is complicated, difficult to understand and difficult to work with.
It seems to me this is the ideal solution as far as a politician is concerned, however, because people won't be able to see whether or not it's working, and even if they could there will be no accountability. Remember, the most recent banking crisis was caused by a similar "liability" trading scheme. Supposedly, no one saw it coming, but it should have been obvious that no good would come from people pouring trillions of dollars into a system they didn't understand.
Cap and trade will be a huge tool for politicians to take away more of our freedoms and make us less able to "get by" so that we have to come crawling to them for help. Remember, a politician's job is gaining political power. Why, then, are there still people out there who think our representatives are there to help us? No one who honestly wants to help people would be a politician.
MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").
There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.
MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to 1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 Ãff" 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.
The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.
MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.
MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapor and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and Ãff" in the end Ãff" are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".
Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
FACT: The computer models assume that CO2 is the primary climate driver, and that the Sun has an insignificant effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its initial assumption - that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They
I fail to see how drawing attention to the parent's desire to have those who disagree with him executed means I'm a prejudicial bastard.
Unless, of course, by your comment you meant: "I agree with the polar_red's main point/comment, and am angry that you have made an observation about him that potentially taints the reception of his main point/comment", in which case I do understand.
I find myself constantly frustrated when nutjobs defend something I believe in. This is not aided by the fact that the other side in a debate has a tendency to focus on the extremists instead of the substance of the argument. But for me, I try to point out the extremists/dogmatists/zealots no matter what side of the debate they fall on.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Because you're an idiot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Let us call greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 & others) what they really are: pollution. If we start from that perspective, then we should be able to pause the climate change argument for a while and address a tangible issue. A couple examples: I visited Los Angeles, and on a low smog day, the Santa Monica Mountains looked like they were shrouded in a dense fog. This was real and could be seen/felt. It wasn't a computer model. The pollution over Beijing during the Olympics could be seen on TV and felt by the athletes.
If you think climate change is occurring, then framing it as a pollution problem puts it terms that can be seen/felt/observed by the general populace. If you do not think climate change is occurring, then by reducing pollution you address for example issues such as quality of life and health, and you create economic opportunities (new technologies developed, tourism, etc.). You might just end up not relying on energy from unstable parts of the world in the process. It's a win-win approach.
Just have him build one of those spheres and our energy problems are solved!
Not exactly news. Ray Bradbury said all sorts of horrible things about Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 911 and was a huge supporter of the Bush wars. Issac Newton believed in alchemy and conducted all sorts of pseudo-scientific experiments in nonsense. Edison spent the last years of his life working on a spook phone to talk to the dead. Orson Scott Card is a Mormon and says bad things about gay people. George Lucas went from Beloved Creator of Star Wars to the Beard, Defiler of the Films.
People start saying and believing stupid shit when they pass their prime. They'll also mistake specialist expertise in one field for generalist expertise in everything.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
He's not a climatologist. He has never done research on global warming. He has absolutely no data of his own. He is not an expert in this field. There is no reason, whatsoever, to listen to his opinions.
You might as well have your car mechanic perform surgery on you. After all, he's a professional, right? Therefore he must be qualified!
If your car mechanic tells you that you need to pay $790 to replace your gizrogyronmeter before you car implodes- when you brought the car in for an oil change- you don't have to be a mechanic to figure out you're being bullshitted and he probably has something else besides your best interests in mind.
If your surgeon is trying to sell you a $32,000 surgery on your feet because of hyspotoxiomosis of the anterior legamoid deltamint, and you came in for a mole removal, you don't have to be a PHD to see he just wants to fund his next vacation.
The fact is that AGW advocates demand 'solutions' involving control and expenditures that are entirely out of whack with their established credibility and perceived integrity.
Claiming "you can't understand it, it's too complex" in the face of the legitimate questions about the intent, integrity, and aims of Global Warming's high priests and salesmen is an evasion of the issue.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Any damage caused to the environment is a result of wastefulness. As an American, I'm ashamed that the US consumes about 1/4 of the total energy used, world wide. We waste, waste, waste. If Americans practiced conservation, all the damage that we have done to the environment would be cut in half, at least. If Americans practiced INTELLIGENT conservation (complete with workable recycling projects) that damage would be cut even further. So many ways to save energy - starting with working near home, or moving closer to work. Millions of Americans sit for HOURS every single week in traffic, with their engines dumping pollution into the atmosphere. Then, they may or may not send Al Gore a couple dollars for an idiotic carbon credit certificate that does absolutely NOTHING to recover all that wasted fuel, or to recover the pollution. Oh - did I use the word intelligent above? Sorry, I apologize. We aren't. We demand what we want, and we demand it NOW!!! Screw intelligence - we are to damned greedy.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
... if Dyson were commenting regularly at Slashdot, sans his well-known reputation, he would be routinely modded down as Troll.
Being an alleged Troll is sometimes a good thing.
Anybody interested in the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate should watch The Great Global Warming Swindle for a polemic viewpoint.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
They will never figure it out but do agree on our impact on the system, which isn't too difficult to understand if you read into the subject a little. (FYI: air is less dense)
Any kung fu fan knows it only takes a small push in the right place to take down the largest bad-guy... We don't have to change the whole system just nudge it over the cliff; it might have been going that way anyhow-- but we may as well nudge it in the RIGHT DIRECTION instead of the wrong one. Why contribute to the problem?
GREEN ENERGY WORKS TODAY. It can be done. You only illustrate your ignorance by saying its impossible with current technology. Base load power can initially be done old ways because we can't just flip instantly. There is a WHOLE NEW INDUSTRY in power storage just waiting to get going that doesn't require new inventions... from flow batteries to flywheels -- they are in use already without an economy of scale or massive corporate welfare (like nuclear power completely depends upon.)
Besides, we need a bubble to pull us out of the last economic bubble... (since the system is not getting fixed anyhow) We will have troubles in the USA if the world doesn't desperately need OIL and its because OIL is sold in DOLLARS that most the world wants the worthless things. Undermine OIL and you undermine the US Dollar. Other nations are moving already; we will not see it coming because that is the American way.
1 calorie of food takes 10 calories of Oil/Coal.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Anyone claiming to be sure either way is basically full of crap. Both sides are mostly opinion and world view driven. What the alarmists need to understand about deniers is that we mostly have no problems with reducing usage of oil. Most people are all for that.
The problem is that most of what is being offered up as a solution looks more like efforts to create massive world government and to legislate life itself.
There is only ONE source of carbon that is of concern, and that is oil/coal. All other carbon, be it burning trees or cow farts, is part of a self balancing biosphere.
If the concern really is just about carbon, then the solutions would be as simple as taxing well heads and coal mines, then distributing that cash back to the consuming countries to be spent on alternatives.
Tearing up rainforests to plant corn, and then burn that in our cars is not sane. It is talk of taxing animals, food, babies, and other such crap that makes people like myself cringe and eye the whole movement suspiciously.
"Say we follow Al Gore and there turns out not to be a problem. We would have wasted lots of money. Say we don't follow Al Gore and he is right, then we are in deep shit and it is to late to do anything about it. That is roughly the left and the right. The left want to be save and pay insurance now. The right wants to keep their money and their childeren be damned."
Nice agenda there. maybe the big bad child-hating right aren't as cartoonishly evil as you think they are and are just don't think it's worth shelling out cash for every doomsayer that comes along peddling their "solutions".
There's no such thing as Man Bear Pig!
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103669
I don't have to be Stanley Kubrick to know when a movie stinks.
Comment of the year
I found one. In less than two minutes on the internet, here is your paper. It shows that a lot of the warming in the tropical north atlantic is mainly due to a reduction of atmospheric aerosols, not an increase in carbon dioxide. Here is a summary of that article, in case you don't want to pay the subscription.
Of course it doesn't completely 'disprove' global warming, it would take more than one paper to prove that global warming is happening, it will take more than one paper to show it's not. All this paper is doing is trying to get closer to the truth of what's happening.
I'm wondering if you've ever actually read a peer reviewed scientific journal, and I seriously doubt you've ever done peer review. The reason I doubt this is because in my time, I've stumbled across articles that are opposing the standard view of global warming without even looking.
Note that papers like this come up all the time, they just tend not to make the news.
Qxe4
Yes, everyone who are wrong are wrong in the exact same way. That means you are a racist, too!
He's a physicist. All he's done is show that non-specialists aren't necessarily as good as specialists at understanding the evidence.
I'm a biologist, and a good one if I do say so myself. I'm also convinced that faster than light travel (and the necessary new physics) is just waiting to be discovered. I'm sure the physics community will be immediately rethinking all their principles now.
It doesnt go to a story, it goes to a login page.
If you can't find a URL that actually links to what you are talking about DONT FUCKING POSTING IT.
It took me about ten seconds to find the URL's below. Just imagine, how much time could be saved overall, if either the submitter or the /. ed had taken this ten seconds to find a good URL, for everyone, instead of *every individual reader* having to either wade through the jackass NYT login nonsense, or google around for this themselves.
http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2009/03/co2_freeman_dyson_magic_trees.php
and
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/some-inconvenient-thinkers/?ref=energy-environment
Why is a person who is aware of and opposed to the large-scale destructive effects and massive alterations we are having on Earth's ecosystems and climate called a "nutter" (translation for US audience: "Crazy wackjob")
whereas
someone who is either ignorant of these problems, incapable of comprehending them and rationally analyzing them, or willfully denying our negative environmental effects in order to selfishly further a comfortable but unethical and unsustainable lifestyle,
is presumeable called a normal sane member of society?
Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.
Hmmmm, here we have a translation for our [stupid] US audience by someone who is aware of and opposed to [but likely doing nothing about] the large-scale destructive effects and massive alterations we are having on Earth's ecosystems and climate. Even more curiously, he is posting to a blog from a computer [that is most likely NOT wind, solar or self-righteousness -powered] while [presumably] unselfishly furthering an uncomfortable ['cause for some reason comfortable is bad], [cough] ethical, and [cough] sustainable lifestyle.
Yep. Hmmmm, indeed.
'global warming' is still a better term than 'global climate change'. At least it has some meaning. Can anyone point to any time in history where the climate was not changing?
Lets say the world's climate does change significantly over the next few hundreds of years. So what? Some people will have to move away from areas that get flooded, they have plenty of warning to do it. Some species may go extinct and some new ones will pop up as well.
I am all for controlling pollution, but certainly not in the inefficient brainless way the environmentalists are clamouring for.
"I'm not mad! I'm angrrrry! Angrrrrry scientist!
j.
I'll refer this post to prove I'm right next time I am modded troll! :) You saved my /. reputation!
I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that it is impacting us worse than predicted, inasmuch as all the models I've seen showed significantly hotter temperatures by this time, some were expecting temperatures 5-10 degrees Celsius above what we have now. Have you seen the opposite? Here is an article talking about the limitations of computer models. Here is a quote "Failure to account for local warming in cities led to some claims of dramatic warming in the 1980s and 1990s and, while adjustments are made today and the predictions of warming significantly reduced, some researchers believe the adjustments to be inadequate." This is consistent with what I have observed, as well.
Qxe4
I think my personal favorite is going to be the sea level rise. One thing people haven't given much thought to is the combination of, say, 1-2 feet of sea level rise with a hurricane storm surge.
Storm surge is, historically, the biggest cause of death in hurricanes (though in the past 30 years the balance is shifting toward inland flooding due to better land use regulation and increased construction of sea walls and other similar efforts). When you add two feet to a 20 foot storm surge, the amount of destruction you'll see won't increase in a linear fashion. With the more frequent and more powerful storms we're already seeing (Katrina, Rita, Ike), you add a few feet to those storm surges and the levees that are barely holding now are going to be overtopped. Once you overtop a leveee they'll often quickly fail as the water flow creates turbulence and pressure dynamics that can't be survived.
Katrina was just a preview kids. Stay seated for the feature presentation.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Global warming is politically difficult to sell to people when they are experiencing record cold.
That's why I call it Polar Meltdown. Here's what I blogged about it the other day:
It isn't Global Warming, so what is it? Polar Meltdown
We know what the symptoms are. Polar ice caps are melting. This has dire consequences to current life on earth from what I've read on it, granted I haven't taken an intense look into it due to more pressing amd immediate dire consequences, but from what I've seen...
First, and probably most importantly, the additional fresh water dilutes the salinity of sea water. I've seen estimates it would kill off lots of sea life and everything in the food chain that depends on it.
Secondly, and this is where conservatives typically scorn, is that it raises the sea level. I posted here somewhere the estimate that if the ice shelf on Greenland melted, the oceans would rise twenty feet.
First, conservatives don't believe anything is changing for it to melt, on top of that the don't believe it would affect the oceans that much, and whatever effect happens to oceans people can just move, so big deal they say. All much ado about nothing.
Mainly I would say they haven't pictured seas twenty feet higher at current beaches because they don't believe it, so painting a picture of that isn't something global warming critics would pay attention to anyway.
And I saw today that global warming critics are most of us, over 60%, hence this post. Global warming is clearly not felt, so it's not true.
Third, if the polar ice caps melt, it will change ocean currents. I've seen several descriptions of what effects that would cause, one of the most serious being that the Gulf Stream would be disrupted, throwing northern Europe's climate into the same category as Canada's for example. Now the climate there in Great Britain for example is moderated considerably by the Gulf Stream.
Probably the bottom line argument for conservatives is that it doesn't matter what happens or what is described, it's happened before, or forces stronger than dumping carbon into the air are at work, such as solar fluctuations, or even that all that carbon was in the air at some point, so what if we put it back.
So you could point out what will happen if you put it back up there, and the polar caps melt, but then it comes around full circle to they don't believe anything anyone is saying, so really just a waste of time to try.
But I would at least get the terminology accurate in describing what the problem is. It may theoretically be global warming, but it clearly isn't being felt as global warming. I would call it Polar Meltdown and focus less on immediate threats it causes to polar bears and seals because conservatives just don't care about things like that, and typical man in the street figures things like that happen and life has always adjusted and it will again.
Well, actually, life doesn't always adjust and we've had massive major die-offs throughout the history of our planet, without our help, so I would focus on whether it kills off humans or not, and if not, what it does kill off and the effect it has on us. And when exactly we have new beachfront property replacing the old if nothing changes.
Too much pussyfooting around, and not enough explicit terminology and descriptions of what the effects will be, and nutso stuff about sheep and cattle belching.
Need to get with it with Polar Meltdown if in fact it's happening, because no one is losing any beachfront property as we speak, or regaining it in the front yard.
rd
I fall into the scared shit about global climate change thinking we should get on the ball with a vengeance to try to fix it camp.
BUT, I don't entirely trust my own motivations in this regard. Partly it's risk-aversion--if there's a reasonable chance of the nasty predictions, it's worth trying to fix it. Largely it's accepting that the authorities who understand this shit mostly agree. I DON'T understand this shit.
That's different than, for instance, the role of vaccines in causing autism. There's really clear data that it doesn't. Even if I don't understand the mechanisms, all I have to trust is the studies weren't fraudulent and I can be quite comfortable that getting my kids vaccinated won't give them autism.
I haven't seen the equivalent for climate change. Our sample size is awfully small, even if you try to convince yourself different eras are separate samples.
I might be missing something, but if I am, I REALLY want someone to point it out to me, and to the skeptics. Where's the climate change equivalent of the vaccine studies?
It all only matters in the realm of theory, not reality. We are rapidly destroying the world around us and anyone who chooses to deny that is not willing to face reality. However, should we do nothing to address these problems, there obviously would be no apocalypse, just a steadily deteriorating quality of life that would only really impact the poorest 95% of the world or so for the immediate future. Those with wealth (US, Europe, etc) would be be able to compensate for the excess of toxins and scarcity of food and water. However, once that divide between the few rich and the other 5+ billion people got wide enough, I would bet things would get very ugly for everyone at that point.
Global Warming is one small reason to change the way we live and the way our economies function. There are literally hundreds of others that all share many of the same solutions. Pick your favorite reason (economic strength, energy independence, national security, etc) and lets move on. Oh, and to any of my fellow Americans who really thinks focusing on energy independence and more sustainable technology / manufacturing will hurt our economy, please! It is how you do it not what you do. Any economic direction we choose to go right now we can do it a wrong way or a right way, that is in our hands.
When it's you against the world, bet on the world.
Climate change happens.
Nothing being proposed by anyone will make a significant dent in it as far as CO2 levels in the next couple decades.
So why not just adapt?
From something I wrote here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/183fed4ee1411253?hl=en
People are regularly relocated for big things like hydroelectric dams, as
happened near where I live now, or small things like a new bridge over the
lake about to be built and needing land for an access path where a few
houses now sit. It's a messy social process, and I'm not necessarily for dam
building (there are many horror stories obviously, of natives displaced
without even any compensation), but it has happened and people have tried
(and perhaps failed) to come up with approaches towards relocation with some
sense of fairness. What's going on with rising sea levels connected to CO2
pollution can thus perhaps be thought of in those terms. It's a complex
issue; the notion of any sort of private or even public land ownership is
always problematical if one considers ethical ambiguities related to
histories of invasion and various first comers claiming special rights (why
should primacy be the highest deciding factor?). One always has to make
assumptions in talking about what is fair (including, sadly, the assumption
of what role threat and intimidation and violence plays in all that). There
are lots of ways to think about the fairness of climate change from CO2
pollution (again, see the book, "Policy Paradox: The Art of Political
Decision Making" for general ideas). What is unfair about the current
situation is these people losing their beach front property (and related
livelihoods) are paying the highest costs for the benefits of CO2 pollution
which are mostly going to other people. But, the process is effectively
irreversible in the near future. Short of some very radical plans which may
have other unforeseen side effects (dumping freighters of iron powder in the
oceans to create algae blooms which then sink?), these low lying lands will
disappear under any politically likely approach to CO2 reduction. So, rather
than emphasize slowing climate change, I think it is more important to talk
about dealing fairly with climate change (whatever "fair" means to different
people) and advancing our culture to the point where it can do what needs to
be done to give everyone an abundant life despite climate change.
But, as with reparations for other past misdeeds by large societies :-( But, we may see ...
(slavery, mountaintop removal, groundwater pollution, desecration of sacred
spaces, etc.), it's not clear to me how the mix should go between direct
reparations to the people involved (or their descendants, like for slavery)
or if this should instead spur us as a society towards more general social
investments that benefit everybody (like creating a general and cheap
technology to build new land in the ocean like Eric Hunting mentioned in
"Re: Land and Capital; Invention and Automation"). Probably some mix of both
would be fairest, but unfortunately often now under current economic and
political ideologies we have neither reparations nor broad public investment
in open and sustainable technology to any great degree.
that change eventually, especially as the globe generally gets wealthier and
various sustainable industrial activities get easier.
Let's use [someone's] figure of $1000 per square meter for artificial land on the
ocean. Even if maybe these people may someday do it for less:
http://seasteading.org/
If people need, say, 1000 square meters of ocean front land per person to be
happy and grow most of their own food near the tropics (given the ocean as a
playground too), then that's a mi
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Because despite centuries of advances in science our educational systems still lag well behind our ability to comprehend reality. I have no evidence for it, but I suspect it's because most people still think with their glands and not with their grey matter ;)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Agreed, global warming could be happening anyway, but what's most profitable for those involved? People will scream until their faces turn blue that anybody who doubts global warming is doing it for money (as the OP did), but when it's pointed out that all the money right now is to be gained by verifying climate change they take it in stride. Conflicts of interest are conflicts of interest, and when it come to climate change, the reports I've seen accuse the oil companies and those with vested interests of giving hundreds of millions of dollars whereas those trying to prove climate change are spending roughly 10x that amount according to this report.
This issue is too heated for good, solid science to come out of it. The issue's too politicized for confidence and the science too uncertain to know what's going to happen anyway. Without being able to verify everything myself, I feel that doubt and skepticism are the only rational reactions to be had.
Your post is rubbish and and handwaving. Who am I going to believe someone who posts facts or some one saying they are not true with absolutely nothing to back them up?
You must be another one of the "if I say it is so then it is so " so crowd.
My grandparent comment was meant not to deny that there is climate change, but to express the opinion that it has been communicated very poorly.
You said, "Of course, some places get warmer and some get cooler..." But that is something only being said recently.
Many people have lost confidence with other people who insisted for years that there was "warming", then when it became colder in some places, they modified their explanation and said, "Of course it will become colder in some places". The underlying research seems to have not sufficiently reliable, and there have been many complaints about that.
There is more forest acreage today in the U.S. than there was in 1920. Our acreage is coming back! There's a reason for that, and you need to understand it before you start punishing the US for destroying the planet.
Hold up there---where did SmallFurryCreature rail on the U.S.? As you quoted,
which can still be true even though the U.S. is increasing its forest acreage. Unless I misunderstand, SmallFurryCreature was just pointing out that it's easy to say, "just plant trees, problem solved!" It's an entirely different thing to actually get enough countries to plant enough trees so that there's a net increase in global forest acreage.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Collect all such quotes and publish it in a book you give to everyone, maybe they'll even read it!
Lol.
P.S. *cough*bible*cough*.
And Dyson would be rightly modded down as troll on Slashdot-- he's long on opinions and short on apparent expertise and data. He shouldn't even be giving interviews on climate much less feature articles.
I don't want to read arrogant physicists blathering about climatology any more than I want to see biologists bloviating on microkernel architecture.
However, interesting questions offered modestly are always welcome and modded as Interesting or Insightful.
Having been modded "Troll" many times myself for merely expressing an unpopular or unexpected opinion, I understand very well the reaction(s) Dyson gets. I don't agree with all of his wacky notions myself, but I respect his willingness and ability to think outside the Groupthink Box.
Since when did "iconoclast" become synonymous with "troll"? I must have missed that memo.
No, his facts are documented and people can go and investigate them and form their own opinions.
You on the other hand offer no facts and unfounded accusations.
You present yourself as an idiot, whereas he presents himself as well informed. Hmmm.
So someone has to be an autistic savant with a singular lifelong obsession before you'll consider their reasoning to be anything but trollish? Where's your "apparent expertise and data" for the opinion you rendered above, I wonder? It's not in evidence, that I can see.
I haven't had time to look into this yet, but I found the following interesting in light of the religious fervor surrounding global warming -- explain how the activities of Earth-bound humans affect these other planets? Or is there a colonization program already in operation that none of us here on Earth know about??
=========
http://blog.tommcclintock.com/2009/03/10/the-radical-policies-of-the-global-warm-mongers/
=========
First, if global warming is caused by your SUV, why is it that we're seeing global warming on every other body in the solar system? For the last decade or so, the Martian south polar ice cap has conspicuously receded. Pluto is warming - about two degrees Celsius over the past 14 years. Jupiter is showing dramatic climate change by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Even Neptune's moon, Triton, has warmed five percent on the absolute temperature scale - the equivalent of a 22 degrees Fahrenheit increase on Earth - from 1989 to 1998.
========
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
He gets to join the ranks of Linus Pauling, with his Vitamin C woo.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Yeah, reality has a well-known liberal bias...
If you cut 10 people's carbon footprint by 30% over 20 years and during that 20 years, 3 more people are added to the group, their 70% contribution negates all savings from the 30%reduction.
I guess you were to busy driving your gas guzzling SUV, getting 2 miles per gallon, while eating big greasy cheeseburgers in those old-fashioned styrofoam containers and chucking those containers through the window of your car - to actually do some number crunching there.
30% out of 10 is 3 - yes... BUT...
Those 3 people are also gonna have their carbon emissions scaled down - so take 30% off of them too. That would be 0.9 - almost an entire person.
So, starting with 10, you end up with 13 people - who are creating as much of CO2 as 9 people did before. More people, less pollution.
Or don't have those 3 new ones cut their emissions. You still get 13 people tomorrow producing as much as 10 do today.
So, with those 10 reducing their emissions by 30%, and those extra 3 not reducing at all - you get a 7.7% reduction per capita.
Again - more people, less pollution.
Or let me illustrate it like this.
The ship is sinking in the middle of the ocean and there are not enough lifeboats.
Help is on the way, but it won't get there before crew and passengers get a chance to see just how good swimmers they are.
Each lifeboat seats 10 "regular" humans - weighing about 80 kg.
As a bunch of fat bastards from first class show up on the deck, captain decides to put a temporary moratorium on the people's rights and the democracy - takes out a gun and proclaims himself the sole authority on the seating arrangements in the life boats.
So, he has someone bring a scale to the deck and starts weighing passengers.
If you are 30% lighter than the "regular" 80-kilo human - you get an instant ticket on the life boat.
So, he fills the boat with 10 people weighing 56 kilos or less (80 kg - 30%) - and he still has weight capacity left for 4 more skinny people.
Someone will have to sit in someone else's lap - but hey... They only weigh about 56 kilos or less.
Plus... they have about 16 kilos left - captain adds 4 more babies to the people in the life boat and sends them on their way.
So... While he could have let 5 rich fat fucks take the boat, or have 10 average (spending) people rowing off to safety - with a little creative rationing the brave but politically incorrect captain got 14 people and 4 babies in that same boat.
He could have also said "Fuck the babies" and loaded the boat with 10 "light" and 3 regular people.
But saving babies from drowning illustrates the point kinda better.
you can see that it would be almost impossible to go back 10 years in carbon production while the needs of the people are constantly increasing.
You can see that it WOULD NOT be impossible.
Plus - needs of the people are not increasing EQUALLY.
A village somewhere in Africa that needs a wind or solar powered water pump DOES NOT equal one lard-ass in the developed world who spends dozen such pumps on lattes each year.
By cutting down on your own emissions and implementing clean energy sources on the large scale - YOU get to keep nearly all of your current comforts, plus you let some developing countries reach a higher level of civilization in the process.
And not only do you get to live a cleaner and healthier life with less chance for getting cancer and with a "better" body due to actually walking a bit here and there - by raising standards of those poor people in the "Third World" you reduce the chances that in the future they will feel the urge to chuck a plane or two into some buildings near your home.
Or a carcass crawling with Ebola into your local water supply.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
That'd be true if oil were the main problem, but coal is, which causes a political problem, since the US has a lot of coal. Oil is comparatively negligible, because the carbon left in total remaining oil reserves is a tiny fraction of the carbon left in total remaining coal reserves.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
An explicit exemption to the ban on DDT was its use for malaria control, which continued to be permitted. It's possible that some people stopped using it for that also, but then the issue is why they did that, not the original ban.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The only worthwhile discussions in Slashdot are technology-related. Every time Slashdot delves into another field (I'm thinking psychology, for example), the comments (sometimes all comments) are, like you've said, "not even wrong".
Slashdot is a tech community. Don't expect any more from it.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
Being a lifelong skeptic it is no surprise to me that many people do not believe in global warming. We are killing our planet in many ways, CO2 is the least of my worries. I feel that Al Gore and his team of "experts" came off like snake oil salesmen. The science was terrible. The movie was based on emotion, not science. I seriously doubt there would have been a Nobel Prize if it hadn't been for Gore's status. Most of the people I know get most of the Global Warming IQ from that silly movie.
Carbon credits. Put simply, a whole new commodity aimed to siphon money from countries like the US to other countries that lie about or totally ignore their own emissions. Us US makes a lot of CO2, but our plants pollute (CO2 is not a pollutant) much less than countries like China or India. Why? We actually enforce environmental laws. CO2 is easy to fix, plant trees! Pollution on the other hand is very expensive to fix, not much money can be made. It's all about the money! Thermodynamics teaches us that everything we do on the planet causes the temperature to go up. The real question is how much is us and how much is nature? Can humans make as much CO2 as Mt Kilauea? Question everything. It is good. It keeps bad scientist honest. Don't let them scare you or believe you are the "Nutter". Don't make it easy. Make them prove it. Hey Al, why couldn't that polar bear just swim in your movie? Polar bears are very good swimmers.....
I scanned through and didn't see it mentioned anywhere, but has anyone else heard about this problem? The entire global warming problem is contingent on the concept that an increase in CO2 leads to higher temperatures, and this is based on the data compiled into the nice chart that Al Gore displays and comments, "They look like the belong together." Or something like that. The problem is that CO2 amounts don't precede the increase in temperature, they actually lag behind the temperature changes by about 800 years. This can be explained by the idea that as the world heats up, the oceans heat as well. As the oceans heat, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Of course this leaves the question, "Why does the planet heat up?" to be answered, and while the data is much more limited, there seems to be a very strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature. Has anyone else come across this line of research? Or have anything that builds on or refutes this?
I found a link to raw NOAA satellite data
There are a number of places where it has been graphed, just google "t2lt" or dump it in excel.
My big question is that I've seen NASA graphs that look far more damaging than what the raw data shows. This has been of concern to me as I do not understand why there is such a difference. In looking around, I found this article that discusses this point.
I'm very concerned that the whole global warming argument is really about money, not protecting the planet. Like the above article says, taking the temperature of the planet isn't rocket science.
I remain unconvinced, I would like to see what happens to global temperatures for the next couple of years.
If the climatologists are correct and we don't do anything, the consequences will be hard to bear.
If the climatologists are wrong and we act like they are right, the consequences will be hard to bear.
We have to this right...let's keep the debate going, it's very important.
Kevin
Written by a good environmentalist, discusses the results of many very prestigious scientists who are climatologists.
Their research is contrary to the fundamental assumptions of "Global Warming" as a human-caused problem.
We /.ers are not ignorant, as a rule.
I don't think the parent was suggesting that everyone who believes in man-made global warming is a nutter. I think there is a large population in the world that believe in man-made global warming because it is trendy, not because of data; just the same, there is an equally large (if not larger) population who believe global warming either does not exist (or is not caused by man) for the same reason.
These are the "dogmatic idiots" on both sides of the issue who hold their professed "beliefs" either because it is popular to do so or taboo not to in their social surroundings. I doubt most of the general populous on either side of the issue could quote you any data on the situation, which makes their all-knowing attitude all the more irritating. Just look at Drudge, who posts stories about global warming protests next to stories about record cold temperatures. Clearly he's missing the point. But so are those that point to those cold temperatures and say, 'well, clearly this indicates climate change.' Neither is a climatologist, and both should shut up. Maybe it's just cold this year.
We should be approaching the issue of global warming from a scientific perspective, not a political one based on "beliefs". Both sides tend toward the latter.
God will not give happy ending
No. There are many real scientists who are not going along to get along even though it hurts their careers.
Those are the scientists putting real science above politics and money. hint: they disagree with Al "Not a scientist" Gore.
We (the Dutch) will always be raising our dikes, because the land is slowly compacting because we have taken it from the bottom of the see. The fact that we built the 'afsluitdijk' (32 km through the North Sea) which was finished in 1932 shows that we will damn well raise the dikes when it becomes necessary, and it's absolutely bollocks to suggest that we have to start now because the oceans might be rising a meter or so in a century.
nonsense
And apart from that, the oceans are not rising at the moment, and even more damning, the heat content of the oceans over the last few years has dropped. You can find the links on this site. It will definitely turn out that the sun is a larger driver of climate than has been proposed by many, and we will all notice that in the coming years, because the sun is currently entering pretty much a state of hibernation (especially magnetically).
Dyson sucks
Hmm.. bacon. I like bacon.
Enviromentalists like Al Gore
Environmentalists like Al Gore?!?!?
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Thankfully we don't need any real science to discuss climate.
We have consensus.
A maverick scientist! I bet he thinks outside the box too.
(founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera)
He is not a scientist. He barely graduated from a buy-your-grades school. The second time.
Dyson's most idiotic and ill informed comment has more value than the best Gore has ever come up on any science topic.
And now Dyson is part of a Malthusian conspiracy?
Excuse me, I need to go increase my holding in tin and aluminum.
As are the non-climate-scientists in the IPCC management who produce their big junk science documents.
1) Global warming is not a hoax. We are seeing effects. Humans are doing things that produce enough greenhouse gases to affect it. There is no question. Anyone who tells you that we don't need to worry about it is either misinformed or deliberately trying to mislead you.
2) Dyson is right in an important way, though. Global warming will probably lead to all kinds of trouble including the collapse of society, but it is just one of many things that will do the same. I recommend Jared Diamond's Collapse, in which he discusses in detail 12 threats to our survival, each of which is more than sufficient to do us in. Some of his worries: species loss; topsoil loss; natural habitat destruction (including deforestation); the end of cheap energy; the end of drinkable water; toxic shit everywhere...
Don't underestimate the problems caused by greenhouse gases. But don't underestimate any of the others either--a cool, comfortable climate and secure polar ice caps aren't much good if all our surface water is toxic. Global warming is nothing more than a poster child for our imminent doom. Move away from its religion and towards an actual understanding of the issues.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Plants need it to live. You exhale it all day long.
It truly amazes me that someone could post something like that, even on /..
Where are you getting this information? Lucia's analysis shows that the models are under estimating the absolute temperature by around 1'C on average. She has another posting showing that models that take volcanism into account are worse predictors than those that don't. You might want to take model predictions with a grain of salt.
Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predictions'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Global warming is accelerating three times more quickly than feared, a series of startling, authoritative studies has revealed.
They have found that emissions of carbon dioxide have been rising at thrice the rate in the 1990s. The Arctic ice cap is melting three times as fast - and the seas are rising twice as rapidly - as had been predicted.
The study, published by the US National Academy of Sciences, shows that carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing by about 3 per cent a year during this decade, compared with 1.1 per cent a year in the 1990s.
The significance is that this is much faster than even the highest scenario outlined in this year's massive reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - and suggests that their dire forecasts of devastating harvests, dwindling water supplies, melting ice and loss of species are likely to be understating the threat facing the world.
The study found that nearly three-quarters of the growth in emissions came from developing countries, with a particularly rapid rise in China. The country, however, will resist being blamed for the problem, pointing out that its people on average still contribute only about a sixth of the carbon dioxide emitted by each American. And, the study shows, developed countries, with less than a sixth of the world's people, still contribute more than two-thirds of total emissions of the greenhouse gas.
On the ground, a study by the University of California's National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that Arctic ice has declined by 7.8 per cent a decade over the past 50 years, compared with an average estimate by IPCC computer models of 2.5 per cent.
Further reading: Go to pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0700609104
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
When I used to attend environmental (forest conservation) protests, the "unbiased" mainstream media would routinely do two things.
First, they would film and interview the one or two actual "nutters" who showed up out of 2000 people at the protest. e.g. the naked pot activists cavorting in the fountain who had decided to borrow our protest, and
Second, they would only use narrow angle close up shots of small portions of the whole crowd, again focussed on the most stereotypical dreadlock types. This gave the impression that a few tens of dreadlocked hippies and naked pot activists had showed up to try to save the forest.
Be careful what you allow yourself to perceive, when intermediaries are feeding it to you.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The real data over the last decade shows us that the global average temperature has levelled out and even decreased a bit. Models don't guess, that's just you. Models tell you what you programmed them to tell you. If by "general theory" you refer to the climate sensitivy before feedbacks, then it's not at all simple (ask any physisist), but probably correct.
People who don't share my exact viewpoint need to be murdered in the most horrific manner possible.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Say we follow Al Gore and there turns out not to be a problem. We would have wasted lots of money. Say we don't follow Al Gore and he is right, then we are in deep shit and it is to late to do anything about it.
Ah, yes. Pascal's wager.
"Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results"
How ironic. Dr. Dyson wouldn't be the first aging, but unquestionably brilliant physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies, who spent his last days pointlessly and wrongly, arguing about perceived inaccuracy of cutting edge scientific theories that continued to gain scientific credence dispite such arguments. Albert Einstein's quibbles with fundamental aspects of quantum physics are now largely forgotten.
Dr. Dyson might do better to provide detailed simulation models that counter to Dr. Hansen's pioneering work rather what offering what otherwise seems to be little more than armchair speculation of dubious relevance to global warming.
On paper it sounds good, a simple calculation, but he never addresses how much energy that would take or where the water would come from.
All we in in the US need to do is whatever they do in China and India so that our CO2 doesn't count! It's that simple!
but I wonder if these people would be willing to go live for a month on an island in Polynesia at a point in time of our choosing in the next 50 years without scuba gear or any flotation device? If they're so certain that global warming is just unfounded hysteria, let them stand by their words.
Actually, fuck that, can we please just remember the names of all those that argued now and in the past against action on climate change and then when we're all migrating into northern latitudes and high ground, we can boat them all out to the current location of a nice pacific island, sink the boat (which wont matter if global warming is a myth) and come back in a week to look for the fuckwits.
I volunteer to remember the name of Freeman Dyson.
Its just so sophisticated to buck the popular trend isn't it? How arrogant do you have to be to think your opinion outweighs the work of several thousand researchers who have spent their lives' work studying this question. Not to mention that the IPCC is dangerously conservative in their predictions. The truly sophisticated thing for humanity is for us to decide as a species to actually make a choice not to wipe out 90% of our population.
I live in Canada so no worries here. If you live in the US and are talking this bullshit, please be prepared to swim for a while before we let you in :)
Yes it does speak for it self, possibly not in the way you think, though. The large scale graph shows that from -400000 to 0 carbon dioxide concentrations varied between ~190ppmv and ~300ppmv; changes occurred relatively slowly, the fastest up-ticks are on timescales of 1k-10k years (hard to be precise from this scale).
The new peak on the far right of this graph is unique in two ways:
-The absolute level is about 25% higher than any of the 4 previous peaks and about 40% higher than the average of the graph.
-The rate of change is completely unprecedented, about 90ppmv/200years, i.e. the vertical line inside the ellipse.
I am no expert in the matter, and I know that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. However, just judging from your graph, I see a unique feature in the data, nicely aliened with a drastic population increase of a certain two-legged critter (obviously not shown here) and a change of habits of said critter (massive burning of coal/oil).
So, unless you have a compelling alternate explanation I'll stick with man-made increase of CO2 levels.
Cheers,
Michael
The reason, and the point behind the article here (although I'm sure you commented without reading it), is not whether it is or isn't a problem. It'd be great if we lived in a binary world like that, but we don't. We have limited resources and must apply them to the most important things before we start going after less important things.
THEREFORE, the relative importance of global warming is of the utmost relevance. If we were to find out that global warming will cause an increase of 1C over the next 1000 years, then I think we could be putting that money to curing AIDS, cancer, or any of the million other things that are significantly larger threats to human life.
Mmmmmmmmmk?
Reply to an offtopic, get and offtopic mod, complain about it and score an additional troll mod. You have much to learn Grasshopper.
... and don't forget that lovable scientific racist and co-discoverer of the double-helix structure of DNA, James D. Watson.
No one should deny that the climate is shifting. It has historically varied by huge amounts over large time spans. The problem about making any assertions about human effects on the weather is that the amount of time that we've been doing any serious observation is a small blip. We're seeing the noise, not the "signal".
The climate shifts, and I've seen sufficient evidence to believe that we can track global average temperatures. I have *not* seen anything close to sufficient evidence to believe that it is humanity that causes the temperature shifts we see.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You need to stop just following your feelings. Animals do that. It is not what science is about.
Thank you.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"...and massively bolstered our economy with a whole new class of green businesses."
There's a gentleman by the name of Bastiat at the door. He has a glazier he wants you to meet.
... with a lawyer can tie up any major energy development in this country for a decade, and in many cases permanently.
This applies just as much to wind, hydro (what big dams are being built these days?) and solar, as it does to those eeeevil coal and nuke plants.
And with the Obama adminstration counting on trial lawyers, NIMBY "activists" and the save-the endangered-mosquito crowd as mainstays of its coalition, I look for no hope and little change.
You completely missed my point. There's a reason why the US has increasing forest acreage and other areas do not. And it's not just a simplistic "plant more trees".
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
At least the planet is giving us hints. Your cold, getting warmer, warmer, hot, hotter, your burning up. Should be easy to find the answer;)
Exxon: It'll never happen, why spend so much on a 0.01% chance, we've been fine for the last 16 years. ...
Valdez citizen: But if it does happen...
Shit happens:
Exxon: Profit
because it is in the best interest of the politicians for them to do so. Facts are really problematic, and things like truth are downright impossible for a politician to manipulate to his or her advantage. There's a reason why you see people like Al Gore, instead of scientists, weighing in on the GW issue. Al Gore isn't subject to scientific peer review, and exaggeration doesn't hurt his credibility. A scientist, OTOH, has to be careful with his statements lest someone misquote him and ruin his career.
Emotional opinions are always the best for those in power, because they can be wielded toward whatever end those in power seek. The only reason why global warming is on the political horizon is because one party is using it to gain a majority of votes over the other. Both sides could care less about actual progress on the issue.
If you don't believe me, look at how the Republican party handled the pro-life issue: we've had Republican "pro-life" presidents for 20 of the last 28 years, and "liberal, socialist" Europe has more restrictions on abortion than the US.
It's not about truth, it's about political power. The actual science is irrelevant; people often believe in global warming because they don't have a religion, and others often deny it because they don't want the inconvenience of changing their lifestyle.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Say we follow Al Gore and there turns out not to be a problem. We would have wasted lots of money. Say we don't follow Al Gore and he is right, then we are in deep shit and it is to late to do anything about it. That is roughly the left and the right. The left want to be save and pay insurance now. The right wants to keep their money and their childeren be damned.
Funny, that's the same logic used by some religious people - follow us and if we are wrong about the afterlife you have just missed out on some fun, don't follow us and if we are right then you've messed up big time.
It's kind of funny how closely environmentalists follow temp trends. In the 50's we had global warming. Then in the 70's when we were in a cooling trend, it was switched up to global cooling. Then we started warming again and the "scientific" (i.e. political) theory changed to match it. Now that we are on another cooling trend it has once again been modified to "climate change." It would be nice if you people could actually predict something for once.
I'll admit my knowledge of climatology is very limited. I know the basics about the rain cycle, how the jet streams and rivers in the sea work.
I take a rather simple view of carbon emissions by simply looking at the history of this planet that geology reveals. A science that I understand quite well and is a very very old and well understood science. Through much of the 3 billion years that life has inhabited earth the planet has been extremely warm and extremely wet. Without polar caps the early earth had much more water coverage than today where billions of acre-ft (hectare-m) of water are sequestered in ice sitting on continental shelf's. Most of the geological record also indicates much higher temperatures than today's averages. Most of the early plants that inhabited this planet were ferns and other fungal plants. These plants must have high temperatures and moisture levels to survive. As a result of these conditions swamps and mudflats accumulated organic layers of material decade after decade for billions of years. As the organic material moved further down the geological deposits the temperatures and pressures reformed the stored organics into the fossil fuels (using a process that we can replicate today) we know today.
So it's simple. We had a planet that was MUCH MUCH warmer and wetter than it is today. Over the course of 3 billion years we sequestered much of the carbon in the atmosphere into the ground, buried it into the fossil fuels we use today. For the last several hundred million years the planet has been cycling between ice age and mild thaw with fairly even levels of carbon. The planet appears from my untrained eye to have reached an equilibrium where carbon sequestration has reached it's limit with further carbon losses causing the planet to cool dramatically trimming plant life until carbon levels can recoup.
There is a lot of evidence that the planet was on the verge of another ice age when the industrial age started. At that point we started taking those billions of pounds of carbon that are sequestered underground and started pumping them into the atmosphere.
From a simple perspective how hard is it to understand that over billions of years the earth stored carbon underground cooling the planet. We are now pumping that carbon back into the atmosphere with the only logical end result being temperatures that match the early earth. A temperature range I might add that most humans would find highly unpleasant. To me it's a fairly simple equation.
Anyone who posts on here that supports the theory of global warming is a hypocrite. You are generating server hits, which encourage the use of servers. As we all know, powerful web servers suck up huge amounts of electricity, which contribute to global warming. PLEASE...help stop global warming by getting off this forum and encouraging /. to shut down so they stop contributing to evil global warming!
Forest around the world are being cut down
They aren't. It's only in poor shitholes that they cut down trees.
In north america it's a very profitable business to grow trees.
The left want to be save and pay insurance now. The right wants to keep their money and their childeren be damned.
The left wants x and the right wants y? Holy shit, you're a dichotomy-thought-process moron. You're not very bright are you, dork?
Please mod this guy up. Seems to actually have a grasp of the issues.
Do you know who the Heartland are?
No sig is good enough for me.
even if global warming were true, it is no reason for all of us to ceed our Liberties to the UN and the schemes of Economists, most of whom can not be trusted.
Carbon Dioxide is what this nonsense is all about, right?
So, Carbon science is really well understood?
OK? So if it is so well understood why weren't Fullerines and nanotubes even known about 20 years ago?
It is very common for all of the so-called experts to be wrong. In the middle ages they were wrong about things until Galileo came along. In the 1910's they were ready to dismiss Einstein as a quack. In Physics there is currently a cult of String Theory enthusiats and some are so addicted to this nonsense that they can't give it up. They don't see it as a random solution to two sets of equations, Fermi's and Einstein's.
So, if the weathermen are wrong, oh, I'm sorry, the 'Climatologists' then will we get back the Liberties that all of these Global-Warming Fascists want to take away from us? I don't think so.
The risks to our liberties are too great, and the consequences too dire, to let these weathermen continue with this con. They will sell us all out to the carbon consumption tax, called Carbon Credits.
Even if it is true that C02, as it is, makes things change, why, dear sir, should we all let our selves be shackled by the schemes of Economists?
The schemes of these shysters are said to be a massive redistribution of wealth, and effective global industrial collectivization and governmental oversight of every aspect of society, from running your automobile or your cows farting.
sounds silly until you realize that the politicians and the bankers who pay them to squawk aren't kidding. They really do want to tax the farts of cows. No joke.
Do you support that? Do you care about Liberty at all? Does it bother you that Economists and International Bankers are trying to rewrite all laws of commerce and trade based upon what is a fallacy?
What other breakthrough of science, akin to the Fullerine, will occur to prove these weathermen wrong?
Is that you?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
The point is not that Bangladesh flooding is caused by global warming. It's simply a good example of how human actions can create expensive and deadly human consequences. Global warming is such a concept writ globally. You're happy to lecture other people about how concrete can't absorb water (duh), but seem completely unwilling to listen to what other people are telling you about the consequences of increasing the heat content of our climate system.
You're right that many more people will die if it gets colder. Yet you're too ignorant to realize that global warming will likely cause some areas of the globe to get colder than they are now, due to shifting climate patterns. You would learn that and many other things if you accorded other people some of the respect you demand for your own statements.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Bah, I just typed about 3 pages of crap and then erased it...not worth it.
Bottom line: There are dozens of great reasons why moving to sustainable green energy is desirable besides climate, and many examples at the state level where mandates for green energy have been met and exceeded.
Its not hard to get moving on this issue. Someone at the federal level needs to step up and get us moving. At this point... at any pace is fine. Because as of the last 30 years, we've done absolutely NOTHING.
At what point will the evidence be clear enough? 50/50 chance? 75/25 chance? Every single scientist in the world screaming all at once?
My bet, is no level of consensus will ever move policy on this issue. It is too wrapped up in the backbone of our economy. It is going to take a few brave politicians to ease us into a green transition, show us it isn't scary, show us it won't destroy the economy, and then we can gradually increase the rate at which we transition and just get it done.
He himself sounded off about quantum entanglement, and guess what--despite being Einstein, he was wrong. And scientists discarded his opinions just like they discard all personal opinions that don't have supporting evidence.
Einstein started off as a no-name patent clerk and became "Einstein" not because of his name, but because he was proven right. And although we don't remember their names now, there were prominent scientists who staked their reputations on Einstein being wrong. But over the long run in science, all that matters is what you can prove, not who you are.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I read at -1, so I can see your posts. Honestly, if this post is anything to go by, you're modded down to -1 because you're too willing to blame other people for your unwillingness to research or learn anything about what you're talking about.
Example:
This is all laid out by *real* scientists (i.e., those not being PAID to boost Global Warming(TM) in a show called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".)
The show you reference was, as suggested by the title, a show heavily critical of global warming. However, it vastly misrepresented the research of several eminent scientists who have since stated that they were unaware of the nature of the show and have distanced themselves from it. You'll also notice that their data was called into question, and in more than one instance shown to be outright falsified.
Maybe you should take the time to pull your finger out and learn something before you start screaming into the wind.
The Al Gore Rule, which I have formulated over the course of years of participating in discussions about global warming, is this:
The degree of a person's fixation on Al Gore is inversely proportional to their expertise in climate science.
Note that this works equally well for either side in the debate.
If you wish to disprove global warming, you do not need to disprove Al Gore's expertise. You need to prove that the data and theory of thousands of highly trained and experienced scientists around the world is incorrect. Best of luck.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Bolster our economy? Hardly. If we do the things many global warming proponents want, it will destroy our economy through insanely high taxes on current energy, likely resort in massive energy shortages (face it, solar / wind / hydro just don't produce the amount of power that coal / oil does), and cause technology to stagnate for who knows how long.
I love how people who question the predictive ability of a natural science theory (global warming) so readily accept the predictions of economic theory. Because, you know, economists have such a better record with predictions than natural scientists.
Besides, you're begging the question. If climatic changes due to global warming are anything near what is being predicted, then inaction will also have an economic cost, and perhaps higher.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
1) Experts predict disaster if a problem is ignored, or even unavertable disaster
2) The masses panic, but nobody does anything
3) Disaster is averted because there was no impending disaster in the first place, the experts were wrong
4) Experts continue saying we're all going to die and continue garnering fame and money
5) The mentally challenged masses keep believing, and may even strengthen their belief.
Case in point: Paul Erlich.
The reason for the continued belief is a known psychological phenomenon most commonly found in cults.
Congratulations on getting your scientific theory published in the comments of Slashdot--a venue noted for its accuracy and rigor. I'm sure our leading scientists and politicians will see it when they log in on Monday morning. :-)
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Nicholas Dawidoff obviously is some sort of journalist graduate who doesn't know enough science to work on a story like this.
I read the first dozen or so paragraphs and then in frustration skimmed the rest actually looking for something that resembled arguments for or against global warming or climate change. I didn't find them. They're not there.
Instead we get a few quotes about what his conclusions were, a few quotes about how his opponents are wrong, and some meandering anecdotes about his wife and his background as a physicist.
I thought the New York Times knew better than this. This article is a catastrophe. Of course, science education is bad in the U.S., so those that agree with him only need to know his name, and those that disagree with him will reject him out of hand. It's quite disappointing.
This is an issue that has NOT been driven by science, but driven by control freaks in government and fearmongers in the press.
[Citation needed]
I know the climate is changing, because that is what the climate does!
No shit, Sherlock. The point is that climate change is being driven outside of normal patterns, and that humans are the cause.
Yet I am still skeptical of the details that the press and government have oversensationalized.
Ostrich.
Government isn't about helping people, it's about controlling their lives.
Yawn.
The real heresy isn't denying global warming, it's denying that government is the appropriate solution to every problem in life.
Riiiight. Finding a politician that complains about government has been about as hard as finding a politician that talks about their faith in God.
Lots of junk references do not make his post any more real than hand-waving.
If you want some facts:
http://www.realclimate.org/
Why the Hockey stick graph has been proved wrong:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11646-climate-myths-the-hockey-stick-graph-has-been-proven-wrong.html
Come on it's all just so old.
And why bother saying climate change is not man-made if you're denying the climate change in the first place. Silly.
Oh here's 10 myths about climate change debunked:
http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/ten-myths.html
That's me being a heretic. I'm disagreeing with Dyson. Ergo, I'm a heretic.
How this is supposed to help him make a better prediction I fail to understand, but he seems to think it will.
This is a regional climate result: the Tropical N. Atlantic has been warming faster than climate models have predicted due to CO2 alone.
As the authors point out, CO2 can't warm the ocean that fast.
So the paper actually strengthens the model arguements, not weakens them.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
US. A pissant little country that thinks it's important.
Each leaf that falls and releases CO2 is countered by another leaf growing.
When we burn petrol, is that balanced by petrol appearing somewhere else?
No.
When everyone sees that an object dropped falls to the ground, there is a consensus that it will always do so.
Yet this is not science according to you.
I am in total agreement with Dr. Dyson, the need for heretics in all fields of human endeavor has never been greater. People are intellectually lazy, and we as a society allow rigorous thinking to yield to superstition and mob consensus.
Everyone deserves the right to have an opinion, and its good to regularly poke the common wisdom, because all too often it's neither wise, or observably common.
That said, there is tremendously more to the global climate problem than "Al Gore's Global Warming". Accelerating loss of glaciers and ice-sheets, ocean acidification, global climate change, global dimming, Forest die off and heat stress, drunken forests, massive wild fires, the population explosion of jelly fish, collapse of entire ecosystems, and marked change in ocean current are just a few such items. The list of related and interrelated global issues is itself growing exponentially, and our ability to predict the outcomes of all these changes increasingly lags behind our ability to collect accurate data and make meaningful models.
The good Doctor is simply mistaken. Even Einstein didn't believe God played with Dice, and that certainly put's Dyson in fine company. There is nothing wrong in being mistaken, having the intellectual courage to make mistakes is one of the cornerstones of empirical analysis... its the hubris of assuming you're right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that one might admonish, and a man of Doctor Dyson stature always demands a modicum of respect. Anything less would lack proper decorum. This is simple, in the area of the global impact of human enterprise, Doctor Dyson is mistaken.
Nature has a funny way of surprising us.
The sweetest fruit, before it has ripened, is the most bitter. As if to trick us, nature appears at its most opposite before emergence.
This principle is reflected not just on a microcosmic level, but as a fixed law within the Earth itself - everything must ripen. For this same reason, the climate will appear to separate into extremes - a desert (both sun and ice). And just before everything becomes climatically intolerable - we will emerge into a single, unchanging, abundant season.
Further reading, Everything is evaluated not by its appearance at a given moment, but according to its measure of development.
It's evolution, baby.
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
Global warming or no global warming, the direction the spawn of its fear, green technology is bringing us in a revolutionary direction.
Green technology tries to explore cheap ways to generate energy.
With more efficient renewable energy sources, oil-providing countries will lost their leverage over developed nations. With localized energy production, energy might just become cheaper, perhaps to the extent of information on the Internet. There will hopefully be a new, active industry of green products. Efficient energy production devices that do not require oil to run might help reduce poverty in remote areas with poor infrastructure that makes oil transportation expensive.
Enviromentalists like Al Gore have to be practical.
Let me quote a few:
" Gore's mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES). ... The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh â" more than 20 times the national average. ... Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore's energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006. ... Gore's extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore's mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year."
So this makes him a rabble-rousing fear-monger. Whatever the merits of his cause, HE is an *in*appropriate spokesman. Especially when he flies in a PRIVATE JET to these climate conferences, rather than just buying a seat or seats on a commercial airliner.
The paper does not even mention global warming or climate change in its abstract. It's about a local temperature change; and as pointed out by others, it actually strengthens the case for global warming, since aerosols cannot be responsible for the full temperature increase.
You are a bad guess. I happen to be a post-doc (not in climatology though) and in my collection of reference PDFs that I read since I became a PhD in 2002 I have 279 papers. I published 3 journal papers and about 10 conference contributions.
I was called in for journal review about four times (confidentiality obviously bars me from indicating which articles), and I have actually another paper to review right on my desk.
I call bullshit. Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary proofs. I do not see climatologists and scientific panels at climatology conferences stating that global warming is not anthropogenic, that it is non-existing, or that it is a scam. That would make some serious news.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Because "sane" and "normal" is the same thing (from the normal peoples point of view, that is).
Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
The world isn't going anywhere regardless of what we do or don't do.
Organisms will adapt or perish. That includes humans.
There may be a little flooding in low lying areas. Humans should be smart enough not to live in those locations when they have a choice (barrier islands, keys, south Florida), but I will feel bad for those people that don't have any choice in Indonesia and other islands around the globe. It is no different than people who choose to live near rivers that flood every 50 years. Darwin is trying to tell you to move.
I have family in Fargo where the Red River is flooding now. They understood the risks and will probably lose their homes. When I lived there, it wasn't a concern. I don't know if they have flood insurance or not.
Perhaps it is time to wipe the slate and start over?
Or not. The earth goes through cycles of warm and cold. It is very arrogant to think we can prevent those cycles any more than that we can prevent sun spots.
If you don't think physicists should be criticizing climatologists, how about meteorologists? If not the meteorologists or physicists, just who is qualified to criticize them?
The problem is there isn't a climate 'scientist' that can produce a model he published in 1990 that accurately forecast today's climate. Things like number of hurricanes, mean global temperature, etc. I'm not talking about getting one or two things right - I'm talking about getting a majority of the metrics right.
Without verifiable predictions, it isn't science.
By the way, your choice of terminology shows you missed the boat. It's no longer 'Global Warming' - it's 'Global Change.' The new phrasing is a hedge from the climatologists acknowledging that they can't accurately forecast what's going to happen but whatever does happen, they'll claim they forecast it. London Broil? Check. London Freeze? Check. They've got models that cover both scenarios - they just don't know which one will play out.
His facts link back to many websites, including gov. sites and other more balanced sites and you offer up what?
The sad thing is that we have everyone fighting CO2 and ignoring many of the other real pollutants out there (mercury in the oceans for example). How about we just start picking up our trash and cleaning up the environment and then start worrying about CO2?
Wow. Nice character assassination. You take some speculative examples Dyson gave about what we might be able to do with bioengineering and sneer at him ("how do we get there, einstein?") because he didn't spell out all the details for a Mars mission? Then you bring up flying cars?
Then you mention Al Gore. Al Gore, who's private residence is a record setting example of conspicuous consumption. But Al Gore buys carbon offsets! What's one of the major components of carbon offsets? Tree planting. How ironic.
I find that Global Warming has become less of a science and more of a religious movement. There are people whom I work with who actually have lost sleep, and become ill from worrying about it. Oddly enough these are the same people who become verbally abusive to anyone that disagrees with them. I thought the whole point of the scientific method was to create 'theories', even Gravity is a theory in scientific terms, not a fact. When you attempt to silence the scientific debate in a venue such as this, it reminds me of something from WWII. People always seek to shout down oposition rather than listening to what it has to say. I almost akin this whole situation to a new rendition of the Crusades. Don't agree with Global Warming? Well you're cast out from society in a social sense. I actually have friends who refuse to speak to me now because of my opinions on this subject. To me? That's just sad. I'm all for renewable energy sources, don't get me wrong. But do it when it makes economic sense, when the cost of the technology to produce per watt becomes comparable to our current methods, not before. If you suddenly take that competition out of this, I believe you'll find innovation in renewable energy go to the wayside. Why work to improve a technology if it's simply going to be imposed on the public anyway right?
My professors used to say "You never really understand something until you teach it to another person". So if someone cannot explain it, such that an average educated person can understand it, then it means that they don't understand it.
When the post he's replying to called someone an idiot? Neutral moderation would be nice.
-- Jeff
On the other hand
1) Experts predict disaster if they aren't funded to work on solving some problem.
2) Regardless of whether funding is provided, disaster is averted.
3) Experts publish papers on how some unforeseen effect averted disaster or how the work they did averted disaster.
4) Politicians look like geniuses for always correctly predicting what to fund.
5) Skeptics remain skeptical about the existence of the problem.
"I bet you think there was nothing to Y2K either, do you?"
Do you seriously think programmers corrected every instance of the Y2K code problems?
"Don't forget about leaded gasoline! We were all supposed to be dead from its emissions by now!"
I think lead is only supposed to make people stupider.
That's funny. I was just reading a New Scientist article by a meteorologist specializing in computer models of hurricane activity complaining about how hurricane modeling is so often mistaken by the press for general climatology models, when in truth none of the general climatology models in use make predictions on small enough of a scale to predict a given hurricane season.
Computer models of hurricane activity are like trying to figure where a drunk crashes. Climate research is more like saying `Hmm, maybe having "one for the road isn't such a great idea afterall"',
What an amazing world we live in where:
1) Experts predict disaster if a problem is ignored.
2) Problem is solved rather than ignored.
3) Disaster is averted.
4) Mentally challenged "skeptics" believe the problem never existed in the first place.
cf. Y2K
CO2 levels have never been so high as they are now throughout recorded history
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/historical_CO2.html
Technically those would be prehistoric times.
"Climate change" is a badly chosen term, as the geological record shows that change is what climates do.
If the intent is to blame humans, the ungainly "anthropogenic" might be added to it.
Or you could just call it Original Sin.
We did away with leaded gas long ago but we still ended up with reality TV. Apparently it's something other than lead making [people stupid.
Um, I read his above post twice, and I didn't read one single insult.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Well being a Slashdot reader and all I could barely be bothered RTFA. I certainly can't be bothered spending 3 years to get even a undergraduate level understanding of Climate Science. So all I really know is that both sides can draw pretty graphs. No matter how much evidence is gathered neither side's pretty graphs will go away. However pretty much every scientific institution seems to take the threat of global warming pretty seriously. So I'd take it pretty seriously as well.
I am not doing science here. But I did not claim to be a climate scientist. I am more like the child who is told by their parent that a pot is hot, and thinks "maybe touching the pot isn't such a good idea".
but if you were living in the middle of the Cold War and one morning as the sun starts to come up you're suddenly hit by a blinding flash 100 times brighter than the sun at high noon; you might say to yourself "Hey, no problem. The sun's intensity goes through natural cycles"
Well, you just might say that, but most people would conclude that the flash was man made.
No, I didn't really check. I knew it wasn't an authoritative source, but it didn't matter, I was trying to educate, not prove anything. The article sums up some of the major problems with computer models, and thus saves me the time of having to write it myself. I looked over it to make sure it was not inaccurate.
The problems with climate models is known. All you need to do is look at their wildly diverging predictions to get an idea that something must not be right, and further investigation shows that they do indeed make several major omissions, and make adjustments that are rather questionable.
I would encourage you to investigate this on your own if you are interested, since you will learn much more by doing that than if I were to show you everything. If you find I am wrong, come back and let me know.
Qxe4
Good old Freeman, another Templeton Prize winner:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeton_Prize
"Until 2001 the name of the prize was Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion and from 2002-2008 it was called the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities."
Any surprise that he's ranting about Science as 'a worldwide secular religion'?
You know that a theist is slipping into full rant mode when he starts screaming about how Science is actually a religion.
No matter how much popular attention and intellect may seize on a particular issue, the more practical/limiting physical forces will ultimately come to bear in action. Public policy may attempt to drive capital toward climate control, but the decisions to do so can only happen through proxies, people, face to face. So there will be government guys telling capitalist guys where they want the work to go, and they will make their points about global warming with all the concern for humanity and certainty of opportunity that they can muster for this issue.
The issue will, however, rightfully compete with other concerns for humanity and certainty of opportunity. And that competition will, for its own good reason, largely limit the resources that will go to climate control.
colder, hotter, drier, wetter
That sounds like a environmentally minded daft punk song.
The entire global warming problem is contingent on the concept that an increase in CO2 leads to higher temperatures, and this is based on the data compiled into the nice chart that Al Gore displays and comments,
Al Gore's chart is hardly the basis of Climate research. It is well known that Carbon Dioxide is a Greenhouse Gas. It is clear there *are* greenhouse Gases, or the planet would be. It is also easy to test that CO2 allows the high energy radiation from the Sun in, but traps the low energy IR from the earth.
AFAICT the main question is, what will happen to all the carbon dioxide we release? Will it all be absorbed into plant matter? Or will it warm the planet enough to release more CO2 from the oceans which then warms the planet more which ...
Of course this leaves the question, "Why does the planet heat up?" to be answered, and while the data is much more limited, there seems to be a very strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature.
A quick google search shows up: "Researchers argue over whether or not solar variations play a major role in determining present-day observed climate change. [41] ... In their Third Assessment Report, the IPCC state that the measured magnitude of recent solar variation is much smaller than the amount of predicted climate change due to greenhouse gases." -- Wikipedia
I find that Global Warming has become less of a science and more of a religious movement.
I don't know your (ex-)friends but isn't it possible it is backed by solid science and also has crazy zealots?
There are people whom I work with who actually have lost sleep.
Which increases the CO2 they exhale, the selfish bastards.
even Gravity is a theory in scientific terms, not a fact.
I still won't jump off the 99th story. Sorry.
When you attempt to silence the scientific debate in a venue such as this,
Wait, there is scientific debate on Slashdot? I just see lots of "you are unscientific... no you are unscientific".
Why work to improve a technology if it's simply going to be imposed on the public anyway right?
So that the public will buy your solar panels rather than the ones from ACME corp that cost 99c more?
I know of the greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect, but you really didn't address my concerns. The chart I am referring to IS the basis for the belief that CO2 has a measurable effect on the temperature of our planet. It is a compendium of all the temperature and C02 data from the ice cores for as long as we can measure them. If the link they represent is not as strong as we currently believe, we will have to find other solutions. The report you mentioned would then be completely invalid, as they are basing their information on a false correlation. The question I wanted answer dealt with the 800 year gap and explanations on why it is there. If climate scientists can't explain that problem, then C02 isn't the issue.
I agree that's the usually accepted equation. But if society's consensus opinion is to reach for the handle that is going to flush that society down the drain, perhaps we might need to reconsider our definitions.
(Unless we take it one step further and call the society's self-destructive urge a sane and noble
decision to self-sacrifice.
It does get very muddy, doesn't it.)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Firstly, if you don't understand the difference between a bio-diverse, complex, ancient forest eco-system, and a monoculture tree farm with pesticides,
then, well,
you don't understand the difference between a bio-diverse, complex, ancient forest eco-system, and a monoculture tree farm with pesticides.
Secondly, 1920 is the wrong benchmark year.
Try 1720, before the Europeans arrived en masse.
And if you want to assess forest cover loss for, say England or Ireland, check it against 1020AD.
For Greece, check it against 1000BC
You get my point.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
... and that is relevant, how?
(Since we know about the levels through proxies, they're "recorded")
it's in my head
The chart I am referring to IS the basis for the belief that CO2 has a measurable effect on the temperature of our planet
How do you know this? It seems a physicist could easily do a simple simulation comparing the radiation hitting from the sun versus the radiation escaping through the greenhouse gases from the physical properties of those gases.
dealt with the 800 year gap and explanations on why it is there.
All I found was that there was a paper discussing this in 2007. I did not find any papers in response, although I didn't look very hard.
What you fail to understand is that the want/need/incentive to deny that our current way of doing things is causing big problems is many orders of magnitude greater (more people, with a greater vested interest)
than the need of a particular group of scientists or environmental lobbyists to keep up their funding.
Scientists are clever, competent, and creative people. If funding for one topic dries up, they'll move to another with very little difficulty.
Comparing their self-interest (or a single politician's self-interest) against the self-interest of every person involved/implicated in a potentially negative core economic activity of society, is ridiculous propaganda. The former is miniscule compared to the latter. It's just that we don't notice the bias of our society as a whole because we are embedded in it.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I think it is very closed minded to dismiss scientist of others who suggest and attempt to explain how Global Warming isn't real.
Respect the Constitution
So, how do we disprove this ludicrous theory again?
Average temp gets hotter, colder, drier etc. with or without this theory. It's called climate change, and the climate never stops changing!
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
I'm not quite sure what you mean by your analogy of the physicist, but it seems that you are just perpetuating the problem I pointed out. All the data about carbon dioxide and temperature from ice cores was compiled into this chart displayed in Al Gore's movie, http://www.adobe.com/uk/designcenter/thinktank/womack/tt_womack_2.jpg , The way we estimate carbon dioxide's effect on the atmosphere is then drawn from the correlation, and then that information is fed into models of greenhouse effects. If the information we drew from the correlation was wrong, which is what the 800 year gap suggests, then ALL the current models are completely worthless.
I will concede that it is likely RESPONSIBLE energy will cost more but that much; at some point it might be on par. Chicken or Egg.
You should read into Cost Externalization.
I can't regularly eat fish caught in any lake in my state because mercury from the coal plants have ruined the lakes and I've seen it gradually getting worse every decade. That is a real example of an externalized cost-- so if I want fish I have to pay more for it (if you catch it is free;) aside from the non-monetary costs I doubt you care about. My nephew is autistic, possibly a result higher levels of mercury... Not that we will ever solve the impacts of toxins to even half the consensus of global warming... so drink up and have another smoke!!
Massive government welfare is always included for conventional power but never for the alt power.
Nuclear: never ever has been profitable; they milk the tax payers. Its that simple.
Coal: gov subsidizes collection and the building of plants; some even get free money for upgrades!
Hydro: gov subsidizes building; its probably the cheapest conventional power source we have and its "green" but limited areas. However, they can be used for baseload power storage.
Wind: a few tax credits in a few areas for not that many years; yet they've been around for decades "competing" on their own merit anyhow.
You sound so short sighted and selfish I shouldn't waste my time... Wind / Solar / Hydro have ZERO FUEL COSTS. I can't believe how often people forget the obvious, its like they think coal just rains down from the sky... A Coal plant takes years to pay for itself but then it STILL has to buy FUEL. A wind farm takes years to pay for itself but it NEVER needs to buy fuel. Even with a higher startup cost, in the long term it wins. Its a simple problem of Maintenance (wind) vs Fuel + Maintenance (coal+plant.) Wind farms don't require as many maintenance engineers (not low paid) and operate without workers. Wind wins.
Bats are a problem. Birds are not. I won't argue this point because its the class fallacy: False Dilemma. Its like arguing that drinking sewage is no better than drinking poison. More "GREEN" doesn't have to be perfectly GREEN, just better. I suppose you want an SUV until the perpetual motion engine is perfected?
You sound like an American.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The educated guess is the "cliff."
Its a simple matter of perspective; its a matter of scope. Accuracy does not apply:
A "bowl" being a "zoomed out" out longer term perspective. Seeing the lowest/worst point and the recovery; in a longer time scale.
A "cliff" would be seeing the downward slope and possibly not even looking as far as the lowest point. (Once you accelerate too fast it doesn't matter when you go splat! Once the climate gets screwed and creatures die it DOES matter if can get worse; however, in terms of prevention; its too late, you lost.)
Neither perspective is WRONG. They could agree but get hung up arguing over nothing; I've seen science nerds do this plenty of times on many things.
You can have your bowl-- but I'd rather not be pushing towards the LOW POINT-- I'd rather be slowing it down and widening out that curve to the transition is slower; if not preventing the whole thing in the 1st place (which is too late at this point... doesn't mean we should be accelerating and deepening the bottom.)
If there is nothing we can do about it (which is false) we do not require 110% to try to do something about it.
Why do we make futile attempts to stabilize and secure computers? They always have holes and they always crash. Why bother!
I work hopelessly to prevent crashes and data loss so when it does happen its not as bad/deep and not as often. It still happens anyhow. I don't think about the "bowl" when thinking about prevention because it doesn't matter that I can reboot or replace parts and rebound. I do think about it in terms of patience and not going into a panic-- the "bowl" perspective isn't wrong-- prevention and minimizing is the same solution for both.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Gotta agree with this. The environmental movement seems to have been subverted by people wanting to regulate CO2 emissions (likely for their own enrichment), such that the issues being caused by the numerous pollutants that are most definitely attributable to human activity aren't really getting much mindshare anymore.
Software Inventor
regulation of the free market caused this mess
That's not really true.
Um... 1% interest rates... Allan "Bubbles" Greenspan...
Truth is, a totally free market doesn't work,
Unknown. You don't have a free market. You've had the government supporting banks via a central bank and manipulating interest rates for decades if not centuries. Banks are by nature insolvent, they only hold a tiny fraction of the money which they say they hold. Without government and central bank support they would be collapsing regularly at a local level. Instead, they get to grow to massive size and take down the entire country with them. Is it 2 trillion in subsidies so far? After so many zeros one simply loses count.
We just have to make sure that that regulation works for all of us.
What, are you, 10 years old? How exactly are you going to "make sure" when the other guy has tens of billions?
Why do you think the Federal Reserve exists? It's a cartel created by Wall Street to cement their place in the national government and guarantee that profits go to the banks and losses go to the taxpayer. And... Look at what's happening... Profits are going to the banks and the taxpayer is taking on trillions in crap. Regulation working for us all.
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We now know that life is in danger in Earth.
Life should continue after Earth is dead.
Club of Rome and other ideas could end life when Earth is dead.
We need to further develope our capability to spread life to SPACE.
So, stop thinking now is normal, we can not stop here. Life is in danger, do not stop, further further, we have things to do.
Stop wasting, because resources are limited. But we need to develop further and further, the road is very long ahead. Stop waste, hard work.
It is a shame to consider this is the end of life, Earth is mother not grave.
Dyson shouldn't be judged as harshly as he has been, he's just asking for more data.
Judging from some of the responses here, he might have a point.
So, for you a global warming of a few degrees (which is what the most extreme forecast of global warming has come up with), that has been matched with higher recorded temperatures in the past will now cause global destruction? You also equate a global winter where all crops failed for a multi-year period & which caused recorded extinctions with higher global temperatures which have not.
My budgie tells me that you're a twit with no comprehension of the difference between warmer temperatures being bad for those in sea-level areas and planetary destruction. He says that you are part of the groundswell of uninformed zealots that Freeman Dyson was complaining about. So far, I agree with him.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
there is a distinct shortage of people who are actually able to provide DATA to support their opposition to it.
I am one of those people who can provide data to support my opposition to it. Namely, the very compelling data that Professor Patterson collected in the field.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I see your point.
Of course models have limits. Science itself has limits, that's all I know. I plead ignorant as I am not a scientist of sort, I don't have a scientific education background and my maths grades were awful in high school so I don't believe I have many chances (will and time) to understand the science behind models and so on.
However, I profoundly doubt whatever comes out of the Heartland's mouths as they are notorious for warping information for corporate gain and I respect the work of thousands of climate scientists around the world whose independent research is pointing out - whatever the differences - to one conclusion.
No sig is good enough for me.
How often in talks about environmental issues do you hear about heavy metal leeching, or emission standards?
There's an obsession with CO2, and it's has come to dominate the discussion so much that other issues are being forgotten or ignored by the public.
Lots of junk references do not make his post any more real than hand-waving.
If you want some facts:...
Oh here's 10 myths about climate change debunked: http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/ten-myths.html
Oh, they used the reverse-causality graph linking temperature & CO2; that one is my favorite. Except that the CO2 rises & falls lag the corresponding temperature changes by about 800 years. Good science, that.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by your analogy of the physicist
I am not sure what you mean by analogy. Take a spectrograph of the suns incoming radiation, take spectrographs of the IR leaving the Earth under various temperatures. Take data on the how the major components (including Carbon Dioxide) of the earths atmosphere absorb various wavelengths of light. Give all this to a physicist, and ask them to estimate the temperature of the earth under various levels of CO2 in the atmosphere
If the information we drew from the correlation was wrong, which is what the 800 year gap suggests, then ALL the current models are completely worthless.
So you say. It sounds implausible to me that all the models are based on data from ice cores. It seems that Climate science is large enough that people would have used multiple different ways of estimating the effect of CO2 on temperatures. I don't see how Al Gore's movie provides any evidence that other models of global warming doesn't exist.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
THEREFORE, the relative importance of global warming is of the utmost relevance.
This is the most sensible position. How can we use our limited efforts to minimize risk?
And your point is?
Climatology? Please spare me, its the equivalent of astrology and why?
The physicist will be able to provide accurate predictive results in the vast majority of theoretical scenarios presented to him.
The climatologist can barely predict future weather in a given set of theoretical climate scenarios and the reasons why are highly complex and could fill volumes of text to circle the globe.
If the Climatologist can barely tell me what tomorrows weather will be let alone tell me what the future climate will be how is it that a Physicist is considered a lesser scientist in the study of climatology and thus not a valid authority.
Those who study Climate are used to be right 50% or less of the time. Those who study conventional physics, do not have that luxury.
Get a clue and grab an umbrella.
"Enviromentalists like Al Gore..."
Al Gore is an environmental profiteer.
If he were a true environmentalist, his house wouldn't have a carbon footprint the size of a small town.
He has made millions off his so-called "research" and it conveniently goes into his own pocket.
Please do not insult the people who really care about the earth by calling Mr. Gore an environmentalist.
"Why is a person who is aware of and opposed to the large-scale destructive effects and massive alterations we are having on Earth's ecosystems and climate called a "nutter"
A nutter would be someone who is willing to sacrifice the comfort, well being, and even lives of other humans to achieve the environmental goals they espouse. Often the nutter does things like releasing minks from farms resulting in loss of thier lives (minks get killed from exposure, cars, dogs, etc.), emotional distress (minks kill domesticated animals, too!), and financial stress on business owners and insurers alike. Nutters also do things like burning Hummers thereby releasing in one hour chemicals far more toxic than the exhaust they will produce for the next 5 years of driving. Nutters also blow up fishing vessels, sabotage petroleum facilities, and actively encourage others to do the same.
Nutters also systematically oppose advancements in the developing world that industrialized nations already posess. Sounds ok until you consider the things they are opposing like electricity, water treatment, pesticide use, and sanitation. Those advancements could save countless lives, and yet the nutter places more value on their cause than a few million dead babies in Africa each year.
Normal members of society differ from nutters in this: they do not place the value of huiman life below the pursuit of their ideals. They also differ in the fact that most nutters can't see the clear cut for the trees, ie. nutters do things that are more destructive than the things they are offended by.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Well, I have read a number of other articles (more informative than this one). And yes, here it can take 1 year to get second degree, even with the GE if you share lots of units. The opposition to the idea of Global Warming seems rather lazy to me; I have never read an argument against global warming that tried to quantify the actual effect of unchecked growth of carbon emissions. This leaves a number of models of carbon emissions all of which agree than unchecked growth of CO2 emissions would have some pretty nasty effects over the next 100 years. The only credible arguments for doing nothing I have seen have been economic arguments along the lines of "it isn't worth doing anything yet". How we respond to any of this seems to have more to do with politics than which model is correct, but I don't see that debates on /. are going to resolve anything that climate sciences hasn't. For once, talking about M$ vs Open Sores gives us no answers.
Firstly, humans (myself included) are not the be-all and end-all on this planet, and if you disagree with that you're an a$$.
Secondly, the overwhelming majority of environmental activists are strong believers in non-violence. It is contradictory to their cause not to be. There is a tiny fringe that believes that property destruction is justified to stop or bring attention to crimes against eco-systems, but they all stop short of hurting people, and the tactic is in any case heavily frowned upon within the movement as a whole.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Firstly, humans (myself included) are not the be-all and end-all on this planet, and if you disagree with that you're an a$$.
Agreed. However, there seem to be many people who place the value of human lives below what is reasonable and rational. If those people also happen to be environemntal activists I would put those people in the above mentioned "nutters" category. I think they also fall into your your category of "a$$" though on the other side of the spectrum.
"Secondly, the overwhelming majority of environmental activists are strong believers in non-violence."
I never said they weren't. For instance, my sister woks for the state government in Oregon and, it could easily be argued, does more positive good for environemntal caues in a week from within the system than outside actvists do in a year.
"but they all stop short of hurting people"
I call bullshit on this. I specifically referred to people who did violent things and lumped in people who did incredibly stupid and destructive things in the "nuter" category. I also added in those who, through their efforts, cause or increase human suffering and death indirectly through their activism as those rack up the largest potential death toll. For instance, consider the misery and deaths atributed to the continued burning of coal when clean nuclear power is available. Activists who protest against nuclear power are partially responsible for this. Their obstructions go back decades and thereby have caused immense suffering. If black lung, emphysema, and death isn't "hurting people" I don't know what is.
I never implied that everyone who is an environmental activist is a "nutter." If I were a more suspicious person I would be thinking "thou dost protest too much." As it is, I will wonder why you state that a tactic you claim never happens (hurting people) is "heavily frowned upon." Why would it even come up if it never, ever happens?
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
It's not a lie, but the person who started this thread misremembered the quote (and who said it). The actual quote was spoken by Princeton physicist Dr. WIll Happer, whom Al Gore fired. According to Happer, Gore said that "science will not intrude on public policy." Happer went on to say, "I did not need the job that badly."
Here are 96 Google hits to back me up.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
For the record, I was referring to the tactic of property damage as being heavily frowned upon, not the tactic of violence against people, which is universally condemned.
I submit that there is a large difference between, say, for the sake of argument ;-) rolling your logging truck parked in the old growth forest off a cliff, and torching it with you in it. The mainstream media, and now the US government, makes no distinction, largely because they want to keep logging old growth forests.
Remember that while terrorism is a (repulsive and stupid) tactic, labelling activists terrorists is also a tactic in the conflict.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The USSR has nothing to do with western capitalist countries. With communism there was no belief or reliance on the Markets. You can't ignore that their system has no comparable ideology similar to our own. Central Planning and Regulation is not a problem. Central Control and decision making is. Just remember that the far left in this country still believes in capitalism and relies on it. They just want more oversight. That is different from the government controlling all means of production. I have one flagrant communist friend and even she is waffles when I press her on what she actually believes.