Disputed Island Disappears Into Sea

RawJoe writes "India and Bangladesh have argued for almost 30 years over control of a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have ended the argument for them: the island's gone. From the article: 'New Moore Island, in the Sunderbans, has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said. "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.'"

Comments

Reminds me of kids.

[Merls the Sneaky]

If you can't play nice with your toys and share, mom will take them off you.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[girlintraining]

If you can't play nice with your toys and share, mom will take them off you.

"Buy land. They've stopped making it." -- Mark Twain.

Addendum: They're deleting it now too.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[sopssa]

But it's not like its completely gone now. According to the article the sea level is raising 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) an year, so the water is only just a little bit over the land. Lay over some sand, wood, whatever and you have land again - or build those wooden houses on piers. Venice is also build on top of water in the middle of a lagoon.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[dkleinsc]

Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century seems even more apropos. Only difference is that it's an island instead of Planet X.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to have forgotten about soil erosion, which is a big problem with unconsolidated soils which are recently submerged.

And regardin edification, you can't just build stuff on disputed land. Israel does that but it only does that because the people they are oppressing can barely muster any rocks to throw at them. You don't do that to a nation which has a semblance of an army.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[cabjf]

Being under sea level hasn't stopped New Orleans from building, blaming the government for not making better levies to stop the ocean, and slowly rebuilding...

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Dishevel]

You can not start telling people that they are responsible to make rational, informed decisions. What the hell are you thinking? Next you are going to tell me that people should pay their bills!

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[hey!]

Spoken like somebody who has no idea the power that moving water has.

Water takes material from some places and piles it up in others, and it's incredibly hard to dispute with it. You might look at a sandbar that has been stable for decades, and think maybe I could shift it a bit to suit myself, or make it a little higher and have an island. Forget it. That sandbar is the result of self-organized criticality. It *looks* stable, but the individual sand grains in that sandbar are constantly changing.

My wife grew up near the ocean, and there was this semi circular reef extending from two points on the shore that comes out of the water on spring tides, when you can walk the whole thing. Many times I've surfed my kayak over that reef into the deep water inside. The reef consists of cobbles ranging from the size of a grapefruit to the size of a soccer ball. One day one of the neighborhood kids had an idea: if we breech the reef at one point, we'll be able to anchor our boats inside the reef and not have to pay for a slip or launch fees. Next low tide he had the entire neighborhood carrying rocks away from the selected point, until they'd converted the reef into a pair of breakwaters creating an artificial harbor. It was an impressive feat, but the first storm -- not even a *big* storm mind you, and you couldn't tell the spot they excavated from any other spot. There literally was no trace left of their labors.

What you'd have to do with this sunken island is create a new, artificial island using huge granite boulders like they use in breakwaters; or maybe you could set up coffer dams and build a reinforced concrete sea wall. But you have to admit that you're creating an artificial island.

The reason that India and Bangladesh are fighting over this is to establish Law of the Sea rights to the surrounding water. They are trying to evade negotiations over resource disputes by appealing to a "natural" right in artificial law. Using an uninhabited island to establish territorial sovereignty is dicey enough. Using an *artificial* island is clearly absurd.

They should just resolve the underlying dispute, instead of using legal flim-flammery.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great, but you have no sense of humor.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[jellomizer]

That would be my approach to Israel and Palestine problems with Jerusalem Just say no one owns the areas... No residences are allowed but you can visit it for the history and religious pilgrimages. Perhaps the UN will make sure everyone plays fair in the area.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats right, because the last time they had an army, they decided to wipe out Israel... and lost.

Israel plays dirty, but so do the "people they oppress". If you want to back one side over another, find out whats really happening.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[NoSleepDemon]

That'd be because "Israel", formerly known as Palestine, was given away by the British to the Jewish. Understandably the locals were a little bit miffed at that.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

Syntax Error: Unclosed Paren In .sig

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[rrohbeck]

And even granite boulders are not a long term fix. I was amazed at how many of the huge (around 5 ft) rocks behind the beach were displaced by the recent storms here in Southern California.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[ravenshrike]

It's also a big problem with large sandbars created in the 1970s by a flipping hurricane, the current object of dispute.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[datapharmer]

I've heard Obama blamed for some crazy things, but this takes the cake.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[erikdotla]

You gave me a great visual which got completely out of control in my head:

Imagine India read your message and thought, "Hey, if we just GO there and build an artificial island, we'd clearly be reamed by the international community... but if we LAUNCHED enormous granite boulders from India into the sea as part of, say, a scientific experiment, and they happened to land on that island and were big enough, we'd have sovereignty again!"

Then of course, Bangladeshi spies discover the plan and formulate a boulder launching initiative of their own.

There's a great boulder arms race, a frantic push to move boulders to the coast, boulders destroyed before they can be loaded by opposition spies, boulder transport sabotage, and when they finally reach the coast and the enormous catapults specifically built by whichever local contractor said they could get them done in time are deployed, the great boulder launching war begins, each launching boulders "harmlessly" as part of scientific experiments toward the same island at the same time, using catapults prone to poor accuracy due to the late contractor bidding and the fact that they were built in India and Bangladesh.

I can see the headline now:
Mar 29, 2014: RARE MID-AIR BOULDER COLLISION RAISING TENSIONS
Indian statesman quoted as saying "This is the fourth incident of Bangladeshi's clearly ruthlessly expansionist government interfering with our harmless scientific experiments through high-tech mid-air boulder tracking technology they have secretly been developing with neighboring terrorist states for years."

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Uranium-238]

Not just by the Brits you idiot...it was the UN who voted to give them the land since the whole of the western world felt bad/guilty about the holocaust.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[timeOday]

"Buy land. They've stopped making it." -- Mark Twain.

Addendum: They're deleting it now too.

This is no joke. Much of the world's most valuable real estate is on the world's coastlines, which are now being eroded by global warming. We're talking trillions of dollars here. Who bears the cost? You perhaps? Governments around the world are spending a lot of money on sea walls, restoring beaches and buttressing cliffs.

I can see both sides, since beachfront property owners are no more personally responsible for global warming than anybody else is. However, since it is a slow process, I believe there should be a gradual (e.g. 10 year) transition from public to private liability. This will give global warming believers and doubters a chance to put their money where their mouth is by selling or shorting coastal real estate :)

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

UK or UN, so what. If some far-away know-it-alls decided to take away the home your family had been living in for 10 generations and give it to somebody else because they felt bad about something that had happened on another continent, wouldn't you be pissed off?

I know I would. That's our home, you assholes!

And it's all well and good for Israel to point to the UN decision back then, but they've been in violation of UN decisions concerning Palestine for 30+ years now. (With US help, which is why "Iraq is violating UN directives OMG!" was so disingenous of our government.)

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Grishnakh]

And regardin edification, you can't just build stuff on disputed land. Israel does that but it only does that because the people they are oppressing can barely muster any rocks to throw at them. You don't do that to a nation which has a semblance of an army.

I thought Israel WON that land in a WAR, wherein the Arab nations all tried to attack them, and lost.

I don't see the problem here. If you don't want to lose land to an enemy, don't attack him.

The same thing happened in WWII. Germany lost some valuable farmland to France. They never did get it back. Why isn't anyone complaining that France is building on disputed land? I'm sure Germany wouldn't mind having it back.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[ascari]

Me too, but a little differently: Reminds me of king Solomon and the baby. (1 Kings 3:16-28). If any of the countries actually steps up and does something to limit global warming (i.e. tries to "save the baby") that country should be deemed the rightful owner of the island should it ever reappear. Or maybe get the fishing/mineral rights on the piece of seabed where it once was. Or something. Or not.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Mage66]

Erosion is a natural process and isn't caused by "Global Warming". Global Warming isn't happening as the data says we've been cooling since 1998. Global Warming isn't responsible for that Island being covered by water, but storm action can be.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[stdarg]

Don't mix up actual houses and homes with political authority in a region. Do you honestly think the UN sent troops or something to go kick Palestinians out of their very houses?

Now I know many Palestinians lost their homes in later wars; some say they left voluntarily others say they were kicked out by the Israeli army. Either way, that's not what you're saying and has nothing to do with the founding of Israel.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd be because "Israel", formerly known as Palestine, was given away by the British to the Jewish. Understandably the locals were a little bit miffed at that.

First of all, show me a map that ever showed Palestine as an independent entity. Or one that predates the original founding of Israel that occurred 2500+ years ago. Jews have lived in that area is significant numbers since the original founding. Oh, and by the way, the British opposed the creation of Israel, and the mass immigration of jews to the area when they pulled out of the middle east. So how does that count as giving it away?

If you are going to make an argument, fabricate better facts so you are at least believable.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Whether the decision to give a *part* of the so-called Palestine (cca. 20 %!) was motivated by Holocaust (and if so, to what degree) is a rather complex topic. I wouldn't bet on certainty in this case.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Arabs living in the part of Palestine later given to Israel were also encouraged to leave the land by surrounding Arab states which hoped that once the Israeli land would be Arab-free, they would be able to launch an all-out attack and kill everyone in their path. Unfortunately for them, this outcome did not materialize.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[sabt-pestnu]

Much of the world's most valuable real estate is on the world's coastlines, which are now being eroded by global warming.

Someone else pointed out your "global warming" fallacy. I'd like to point out, though, that while some coasts have eroded, others have accreted. See: Continental Drift.

In many cases, the "erosion" you decry has been happening for literal millenia. The only reason it becomes topical is because someone relied on their coastline "remaining unchanged forever", and is QQing now because they were wrong about that.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

PEOPLE that build their houses inland,
    People that buy a plot of ground
Shaped like a house and build a house there,
    Far from the seaboard, far from the sound

Of water sucking the hollow ledges, 5
    Tons of water striking the shore,
What do they long for, as I long for
    One salt smell of the sea once more?

People the waves have not awakened,
    Spanking the boats at the barber’s head:, 10
What do they long for, as I long for—
    Starting up in my inland bed,

Beating the narrow walls and finding
    Neither a window nor a door,
Screaming to God for death by drowning!— 15
    One salt taste of the sea once more?

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[BlackSnake112]

Not just by the Brits you idiot...it was the UN who voted to give them the land since the whole of the western world felt bad/guilty about the holocaust.

Agreed. This was a mistake in my opinion. Nothing against people of Jewish faith, but before WWII was anyone stopped from going to the holy land? I am not talking the crusades here. I am talking about the 1800s, and early 1900s. It appears to be that only after the reformation of Israel did the trouble start. Granted there are those who will appose all who do not share their view of things, but the formation of Israel only fanned the flames of their anger.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[BlackSnake112]

I have always thought the same thing. If the UN decided that Israel can exist, it can also decide that those holy sites are important and belong to the whole world. No one owns them. All are free to visit, but no one can live there.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

The jewish people had been buying up land there since long before WW2 in preparation of creating a jewish state there. Any country would be pissed if this had happened to them.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Actually according to the Wiki article on it Israel TOOK the land.

They made what they call a "preemptive attack" on Egypt claiming that Egypt and the other Arab nations were planing to attack, which they deny. Since the other nations had mutual defense treaties with Egypt they got involved as well.

Consider that in some ways Israel has become as bad as the Germans in regards to how they treat the Palestinians, no blatant attempt at genocide but striping them of property, rights and freedoms.

And I just know that last comment is likely to get me flamed, oh well, Its just my opinion, take it or leave it.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Talpatti_Island
that page tells the whole story of this Island, how it appeared naturally in the 1970s, and also shows that it's more erosion than global warming that made it disappear

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Grishnakh]

Actually according to the Wiki article on it Israel TOOK the land.

That's usually what victors do after a war. France did it to Germany, and no one's complaining.

Here's the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

They made what they call a "preemptive attack" on Egypt claiming that Egypt and the other Arab nations were planing to attack, which they deny.

Why would Egypt amass 1000 tanks and 100,000 soldiers on the border if they weren't planning to attack? Sorry, but I fail to see how Israel was in the wrong about this one. It's not like they made up some allegations of WMDs in Egypt, which were then never found except for some old and non-functional bombs that someone forgot about.

In addition, the Wiki article says that Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran. A blockade is recognized as an act of war. So legally, Israel didn't even start this war, Egypt did. Israel merely responded to an act of war with an invasion. There's nothing against the rules of war here.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[PGOER]

I don't consider it global warming, I like to think of it as "climate change". So every time there isn't data that supports my arguments, and your freezing your ass off in winter I can point to the artic and local glaciers and say "It's not supposed to be cold here!! It's supposed to be cold over there!!". I don't know what causes weird weather but its pretty interesting.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition, the Wiki article says that Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran. A blockade is recognized as an act of war.

Not if the waters being blockaded are your own and if you look at a map, israel doesn't have claim to mouth of the straits, only egypt and saudi arabia do.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Israel WON that land in a WAR

Yeah, that war was clearly a mulligan.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Grishnakh]

The straits are necessary for navigation between Israel and the Indian Ocean. Blockading them is an act of war; it certainly isn't an act of peace. It's an 8-mile wide strait; it's not like it's a river or something. Israel's invasion, in light of the blockade and the invasion force on its border, was just.

If the Arab nations really wanted to do the right thing, they'd carve out some of their own land and give that to the Palestinians. After all, it was their (the Arab nations') actions that caused all this trouble in the first place.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[IdleTime]

It's almost as if I wish Hitler had succeeded when it comes to the jews. Israel has been nothing but a problem now for over 60 years, a nuclear terrorist state. And nothing indicates a change over the next 60 years or 600 years, other than for the worse.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[BobMcD]

Lots of good info here for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_of_Palestine

It appears that, in that day, Nahum Sokolow called it 'Palestine' as well. There's a direct quote there.

Oh, neat - here's exactly what you asked for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UN_Partition_Plan_For_Palestine_1947.png

It seems until the British withdrew, because they couldn't get the Jews and Arabs to agree, there was never any notion that the place would be called 'Israel', or that the Israelis would command control of the entire thing.

I'm certain you must have facts to refute that article though, due to your brash-sounding statements. Please, share. Even edit the article to add your clarity, too.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[amorsen]

That's usually what victors do after a war. France did it to Germany, and no one's complaining.

I hope you won't mind when everyone gets their minds together and take it back from Israel then. The WMD excuse ought to work this time.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Dr. Spork]

If Iraqis bulldozed your house and herded you into a refugee camp, would you be so sure that they're doing the right thing? I mean, you attacked them...

I don't think you're really helping the Israeli cause by suggesting that victors of wars deserve spoils unconditionally, because there are many states who are stronger than Israel, and many more that will be. If you suggest that all it takes to legitimately rule the Holy Land is to take it by arms, that cuts both ways.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Keick]

Sounds like it would make a great game too... Maybe we could call it Boulder Dash?

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to have forgotten about soil erosion, which is a big problem with unconsolidated soils which are recently submerged.

Exactly. And, chances are, the island wasn't a reasonably tenable piece of real estate to begin with, due to its relative elevation: a mild storm could very well make it "sink", too. It's happened many times before.

And what's to say that the increase in sea levels was actually to blame for this? I can easily see erosion of soils being a significant part, particularly if the island is small.

Have there been any storms in the area recently?

And regardin edification, you can't just build stuff on disputed land. Israel does that but it only does that because the people they are oppressing can barely muster any rocks to throw at them. You don't do that to a nation which has a semblance of an army.

Are we paying attention? HAMAS exists. AKs are more popular than shoes on the West Bank.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

And regardin edification, you can't just build stuff on disputed land. Israel does that but it only does that because the people they are oppressing can barely muster any rocks to throw at them. You don't do that to a nation which has a semblance of an army.

The United Kingdom did something similar with the Falklands Islands. They built a community and took over the disputed territory between them and Argentina.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Grishnakh]

"Everyone" tried that back in 1967, and got their asses handed to them by tiny Israel.

Which "everyone" are you talking about now? The only people I see wanting to take on Israel over this are the same "everyone" that got the crap kicked out of them back then.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Hognoxious]

It's only their capital because the allies gave it to them after WW2. It's belonged to someone else for most of the last 2,000 years - shouldn't they have a bit of a say in it too?

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[groslyunderpaid]

We're talking trillions of dollars here. Who bears the cost? You perhaps.

 
Holy Moly!! Here in the US, I can't even imagine what it would be like for citizens to bear the cost of a 10 trillion dollar liability!!

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Hognoxious]

I'm Greek, you insensitive clod!!! Germany pays my bills.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Hognoxious]

I would pay good money to watch that.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Buy land. They've stopped making it." -- Mark Twain.

Except in Dubai

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[amorsen]

Well "everyone" handled South Africa, which ended peacefully. "Everyone" handled Serbia, which wasn't peaceful. "Everyone" handled Iraq after Kuwait was invaded.

I'm holding high hopes that Israel will be handled too, preferably peacefully of course.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Grishnakh]

because there are many states who are stronger than Israel, and many more that will be.

Which ones are those? Israel is nuclear-armed, don't forget. No other state in that area is. If Iran gets too close, they're going to be nuked.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

:) -you should write for living.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

The land you're talking about that Germany lost to France in WWII is also disputed land that has bounced back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth from Germany to France through history. After WWII, Germany kind of lost the moral right to complain about it, even in the German peoples own estimation, what with all the genocide and invasion and so forth. In a few more generations, some Germans might start rumbling about their ancestral lands and blah, blah, blah. Except, maybe they won't what with the EU existing now and the fact that they can go and live and work there if they want to, use the same money, etc., etc.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

find out whats really happening

Well, from above it looks like this.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

8 miles is rather less than the twelve miles generally accepted as a nations territorial waters. Generally, in order to have permission to navigate through an area like that, there need to be treaties in place. Most likely there's a treaty between Egypt and Saudi Arabia for mutual use and defense of the waters, with other countries as third party signatories, or separate treaties between other nations, such as Israel and each of the two principals who essentially own the straight. So, the question is if it was legal under the treaty for Egypt and Saudi Arabia to blockade the straight. They would have to be fools to sign any treaty that didn't allow them to jointly blockade the straight, either that or have received some massive compensation. As for if one side was allowed to unilaterally blockade the straight, that gets more complicated, but is also a matter between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, not for a third country. So, it comes down to the issue of what kind of treaty Israel had with Egypt for use of the straight, whether Israel had held up its end of the bargain, and if Egypt was within its rights to suspend the treaty without a military attack by Israel.
Also bear in mind that this was hardly a blockade of all of Israel. They had plenty of coastline on the Mediterranean, and via the Mediterranean, access to the Suez canal, and thus the Red Sea, and thus the Indian Ocean. True, the blockade did basically shut down Israels shipping from the mouth of the Jordan to the Indian Ocean, and put a massive dent in their role as a transport hub, hurting their businesses and Israel itself financially, but not in any humanitarian sense where vital supplies couldn't get through. Of course, if Egypt was also getting revenues from this shipping business, then they were hurting themselves as well to do it. Ultimately, if Israel needed access from the Jordan to the Red Sea, they could have built (obviously at great expense) a canal from the jordan to the Mediterranean and sent shipping that way and then via the Suez canal (destroying the profitability of it, but at least maintaining a short route). So, the question really becomes if Egypt was within its rights to blockade, which it looks like they were and if Israel was within its rights to attack them for it, which at first glance it doesn't look like they were. Maybe they were though, it kind of depends on treaties and pre-existing arrangements, traditional rights, etc. Traditionally though, a nations rights over its territorial waters tend to trump any existing treaties and therefore aggressive war against them on who they decide to let through is considered illegal.
So, the question becomes whether or not Israel was within its rights to attack on other grounds. You mentioned that Egypt was massing tanks and troops along its border with Israel. The massing of troops doesn't necessarily mean anything though. It's not uncommon for nations to mass troops along their borders, especially if they're anticipating the possibility of a war, even if they don't intend to start one. It may well be true that they intended to start one. Maybe Israel had some ironclad intelligence that Egypt was going to start a war, but intelligence is almost never 100% certain, so I doubt it. So, ultimately, it boils down to other nations taking an aggressive stance against Israel, and Israel taking the first strike against them. Was war a certainty, or were the other nations just waiting for that first strike? It's generally agreed in these situations that you do not make the first strike. Whether it's a fist fight or a war, that makes you the one who started it, no matter how much of a jerk the other guy is being and no matter what he said about your mamma. Until the other side is at least definitely trying to kill your people, you don't start killing theirs.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuking a non-nuclear armed state, unless you can somehow miraculously hit only military targets, and probably even then, is generally considered today to be a pretty serious war crime as a direct attack on the civilian population. At least, that's the sort of thing we've been told again and again by the nuclear-armed states. "We have them", they say, "but we would never use them except to defend ourselves from nuclear attack." Of course, I suppose there's always the "We had to use nukes against them, otherwise they would have won, and they would have ended up with our nukes, and we simply cannot allow nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of anyone who would use them. That's why we had to nuke them." That kind of twisted logic would probably go down quite well with most of the world, so I guess they can use them.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Brother Seamus]

To mangle an Einstein quote: I know not with what weapons World War IV will be fought, but World War III will be fought with sticks and stones.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[fm6]

Funny you should mention Venice:

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/tourism/veneto/sinking-venice.asp

The sea is a relentless source of destruction; global warming just makes an existing problem worse. And throwing out some sand or rock is at best a short-term solution, as anybody with ocean-front property will tell you.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a wave exposed hard rock in the middle of the ocean. there is no soil to wash away. and yes, we have the technology to measure elevation to the millimeter. and yes this island sank and was not washed away. (or if you prefer, it washed away because it sank)

warm water expands. given the fact than no one wants to do anything it about it, sucks to be Bangladesh. their best bet is to get rich quick (which by all accounts they are doing a pretty good job at actually)

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is precisely nothing about the parent post that is insightful, and shame on every last person who modded it up just because the troll in question (that it is, in fact, a troll, is not debatable) mentioned a hot political topic that they feel strongly about.

Re:Reminds me of kids.

[RockDoctor]

Israel is nuclear-armed, don't forget. No other state in that area is. If Iran gets too close, they're going to be nuked.

And if a third-party power decided to sell a few dozen under-the-counter more-or-less obsolete warheads to Iran, which the Iranians could fit onto their already-launchable ballistic missiles ... just who is going to be nuking whom? And who would win?
And before you reply just think carefully as to which "third-party" power I'm talking about. Because I've got a short list of three credible ones and several others who could be fronts for the three most-credible ones.

The genie of nuclear proliferation is out of the bottle of containment. Live with it.

Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[XxtraLarGe]

I say this year we nominate Global Warming for the Nobel Peace Prize for providing a peaceful solution to this heated dispute between Bangladesh and India.

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[viridari]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that one actually has to do something to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[MadKeithV]

Aww, come on, I'm sure Global Warming has the BEST of plans for us!

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[arachnoprobe]

Just give it to Al Gore :-)

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're right, the Nobel committee has handed out two Nobel Prizes for NOT being George Bush .

That guy must suck. A lot.

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[Aphoxema]

Damn, beat me to it.

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[royallthefourth]

Worked for Henry Kissinger

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[Yvanhoe]

[troll]Or to even exist...[/troll]

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[Zordak]

And since global warming is not George W. Bush, it seems to be perfectly qualified.

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[martas]

which one's the second one?

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[ArsonSmith]

One ran against GWB in 2000 the other ran against him in 2008. Even though GWB wasn't able to run in 2008.

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes he does, and Cheney appreciates it.

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[Anonymous Coward]

And beyond that, one of the guys given the Nobel Prize for not being George W Bush... starts to act just like George W Bush. Neato.

You'd think the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize guys are roughly the same as the Global Warming guys, that people would kind of get it. *cough* scam *cough*

Re:Just one more reason why Global Warming rocks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there are those that put the count at FOUR:
"Obama's Nobel Is the 'Not George W. Bush' Award"
http://www.newser.com/story/71348/obamas-nobel-is-the-not-george-w-bush-award.html

gewg_

Fascinating

[digitalhermit]

New Moore Island, eh?

So the new name is now No More Island, right?

Re:Fascinating

[Monkeedude1212]

Since its no longer an island, but more likely to become a Coral Reef just off the surface, they'll probably call it Nothing Atoll.

Re:Fascinating

[mindcorrosive]

More like Nuthin' Atol (hat tip to Guybrush Threepwood)

Re:Fascinating

[Anonymous Coward]

New Moore Island, eh?

So the new name is now No More Island, right?

Why do you hate island people?
That was great!

Re:Fascinating

[flanaganid]

If they expect any tourism to see Nothing Atoll, they better have a reef fund.

Re:Fascinating

[rwa2]

Awesome! I can't wait for Bollywood to take this on and make a classical documentary dramedy "Much Ado About Nothing Atoll"

Or, quick, someone photoshop the place with a French vessel and title it: "Much Adieu", a boat, Nothing Atoll
OK, I admit that was weak. I'll stop now. /been spending too much time on Fark lately.

Re:Fascinating

[Anonymous Coward]

it will be called, No Moore Island.

Hey, wait a minute

[HangingChad]

I thought global warming was a myth? Darth Cheney said so.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought global warming was a myth? Darth Cheney said so.

That was when it was cold outside. Now it's warm outside, so global warming must be real. It will go back to being a myth in a few months.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[commodore64_love]

Is there ANY event that would disprove global warming? I shoveled almost 9 feet of snow this winter, setting a new seasonal record, but apparently that is proof of GW. "More moisture in the air means more snow." --- Meanwhile the previous winter we had virtually no snow along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and Al Gore said that too is proof of GW.

I admit it. I'm confused. Lots of snow == GW. No snow == GW. What the fej?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[oldspewey]

Weather |= Climate

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

Well to be fair, both sides of the debate have been using that fallacy, depending on how the weather has been in your local geographical area. It's THE major problem I've had with the climate change debate. The only public person I've heard who's actually tried to call people on it was Krugman over at the New York Times, who pointed out that by selecting your sample years carefully from the last 10-20 years, you can "prove" anything you want about the climate. He was arguing at the time against the anti-AGW crowd (as you might expect).

As for me, I'm inclined to think we do have some cause for concern, based on what little actual evidence I've seen from both sides of the debate. I'm by no means convinced that we have enough evidence to support one side or another. I also think we have some other very good reasons to reduce carbon emissions, including a need to reduce particulate emissions of all kinds (air pollution), reduce dependence on petroleum products (whose supplies are probably running out), reduce the "need" to colonize the Middle East (eliminate the causes of terrorism), etc.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[bdenton42]

I think they're sure that the Earth has been warming up. What they are not so sure about is if humans have any meaningful impact on the warming or if it is just mostly the natural heat/cool cycle at work.

Given that where I live was under a glacier 11,000 years ago IMO a little extra help warming wouldn't hurt... a new ice age would be far more destructive to humans than a higher sea level due to warming.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[ThomConspicuous]

It's actually pretty easy to figure out. Don't stress yourself too hard over it.
Global warming leads to greater water evaporation which leads to greater precipitation in some areas of the world.
Also, the extra warming in the poles pushed cold temperatures down into the Nothern Hemisphere, making it seem unseasonably cold.
This video explains it pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTUuckNHgc

It's all about perception. If the planet was warming in the sense that most people expect GW to be provable, then we'd all be struggling to survive on a scorched earth.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Volante3192]

Local weather != global climate.

Remember, while you were shovelling 9 feet of snow, Vancouver had to truck it in for the Olympics and south Alaska was having record highs. (The usual Arctic wind that keeps those places cool got pushed south a lot.)

Admittedly, trying to justify it with everything that happens is moronic. Weather patterns are massively complex. In the end, what you have to look at is the year to year trend, and by that measure, 200X was the hottest decade on record.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[delinear]

Exactly the point I was about to make - even the people who reject the idea that humans are responsible for global warming admit that it's still happening. My point of view is that I'm open to be convinced, but at the moment it seems to me to be arrogance on behalf of we humans to assume we can have a significant impact, although I suspect we're contributing in a minor way. I also agree we should move to cleaner fuels and be less wasteful in general (hey, there's no reason not to hedge our bets), I think even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow the earth will continue to warm and we need to start thinking of ways to live with that if tackling it is impossible. The problem is the whole topic is so clouded and has now been subverted by groups on both sides with ulterior motives, I don't know who or what to trust anymore.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, this is the sort of reasonable stand I'd prefer to see (and would get the whole issue back on track, I'd hope, since most people are arguing one extreme or the other). Whether or not we're causing it or making it a lot worse, we may as well try and reduce our potential impact as well as dependence on the sorts of products that aren't exactly of infinite supply.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[MozeeToby]

What's the cost of doing something about it (in terms of food production, delayed development, reduced energy availability) compared to the cost of not doing something about it (in terms of food production, lost occupied land, ecological diversity). It's those numbers that I've never seen realistically presented, and it's those numbers that should inform the decisions. Why don't we see those numbers? Because it's really really hard to figure them out, probably impossible with our current understanding of climate, geology, ecology, economics, and sociology.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[commodore64_love]

>>>Given that where I live was under a glacier 11,000 years ago IMO a little extra help warming wouldn't hurt...

It might not have been that long ago. During the Mini-Ice Age from 1200-1850 the glaciers moved forward again, covering various places that are today dry.

Imagine if this were the year 1800, and the former Vice-president was warning us about global warming. Technically he would be right, but the warming wasn't humans fault. It was merely a natural cycle, and a return to the climate that existed pre-1200.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[IICV]

There's no "both sides" of the debate. There's the science, which universally points towards global warming (hell, we've even noticed that over the last forty years, migratory birds in the United States have been getting smaller, which is indicative of generally rising temperatures due to Bergmann's rule), and then there's the people with a PR department, who are busy making it look like there's a debate. Even calling it a "global warming debate" is a victory for them, because the evidence for global warming shows up everywhere.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[commodore64_love]

Most of ye seemed to have missed the point.

I'm confused because pro-GW folks like Gore keep contradicting themselves. LAST year he said the lack-of-snow in the Baltimore-Washington area was proof of global warming. THIS year he said the record snow was also proof of global warming.

What?!?!?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[IICV]

Yeah, what people don't seem to realize is that the global temperature anomaly due to global warming is on the order of 0.4 deg C since 1980. Can you even feel it when the temperature in your room fluctuates by 0.4 C? That's like a soft breeze blowing by.

And yet, that 2/5ths of a degree C represents a tremendous amount of energy when integrated over the entire surface of the Earth. It's definitely going to do something. There will still be an Earth, just not necessarily as we know it now.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[rthille]

"Well to be fair, both sides of the debate have been using that fallacy, ..."
Well, to be fair, there are idiots all over the political and ideological map. Sometimes they end up in your camp, sometimes in the other camp. You can't judge who's right by who's got more idiots on their side...

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[dogmatixpsych]

And a decade does not climate make. For climate we really need to talk about 100s and 1000s of years.

Yes, local weather != global climate, which means that someone shoveling 9 feet of snow in D.C. no more has anything to do with global warming than no snow in Vancouver or Alaska. As one of the posters said above, that's a problem both sides of the GW debate make (attributing weather to climate).

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

Except that the scientists have PR departments too, and what we get from the scientists is PR, and not actual evidence. This isn't the fault of the scientists, it's in part the fault of the sad state of scientific education (in North America, at any rate), the sheer complexity of the science involved (climate science is hard and few of us have time or inclination to become climatologists), the recent skew of the major North American media toward infotainment and newstainment instead of plain old truthy news reporting, and other reasons.

I can go check out your links, and even agree with them, but they mean almost nothing to me because I don't have any way to check the accuracy of the migratory bird data, no easy way to know whether Bergmann's Rule is controversial or settled, or know whether the effect described in the rule is attributable to climate exclusively or to other factors.

I don't know these things because (1) I'm a law student, not a climatologist (2) nobody in the media is talking about this kind of data and (3) nobody in the PR departments of the sciency people or their opponents is using this kind of data in their public debates.

What do?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[aquila.solo]

The real debate isn't over whether or not the Earth is warming, it's over what (if anything) should be done about it. (There's also a debate over whether or not humanity is a major contributor.) Proper science is only concerned with observations, hypotheses, etc. Once you get into the realm of application, it's no longer science; you're then dealing with engineering, policy, business, sociology, etc.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

Indeed. Unfortunately, the stakes are high enough that we really need to figure it all out, and soon.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Bigjeff5]

When you only look back a couple hundred years, the global warming figures look absolutely frightening. Go back about 1000 years and it doesn't look nearly as bad. Go back about 20,000 years and you start to wonder if we should be cranking up the global furnace as fast in order to make the next Ice Age, which is inevitable and devastating, not quite so bad. On that time scale the current warming trend is insignificant and irrelivant. How do you compare a change of less than a degree over the last 150 years (which was coming out of a mini-ice age) to fluctuations of 10-20 degrees over the course of a few hundred years which is what occurs in an Ice Age?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[q-the-impaler]

I think that the Global Warming scare actually hurts the environmental movement. The theory got elevated to gospel, but there is still not enough evidence to prove human interference is the absolute cause. The fact of the matter is being more energy efficient is better for the Earth, the economy of the world, and quality of human life in general. Using Global Warming Armageddon to scare the masses into going green has not had the affect that was desired. People who were already green-minded just became more green, and those who doubt still haven't changed and in fact probably thumb their noses in defiance. Make environmentalism desirable through economic means and it will catch on much better.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Well to be fair, both sides of the debate have been using that fallacy, depending on how the weather has been in your local geographical area. It's THE major problem I've had with the climate change debate.

There are stupid and dishonest people on both sides of most debates. Acting as if both sides are equal because both contain a non-zero number of jerks gives way to much power to jerks. Ignore them. If you listen to the arguments by people who use real data and sound reasoning to argue for a position, which side seems credible to you? Having done this, it is quite clear to me which side is composed of some reasonable people and a few howling idiots, and which side is almost purely howling idiots.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joe_garage]

according to that graph - a cursory look at it indicates in times of major conflicts there is a temp spike upwards.... so ......... well that will never work anyway .......

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

True, but the problem right now is that the idiots are running the asylum. Evaluating public debate in America basically amounts to trying to decide which camp of idiots is more likely to be right than the other camp. In the context of the climate change issue, failure to back the right camp of idiots will likely have disastrous consequences, as it's the idiots we back who are going to make policy.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Bigjeff5]

Admittedly, trying to justify it with everything that happens is moronic. Weather patterns are massively complex. In the end, what you have to look at is the year to year trend, and by that measure, 200X was the hottest decade on record.

Is that why global average temperatures have been falling since 1998? The 90's were just as hot, but they were on the rise. It's a cooling trend now, and CO2 levels haven't slacked off one bit, so that's obviously not the primary cause. We're back down to the average yearly temps we were about 15-20 years ago, and every year is colder than the one before. In fact, the winter of 2008 was the coldest since the 1930's.

If all your graphs stop at 2000, you aren't going to get a good picture of temperatures up to 2009.

On top of that, there are a number of methodology issues with a lot of the more lazy studies - like the fact that a lot of temperature studies use temperature readings from inside metropolitan areas without taking into account the urban heat island effect. Cities are much hotter than the surrounding areas, and while that does contribute to overall warmth if the majority of your readings are from cities, you will have a skewed result.

Combine poor methodology with good timing and you can get some pretty insane results.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[smashin234]

Universally is a strong word. Any evidence for global warming comes with the same amount of evidence against it.

In this article we have people claiming its Global warming causing it, which is said without proof once again...but if we listen to Dr Mörner who has studied ocean levels for 40 years...there is no measurable increase in sea level, and he is an expert in his field...not one person who wrote the Nobel winning report was an expert in sea-level change and yet they make all sorts of claims on being experts on that..

Here is a nice list of everything global warming "causes" as said by the media and scientists:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

If you want to discuss more: lets discuss NASA data being stacked:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/

As you can tell station data has gone down in last few years, and if you plot it against temperature rise, you get a very obvious trend:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf

That tells the story of how bad the NASA datasets are which are one of the main data-sets used in AGW Debate..or we can just get it straight from NASA/..

James Hansen’s colleague Reto Ruedy told the USA Today weather editor:

“My recommendation to you is to continue using CRU data for the global mean [temperatures]. “What we do is accurate enough” — left unspoken: for government work — “[but] we have no intention to compete with either of the other two organizations in what they do best.”

So in other words the NASA data is worse then the data that was doctored purposely by CRU

There is a debate whether you want to bury your head in the sand or not, because the data does not point to ONE thing causing current warming, assuming there is warming considering how much of the data is suspect currently....

And even assuming today's trend is warming, there is debate on the ocean causing a majority of it... Or solar cycles...the science of the climate is far from settled, we have just now scratched the surface...

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[andydread]

The problem is not you local weather as much as the climate itself. It is an undisputed fact that CO2 is a green house gas. That is not in dispute. One doesn't have to look too far to see the effects of Co2 on the climate of Venus. The effect of CO2 can easily be verified. take 2 bottles. fill one with CO2 and cap the other with air in it. Put them in the sun for a few minutes and then measure the temperature in the bottles. The CO2 filled bottle will be warmer. SO if you indiscriminately pump loads of CO2 in the atmosphere what do you think is going to happen? 1+1 always equal 2 Now we are over 350ppm and climbing. What do we do? Stick our heads in the sand? Ignore it until its too late? Just write of science as kook stuff? Or do we look objectively at the situation.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[rrohbeck]

What they are not so sure about is if humans have any meaningful impact on the warming

Wrong. This is just the latest denialist spin.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Rei]

Except that the scientists have PR departments too

Um, what...?

That's news to me. So who funds the scientists' PR departments? Where do they hire their PR agents? Is it one PR agent per scientist, multiple PR agents per scientist, or does each university fund a communal pool of PR agents and contract them out to the scientists? What do I have to major in to become a PR agent for a scientist?

(1) I'm a law student, not a climatologist

Well, then your opinions on climatology aren't worth much then, are they? Perhaps you might want to consider leaving the climate science to the climate scientistsm who've published literally tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers on the subject. Oh, and their "PR departments", too ;)

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[SpryGuy]

In addition to those two questions, factor in these other two questions:

What's the cost if we do something about it, but scientists were wrong (i.e. there isn't any real global warming, or at least human-caused warming) vs. the benefits of doing nothing in that case....

and

What's the cost if we do nothing about it, but scientists were right (i.e. human-caused global warming is quite real and accelerating), vs. the benfits of doing something in that case...

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad higher sea levels will cause another ice age. What do you think will happen when all the glaciers melt and dump cold water into the ocean.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joocemann]

What debate? Nearly all people with enough education to understand the science do not agree there is anything worth debating. By and large the mass of people who think there even is a 'debate' are misled by propaganda and also likely poorly educated in sciences.

If there was a debate, it is this: Well Demonstrated/Evaluated Theory VS. Ignorant Doubt Discarding Evidence and Providing No Viable Alternative Hypothesis.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow the Earth will continue to warm - partly because we kicked off chain reactions that will take time to settle. It's strange to think that it's arrogant to believe we can have a significant impact, especially when we have so much evidence for it. We can and have annihilated entire forests and mountains, sunk islands and created new ones. We have the ability to render massive swaths of land lifeless by detonating salted nuclear devices. We have a lot of available energy, and even the side-effects of its application can have massive ramifications.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[IICV]

You're a law student, right? So when you come out of your cocoon and bloom into a full-fledged lawyer, will you explain every nuance of case research to your clients? Will you explain in excruciating detail the specifics of which laws apply? Will you explain the finest, tiniest aspect of how those laws are enforced? Will you, in short, force each and every one of your clients to have a law degree?

Or will you just give them an overview and expect that they rely on your expertise as a lawyer to cover the details, which is why they hired you?

Anyway, you can look at the evidence yourself. The IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report is freely available; you might want to start with Working Group 1's report and work your way onward from there. Your law school's library may have access to relevant papers as well, which are mentioned in the IPCC reports; if not, it can probably special order them for you. Further, there's a ton of blogs out there written by scientists that tend to discuss global warming if you look for them. Finally, I'm sure there's a climatology department somewhere near you; you can start e-mailing them (or go over there and talk to them!) if you have specific questions.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joocemann]

The people who are not sure are not sure because they don't know enough to have confidence. Sadly these same people conveniently have assurance from other things to which they are ignorant. For some reason when a product of science may have a negative implication to the person, insecurity ensues...

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

..there is still not enough evidence to prove human interference is the absolute cause

Actually there is overwhelming evidence that global warming is caused by human activity. It's just not obvious to most people because they spend their time watching American Idol and getting their information from 'infotainment' channels like Fox and CNN.

Instead of blandly stating as 'fact' something you haven't actually researched, why not try searching out some actual climate scientists and see what they have to say?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

My point of view is that I'm open to be convinced, but at the moment it seems to me to be arrogance on behalf of we humans to assume we can have a significant impact, although I suspect we're contributing in a minor way.

Just like it was arrogance to assume we could have a significant impact on the ozone layer.
Bleh, why are we even having this discussion, this incident is almost completely unrelated. Damn you, oceanographer from the summary!

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes a simple mind to think that's a contradiction.

Warming puts more energy into the atmosphere. This creates more severe storms. Warming creates more evaporation. This can create both droughts (in some areas) and floods (in others).

The pro-GW folks aren't contradicting themselves at all. Conservative and anti-GW minds are just too narrow and rigid and uneducated to grasp what's actually being said and why.

The fact is, all the data, over decades, not only points to global warming, but human-caused global warming. All the data is converging towards, not diverging from, that conclusion. All the data from many widly different disciplines and wildly different forms of measurement all dove-tail nicely. Tens of thousands of scientists from hundreds of countries all come to the same conclusion, independently and working together.

A handful of scientists backed by industry funds saying otherwise is no different from the handful of doctors in the 50's and 60's telling everyone how healthy cigarette smoking was. All these same people denying the reality of global warming over-lap substantially with the same people who denied the reality of the health effects of smoking, and with the people who deny evolution. When a group of people has a history of being consistently wrong, why does anyone pay them any mind any more? Why assume they have any credibility at this point? They don't.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Maxo-Texas]

While I do not entirely buy anthrocentric global warming... this site reduced my belief in helio centric global warming a bit.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

I'm still deciding whether i think the site is biased or not.

However, the solar activity page shows the solar output has dropped since 1980.

And the mars page addresses martian warming. This particular page feels a bit more like an argument than a statement of facts but it's a reasonable argument.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm

So keep your own skeptical blinders on- but give the site a look.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[aaron alderman]

Assuming you are not trolling...

There is no event which would disprove global warming nor is there any event which would prove global warming. Global warming is global, so individual weather events are statistically insignificant.

Both the observations you mention are symptoms of weather instability. It is not inconsistent to say that some areas will receive more snow/rain and others will receive less and that these areas may be the same in different years or even months.

As for the likes of Al Gore, I must ask - Why you are taking him to be an oracle of science? I'm sure you are an intelligent person and if you wish to have an intelligent opinion then you should be relying on reliable sources, not on a politician-cum-climatologist.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joocemann]

If the science doesn't make sense to you, get an education in the related science. These scientists have tried to translate the complexity of their work to meet the needs of the simple and ignorant minds.... But in doing so, the message (by requirement of the recipient) is so dumbed down it is hard to believe. That is the fault of the recipient not having the capacity to understand; not the fault of the scientist to whom the recipient cannot communicate on an even plane.

I find it comical that people only doubt science when it is inconvenient. I find it comical that they demand clearer explanations but make no effort of their own to make themselves capable of receiving the clearer explanation.

How do you explain the big bang to a 3 year old? "A bunch of stuff blew out of a tiny spot, and over a long long time it became the universe; everything around us." But I'm sure a physicist explaining it to another physicist would be a bit deeper.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[The End Of Days]

You hurt your cause by calling anyone who questions your conclusions "deniers." That is an immediate red flag for anyone with a skeptical bent.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Local weather != global climate.

Remember, while you were shovelling 9 feet of snow, Vancouver had to truck it in for the Olympics and south Alaska was having record highs. (The usual Arctic wind that keeps those places cool got pushed south a lot.)

Admittedly, trying to justify it with everything that happens is moronic. Weather patterns are massively complex. In the end, what you have to look at is the year to year trend, and by that measure, 200X was the hottest decade on record.

C'mon! Vancouver's snow problem had to be expected. I lived there for a number of years and snow was constantly a problem in the mountains there. This was more poor human expectations and less global warming.

I also grew up in BC a few hundred miles east from Ketchikan on approximately the same latitude. There were warmer and colder winters. You can't blame everything on global warming.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[misexistentialist]

This study utterly refutes you

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

That's news to me. So who funds the scientists' PR departments?

Well, they don't call them PR departments, true. They call them Environmental lobby groups. Groups like the David Suzuki Foundation in Canada, who do actually do good science, but also release press releases that rely more on PR gibberish than actual data. As I said earlier, I don't blame them for doing so, because they need to get their message in a format that most people understand. But it makes things harder for people like me who want to evaluate the evidence.

(1) I'm a law student, not a climatologist

Well, then your opinions on climatology aren't worth much then, are they?

That's exactly my problem. I want to become reasonably informed about global warming, but I don't have time to go get the appropriate degree, and nobody out there is boiling stuff down to layman's terms so I can make a reasonably informed decision. Instead we get the climate deniers on one hand, who think that volume=debate, and people like you on the other hand, who stoop to insult and "just trust me, I'm a scientist" rhetoric on the other hand. You didn't even bother to ask me which side of the debate I support, before attacking my position and making an argument from the perceived authority of "tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers", none of which I have ever read or am capable of understanding.

For the record, I believe that we should be drastically reducing carbon emissions to mitigate any effect humans are having on the change in climate. I've been intentionally obfuscating this position because (1) climate debates on slashdot always devolve into Holy Wars, thanks to people like you and (2) my support for this position is based more on risk assessment and other incidental effects of reducing carbon dependence than it is on a true understanding of the core of the debate, and this makes me uncomfortable.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Pentagram]

As for me, I'm inclined to think we do have some cause for concern, based on what little actual evidence I've seen from both sides of the debate. I'm by no means convinced that we have enough evidence to support one side or another.

Me too. I understand the science at a basic level (enough extra CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming), but who is to say what is the actual level of CO2 that will make warming significant? And how do all the feedback cycles and other variables fit in?

Wouldn't it be great if we had some sort of system, ooh, let's call it the "scientific method" or something similar, where people who have studied the field could argue with their peers and put forward competing hypotheses to explain what is happening? Also, we could set up organisations to tell the general public what has been concluded -- maybe called the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" or something similarly poncy.

That way we wouldn't all need to make a snap decision on the issue based on an incomplete understanding of the issue.

Personally I'm unconvinced by climate change, just like I'm unconvinced that string theory is a viable theory, or many other advanced scientific topics. As I don't fully understand those fields however, I'm not arrogant enough to believe I know better than the experts.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

What debate? Nearly all people with enough education to understand the science do not agree there is anything worth debating.

This is a very small number of people, relatively speaking. Climate science is hard, and most people are not qualified to understand it, even if only because we chose to specialize in other areas. For the rest of us, because of the nature of the discourse in North America, we're basically told by two opposing sides that we just have to trust them.

   

If there was a debate, it is this: Well Demonstrated/Evaluated Theory VS. Ignorant Doubt Discarding Evidence and Providing No Viable Alternative Hypothesis.

The problem is, both sides are claiming to have the well-demonstrated/evaluated theory, and without a lot of education (or a better media) we're not really qualified to evaluate these positions. I know which side I support (probably the same side you do, in fact), I'm just not as comfortable with my support as you are, because I'm perhaps more aware of how tenuous my understanding of the subject really is.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Pentagram]

My point of view is that I'm open to be convinced, but at the moment it seems to me to be arrogance on behalf of we humans to assume we can have a significant impact, although I suspect we're contributing in a minor way.

It may be arrogance to *assume* humans can have a significant impact, but it is not arrogant to believe the *science* that indicates human have a significant impact. It is more arrogant to believe that one is in a better position to have a view on the issue compared to the experts who study it.

The problem is the whole topic is so clouded and has now been subverted by groups on both sides with ulterior motives, I don't know who or what to trust anymore.

Whilst it is not easy to get a good picture of the science through the fog of the media (which has indeed been subverted by various groups with different motives), how about trusting the scientists? Try believing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Dragonslicer]

Weather |= Climate

Weather is now weather or climate? Well that should make the debate easier.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[skine]

Global warming means that the annual average temperature of the Earth is increasing, and not that local temperatures are necessarily increasing across the board.

The effect it does have on local weather patterns, is that it makes them more variable. So what a person will experience at a given location should be an increase in the frequency of strange weather patterns.

Also, no data or event on its own is proof of anything (except that the data was measured and that the event was observed to occur). They can be used as compelling evidence, but you can be fairly certain that someone who confuses evidence with proof likely doesn't understand the scientific process.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused because pro-GW folks like Gore keep contradicting themselves. LAST year he said the lack-of-snow in the Baltimore-Washington area was proof of global warming. THIS year he said the record snow was also proof of global warming.

RE:

It takes a simple mind to think that's a contradiction.

ROFL!!! LOL!!! Whew, that's a good one.

A handful of scientists backed by industry funds saying otherwise is no different from the handful of doctors in the 50's and 60's telling everyone how healthy cigarette smoking was.

LMAO LULCATS! You are too funny, have you considered stand-up comedy? Really, you'd have to be schizo to follow your arguments without breaking down laughing. Comparing doctors in teh 50's to Climatology in 2010... There is no point there, and you probably weren't alive in the 50's, so you have proven everything you think you know you merely read at some point in your life and psychotically adopted it as your own mantra religion*.
*Guessing Atheism just didn't cut it for you or something.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Dragonslicer]

What's the cost of doing something about it (in terms of food production, delayed development, reduced energy availability) compared to the cost of not doing something about it (in terms of food production, lost occupied land, ecological diversity). It's those numbers that I've never seen realistically presented, and it's those numbers that should inform the decisions. Why don't we see those numbers? Because it's really really hard to figure them out, probably impossible with our current understanding of climate, geology, ecology, economics, and sociology.

One of my pet peeves is that those are political questions, not scientific questions. It's a legitimate position to say that we should do something even if the hypothesis might be wrong, but saying that we should do something does not equal scientific proof. This isn't directed specifically at you, nor am I saying whether the hypothesis is right or wrong, I'm only trying to point out that there should be a certain amount of seperation between the scientific and political parts of the discussion.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Dragonslicer]

There's the science, which universally points towards global warming

Until you can create replicas of Earth (and probably a large part of the solar system as well) in a laboratory and arrange predictable, repeatable experiments, I don't think any science-oriented person should be making such absolute statements.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[timeOday]

Global warming itself is an established fact, and very simple to measure. The oceans are rising, and almost(?) all glaciers are retreating. No specialized knowledge is required to observe that.

Now the question is whether people can change it, which is closely related to whether we caused it in the first place. I am satisfied that we did (at least satisfied enough to justify taking action, just as I take the time to buckle up even when I don't know I'll get in an accident). But admittedly there is less certainty about the "anthro" issue than the fact that the planet is warming.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

You've misunderstood the thrust of my argument, in part because I've been obfuscating my true position to avoid a flamewar. Clearly that didn't work. ;-p

For the record, I'm on-side with the experts you're talking about, and believe we should do something about it. My concern is more with how the issue is playing out in the public sphere in America (very badly, with a lot of mis-information from both sides) and the fact that the experts are answering it all by saying "just trust us, we know what we're doing", which I don't think is an adequate answer.

We need better scientific education at the grade-school level, we need a discourse where magical thinking and entertainment value is not seen as a substitute for the truth, and we need the scientific community to reach out to the rest of us and do a better job of explaining things to us so that we can feel justified in trusting them. The stakes are far too high for the discourse to continue as it has.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joocemann]

I'm a scientist and I have an education in biology. This does not serve to be directly relevant, but gives me a level of understanding of complex ecological systems, the implications of changing environments, etc. And by being involved in science as a whole, what I learn is how the scientific process is carried out and what it means to become a credited/established scientist. It means you've done your job very well for a long time.

By understanding how science works and how the heads of research get to where they are, I am made much more confident in their work/theories.

Surely it is possible to inject doubt, but when the doubt has no alternative theory, or comes from people of much lower credential and usually much lesser relevant education/experience, I am forced to go with people who have demonstrated a high level of integrity and have established themselves as people I can generally trust.

Most people who understand how science works were not even bothered by the 'they discarded data' climategate b.s. That was clearly an exaggeration of what is actually quite routine in science. To a person who does not understand *why*, it seems alarming, and thus the exaggeration and misinterpretation gets echoed and gains some form of undue significance.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

I'm not claiming that I can't look at the real evidence myself, I'm claiming that I don't have the time or training to do so effectively. I'm in law school, I don't have time to research 10s or 100s of papers in a subject that doesn't relate directly to the exams I'm going to be writing in 3 weeks. Furthermore, very few other people do have the time or ability to do this.

As a lawyer, I'll probably not explain things to all my clients, as you say. And that's okay, because the client will have the option of going to another lawyer if they don't like what I have to say, or they can ask me for clarification of points they don't understand. They will have options, and can make reasonably informed choices on their own. The same isn't true of the climate change issue because the material is far more abstruse, and nobody in the public sphere is willing to make an effort to explain it in a form lay-people can evaluate for themselves. On the one hand you have "they can't take my Hummer away!" and on the other hand we have "just trust us, we're experts." Neither of these arguments is terribly persuasive.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

manmade global warming is a myth. Natural global warming isn't. Read up on the history of the planet... it's been figured that more often than not, there's no ice at the north or south pole. And we're overdue for that again.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[pipingguy]

Set an upper limit on the cost to achieve "planet-saving" solutions (and who's going to be paying for it), then we'll talk.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Reziac]

That's why the people who want to "DO SOMETHING!" to halt the Earth's natural warming process scare me more than anything else. If they should succeed in reducing the temperature by so much as half a degree, they could throw us into a new ice age (and do so very rapidly, as climate changes go), and it's quite possible that this could upset the cycle to the point that we never come back out of it.

Imagine a few years in a row like "the year without a summer" and wonder where you'll be growing crops sufficient to feed humanity.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Rei]

They call them Environmental lobby groups.

So, as a scientist, where do I go to get my own Environmental Lobby Group? Is there a form you have to fill out? How does their funding compare to the multi-trillion dollar fossil fuel industries' lobby groups?

nobody out there is boiling stuff down to layman's terms so I can make a reasonably informed decision.

That's not their job. If you want to *actually* have a solid grasp of climate science, you're going to need to spend years of study. There are tens of thousands of papers out there, and you need to have a good understanding of at least a fair chunk of them. It's an incredibly complex field. And some aspects of it are even more complex than others -- for example, most climatologists, despite years in college and decades in the field, would feel unfit to review a paper on dendrochronological climate reconstructions unless that was their speciality.

So unless you feel like putting forth that degree of effort, you will be a naive and easily manipulated reviewer of the evidence. Unless you want to be a naive and easily manipulated reviewer of the evidence, you need to rely on the general opinion of those who have studied the subject. And they're overwhelmingly on one side of the issue.

There's one more thing that I can't stress enough. There are literally *tens of thousands* of papers on the subject. The news media likes to sensationalize stories. So when someone comes out with a sensational paper (whether it's even passed peer review or not), they treat it like it's the be-all and end-all of climate science. It's not. It's a tiny fraction of the literature out there. Never forget that. The same thing applies to individual scientists.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Martin Blank]

You're attacking him, and yet, if anything, he implied that he might even agree with your view. And yet you completely missed his point.

First of all, yes, scientists do have PR departments. They're often called "media relations" or something of the sort, and most universities and independent research organizations have them. They're involved in publicizing the results of research, because the appearance of an article in what to many people is an obscure publication may otherwise go largely unnoticed. Many people have heard of Nature and Science, but how many people know about Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences? Aside from the relative obscurity of these publications, they can be fairly expensive* for most people. Some publicity is helpful to those who do publish in those journals.

Secondly, I would ask you what you do. Are you a climatologist? If so, your dismissive attitude towards his quite valid concern about access to the data is one of the things that has made many people dismissive of the science. If not, then your opinions on the subject would, by your words, be essentially worthless. I suspect that you fall into the latter case, since you were not aware of the publicity assistance that is available for many scientists. On that basis, why should we trust your opinion on the validity of the science?

* Nature and Science run $199 and $146, respectively, for one-year subscriptions. JAS is available only to members of the American Meteorological Society, and then runs $200 for the average person ($60 for Associate Membership plus $140 for the subscription for 2010 issues, access to 2008 and 2009 journals extra).

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Rei]

First of all, yes, scientists do have PR departments. They're often called "media relations" or something of the sort

You're calling media relations a "PR department"? You're comparing a small group of people who put out press releases with the massive industry-funded disinformation campaign which organizes massive denier conferences and offers prizes to scientists who can publish papers that support their position. Please, get serious here.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

So what's the approximate value of "saving humanity from extinction?" That's what's at stake after all. You could say that saving us from extinction is worth any price, and thus the cost/benefit ratio is impossible to evaluate. So then you have to evaluate the likelihood of extinction vs the cost. A much harder value to calculate. And while you are doing these calculations, there's a very real probability that things are getting worse and you're wasting time calculating when you should be making changes. So again, what do? Given the other benefits of reducing carbon emissions, shouldn't we get started?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[bdenton42]

SO if you indiscriminately pump loads of CO2 in the atmosphere what do you think is going to happen?

Assuming some nature is left to take it's course, the trees will start growing much faster, absorb the extra CO2, and eventually die off to create the next layer of coal for us to burn in the far future. Yes, that's already starting to happen now. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091116163206.htm

Of course if we cut all the trees down we will then seal our own fate.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[bdenton42]

I really hope you are not serious. Fun movie, yes. Science study, no. My father, who is a weatherman, was laughing hysterically at how completely stupid the science was in that movie.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

That's not their job.

Not their job? You don't seem to get it: if you don't present your evidence in a way that the layperson can grasp they will not support the policies you want to ameliorate/reverse climate change . Sitting in the Ivory Towers and saying "just trust us" is not going to help politicians and the people who vote for them to support your position and you need that support if you want to fix the problem (instead of just describe the problem in 11,000 papers). Why is this so hard to grasp? We have in the US (and increasingly so in Canada) a debate that is dominated on the one hand by climate-change deniers who rely on volume and "what would we do without oil?" rhetoric and on the other hand scientists whose main arguments are "just trust us, you can trust authority figures, and we're authority figures, right? Besides, the polar bears are dying!!!!1!!!!one!!" arguments, and nobody is talking about the actual science in a way that makes sense to voters or politicians!

This may seem like a uniquely American problem, but if the US (world's largest consumer of oil) won't move to control carbon emissions, then China (world's fastest-growing consumer of oil) sure as fuck won't, and then we're all fucked. The scientists need to start communicating (effectively!) with the people, instead of leaving it in the hands of environmental groups who have no choice but to fight their opponents with the same deceptive tools.
 

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[jabster]

actually, they aren't even sure about that. According to the head of the IPCC (now that Climategate has hit the scene), there has been no statistically noticable global warning in the last 15 years.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Sloppy]

Is there ANY event that would disprove global warming?

No. No specific events. The proof/disproof will be in tables of numbers gathered over decades. A hot summer or cold winter is just noise.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[IICV]

What, exactly, do you mean by "nobody in the public sphere is willing to make an effort to explain it"?

Do you mean that the news media isn't explaining it? That's not exactly surprising; they don't explain anything. They just say cell phone radiation will cause brain cancer, they don't say why.

Do you mean that Wikipedia doesn't explain it? It does.

Do you mean that there are no websites with explanations from and discussion with climate scientists? There are.

Do you mean that there are no Youtube videos with explanations? There are.

Do you mean that Al Gore didn't make a movie out of his Powerpoint presentation? He did. (yes, I know there are problems with it - but you know what? That's what happens when you assume that a layman has the intellectual capacity of a sea sponge, and hand the presentation over to a politician).

If you cannot find layman's explanations for the science behind global warming, then that's because you're not looking. It's not like "the public sphere" can shove a tube into your brain and pump the information in.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[pipingguy]

Your initial assumption is that "humanity is doomed" if something is not done.

I disagree with your assumption.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Shotgun]

So, you're smart and anyone that disagrees with you is an idiot? You're data is as pure as the wind driven snow, and those that point out problems with it are just propagandist? The fact that many of the surface stations that all of these 'scientific' models rely on have been demonstrably discredited should just be ignored, because YOU are smarter than the rest of us?

And yet, you haven't figured out why the opposing side doesn't have the least amount of respect for your viewpoint?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Sloppy]

Scientists already have multiple Earths. There's the Earth in 2010, the Earth in 2000, the Earth in 1990, etc. The trick is in repeating experiments, and making predictions takes a long time to test. ;-)

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

If all your graphs stop at 2000, you aren't going to get a good picture of temperatures up to 2009.

If all your graphs stop at 1998, you aren't going to get a good picture of temperatures up to 2009.

By the way; my graph is bigger than your graph:

http://static.arstechnica.com/Science/2009-2-9/GISS_CRU_smoothed_full.png

Here, learn something: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/02/climate-data-ugliness-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder.ars

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Shotgun]

Also, we could set up organisations to tell the general public what has been concluded -- maybe called the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" or something similarly poncy.

I think that would be a great idea. Let's then set up a system such that this panel will be heavily influenced by political concerns so that certain people with vested interest will benefit greatly from it. That way, the data can be massaged to make the recommendation lead one way or the other. We wouldn't want scientist getting their reputations dinged, or people who've invested in cap-n-trade entities loosing their investments. That would be terrible.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[m.ducharme]

Strictly speaking, my assumption is that there is a non-zero probability that humanity is doomed if something isn't done. My point was that "humanity not going extinct" has infinite value, which skews the cost/benefit calculation. If

cost/(probability of extinction)*(value of !extinction)

is the proper general equation, and (value of !extinction) is infinite, it doesn't matter how high the cost is, or how low the probability is, if the probability is non-zero (no matter how small), the cost will always be outweighed by the benefits. The real problem with doing this kind of risk assessment is, what do we do about the pesky infinities? I don't have an answer for that. That was my point. There may not be an answer for that.

For the record, I think the weakest assumption above is the actual value of !humanExtinction. It's arguable that the planet as a whole would be better off without us, but I think in the final crunch we as a species would not accept that. My feeling (and it's only a feeling) is that we as a species will place an infinite value on our own survival (but only when the threat is clear and immediate).

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[AshtangiMan]

If you want to point out that Al Gore has been imprecise and self contradictory when talking about GW then fine. But don't confuse what he says with the science itself. Just like you shouldn't confuse what the "anti-GW" pundits say with the science itself. Otherwise you just look like a tool who doesn't have the capability of understanding that global climate != regional weather. This is true regardless of whether or not you are in the "pro-GW" or "anti-GW" camp. And falling into either one of those camps probably makes you a tool anyhow as science does not have a camp.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Rei]

Not their job? You don't seem to get it: if you don't present your evidence in a way that the layperson can grasp they will not support the policies you want to ameliorate/reverse climate change

No, you don't seem to get it. The public isn't even remotely qualified to assess the validity of claims that, say, how the Charney sensitivity will be affected by variations in gamma from coupled climate-carbon cycle models with differening geospatial and temporal resolution, or how the Solomon et al stratospheric water vapor rise ties in with methane atmospheric residency times. So if you have both the warmers and deniers dumb down their argument for public consumption, the public will go with whichever scientist did a better job of dumbing down their argument, even if the overwhelming portion of the people who actually do understand the science can tell that that one's "science" is pure hokum. And even worse, you'll have various groups with political agendas selectively reporting on the dumbed-down arguments of a particular side (Fox, MSNBC, email forwards, blogs, etc).

What you're asking them to do is like asking asking a third grader to pick a design for a particle collider based on dumbed-down descriptions by competing scientists -- or worse, a scientist and a non-scientist hired by an industry with a massive budget. And then having the third grader only hear one of their arguments. There's no way the audience in question can make a valid, informed decision on the topic because the amount of background required is too great.

To bring it back to warming: countless people online have bought into a lot of *really, really* dumb arguments being pushed by people like Monckton, Watts, and others. Let's just trot out a random one: the argument that "warming precedes CO2, so CO2 isn't the cause of warming". Even a most basic climatology education will tell you that what's being talked about here are Milankovitch cycles, which are a classic case of CO2 *amplifying* an external forcing on geological timescales (the calculated Milankovitch orbital forcings are far too small to explain the existing warming, but the warming is easily understood in the context of the orbital forcings plus the CO2 feedback induced by the orbital forcing -- the CO2 levels being readily measurable in ice core gas bubbles). But the people hearing these arguments don't have that background to know this. So they look at the graphs and think, "Aha! Those dumb scientists got it backwards!"

I know you don't want to accept this. But the reality is that unless you're willing to spend years learning about the subject, you are not qualified to assess the science. "Dumbed down" or not.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[The End Of Days]

I guess the big difference between theories about the Big Bang and theories about global warming is that no one says the Big Bang is definitively what happened, just that that's the best explanation we've come up with so far. AGW, on the other hand, cannot be questioned in any way.

That's not a fine line, it's a gaping chasm.

Call it a dumbed down message, call it the shrill call of the corporate shill, call it whatever the hell you want. I'm not much for believing anything, and the more someone tells me something is an absolute truth, the less inclined I am to believe it at all.

The cute part is that I am a proponent of efficient living. I don't own a car. I buy only energy efficient appliances and gadgets. I pay extra to my electric company to ensure that my power usage is contributed by sustainable means. That doesn't mean I have the swallow whole the swill the government tries to feed me. Nothing about being in charge means they are absolutely right.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[PGOER]

LOL, there was total disregard for heat transfer mechanics, there so stupid, but great movie though. Next, the earth will be taken over abominable snowmen, I for one welcome our new icy overloards.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Universities have PR departments. Usually when a scientist gets a publication in a top tier journal their department head or maybe someone in the PR offices notices. Next thing you know you're sitting down around a computer with beers laughing at how a series of reporters quoting each other morph your research into.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[waives]

Hello??? Have you ever been involved with a university? Of course there is a PR department, and everything the public sees comes from them, not from peer-reviewed journals.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[waives]

Forgot to say, although I personally think climate change is quite real, the GP's point is very valid and a real concern. Your disingenuous response is typical of the left-wing side in the debate, and it does little to convince anyone.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Boldoran]

So according to you the warming is a natural process ergo it won't make any difference if we cut back our output of CO2.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

hi,

You can start by checking out parts of the Wikipedia article about Svante Arrhenius. He was the first to predict global temperatures would follow the logarithm of atmospheric CO. The basic physics of it should be simple enough, but then again, I was a math major. Beyond that, do what scientists do! As a law student, you should be at a university somewhere, maybe one with a biology department? Do you know any undergrad biologists? Maybe you could find a biology blog or chatroom somewhere to ask about Bergmann's rule on.

Try reading the IPCC's AR4. It's pretty well written (though, at one point it mentioned watts as an energy unit lol) and accessible. As it should be, since it was written by scientists for lawyers.

Also, if you want people to hear you out, avoid suggesting that climatologists have the same kind of PR operation that the deniers do. It is true that universities have PR departments which put out embarrassing headlines. However, we're hearing about climate change from the climatologists themselves.

Lastly, my dad is an corporate atmospheric scientist. He never told me that global warming is happening and that I should believe it (he did tell me that about god, though). He taught me physics and bought me books about geology, and I figured it out for myself. You never really understand when you just hear someone say something. If you can, try to follow the statistical physics argument about how CO in the atmosphere keeps the Earth warmer than it would be otherwise. Then, you'll know thermodynamics ;D.

good luck!

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[tmosley]

Vancouver was the ONLY place where it wasn't snowing (which isn't to say that it wasn't cold--just dry). There was snow as far south as Houston, record snowfall across most of the US, snowstorms in Japan, more record snow and cold in Russia, etc. The whole northern hemisphere had a very odd cooling event that was accompanied by a large amount of moisture.

That doesn't prove anything though. Indeed, the last 40 years of warming don't really prove anything either. It's just a tiny blip in geological in the time frame.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[IICV]

I know you don't want to accept this. But the reality is that unless you're willing to spend years learning about the subject, you are not qualified to assess the science. "Dumbed down" or not.

Keep in mind that he claims to be a law student, so you would think that he'd understand this. I mean, just look at Slashdot - a hundred thousand people, each one with an opinion on what the law says, all of them wrong. Why does he think that climate science (a far more complex subject by orders of magnitude) should be reducible to something a layman can grasp in a day?

My wife is a doctoral student in Earth Systems Science. Her first year consisted of graduate-level ESS classes, many of which involved the climate. She'd bring home diagrams that showed the cycle of various elements in land, sea and air, and each one of them was a flowchart from Hell - and each came with the implied caveat of "these are only the parts of the cycle we've found, there's probably more that we still don't know about". Her classes were punishingly hard (two students dropped out for academic reasons, and one of them had even run his own lab at one point) and required a strong background in chemistry, mathematics and geology.

And this was just an overview of the current state of climate science; they didn't go particularly in depth about anything, they just covered everything.

And you want scientists to explain all that to an uninterested layman in a short amount of time?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Volante3192]

Exactly. You can't use snowfall in one season as a measuring stick, but people constantly go "Oh, snow. Global warming must be a lie," when what actually happened was the whole climate system got jacked up.

Whether or not 40 years is enough justification to make policy is more philisophical in nature.

My personal thoughts on it are we should do what we can to decrease our footprint. Even if the trend is natural, there's plenty of other reasons outside of temperature to do so.

Also, if the deniers are wrong and we actually are impacting our environment, what then?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Locke2005]

You've got to admit that whoever decided to have a Climate Change Conference in Denmark in the middle of December obviously wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed! How did they expect to accomplish anything in respect to curbing global warming when everyone was too busy complaining that it's too fucking cold outside!

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Martin Blank]

I'm not comparing anything. You took issue with the idea that scientists have some mechanism to get their message out to the media. "PR" is, after all, short for public relations, and despite the negative connotation that has been attached to the concept, it's not always evil, anti-environment corporations that use the term. Greenpeace Canada has three "Media and Public Relations Officers."

Your narrow definition of the term does not mean that the rest of us have to hold to it.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between "weather" and "global warming" is that global warming has people behind it saying "Give me your money or you will all die!"

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

"migratory birds in the United States have been getting smaller [wordpress.com], which is indicative of generally rising temperatures" ... or due to us shooting all the big juicy ones.. survival of the fittest and all...

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so much a myth as a scam. Weather always changes. So does climate. It became a scam when politicians started telling people they were going to die because of it and used the ensuing fear to make millions.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joocemann]

The government is only echoing the science. The 'corporations' that you suggest want to profit from AGW theory are only doing business as usual (but you should know that there are far more that will spread misinformation and inject doubt where it isn't necessary because their stake in the concept is loss).

Big bang theory and AGW theory are both very well founded. Most scientists would speak of the big bang as if it were what happened, not noting the 'theory' of it. You're downplaying the way science is discussed among scientists. Everything in science is a theory; that is one of the fundamental aspects of the scientific method. But when you've pretended it doesn't happen in everything else, and that it is only happening with AGW theory, then you find a whipping boy to support your preconceived belief and distract your criticism away from the data and toward the insignificant flaws of character.

Nobody is saying you are absolutely wrong, they are saying that it is extremely likely that you are. Sometimes they forget to say how likely it is and go with an assumption of 99.9999% being 100% truth. Its a shame that instead of attempting to discern this insignificant flaw in discussion, you focus on it as a point to refute the theory.

All the while having no heavily backed/evident theory of your own; all the while forgetting to be as skeptical of other science that you conveniently accept. I bet you used a cell phone today and assumed it was safe... please...

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Reziac]

Considering the miniscule amount (some tiny fraction of a percent) that is ours, out of the very small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to begin with, no, what man does about human CO2 output won't do a damn thing one way or the other.

I remember when water vapour was the big "greenhouse gas". I guess we should have covered up the oceans, eh?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joocemann]

If you understood the science, you wouldn't have many other questions. Of course now is when you tell me you don't have time for that and you shouldn't need to know in order to understand.

Guess what. The reason you don't understand is because you don't know how to. The glaring shame of AGW skepticism is the blind acceptance of most other scientific research that serves to benefit. When the science shows a real issue, a sudden burst of disbelief arises. How much do you know about cell phones? Medications? Automobiles? Energy production?

I bet you don't know much about how much of that works, either, and if you placed as much ignorant skepticism effort into it, you could come up with a bunch of questions whose answers are beyond your comprehension.

I'm not saying you should accept scientific theories outright, but its a bit hypocritical to do so when the theories benefit you and raise doubt when they do not. Did you think I wasn't going to call you on that? Do you think it isn't blatantly obvious that AGW skeptics are merely skeptics of inconvenience? I can't trust you if you can't be consistent. I won't place credit in your disbelief simply because I know you don't do it with stuff that you enjoy.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[jwhitener]

To the average low information voter, I can see them making the argument that Fox/CNN/Talk Shows are about the only thing they can comprehend, so I tend to go easy on lower educated person when they buy into the fake debate over AGW. (And subsequently become increasingly pissed at the horrible quality of journalism today).

However, I really hope that as a law student you aren't making the claim that you don't have the time to buy an issue of Nature, Scientific American, or watch a Discovery show and realize just how one sided the debate is.....(in favor of AGW). I'm pretty sure you'd be able to understand a Discovery article...

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[riverat1]

The increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere from 280 ppm in 1830 to 389 this year is almost entirely human causes either directly or indirectly. That's a 40% increase in 180 years.

Water vapor is still the big greenhouse gas in that it causes a greater percentage of the greenhouse warming than all the other gases put together. But the level of water vapor in the atmosphere is entirely dependent on temperature and once it reaches 100% humidity it precipitates out so water vapor can't drive greenhouse warming. CO2 and other greenhouse gases do not precipitate out under normal earth conditions and so they can drive greenhouse warming.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[riverat1]

Citation needed.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[riverat1]

Maybe so but considering the likely consequences of business as usual I'm close to putting climate change deniers in a moral category close to that in which I put holocaust deniers. It sounds harsh but global warming could lead to far more human deaths than the holocaust. They will just be spread out over a longer time period.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[riverat1]

It was not the head of the IPCC who said that, it was Phil Jones, the head of the CRU who said the warming over the past 15 years was not statistically significant to the 95% confidence level which is the gold standard in statistical confidence. Instead it's about 93% significant. He also said that trends over long periods are more significant than short periods and there is statistical significance over the past 20 or 30 years.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

well, I was going from memory so I got the name wrong. It does however put the lie to the "we need to act NOW" statement. We obviously don't need to do anything right "now" or else we'll recover.

As Algore floats around in his 100-ft house boat and jets all over the world.

-john

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[riverat1]

Global temperatures have not been falling since 1998! They just haven't risen quite as fast as they did in the 1990s. There is a graph of the global temperature anomaly from 1880 through 2009 here.

The urban heat island effect is well understood and accounted for. A recent study [PDF] that used the surfacestations.org list of well and poorly sited stations showed that the poorly sited stations actually introduced a slight cooling trend in the data (but not enough to change the overall warming trend).

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[dontbgay]

Yes. We do. I work as an integration engineer for a helicopter manufacturer and I have to communicate what I'm doing to all interested parties at all times. Who are you to talk down to someone who just needs information in a way they can understand? It's pompous arrogant people like you who think people are too dumb to get the gist of what you're saying that is killing us. Curious and interested parties getting shut down at "trust me" whenever they have a pointed and relevant question serves no purpose except to inflate your own ego.

And besides, there's a vested interest in getting the layman on the same page as the climatologists. Policy can (and probably will) follow public opinion.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[da cog]

> I want to become reasonably informed about global warming, but I don't have time to go get the appropriate degree, and nobody out there is boiling stuff down to layman's terms so I can make a reasonably informed decision.

This page has a bunch of links that do as you ask and try to boil the information down for you:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[Rei]

I'll direct you back to an earlier statement:

To bring it back to warming: countless people online have bought into a lot of *really, really* dumb arguments being pushed by people like Monckton, Watts, and others. Let's just trot out a random one: the argument that "warming precedes CO2, so CO2 isn't the cause of warming". Even a most basic climatology education will tell you that what's being talked about here are Milankovitch cycles, which are a classic case of CO2 *amplifying* an external forcing on geological timescales (the calculated Milankovitch orbital forcings are far too small to explain the existing warming, but the warming is easily understood in the context of the orbital forcings plus the CO2 feedback induced by the orbital forcing -- the CO2 levels being readily measurable in ice core gas bubbles). But the people hearing these arguments don't have that background to know this. So they look at the graphs and think, "Aha! Those dumb scientists got it backwards!"

After seeing this happen about fifty times for completely different nonsense arguments, YES, I think it's about time people stop convincing themselves that they know more about the subject than the scientists in the field. There's a difference between explaining and convincing. No, you're not too dumb to have things explained to you. Yes, you don't have enough background on the subject to tell if someone is pulling your leg.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[inthealpine]

Call shotgun out on what? All that was said is there are inconsistencies and that is the basis of skepticism. There was no 'I accept this data, not this data'. You can't change your oppositions argument to discount their statement.

When you ask: How much do you know about cell phones? Medications? Automobiles? Energy production?
You're missing entirely why those are invalid examples. This is because all those items predictably work every time. The same is not even slightly true of AGW.
Tell me prediction data from 10 years ago is spot on for this year and you have an argument. Respond with how I just don't understand global climate because I didn't take organic chemistry, then all you're offering is cool-aid.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[joocemann]

If you understood the science, you would understand how little those inconsitencies relate to the bigger picture. If you don't know whats going on, something small may appear to be quite large, or vice versa. You conveniently ignore the implications of EM radiation from electronic devices and their potential to be causative to harm... You conveniently refrain from skepticism in any other science where there are plenty of inconsistencies and for you find a point of ignorant contention.

Again, if you knew what you were looking at, it would make sense. The reason your opinion gets washed under the bridge is because it is ignorant and those that are educated in the field cannot tell you over and over to go learn *why* enough times. Good luck not knowing and fearing; I suggest a university to help you, but everyone I tell this to, as you, tells me they don't need to understand what's going on in order to have an opinion or a question.... That's like validating the opinions of children on complex subjects.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[rrohbeck]

I'm an engineer/scientist, not a politician, so I prefer facts over spin and wording.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[tmosley]

Someone set up a logical matrix to address this problem, which I will try to reproduce here. The two elements are:

Either global warming is real or false

Either we act to prevent it or we don't.

If global warming is real and we act to prevent it, scientists have told us that even capping emissions immediately would only have a minimal effect. We would have to cut our emissions to nearly zero to have a significant effect. The only realistic way to do this is to force the world into a continuing global depression, or cut the population by 90%. Some cuts could be made by conversion to nuclear power, but it wouldn't be enough, and it would take at least a hundred years to implement fully, by which time it would be too late. If we manage to get it done , the best case scenario is that humanity's population is significantly reduced either through war or starvation (or both), and the remaining population is now supported by nuclear reactors, solar power, and the few that can afford them drives electric cars (remember that global depression?).

Next, global warming is real, and we do nothing. By doing nothing, we allow technology and science to progress naturally, as we have for the last several hundred years. As the world warms, the northern passage opens up, reducing the amount of fuel needed for commerce. New farmland opens up in Canada to replace that lost in Africa (which was already marginal). Weather events get more destructive, but with the extra productive capacity we have from not acting to prevent global warming, we are able to build more resistant shelters in at risk areas. Within a hundred years, seas are a foot higher, but the world economy and human technology have advanced to the point that that no longer matters. People are living in space. Poverty is widely eliminated as the remaining backward nations industrialize (we have seen rates of poverty decreasing rapidly in China as it industrializes, matching what has happened everywhere else it has happened). Eventually, poverty is made obsolete by a disruptive technology, like replication devices, cheap energy, or some other technology that I can't think of.

Third, we have the case where global warming isn't real, but we act to prevent it. The effects of the above paragraph are basically the same, except it is cooler during this process (we're fixing it! the Pols will proclaim). Since warming isn't happening nearly as fast as was predicted, there is less push to get things done. We still go into a global depression thanks to cap and trade, but there isn't any purposefully genocidal war. We move to nuclear technology. There was less waste of resources due to war, so the people aren't as poor as they would have been, but those who started out this escapade in or near poverty are now starving as the elites have most assuredly moved to defend their own interests. This has caused significant political instability. There will be Civil Wars.

The final option, there is no global warming, and we do nothing about it. Much like the second case, technologies and economies progress rapidly, with no need for investment in weatherproofed homes, the economy grows significantly faster. Moon colonies are likely, and martian colonization is possible within a hundred years. Disruptive new technologies pop up all over the place.

The point is that attempts to artificially manipulate human economies will in all cases do more damage than good, and any government effort to prevent global warming is going to end in death and poverty for a lot of people, just like poor soviet planning lead to the same in the USSR. It's not because the Russians were stupid (they weren't), it's because you can't dictate market forces efficiently. If global warming is real, we can deal with the effects as they come a lot more easily in a free market than we can in a market frozen in place by government mandate.

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[bingoUV]

Well, then your opinions on climatology aren't worth much then, are they.

His opinion is worth the same as yours - shit. If you oppose others' criticism of climate scientists on the basis of their lack of qualification, shouldn't you oppose your own support for them on the same basis?

Re:Hey, wait a minute

[bingoUV]

Strictly speaking, my assumption is that there is a non-zero probability that humanity is doomed if something isn't done

There is a non-zero probability that humanity is doomed if something is done. The following 2 are non-zero:

1. Risk of something (apparently) orthogonal to global warming. E.g. Sun exploding much before current predictions of its death.
2. Risk of "doing something" causing catastrophic conflict. Banal example: nuclear war, melting the earth's crust.

So doing is square with not doing in that respect.

That's why...

[spammeister]

We can't have pretty/shiny things.

HEY now.

[Mekkah]

It's not Global Warming it's Global Climate change. That way, when it comes resurfaces, we can blame it again!

Re:HEY now.

[Mekkah]

That way when it resurfaces, we can blame it again.
Going Afk; using typing tutor again.

Re:HEY now.

[bunratty]

It's not about "blame". It's about predicting what will happen if we engage in a particular activity. The warming due to humans burning fossil fuels was predicted over 100 years ago, and we're now observing that predicted warming. We now have confirmation that burning fossil fuels causes warming, so we know we can lessen the warming by burning fewer fossil fuels.

If you know that germs cause disease, you can improve sanitation and lessen disease. It has nothing to do with "blaming" germs!

Re:HEY now.

[MyLongNickName]

If you are going AFK to use Typing Tutor, we may have discovered your problem....

Re:HEY now.

[Mekkah]

I don't believe in germs either. Do you believe in Ghosts too? Patrick Swayze is still alive, FYI.

Re:HEY now.

[inthealpine]

Everyone was having fun until the climate change evangelist showed up.
I mean has anyone even looked into exactly why water covers more of the island now? Have the coast lines reflected the same gain? Is the island sinking under it's own weight?
I know I'm killing everyone's climate change buzz by asking some basic questions, but it's not my fault the climate change evangelist made me do it.

Re:HEY now.

[Botia]

Funny thing. The waters seem to rise and fall two times each day. I always thought the big circles in the sky had something to do with it.

Re:HEY now.

[nomadic]

I mean has anyone even looked into exactly why water covers more of the island now? Have the coast lines reflected the same gain?

No, sea level rose but only around that island. It's like a plateau of water rising out of the sea, careful if you're waterskiing, you don't want to trip over it.

Re:HEY now.

[Anonymous Coward]

>>We now have confirmation that burning fossil fuels causes warming, so we know we can lessen the warming by burning fewer fossil fuels.

Geeze, I confirmed that a LONG time ago too. When I put more wood/coal in the stove it gets a lot warmer in here, but I can lessen the warming by not putting so much wood/coal in the stove.

Re:HEY now.

[bunratty]

Ah, more of the blame game. Looking for a fight, huh?

Re:HEY now.

[SnarfQuest]

With "global warming", it's about predicting what will happen after it has happened. Predicting the past, falsifying data, ignore any problems with the theory, and call your opponents very bad names. That's how you prove Global Warming.

Re:HEY now.

[Ornlu]

Do you realize that Svante Arrhenius, the author to which you just linked, proposed the compulsory sterilization on non-white races? He was probably a big fan of genocide...

Re:HEY now.

[CannonballHead]

Because islands can't lose land mass. The only reason islands are "created" or are "deleted" (hehe) is the sea level...

Plus, we all know that anything (read: including localized events) that COULD come from warming global temperatures is caused by "global warming" which is really AGW. On the other hand, any localized events that appear to contradict AGW are just localized events and can't enter into the debate.

Me? Cynical?

Re:HEY now.

[Bigjeff5]

You know what was predicted 50 years ago?

Why, the next Ice Age!! It was global cooling everyone was worried about, and it was the exact same stuff that was supposed to be causing it (but in different ways).

Besides, the burning of fossil fuels does not predict the current cooling trend over the last decade - global temperatures peaked around 98-2000 and have been on the decline ever since.

According to our CO2 levels, it should be a steady rise with perhaps some light fluctuations from year to year, a decade of cooling doesn't fit.

Blaming CO2 is far, far too simplistic, especially when you ignore the source of 100% of our heat, 80% of which it provides directly. Can you guess what that is? And do you ever wonder if it has a climate of its own?

Re:HEY now.

[Anonymous Coward]

I call foul, sir. Someone ''predicting'' global warming caused by burning fossil fuels a century ago means nothing. It's like saying 50 years ago someone predicted we'd all have flying cars by now. Just predicting doesn't make it so, therefore this guy predicting global warming doesn't prove the earth is warming, or that it's being caused by burning fossil fuels.

Re:HEY now.

[joocemann]

I'm sure people would give you answers but you won't have enough education to understand it. Thus they will reword the answers to something you *could* comprehend, but then you will discard it for its lack of details. Then they will explain in details (scientific papers) and it won't make any sense to you.

It is your fault you can't understand complex science. It is also your fault that the message you get is not convincing enough. The actual messages going around are very convincing to those who can understand them. Sadly, and to your own disgruntle, you make no effort of your own and likely deliberately inject doubt because *this* science implies a change in your lifestyle that is detrimental.

I bet you don't doubt Splenda. I bet you don't doubt your medications. GTFO.

Re:HEY now.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going AFK to use Typing Tutor, we may have discovered your problem....

Mavis Beacon is a saint! A SAINT!

Re:HEY now.

[jabster]

hmmm....this might explain a lot....in the winter when it's cold we burn lots of fossil fuels to keep warm. This in turn causes the earth to warm, so we use less fossil fuels. As we use less, the earth gradually starts to cool again, until we are forced to burn lots of fossil fuels again, which heats up the earth......etc.

Re:HEY now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll for replying to the response of my comment? You really need to use those points in a positive way kid.

lol..

Re:HEY now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heretic! Burn the heretic! How dare thou question Lord Gore, the creator of the hea... oh wait...

Yeah, you're right. I guess a scientific approach, rather than fear mongering and blind asumptions without any actual investigation into the data (you know... that science thing?), IS the way to go. Good thing climate change has been discredited fully, lest more of these wacky eviro-evangelicals stink up the science world with their comic book theories, mafia style tactics, and profitable snake-oil scams.

Then again, someone 100 years ago might have thought up this scam? That MUST mean it's true. I mean, everyone was very honest 100 years ago. What was I thinking. I'd better start paying some Carbon Taxes, to offset my plant food exhaust immediately. Those plants need to go on a diet.

My big question, though: What are we going to do about Manbearpig?

Re:HEY now.

[ArsonSmith]

"Blaming CO2 is far, far too simplistic,"

I believe in global warming, i like simplistic.

Re:HEY now.

[inthealpine]

Ah, so because I don't buy the theory (er, sorry fact) that an island reclaimed by the sea is because of man made climate change resulting in rising sea levels that only rose around the island and not the surrounding shorelines...I'm the crazy one?

Your right on one thing. I don't have enough education. Well, in science I don't have enough education. I do have quite a bit of education in history and history is just full of pompous people like you. You think you know better than me, not because you always question yourself, but because you dismiss those you deem unworthy.

Science is mans quest to understand the world, not mans un-appendable facts about the world.

Re:HEY now.

[riverat1]

Actually Global Warming is a more accurate description because the total energy in the earth system is increasing. Climate Change was a phrased dreamed up by Frank Luntz for the GWB administration because it sounded less threatening.

Re:HEY now.

[riverat1]

And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Re:HEY now.

[riverat1]

As I said in a previous reply to you, there has been no cooling trend over the last decade. That's not a scientifically supportable statement.

And very few scientists have considered global cooling a real problem in the last 100 years.

Re:HEY now.

[da cog]

The reason why "global warming" was changed to "climate change" was because people were complaining that some parts of the world were getting colder and so it was obviously bunk, when really what was meant was that the global *average* temperature was increasing. So they changed the term to "climate change" in order to prevent this confusion, even though the predictions are exactly the same, but now they are being attacked for having changed their predictions to match the latest cooling trends (which, again, they didn't) as if this proves that you can't trust anything they say!

This goes to show that you just can't win with some people.

Re:HEY now.

[joocemann]

If you're too poorly educated to understand, of course you are unworthy to have a VALID opinion. Ask a 4 year old.

Re:HEY now.

[inthealpine]

Apparently I need to simplify my statement for you. My formal education isn't in science. My degrees are in History and my occupation happens to be technology now.
You see, that's how worthless people like you win arguments in your own mind, try and pretend your the only one with any education or knowledge. Do you understand now or should I post this on your myspace account with all the 4 year old children who's opinion you apparently revere (see I can play your games as well, anyone can and that's why it's worthless drivel).

Re:HEY now.

[joocemann]

A degree in history hardly gives you the basis for understanding the processes of climate science, or even the general activities of scientific method (wherein often outlier data is discarded or a rational address of its causes leads to its removal from the pool). Again, you don't know because you don't know, but you still think you know. Good luck with that. You can attempt to post on my myspace that I said a 4 year old shouldn't have a valid opinion about the science related to AGW... I won't permit you because you're just a trolling idiot now; but try your best.

"Always attribute to global warming...

[Greg_D]

... what can easily be dismissed as an otherwise natural process, like plate tectonics. That's how you get PAID, my Ivy League brothas!" -- Al Gore

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hurry! Buy into my company's carbon credits scheme so you can keep polluting!" -Al Gore

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Errol backfiring]

So THAT is why I see all these geese who have never belonged here forming a real plague now. It's because the drop-dead obvious does not exist...

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Itninja]

Totally. It's like Wikipedia. If a lot of believe something, then it's a fact.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[rrkbogie]

There's lots of information available on the subsidence, via plate tectonics, of the Bay of Bengal, for exameple:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6X-4B4PWYT-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F02%2F2004&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1269324457&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=098986c85bd272474f1579b29771b39c

The islands are made of silt deposited by the river, and rise and fall depending or whether or not the river floods are depositing mud and building up islands faster than wave erosion and subsidence of the underlying plate are taking them down. The process is weather dependent, but weather is not the only significant force at work. The islands have come and gone before and will do so again.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Global Warming...the left's choice of religion designed to enslave mankind. Nevermind that the Earth has changed from the moment it was formed, that islands have come and gone throughout history. It's all because of GLOBAL WARMING! Now bow down to your Global Warming Pope (Al Gore).

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Improv]

Attribute to plate tectonics? You mean the incredibly slow process whereby the continental plates move around? The process that's so slow that it couldn't make effects like this at the rate we're seeing? ... nah, you clearly mean some thing else that goes by the name plate tectonics. Sadly, I've never heard of another meaning. Please enlighten us?

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Anonymous Coward]

Attribute to plate tectonics? You mean the incredibly slow process whereby the continental plates move around? The process that's so slow that it couldn't make effects like this at the rate we're seeing? ... nah, you clearly mean some thing else that goes by the name plate tectonics. Sadly, I've never heard of another meaning. Please enlighten us?

Yea, plate tectonics is poop. It's too slow to cause anything. Volcanoes and Earthquakes, those all take way over 30 years to happen. The idea that these slow moving plates could push against each other and cause a localized area to buckle up or down a few feet is hooey. It's just that all that extra water from global warming acting in a localized area.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[oldspewey]

The Sundarbans are also subject to some crazy tidal influences and currents, which have been known to create, reshape, and destroy islands in the past.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[danbert8]

FYI, according to the USGS, the Himalayas are rising approximately 1cm per year (likely to assume land can drop that fast due to tectonic activity as well). According to the first line of the wikipedia page, the rate of ocean rise has averaged 1.8mm per year. So tectonics can be over 5 times as fast as ocean rising. Geological processes can quickly raise, lower, or split land. In an earthquake, landmasses can move several METERS in minutes. Tectonics is vastly more powerful than even the worst predictions of global warming.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[dogmatixpsych]

So, logically, we should start some massive earthquakes to induce the rise of more land up in order to counteract the rising sea levels caused by anthropologic global warming. ;)

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this Pope touch little boys, too?

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[mmmmbeer]

I knew that it was silly of people to claim that one or two islands could be affected by sea levels without affecting all islands, everywhere. But I couldn't find any data to back up or explain what specifically was happening in this case. I suspected it was either plate tectonics or erosion; turns out it's both. Thank you.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, their Pope's a robot. He just chases Manbearpigs and invents internets.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious. How does it feel to be so completely and utterly wrong? What was it like the moment you realized you had been totally pwned? What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[Bigjeff5]

I'm guessing he's never seen a destructive earthquake, even though we just recently had two globally publicized events.

You know the kind I'm talking about, where one side of the street rises 10 feet and the other side drops 10 feet in a matter of minutes?

Yeah, plate tectonics move REAL slow.

Here's a hint for the GP: Plate tectonics move slow on average, but if two plates collide that are not in an abduction/subduction relationship then massive amounts of energy build up and hundreds of square miles can move many feet in just a few minutes. It might take 200 years for that energy to build up, but when it reaches the breaking point - POP!

Note that a lot of mountains were formed this way, so that should give you some perspective.

For what it's worth, the Indian scientist blames global warming even though the Bay of Bengal has historically had abnormally high sea level changes, and the recent changes have been extremely abnormal. The rest of the world's rate of change hasn't risen like this, only the Bay of Bengal. So what halfway intelligent scientist would automatically attribute that to global warming, when there is obviously something else going on?

The island was created 40 years ago by a hurricane, you didn't see global warming dumbasses claiming it was a massive drop in sea level caused by global cooling (which is what was hip at the time), why would the abnormal rise in sea level, localized to the bay of bengal, be caused by global warming? It's that kind of thing that pisses me off and muddies the whole issue. There is no way this was caused by global warming unless it's an indirect effect which they haven't spent nearly enough time studying to determine. They just throw it out there like it's the cause of all the world's problems. Assholes.

Re:"Always attribute to global warming...

[eleuthero]

You must have missed the new variation on the SALT treaty that's being hammered out - no one is going to have enough nukes to create the kinds of earthquakes (deep underground detonation) we need for your solution.

Children's Lesson

[VorpalRodent]

I learned that from my parents - "If the two of you can't share, neither of you gets the toy." As a side note, I doubt I was particularly happy at that, as I was an only child, and toys generally truly were mine.

Re:Children's Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

My mom would always cut in half whatever we were arguing over (just like King Solomon). Worked great for sandwiches, not so great for the dog :(

Sound familiar to Pratchett fans?

[makomk]

I'm pretty sure this was the plot of a book...

Re:Sound familiar to Pratchett fans?

[NeoSkandranon]

Just a wee bit :) Tagging article Jingo

Re:Sound familiar to Pratchett fans?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You do know that nobody sees your tags except you -- unless you're a subscriber -- right?

Sounds familiar...

[dewie]

I'm fairly sure this was the plot of a Terry Pratchett book.

What a great reminder...

[tom_75]

... of the futility of it all. Good job, Nature !

Haven't heard of Solomon's judgment?

[DriedClexler]

*sigh* Dude, the correct answer is, "No, no! Let him have it! Please! Just don't destroy it! I love it too much!" Shame on India and Bengaladesh!

Everyone knows that by now!

Wait - what?

[Dunbal]

From TFA: Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) annually

So er we're talking a foot of water every 60 years? Sounds almost scary, except when you put it into context. Increases in sea level are not new phenomena. No doubt they were produced by all that fossil fuel consumption 20,000 years ago.

Re:Wait - what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beware of conservatives such as him when discussing global warming, because they argue with facts!

Re:Wait - what?

[bunratty]

First, 20,000 years ago the climate changed for other reasons. No one has ever said that the only way the climate can warm is due to humans burning fossil fuels. Deniers like to act as if AGW proponents have said that, however. 'Tis just a strawman.

Second, 20,000 years ago we didn't have over 100 million people living in cities near the ocean. Over the next century, these millions of people will be displaced, or the land they're on will be protected, at a cost of trillions of dollars. If we can avoid it by spending much less money, say, only one trillion dollars, it makes economic sense to do so.

Spending a trillion dollars sounds almost scary, except when you put in into context of saving several trillion dollars.

Re:Wait - what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live 800 miles from an ocean, why should I pay so some dbag can save their ocean front view?

Re:Wait - what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Increases in sea level are not new phenomena.

Neither are world wars or mass extinctions, but I think we should work to avoid those.

Re:Wait - what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So er we're talking a foot of water every 60 years? Sounds almost scary, except when you put it into context. Increases in sea level are not new phenomena. No doubt they were produced by all that fossil fuel consumption 20,000 years ago.

Great, sounds like more Denier talking points. For the FACTS on the matter, start here please.

Yes, those sea level changes 20,000 years ago were caused by humans. It's not like coal burning was some recent thing started in England's industrial revolution. No, they used coal as a fuel then because it had LONG been used as a fuel. With good reason -- it's very energy dense, gives you some good heat. (As long as you don't mind the smell or the environmental damage, of course.)

Before the modern days of coal mining, coal was REALLY cheap to get to -- almost lying for the taking anywhere there's anything of geological significance. And the folks back then were just burning it for whatever. And so yes, even back then, all that extra CO2 was gathering in the atmosphere, increasing the absorption spectrum where the sun is most intense, warming the planet. It's just that right now, CO2 is being emitted at a MUCH higher rate, leading to literally unprecedented warming rates. (Heard of the hockey stick? Yeah ... that's how much faster it's increasing.)

And THAT, my friends, is the reason to worry. Could we adapt to the slow warming on NATURAL scales, or with caveman level emissions? Absolutely. Can we do it now in the gotta-have-an-SUV days? Absolutely NOT.

Go back to your Denier cave plz.

Re:Wait - what?

[Shompol]

So you are saying that if we have a cataclysm similar to glaciers melting 20,000 years ago, it's okay because it happened before?
Extinction of humanity sounds scary, except when you put it in context, species extinction is not a new phenomenon

Re:Wait - what?

[Xelios]

I think it's more along the lines of "It's happened before, there's no reason to expect it won't happen again". Whether it's meteor strikes, supervolcano eruptions, earthquakes, or more subtle catastrophes like temperature changes, the world is a dangerous place. It doesn't hurt to keep that in mind. Though it also doesn't hurt to lessen our impact on the environment, people don't need to agree on what's causing the latest change in climate to agree that pollution is probably not the best thing we can contribute to the planet.

Re:Wait - what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spending $1T to save $10T only makes sense if the saving has probability 0.9 or higher of actually being realized. Otherwise it is an insane waste of money.

Spending $1T without having such a probability estimate at all is equally insane.

Re:Wait - what?

[Dunbal]

No. I am saying that there is a long term trend of increasing sea level. However if you note from the graph - those increases are increasing by decreasing amounts (ie the average rate is diminishing). Why? Because the vast quantities of glaciers that existed 20,000 years ago have already melted. You can't "create" more water - it's ALREADY in the ocean - 140 meters worth.

You are the one mentioning "global cataclysms". First you must prove that one exists.

Re:Wait - what?

[SnarfQuest]

You know that Al Gore is very seriously concerned about the rising oceans, since he recently bought beachfront property.

Re:Wait - what?

[khallow]

So you are saying that if we have a cataclysm similar to glaciers melting 20,000 years ago, it's okay because it happened before?

What cataclysm? Doesn't seem to have hurt humanity and it probably lead to innovations like agriculture and civilization.

Even if such an event were to happen now (well over the next few centuries or millennia), it wouldn't be a big deal. We're not plants that are fixed in one place and will be stuck under tens of meters of water. We can move and will have huge amounts of time in which to do so. We can also float on boats. Just because an area becomes ocean doesn't mean that it becomes useless.

Re:Wait - what?

[painandgreed]

So er we're talking a foot of water every 60 years? Sounds almost scary, except when you put it into context [wikipedia.org].

Actually, that is pretty scary once you put it into context. That's ten meters every two thousand years. Or rather as much rise in sea level in the next two thousand years as we've seen in the last eight thousand years. The sea level rise rate would essentially be back to the steep slope that it was when the ice age glaciers were melting as opposed to the shallow slope that it has been for the last eight thousand years according to that graph.

Re:Wait - what?

[Dunbal]

OK, but how about spending $10T to save, well, nothing really.

Re:Wait - what?

[MaWeiTao]

There you go. The key distinction between 2010 and 20,000 years ago is that we have billions of humans around the world more exposed to changes in climate. But as you point out, the climate has changed many times in the past for a variety of reasons clearly not due to human activity. Might human activity be aggravating the matter somewhat? It's entirely possible, but given that it's going to happen no matter what we do I almost think it's irrelevant.

So what do we do? Take potentially disastrous measures and try to actually change the climate ourselves? And how to we even establish what an ideal baseline is? It's entirely possible the ideal temperature for humanity and nature to thrive is even higher than it is now.

But on a more practical level, I do think we should move to clean, efficient fuels as much as is realistically possible. Many measures to protect the environment make sense for a variety of reasons beyond climate change. That said, I do have a fundamental problem with the alarmists and the suggestion that we need to dramatically change our way of life or that we should support policies which benefit special interests pushed under the pretense of stopping climate change.

Re:Wait - what?

[rrohbeck]

If you assume a 1% grade (probably less in lowland areas like Florida), a foot of sea level rise means the coast recedes by 100 feet.

Re:Wait - what?

[Dunbal]

That's ten meters every two thousand years. Or rather as much rise in sea level in the next two thousand years as we've seen in the last eight thousand years.

      Or it could be that an "average" is merely a "central tendency" of data, however the data itself is not constant and varies year to year - as clearly shown in the graph. Even 1000 year's worth of recent data is not enough to "predict" anything more than a general trend - increasing vs. decreasing. Anyone who would have estimated future increases based on data from the years -22,000 to -20,000 would never have expected the Meltwater Pulse 1A. Likewise, anyone estimating future increases from 10,000 to 8,000 years ago would have been surprised by the failure of the oceans to live up to their promise.

      Therefore anyone can say what they want about any sudden "increase" - the reality will probably be something else. However you have to expect that at some point soon there will be no more ice. This "steep slope" you are "predicting" is going to be powered by what, exactly?

Re:Wait - what?

[Dunbal]

If you assume a 1% grade (probably less in lowland areas like Florida), a foot of sea level rise means the coast recedes by 100 feet.

Funny my grandfather bought a condo on the beach in Boca Raton, Florida in 1970, and the ocean is still pretty much where it used to be when I went there earlier this year. Let's see now, 30 years at .12 inches per year + 10 years at 0.2 inches per year = 5.6 inches, almost half a foot. So what, the apartment building should now be about 10 feet offshore you say? Funny I don't remember wearing my waders.

Just like inflation and unemployment numbers, "observation does not match the reported figures".

   

Re:Wait - what?

[pclminion]

I don't understand what your point is. Are you saying that because it has happened before (and nobody is disputing that), that is somehow isn't a problem? If sea level rises and begins wiping out portions of Manhattan, are you going to tell New Yorkers that they shouldn't worry about it because it's normal?

Re:Wait - what?

[Bigjeff5]

First, 20,000 years ago the climate changed for other reasons

And you don't think those exact same processes are happening now? The current fluctuations in temperature are nothing new, why they'd suddenly be caused by us is a complete mystery to me. Influenced slightly I could see, but caused? Come on!

Second, 20,000 years ago we didn't have over 100 million people living in cities near the ocean. Over the next century, these millions of people will be displaced, or the land they're on will be protected, at a cost of trillions of dollars [pbs.org]. If we can avoid it by spending much less money, say, only one trillion dollars, it makes economic sense to do so.

And yet the rate of global warming was 1,000 times greater than it is now.

Hmmm...

Re:Wait - what?

[joocemann]

WTF is a trillion anymore? US Citizens pay about 1.5 trillion per year for healthcare. In the last year and a half between Bush's bank bailout and Obama's big stimulus, they spent about 1.5 trillion.

At the rate we're going, I'll be wiping my ass with a billion dollar bill when I'm 50.

Its really time to start investing in highly productive scientific products such as massive rollout renewable energy generation and robotics. It may take trillions to pay people to protect those lands, but given an army of Wall-E robots, it would simply cost us energy. Obviously we'd have to have a social stake in the robots for it to work like that; a private business would try to profit so hard that it would probably equate to having paid humans to do it.

Re:Wait - what?

[Bigjeff5]

Global warming isn't what we should be warming. Periods of high warmth (even higher than now) are when civilizations boomed and species thrived. It's when things eventually go south and get cold that we see mass extinctions.

Go back about 400 years and look at what happened during the Little Ice Age, it wiped out millions across the globe. Yet that was just a minor dip, still incredibly warm compared to the last true ice age. Temperatures in some areas averaged 20 degrees less than they do now, and the global average temperature fluctuations were in the neighborhood of 10 degrees (from high to low to high again) over the course of a few decades. That's devastating. It killed off all of the large mammals in the previous ice age, and the human population had been reduced to as little as 5 million people globally. This is when Sapiens emerged as the dominant human species.

So we should be preparing for climate change, but global warming makes things easier on us, not harder. Yeah, coastal people will be displaced, so what? They'll be even worse off when it all cools again. It's the cold weather we need to start preparing for, because when the ice age hits it will hit hard and fast, and hopefully we'll be in a position to survive it.

Re:Wait - what?

[ScentCone]

No one has ever said that the only way the climate can warm is due to humans burning fossil fuels. Deniers like to act as if AGW proponents have said that, however. 'Tis just a strawman

Regardless, the AGW pushers continually uses phrases like "climate change is the result of human activity." Sometimes they qualify that with "mainly" or "predominantly," but that's precisely the meme they're peddling ... along with it's implied counterpart: that absent human activity, it wouldn't happen. It's not a straw man argument to point out that bit of nonsense, since it's used loudly and regularly by people like Gore, and repeated ad nauseum by a generation of students who will soon be old enough to vote based on bad information.

Re:Wait - what?

[pipingguy]

The doomers are drama queens and slippery in their predictions. The goalposts and degree of pending catastrophe are easily-changed variables. Whatever it takes to get alarmist headlines and the latest "scientific studies" blaming AGW for 3-eyed frogs, lack of smell in roses and the Red Sox winning the World Series.

Re:Wait - what?

[Dunbal]

If sea level rises and begins wiping out portions of Manhattan, are you going to tell New Yorkers that they shouldn't worry about it because it's normal?

      Venice is still a functional city...

      Manhattan is currently 10 meters above sea level. At a rate of 0.2 cm per year, Manhattan might start having trouble IN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. Frankly I have serious doubts that New York city will even exist in 100 years as it is today, let alone 500 years. Why? Because far more trouble is/will be caused by overpopulation than rising sea levels. Resources that are already scarce today are going to be unavailable if current population growth rates are sustained. So a crash in population when these resources run out (per capita, the resources aren't actually being "destroyed", only shared among an ever greater number of people) is inevitable. How this crash will happen is anyone's guess: disease, war, economic collapse.

      Really it's a self correcting problem. When we're all dead, there will be no more pollution. Global warming, on the other hand, will continue, until the natural cycle reverses and the Earth cools into another ice age in a few million years...

Re:Wait - what?

[cdrguru]

Well, it is sort of like the Moon. Its orbit is getting smaller all the time because of the drag of Earth's gravity. Increased human population is increasing the mass of the Earth, as do metorites. This increases the drag on the Moon further reducing its orbit.

If nothing is done about this, the Moon will crash into the Earth, just like if nothing is done about Earth's climate some land will be submerged in the ocean. Believe me, the Moon impacting the Earth will likely destroy all life on the planet within a few seconds. This is potentially as huge a catestrophe as climate change and will have even further reaching effects. It is true that the Moon isn't likely to crash into the Earth next week, but neither will New York disappear into the Atlantic next week.

I believe we can "solve" any possible climate problem by immediately stopping all burning of fossil fuels. This would make all current non-nuclear power plants, all production automobiles, all aircraft obsolete and unusable. We need to reduce the population to under 500 million, probably really under 250 million, although without powered farm equipment no ability to transport crops we will likely see a big population reduction anyway making any real action on the population front unnecessary. Overnight, the face of the planet would change and much of it would return to a verdant paradise that has only been written about in fantasies.

So why aren't we doing this if there is a critical climate problem that we can solve? Perhaps because (a) it isn't that critical and (b) we can't solve it no matter what humans do.

Re:Wait - what?

[stdarg]

No one has ever said that the only way the climate can warm is due to humans burning fossil fuels. Deniers like to act as if AGW proponents have said that, however. 'Tis just a strawman.

This is your own strawman. AGW skeptics don't believe that AGW proponents believe that climate change can only be caused by humans burning fossil fuels. Indeed, that's why they like to bring up climate change that happened 20k years ago, because AGW proponents can't deny that climate change happens without human involvement.

Re:Wait - what?

[onefriedrice]

First, 20,000 years ago the climate changed for other reasons. No one has ever said that the only way the climate can warm is due to humans burning fossil fuels. Deniers like to act as if AGW proponents have said that, however. 'Tis just a strawman.

Actually, that just points out the problem with AGW "science." There are so many variables, nobody really knows why the climate is changing. For now, it's a theory that "greenhouse gases" are causing a significant change in the climate. Another theory is sunspots. For all the tree-rings examined, the only thing we know is that the climate changes. We can't even agree on whether or not that is a bad thing. To me, a warmer planet sounds pretty good. As for sea levels, we also happen to know that it has been rising steadily for thousands of years (obviously at a slower rate today than for several years after the last ice age). Accounts will obviously vary from source to source, but it also doesn't look like there has been a significant increase in the rate of rising over the past centuries.

Most of us who get labeled "disbelievers" or "deniers" are simply opposed to massive, radical legislation surrounding something as murky as so-called "global warming" or climate change. Surprisingly, we don't even hate the planet or love pollution or big oil. But we also don't love the idea of setting up a fake market for the redistribution of wealth with questionable expected impact on the climate.

Re:Wait - what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus sayeth the wikipedia and PBS. How scientific.

The climate changes, we aren't doing it, get over it. Got it? Good. The same heating and cooling trends can be found on other planets in the solar system. If people are displaced because the natural changes the earth has gone through for it's entire existence, well then, I'm sure we'll manage without the "enlightened help" of political fat cats and crooked "scientists" that are friends with said political fat cats. No amount of giving money to Al Gore's climate derivatives trading scam, or living like absolute paupers (while said rich fat cats live like kings) is going to change anything. The climate will still change as it naturally does, you'll be poorer, and the Climate Mafia will be quite wealthy with the steady stream of eco-guilt indulgences you pay to them.

Same thing old time religions used to do: Predict astronomical events, make up BS mythological prophecies to the ignorant masses to coincide with them, it naturally occurs, look all magical and stuff, ignorant masses give first born to be sacrificed in amazement and get the coin purse out, religious leader gets rich and powerful off of his scam. It's the oldest con job in the book.

Further: this is even to assume that there is an imminent and significant natural change happening, which the data (sans empty alarmism, fudging the numbers, and evangelizing) does not show. We've gone through much warmer and much colder. All in all, the climate is pretty stable and palatable compared to other periods of time. In fact, plant and animal life tend to thrive better when the temperature is a little warmer, especially if they've got extra C02. Not enough C02 and too low of temperatures is less hospitable to life. You watch too many Roland Emmerich movies.

By the way, people have been living in coastal areas far earlier than the industrial age. Coastal areas have always been more densely populated than inland ones, especially before the invention of air travel. Why? TRADE! People go where the money is, and there is more money where the trade is. Inland areas don't have seaports, so trading with someone who isn't directly connected to you (and likely has the same resources you do, defeating the purpose) is much less profitable as you have to buy it from the rich coastal territories for marked up prices (and travel times were much longer than they are today).

If you have to use mafia tactics to ensure you've got "a concensus", what's that say about your theory? It is a religious cult. It has no scientific or historical standing. It's pure bunkum for the purpose of turning a dirty buck. I guess these climate theorist people just really get a kick out of the whole "human guilt movement". Sorry, I don't buy it. No amount of psychological word games (such as equating someone who doesn't buy your scam with a holocaust denier), blatant propaganda (Popular Science says it's real, so it must be!), political speeches (politicians never lie!), white coat witch doctors (I look all sciencey and stuff. Look at my beard and glasses! Wanna buy a tonic?), or armchair science (The scientific method? What's that?) is going to legitimize what is obviously a total crock of crap. The science IS settled: Al Gore is a con-man. Enjoy your sunny day, you guilt-monger. Next!

Re:Wait - what?

[bunratty]

A rate of global warming 1000 times greater than it is now would be 200 degrees Celsius per decade. WTF are you smoking?

Re:Wait - what?

[bunratty]

Actually, that just points out the problem with AGW "science." There are so many variables, nobody really knows why the climate is changing. For now, it's a theory that "greenhouse gases" are causing a significant change in the climate. Another theory is sunspots.

And yet global warming caused by humans burning fossil fuels was predicted over 100 years ago. I suppose it's possible that the warming is coincident with the increase in greenhouse gasses, and that it really is solar output the is causing the warming, but I'm not aware of a single research paper that reaches that conclusion. If anything, many papers reach the conclusion that increased solar output cannot account for most of the warming.

Re:Wait - what?

[tmosley]

What happens when the savings vanish like a puff of smoke in the wind? Climate scientists have mostly agreed that there is nothing we can do about global warming at this point. If we take action now, we will do so by stopping production of CO2. The problem with that is that our entire global economy runs off of converting things into CO2 (even your basic life processes). Putting a limit on CO2 emissions does enormous harm, impoverishing nations and retarding technological progress.

A better solution is to simply do nothing, and deal with it at a later date when our technology is more advanced. So what if the seas are a foot higher in a hundred years? We'll be living in cities that float on the Ocean, or in habitats circling the Earth, or on Mars. Ron Smith invented a molecular replication device that solved world hunger overnight, and has made poverty obsolete. Jane LeBaron's genetic research now allows humans to live and work under the sea. Or any of an infinite number of others amazing things that could happen. But a further tax on an already heavily strained economy will do nothing more than sow discord and breed violence. We are almost bankrupt as it is.

Re:Wait - what?

[tmosley]

What are you, 48?

Re:Wait - what?

[riverat1]

Because you don't want said dbag to move in next to you when they are forced out of their current location?

Re:Wait - what?

[riverat1]

Actually at the current rate of global warming we are seeing temperature changes in a couple of hundred years that would have taken 5,000 years normally.

Re:Wait - what?

[nadaou]

hint: it's not the current rate, it's the rate of change which is important.

Re:Wait - what?

[Dunbal]

hint: it's not the current rate, it's the rate of change which is important.

      hint, it's not the rate of change that's important, it's the trend. The "average rate of change" is just an average. Some years it could go the other direction, and the average "rate of change" over a 10 year period would just diminish slightly. A one year (or even 100 year) rate of change means NOTHING on a geological time scale. Hardly anything in nature moves in a straight line or a nice bezier curve.

Re:Wait - what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this post is a little behind, but I just had to comment on this. The moons orbit is not getting smaller all the time at present. It's actually increasing. It has to do with the tidal bulge caused on Earth by the moon. Basically, the tidal bulge shifts Earths center of gravity in relation to the Moon. Because of the delay due to gravity acting at the speed of light, the end result of this is for the Moon to be accelerated by being pulled to this moving target. This results in the Moon getting further and further from Earth. The actual energy for this comes from the Earths rotation. The end result is that the Moon will get further and further away until the Earth stops spinning, at which point the moons orbit should start to decline.

Global warming? Or....

[FooAtWFU]

Global warming? Or mere subsidence?

(Or both?)

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote for subsidence, been happening for centuries. Look at the mississippi river delta, oh, wait that was Katerina, wasn't it?

Re:Global warming? Or....

[vtcodger]

***Global warming? Or mere subsidence?***

Subsidence or wave erosion of course. Sea Level rise continues at about 29 cm (a foot for us Americans) a century. Rates computed from sea level gauge and satellite data are similar. I'm guessing that it would take about 500-1000 years to get anything that was called an island rather than a reef to go away at current rates of sea level rise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Suki I]

That was my first thought too. Haven't some of the US coastal cities dealt with this problem for decades?

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Rei]

Quite true. And I say this as someone who agrees with the ~97% of active, publishing climate scientists who accept global warming. You can't just point to something that matches one theory or another and say that it's caused by that theory. That's unscientific. That assumes that there can only be one cause for a given course of action. Another couple examples of it on the pro-warming side are Atlantic hurricanes and the Kilimanjaro glaciers. A good example on the denier side is all of the people trying to argue that a cold, snowy winter in the US means that global warming is fake -- as though US = World and "1 year's weather" = Climate. Just like weather provides a huge amount of noise atop the climate signal (in this case, due to a record North Atlantic Oscillation), sandbars form and get erased on their own. No sea level rise required.

Sea level rise is primarily a long-term threat, and primarily when compounded with storms (rather than on its own). It starts out slow but accelerates significantly over time.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea level rise is primarily a long-term threat, and primarily when compounded with storms (rather than on its own). It starts out slow but accelerates significantly over time.

Maybe that's true. There are no observations, just models. Models are about as good at predicting the future as any other means we have ever tried, which is to say, not in the least.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[groslyunderpaid]

I'm just wondering how long until the gay post hoc ergo proctor hoc statements show up

Re:Global warming? Or....

[cyberchondriac]

Not to argue with your main point, but it wasn't only the US that had record snowfalls this year. The UK was uncharacteristically buried in snow this winter as well.
Between North America (US and Canada) and parts of Europe, that's actually a pretty big geographical scope. For one year, anyway.
FWIW.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[riverat1]

Actually it's been a pretty warm winter in Canada and extremely warm in the Arctic above Canada and the west coast of Greenland.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Gadget_Guy]

And yet here in Australia we have have been having records getting broken for the heat. I think the point is that you can't just look at certain parts of the planet and say that is representative of the global climate. What we should be seeing is an increase in the extremes of weather - which is exactly what is being reported here.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

you have been watching tv for too long and now your mind is stuck in world of false dichotomys. it's both sea level rise and subsidence/erosion. the existence of one does not negate the existence of the other.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

And by your arguement, the past 40 years of warming also doesn't equal radical climate shift. The planet has been here for 3.5 billion. That's a lot of climate. You don't understand it, I don't understand it and neither do 97% of active, publishing climate scientists.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Rei]

Do yourself a favor and look at a global temperature anomaly map. Here's January. Basically, the eastern US, northern Europe, and Siberia were cold. The other ~80% of Earth's land mass and most of the oceans were warm.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Rei]

And by your arguement, the past 40 years of warming also doesn't equal radical climate shift.

One year is not statistically significant. You need about 10-15 years minimum. Any statistical analysis of the data will tell you as much.

Re:Global warming? Or....

[Rei]

No, we have a huge geological record of how the planet has responded to various forcings in the past as well. And the models are based on First Principles and validated with historic data, and *do* function within their confidence interval.

!atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Should be tagged !atlantis imho.

Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea levels can't just rise in one place. They haven't risen enough to submerge islands. Period. Subsidence is to blame here.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the moon recently? No? That's because it parked over the Bay of Bengal whislt it went into India for a quick curry, and someone clamped it for not obeying the laws of motion. The clamping company won't release the moon until the fine is paid, but the moon has no money to pay for its own release. So high tide is permanently over the Bay of Bengal now.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Sleepy]

Glenn Beck makes a visit to Slashdot?

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think of the moths!

No moon. No sex.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[RobotRunAmok]

And Rachel Maddow posts here as "Sleepy."

Now, did you have a point to make, or is just being ridiculous enough for you today?

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea level rise is not consistent across the whole of the ocean. Mainly because it's caused by thermal expansion of water, where it is warming up, and the warming, of course, is not consistent over the whole of the planet.
Bangladesh is in an area where sea levels are rising faster than average

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-5-2-3.html

Note: I'm not saying outright that the island was a victim of sea level rise caused by global warming - I don't know enough about the local geology to say that. I'm just pointing out that sea level does rise more quickly in some areas

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

If he did make this claim it's more in line with logic then the global warming excuse.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anomalyst]

Being ridiculous should be enough for anyone. -Billy Gate

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Locke2005]

Sea levels can't just rise in one place.Yes they can. It's the tidal effect caused by 1 billion Indians putting on a lot of weight lately...

Venice is also submerging, due mainly to subsidence, but aggravated by rising sea level and more powerful storms. I suspect it is a combination of factors in the Bay of Bengal as well.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that Rachel Maddow has a uid of 4551.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

i have noticed that the peeps with the lower ids are usually the most pompous blowhards. were she here, i am certain maddow would have a 3 digit one, and would waste no opportunity to point attention to it, as if it was some badge of distinction.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop Plate Tectonics!

Think of the children!

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[JTsyo]

If the island is located at the mouth of a river, the river might have an increased flow now, raising local sea levels.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[pclminion]

Sea levels can't just rise in one place.

Yes they can. For one example, consider the difference in sea level between the two sides of the Panama Canal of about 8 inches, mostly due to salinity and air pressure differences.

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

you are making stuff up. yes they most certainly can. ever heard of El Nino? guess how they measure it.

moron. (that's directed at the people who modded you up)

if I had mod point power I'd mod you +3 Troll. "well executed, job well done!"

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think of the moths!

No moon. No sex.

More importantly, no more monthly cycles for women given claims the moon affects their moods. ;-)

Re:Local Sea Level Rise???

[Rich0]

Sounds like an almost endless supply of power if you can build a hydro plant big enough to run on 8" of gravitational potential energy. It isn't like you're going to run out of water anytime soon...

Super!

[Junior J. Junior III]

See, we just need to understand that global climate change isn't good or bad. It's both. It solves problems and creates them. We just have to accept that it will happen, and continue to do whatever we're doing. No need to change anything, just ride out the changes. We can live without coral and fish. It'll be fine. Because now we have less land to fight over. Which will result in less conflict because we'll be able to peacefully come to agreements about how to divide the less amount of remaining land that we now have. See? It all balances out.

Re:Super!

[Bugamn]

We can live without coral and fish.

But if we have no fish, what will the dolphins thank us for?

It'll be fine. Because now we have less land to fight over.

Oh, yeah. Because more people with less land means more peace. Why don't we produce less food too?

Re:Super!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it can solve all kinds of problems: for instance, lots of politically leftist brown people live near the equator. Therefore, GW is good since it will "solve" that problem by either flooding their houses or starving them to death. Now the Republican belief system makes sense!

Re:Super!

[Anonymous Coward]

scarily enough, I believe some people have modded you up because they literally agreed with what you said.

Rising sea level?

[johndiii]

According to the article, sea level has been rising by 0.2 inches per year. This would imply a rise of about two inches since 2000. Over the previous twenty years (back to the origin of the dispute over the island), the rise would have been about 2.4 inches, using the figures in the article. So the island, at its highest point would have been less than five inches above sea level.

According to the Wikipedia entry, the "highest elevation of the island had never exceeded two meters above sea level." Which would indicate that it was at least one meter above sea level at some point, meaning that the cited increases in sea level could not have accounted for the disappearance of the island. For the quoted rise in sea level over time, it would take about 330 years for the sea to rise one meter.

Yet "oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta" said "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming." One would think that a university professor would have a slightly better grasp of the numbers than that. It helps nothing to make clearly false claims about the effects of climate change.

Re:Rising sea level?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does help one thing: it helps that professor get grant money.

Re:Rising sea level?

[Scootin159]

And if it was only 2.4 inches "high", one would think that most of the day the island would be underwater anyways. I'm not an expert on tides, but I'm pretty sure they're more than 3 inches in most places.

Re:Rising sea level?

[hierophanta]

umm.. erosion? when the levels rise up they a likely to erode the land, and what may have been a meter high 'hill' could easily have washed away

Re:Rising sea level?

[kwbauer]

What other type of claim is there about the effects of climate change?

Re:Rising sea level?

[KWolfe81]

You aren't taking into effect erosion. As the rising sea passed a threshold erosion likely exacerbated. Think of water behind a dyke. As soon as a little water trickles over the edge, a small channel will grow quickly. In this case, if it weren't for climate change and the rising sea, the island might have been fine.

Re:Rising sea level?

[inthealpine]

+1 dumbass comment.

Re:Rising sea level?

[sjames]

What they didn't mention was that the "point" in question was on top of a politician's head.

Re:Rising sea level?

[Belial6]

That is actually an argument against it being global warming.

Re:Rising sea level?

[Anonymous Coward]

have you heard of erosion?

Re:Rising sea level?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article, sea level has been rising by 0.2 inches per year.

This is an obvious fallacy because all elevations are measured from sea level. Hence, by definition, sea level cannot change. What's happening is that global warming is causing all of the land to sink. Explain that one, Al Gore!

Re:Rising sea level?

[SengirV]

That hasn't stopped the IPCC. Heck, here's a new one you'll NOT see posted at leftist slashdot - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7509978/UN-admits-flaw-in-report-on-meat-and-climate-change.html

Re:Rising sea level?

[khallow]

The "tipping point" argument was always a bit bogus, being more an excuse to invoke the Precautionary Principle for insignificant environment changes. Now it's being applied to something where it has no business being applied. A slight rise in sea level just means a slight increase in soil transport. Whatever goes away due to erosion, would have gone away anyway.

Re:Rising sea level?

[pz]

Yet "oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta" said "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming." One would think that a university professor would have a slightly better grasp of the numbers than that. It helps nothing to make clearly false claims about the effects of climate change.

Agreed. Loss of a small island mass is more likely to be due to water-based excavation below the surface and the resultant settling of the land mass. We don't know, for example, that this island is on bedrock. If it is a silt deposit, then there's no reason to assume it has permanence in anything but the shortest time spans. That part of the world is one huge river delta, lending credence to the silt deposit idea.

A couple of web clicks, and WIkipedia's introductory, summary sentence says it all: "South Talpatti Island as it was known in Bangladesh, or New Moore Island or Purbasha as it was known in India, was a small uninhabited offshore island that emerged in the Bay of Bengal in the aftermath of the Bhola cyclone in 1970 and disappeared at some later point." Therefore we can conclude that it was unlikely to be Global Warming / Climate Change, or whathaveyou in this case, but, rather, normal above and below-surface erosion and settling. It would appear that Prof. Hazara has made a naive mistake.

Re:Rising sea level?

[rrohbeck]

Have you heard of erosion?

Re:Rising sea level?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the basic problem with the theory of man-made global climate change -- people who believe in it whip it out to explain lots of things that have nothing to do with it.

The best scientific data that we have on earth temperature and CO2 levels shows that CO2 level rise *follows* temperature rise. Earth has had CO2 levels more than 3X what current levels are -- and then ice ages happened, as CO2 levels continued to rise for some 400-800 years after the average temperature began to plummet. Unless you want to make a case for CO2 being capable of affecting temperatures *in the past*, the data just doesn't support CO2 as being the problem. The science also shows that the earth goes through regular cycles of temperature change -- periods of warming, with much longer periods of ice ages. We're currently in a bit of a warm period. But if the cycle repeats itself -- and it probably will -- we can expect cooling to happen again.

There are a lot of good arguments for reducing pollution. Problem is, CO2 isn't a "pollutant" we need to be concerned with.

"Never let scientific evidence..."

[Anonymous Coward]

"...stand in the way of a good ad hominem. HAHA! Al Gore's fat!"
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to Rush while I jerk off to a picture of Ann Coulter.

Re:"Never let scientific evidence..."

[copponex]

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to Rush while I jerk off to a picture of Ann Coulter.

Real Republicans do it the other way around.

Re:"Never let scientific evidence..."

[dbet]

"...stand in the way of a good ad hominem. HAHA! Al Gore's fat!"

Hey! That's not an ad hominem attack! Observe:

insult - Al Gore is fat.
ad hominem - Al Gore is wrong because he's fat.

Re:"Never let scientific evidence..."

[oldspewey]

go listen to Rush while I jerk off to a picture of Ann Coulter

I'll not have you impugning a fine Canadian rock band that way.

Re:"Never let scientific evidence..."

[RunsWithMatches]

Yes that is true, but easily corrected: Al Gore is wrong AND he is fat.

Re:"Never let scientific evidence..."

[Anonymous Coward]

So what kind of logical fallacy is:

Al Gore is fat because he's wrong.

Re:"Never let scientific evidence..."

[Sloppy]

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to Rush while I jerk off to a picture of Ann Coulter.

While I prefer 2112 and Hemispheres, neither is very sexy. Try Signals.

Born by global cooling.

[will_die]

For people thinking this was a huge old island that is not so. The island came into being during the 1970 after a cyclone.
Since the talk that it is gone came from a single photo will be interesting to know if the picture was taken during high or low tide.

Re:Born by global cooling.

[Ephemeriis]

Since the talk that it is gone came from a single photo will be interesting to know if the picture was taken during high or low tide.

From the summary at the top of this very page:

Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols

Re:Born by global cooling.

[Belial6]

Now, that is interesting. I didn't read that anywhere else. So, this was just a bunch of loose material that got pushed up into a hill? It's a wonder it lasted as long as it did then.

Re:Born by global cooling.

[Bigjeff5]

Yup, but obviously this 40 year old island was millions of years old, and only human-generated global warming over the last 200 years could have caused its destruction over the course of the last 40 years.

Seriously, this island was 2 meters tall and 40 years old, even at their most dire figures the sea level rose all of 3 inches in that time. How the hell was that the cause? I would imagine it was more like 40 years of erosion finally took the thing down. The last few bits of destruction are always the fastest, in a month you'll see no trace that this island ever existed.

And hey guess what? It didn't solve the problem, India and Bangladesh are still fighting over the area!

Re:Born by global cooling.

[Belial6]

I did realize that erosion was likely the cause, and I immediately saw that the math was WAY off. I also know that sea levels don't rise locally. So, it was clear that the Global Warming claim was BS, but the fact that the island was basically an unstable mound of sand and mud piled up by a storm surprised me.

So, if we want to use this island as a measure of Global Warming and Sea Level changes, then we would need to use a much longer time period than 40 years. Even if one were to use a still relatively short time frame of 1000 years, there is a dramatic 'Hockey Stick' of sea levels LOWERING. (Yes, I am making an absurd statement for dramatic effect.)

Honestly, the AGW crowd do themselves a real disservice by not lambasting this sort of report. The people that think AGW is a sham will absolutely point to this as another example of clearly false claims. Speaking out against lies when they don't suit you, and then quietly stepping back and letting lies that work in your favor to stand is just another form of lying. It shows that one is not interested in being right. They are only interested in being able to SAY that they are right.

The AGW crowd is claiming "The end of life on earth as we know it is nigh!". One would think that if they REALLY believed it, call out people who claim to speak on their behalf and in doing so feed their opposition by telling easy to spot lies.

I think the answer is clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ben turned the wheel, and now the island has relocated.

Re:I think the answer is clear...

[JTsyo]

+1 Lost reference

mod parent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say you're trolling sir. Unless you have really been living under a rock and don't realize that there are about a million other reasons to worry about climate change.

Next comes....

[vikingpower]

...the Netherlands. Oh, and Venice. We'll all end up as game addicts in a suburb of Sprawlopolis.

Re:Next comes....

[Anonymous Coward]

We already are. I can't stop playing the slash dot game.

Know What Else Is Blatantly Obvious?

[Petersko]

Ice cream causes skin cancer. I know this because in places where they eat more ice cream they have higher rates of skin cancer.

It's blatantly obvious, and I KNOW I can count on you to back me up on that. Power to the insightful, brother!

If it is barely under water- call it Fiji.

[gblackwo]

If the water is still less than say 3 feet deep, crossbreed some sheep with dolphins and start farming leaping mutton!

Re:If it is barely under water- call it Fiji.

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for Red Dwarf reference

Re:If it is barely under water- call it Fiji.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yum

Re:If it is barely under water- call it Fiji.

[dargaud]

I think it's in the Shetlands that sheep have gotten used to grazing alga by swimming in the ocean shore. Probably a baby step to becoming cousins with dolphins.

Re:If it is barely under water- call it Fiji.

[riverat1]

But doesn't their wool coat shrink and strangle them if they go in the ocean?

Except it wasn't sea levels rising...

[Shihar]

I know OMFG global warming is hip and all, but this almost certainly wasn't a case of rising sea levels. Sea levels are rising REALLY slowly. That isn't to say that a big hunk of the antarctic couldn't melt and slide off into the ocean and give me some beach front property, just that it hasn't happened yet. The island almost certainly simply sunk into the ground. The earth sucks stuff down and pushes other stuff up all the time. It happens.

Re:Except it wasn't sea levels rising...

[Anonymous Coward]

>> That isn't to say that a big hunk of the antarctic couldn't melt and slide off into the ocean and give me some beach front property, just that it hasn't happened yet.

How would that increase sea level? Fill a glass with water and ice to the top of the rim .... when the ice melts does the water overflow the glass?

Re:Except it wasn't sea levels rising...

[Shihar]

If a glacier that is already in water breaks off, the sea levels are fine. Hence, pieces of the Arctic breaking up isn't going to result in sea levels rising.

The ANTarctic is a different story. While sections of it are floating ice, it also has a massive land area that is covered in ice. Those can literally slide off into the sea and, like dumping a piece of ice glass of water, the level rises. Some of the ice sheets sitting atop rock are so massive that if they were to build up a little moment, break off, and slide in, they would visible raise the sea level.

Re:Except it wasn't sea levels rising...

[Anonymous Coward]

if your a scientist it makes perfect sense.

Re:Except it wasn't sea levels rising...

[aquila.solo]

Some of the ice sheets sitting atop rock are so massive that if they were to build up a little moment, break off, and slide in, they would visible raise the sea level.

Yes, temporarily (on geologic scales). That ice weighs somewhere around a metric buttload; when it's no longer weighing down the continent, the continent will rebound, and sea levels will drop again. At least around Antarctica.

See this and this for more information.

Re:Except it wasn't sea levels rising...

[Shihar]

I am pretty sure the Antarctic raising further out of the water because it dumped its ice load wouldn't result in the Americans and Eurasia from jumping out of the water too. Whatever the case, who cares? Call me shallow (lol), but any geological actions that takes a few thousand years to happen isn't worth much worry on the part of humans. We can, you know, just move inland. Only fairly rapid sea level changes that cause "quick" evacuations (a few years) are much of a danger as they might kick off mass migration waves that can lead to geopolitical instability. Giving Bengal another meter of water would be a very bad thing.

Leshp

[sarhjinian]

If no one has done so yet, this story needs to be tagged "Leshp"

Fine then...

[Sandhog]

If I can't have it, then nobody can have it!

is that photo real ? YAHOO punted

[cinnamon colbert]

a few days ago this was a top story on yahoo home page, with another picture, if you right clicked on the photo on th yahoo site, the info strongly suggested the photo was stock of someplace else, aka a lie

Sandbar, not island

[Orgasmatron]

This is a sandbar in an estuary. It first accumulated enough silt to poke above the surface back in 1974, and was never more than 2 meters high. In addition, the nearest tide gauge is showing +0.54 (+/- 0.52, heh) mm per year rise in sea level, meaning that it would have taken nearly 4000 years for the local change in sea level to have caused it to disappear.

If you insist on bringing up global warming, you have to blame the sandbar's emergence on global cooling during the 70s and notice that we are now back where we started. A much wiser choice would be to simply notice that rivers flush crap down stream, and ignore this "island" the way we ignore all the other sandbars and ephemera.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/25/bengal-island-succumbs-to-global-warming-nonsense-ap-gets-nutty-over-loss-of-a-sandbar/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Talpatti_Island

Move along, nothing to see here.

Re:Sandbar, not island

[CannonballHead]

and ignore this "island" the way we ignore all the other sandbars and ephemera.

Ignoring something neither gets you votes nor money.

Mom's gonna fix it all soon

[Hohlraum]

Mom's comin' round, to put it back the way it ought to be. Learn to swim.

Re:Mom's gonna fix it all soon

[Cicada7]

Where's the like button when you need it?

Instead,
I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

chyeah dood

[Anonymous Coward]

If this was caused by global warming than the tooth fairy is my mother. islands have been submerged before global warming "happened"

I love how Global Warming has to be everywhere

[ugen]

This is clearly *not* global warming or "rising seas" but old boring "erosion" (I know, not fun).
Consider this - less than 30 years ago India could sent paratroopers to this island's "rocky shores" (sic).
Seas were rising 2mm per year until 2000 and 5mm per year thereafter, so we are talking about a rise of 2*20 + 5 * 10 = 90 mm , less than 10cm, or for those US-residents - about 3.5 inches.

I am sorry, but something smells fishy here - a place can't be 3.5 inches above water surface and have "rocky shores" which paratroopers can walk on. Consider that a tidal range in those parts is at least a few feet, so those 3.5 inches would have to completely disappear under water once or twice a day. That would make this land a "shoal" by any maritime definition.

If this island no longer exists it is because it has been washed away, as these things often occur, especially in river deltas - perhaps after a cyclone or hurricane. Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:I love how Global Warming has to be everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to know why all those Hindis and ex-commie Russians are jumping in here saying that GW doesn't exist and to buy sea level/by the beach is the best business ever.
By any chance, have those people bought distressed foreclosed properties on one of those make money quick scams those people that weren't born under a free market economy like so much?
We Americans know that whoever buys Real Estate by the beach with rising sea levels is probably a tard, who got poor nutrition during the childhood, because of some commie rationing stuff.
So, get back to your slums and stop to try to sell sinking land to us, Americans! We doing our own communist thing now, nationalizing the health care and the bank system, so we don't need you to bother us with your rookie craving by capitalism and its easy cash...

Re:I love how Global Warming has to be everywhere

[smashin234]

So Al Gore who recently purchased real estate by the beach is a tard by your definition?

And here I thought I was the only one who thought that man was a bloated waste of space...

Jingo?

[Tinyn]

Is this a Terry Pratchett novel? Jingo?

The island is gone?1?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to skip all the obligatory "Lost" jokes.

You pussy kids today

[elrous0]

You kids today think you have it so tough because all you can come up with in your "WE ALL GONNA DIE!" scenario is that you might have to abandon a few coastal cities and loose a few fucking islands?!?!? Let me tell you something, ladies--back in my day, we had REAL fears, like nuclear winter. We had roving packs of post-nuclear-holocaust marauders ready to cut our heads off just to steal a lousy tank of gasoline and some shotgun shells in OUR fucking doomsday scenarios! Has a little rising seawater ever caused your hair and teeth to fall out? Huh? Has a little coastal flooding ever caused packs of cannibals to roam the lands looking to rape your wife and have you for dinner? I don't think so! Ever had a supercomputer start an apocalyptic war with some slowly melting ice caps? Not likely!

Grow up and get some real irrational fears, you pansies.

Re:You pussy kids today

[delinear]

I think you're possibly overstating the irrationality aspect of our cold war fears.

Re:You pussy kids today

[confused one]

I'm right there with you brother. Live in a first strike target zone (next to major east coast naval base) and remember that irrational fear well, running around the back of my mind...

It wasn't a real island

[Anonymous Coward]

It only appeared in a river delta known for silting after a exceptionally big cyclone in 1970.

Terry Pratchett is having a good laugh!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

JINGO anyone?

Re:Terry Pratchett is having a good laugh!!!

[SnarfQuest]

Couldn't someone invent a "vehicle for going under water without drowning" device and check it out?

Fox logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Global warming? That's silly. It's snowing right now in parts of the United States so using simple Fox News logic global warming is false and couldn't have taken it. It has to be God being angry and taking away land.

Jacob...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we know how Lost ends now...

Beautiful essay on eroding islands

[mdsolar]

The Chesapeake Bay loses islands (famously in Michener's novel) and there is a nice essay about it here: http://www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=1116

John Locke must have turned that wheel...

[doubleyou]

Charles Widmore will not be happy to hear this news.

Re:John Locke must have turned that wheel...

[xavierpayne]

I am dissapointed in the that this is: a) The only LOST reference in this whole chain of responses. b) Not modded funny. Are we the only two LOST fans reading this post? Come on people!

Re:John Locke must have turned that wheel...

[eleuthero]

Well - I was a LOST fan... and that may be part of why they are cancelling the show after this season

This is pus...

[rickb928]

So the Wikipedia (I know) says New Moore Island was never higher than two meters above the water. Oh, and that was at low tide. Was this any more than a shoal?

Are you (or the FA writer) claiming the ocean there has risen as much as more than a meter???

I call BS. In fact, I suspect it was erosion that has claimed this island. Maybe, MAYBE accelrated by a few centimeters rise in ocean level, if at all. Wind and water do just fine on their own. In fact, the island was close to, if not within, the main channel of the outlet of the Hariabhanga River. Erosion and currents probably did it in.

What a pantload. Global warming? More likely predictable current-based erosion.

New Moore Island wasn't much of an island. The river took it back.

Re:This is pus...

[thethibs]

Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

Re:This is pus...

[rickb928]

Precisely.

Re:This is pus...

[kurtib]

I have a few questions that sit in my brain that makes my head hurt. If the ocean is rising because of melting ice caused by global warming, why does it not go up for dirt and rocks washed down the river? Back in the day everyone knew (all the great minds) that the sun went around the earth, but science changed that with one person questioning it. When did science change that it just goes with the group think? At what point is the earth the right temp? Is it today, was it 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years maybe. If it is not the right temp right now and it really should be warmer, but we are trying to stop the warming are we not hurting the system? If water has a cycle that water in a lake evaporates and goes up in the sky; then it forms a cloud and then rains back down on the lake. Why can’t carbon do the same thing? It is in the air, and plant take it in, then the plant is buried for 100,000 years were it turns into coal and oil, we bring it back up and burn it and it is back in the air. People forget that fossil fuel was all carbon in the air at one point. Thank you for your time. I would love to hear answers this these questions as they keep me up at night.

Wrong move, pal.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are things called earthquakes, you know. Which can produce displacements of several meters in two minutes.

(well, in that case it is rather the river deposits dynamics which are the first-order contributor)

History repeating

[zarlino]

Never heard about the Ferdinandea Island? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinandea

Dispute over sandbar resolved

[SEWilco]

• Why was there a heated dispute? Because the island was at the mouth of the river which forms the border between the two countries.
• When did this dispute start? When the island appeared in 1970 after a hurricane.
• What kind of island was it? Sand and silt. It's a sandbar. Or it was, until it was washed away.

Re:Dispute over sandbar resolved

[Bigjeff5]

Yes, but obviously that sandbar had been there for millions of years since the 70's and we destroyed it with our man-made global warming.

Where was cap and trade when we needed it most?

Re:Dispute over sandbar resolved

[thijsh]

The sea giveth and the sea taketh away.
These sandbars (dis-)appear all the time... But to people who *want* to believe this was *obviously* the work of global warming (rolls eyes).

Re:Dispute over sandbar resolved

[SEWilco]

Apparently someone should have capped their island with rocks and concrete.

Let's make up

[dwood520]

OK Bangladesh - you can have it.
Luv,
India

comprehensive data pool

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking about the hottest decade on record is like me saying I'm the tallest person in my chair.

Re:comprehensive data pool

[aquila.solo]

Give this AC a funny!

I think I'm going to use that quote...

An Island over a sink hole?

[Jerry]

One can easily check the last 10 years of photos of that region and determine that the coastal area less than 3 miles from the island hasn't changed at all. IF the ocean was rising enough to cover the island it should also move the shore back enough to be visible in the photos. It hasn't. I suspect that local subsidence and/or erosion is responsible. But, when you religiously believe in the AGW Hammer everything you see is a nail.

Re:An Island over a sink hole?

[TheSync]

I suspect that local subsidence and/or erosion is responsible.

Subsidence is typical in deltas if there has been any kind of civil engineering projects such as diversion of freshwater for human use, dykes, or other flood control projects. And indeed, this has occurred in the Ganges delta.

This link claims that subsidence in the Ganges delta is 4mm/year, while sea level rise is only 1.4mm/year.

Peace Prize

[200_success]

Whether it's global warming or the Internet, Al Gore has this year's Peace Prize coming to him.

Sinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

The island is clearly sinking. The oceans are not rising. Go look at the data. A plate shifting or some seismic event caused this island to sink. Not global warming.

bah...

[bjk002]

You're just a /.er, What do you know anyway?!?

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok ... hold on a sec. The whole global warming climate change is supposed to be making sea levels rise at a very slow rate. We're talking less than inches per year. I read that this island used to have at least a mile of earth sticking out of the water. I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that this land was more than a few inches above sea level. Now, all of the sudden it just disappears?? wtf? Was it slowly disappearing at a rate of millimeters per year? Reading the article doesn't seem to indicate this. The article is worded as "They were fighting over an island and then 'poof' it disappears underwater" Ok.. if the sea levels just rose 10 feet in a day then yes I think that's cause for alarm. Somehow, I don't think this was the case

NOT global warming

[thule]

I say this year we nominate Global Warming for the Nobel Peace Prize for providing a peaceful solution to this heated dispute between Bangladesh and India.

... not global warming:

Sarasota Herald - May 29, 1937... see page 4, top section. "Islands" have disappeared before.

The above link is from this page:

Bengal Island succumbs to global warming nonsense – AP gets nutty over the loss of a sandbar

I swear

[B1oodAnge1]

Terry Pratchett wrote a book about this...

A weathercock has risen from the sea of Discworld, and suddenly you can tell which way the wind is blowing. A new land has surfaced, and so have old feuds. And as two armies march, Commander Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch has got just a few hours to deal with a crime so big that there's no law against it. It's called 'war'.

He's facing unpleasant foes that are out to get him that's just the people on his side. The enemy might even be worse. And his pocket Dis-organizer says he's got Die under 'Things To Do Today'.

But he'd better not, because the world's cleverest inventor and its most devious politician are on their way to the battlefield with a little package that's guaranteed to stop a battle.

Discworld goes to war, with armies of sardines, warriors, fishermen, squid and at least one very camp follower. Jingo is the twenty-first in Terry Pratchett's phenomenally successful Discworld series. .

Re:I swear

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, I immediately thought of this as well.

AAAH! Global Growing

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, according to the USGS, the Himalayas are rising approximately 1cm per year (likely to assume land can drop that fast due to tectonic activity as well). According to the first line of the wikipedia page, the rate of ocean rise has averaged 1.8mm per year.

OMG! The earth is GROWING!!! The sky isn't really falling we're just getting closer to the sky because the earth is growing!!!

Obligatory LOST reference

[kheldan]

Are they sure it's actually gone? Maybe Benjamin Linus or John Locke just moved it -- again.

Or, do what Amsterdam does...

[gbutler69]

...have REEFER fund!

Another perfectly good agenda run amok.

[singingjim1]

Global warming? A dubious reason at best. Just another excuse to inflate claims about a naturally occurring event to push an agenda. When will folks learn that some of us see through the nonsense and tend to discount the overall legitimacy of the authors of such tripe?

I love how rising sea levels cause erosion

[spun]

Didn't even think of that, did you? The sea level may have risen "only" 3.5 inches (that's a lot) but that means more of the island would be underwater more of the time, leading to increased erosion rates. From the wiki article, I've gleaned that the highest point on the island was around 2 meters, that it appeared relatively recently, and was made mostly from silt deposits. It wouldn't take too much of a rise in sea level to change the rate of silt deposition relative to erosion.

However, I think it is clear from reading the wikipedia article, this was a silt deposit in a river delta that floods once a year. It was never a permanent feature. Global warming likely sped things up, but this 'island' was never here to stay.

Jingo

[Anonymous Coward]

Immediate reaction: life copying art. The plot of Pratchett's Jingo relies on an island appearing, becoming the cause of war and then disappearing back beneath the waves.

Mine

[Sloppy]

"It's mine!" -- Bangladesh

"No, it's mine!" -- India

"No, it's mine! -- Dagon

The good side

[ComSon0]

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.'"

Perhaps this "Global Warming" dude should initiate a practice in mediation. Seems like he has a way to get arguments resolved.
Go "Global Warming" dude!

Benjamin Linus

[masmullin]

Benjamin Linus strikes again.

The island is actually bouncing around through time... or maybe it sunk into the sea.

Nonsense

[m.dillon]

There is absolutely nothing here that a Nuke couldn't also have fixed.

-Matt

Flood Israel

[wild_oscar]

Now, if only Israel and Palestine could be submerged...

International law has changed since WW2.

[Valdrax]

I don't see the problem here. If you don't want to lose land to an enemy, don't attack him.

The same thing happened in WWII. Germany lost some valuable farmland to France. They never did get it back. Why isn't anyone complaining that France is building on disputed land? I'm sure Germany wouldn't mind having it back.

The problem is that the international community outlawed that sort of thing in the wake of the German's doctrine of "living space" in 1949. The Fourth Geneva Convention says in Art. 49, "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

Israel signed the treaty in 1949. Egypt (previous owner of the Gaza Strip) signed it in 1949. Jordan (previous owner of the West Bank) signed it in 1951. Syria (widely considered the owner of the Golan Heights) signed it in 1949. Lebanon (considered by most to own the Shebaa Farms area) signed it in 1949 on the same day as Israel. All of these parties were bound to the treaty and bound to respect the others' citizens under the treaty. Israel's occupation of disputed territories flagrantly violates the conventions in several ways, not the least of which is colonizing the territories.

Additionally, there have been some UN security council resolutions demanding that Israel return the territories either in whole or individually. See, e.g. UN Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). These are the same level of resolution as the one used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and Israel is just as much in violation of UN resolutions as Hussein was.

As to France, what areas are you talking about? I confess ignorance here. I'm mostly familiar with the Postdam Agreement and the ceding of territories to the Soviet Union (well, Poland actually), so all I could find on France was the take over of Saar and Ruhr, both of which returned to German control by the 1950s. Either way, all of those agreements were handled by treaty and approved under international law, and all the settling of Germany's post-WW2 debts and concessions was handled pre-Geneva. Israel's occupation of disputed territories has never AFAIK been ratified by any treaties between the parties and is not recognized as valid under international law. That's the difference.

Re:International law has changed since WW2.

[Grishnakh]

Israel signed the treaty in 1949. Egypt (previous owner of the Gaza Strip) signed it in 1949. Jordan (previous owner of the West Bank) signed it in 1951. Syria (widely considered the owner of the Golan Heights) signed it in 1949. Lebanon (considered by most to own the Shebaa Farms area) signed it in 1949 on the same day as Israel. All of these parties were bound to the treaty and bound to respect the others' citizens under the treaty. Israel's occupation of disputed territories flagrantly violates the conventions in several ways, not the least of which is colonizing the territories.

I definitely agree, Israel isn't helping the situation any with their colonization. I'm only arguing from the standpoint that they fairly acquired those territories in the wake of a war they didn't start (the Six-Day War). It seems like others on here are trying to demonize Israel for every single thing it's ever done, and acting like the Arab nations did absolutely nothing wrong, which is ridiculous. They seem to think that Israel should have just surrendered and allowed the Arab nations to do what they wanted with them.

The German/French land I'm talking about is Alsace-Lorraine, which was German before WWI (taken in the Franco-Prussian wars in the 1800s), taken by France after WWI, taken back by Germany during the Nazi period, and taken back again by France after WWI.

Re:International law has changed since WW2.

[Valdrax]

I'm only arguing from the standpoint that they fairly acquired those territories in the wake of a war they didn't start (the Six-Day War).

Well, the problem is that international law doesn't really recognize land seized in war as "fairly acquired" anymore -- especially without a treaty where the surrendering parties cede the land. It's true that Israel was the attacked party in 1967, but that didn't give them the right to carve out payback on its own terms unless you ignore modern law in favor of more traditional rights of conquest.

It seems like others on here are trying to demonize Israel for every single thing it's ever done, and acting like the Arab nations did absolutely nothing wrong, which is ridiculous. They seem to think that Israel should have just surrendered and allowed the Arab nations to do what they wanted with them.

Nah, that's not my perspective anyway. I just think though that Israel has burned a lot of its position of moral superiority from that time period over 40 years of occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. The relative conditions of their peoples and the relative body counts in any conflict don't win them many points either. Israel has a right to live. It just doesn't have a right to act with impunity in responding to a self-created problem.

The German/French land I'm talking about is Alsace-Lorraine, which was German before WWI (taken in the Franco-Prussian wars in the 1800s), taken by France after WWI, taken back by Germany during the Nazi period, and taken back again by France after WWI.

Ah, I didn't even think about that because I've always thought of that as belonging to France in the first place. (Kind of hilarious that much of the Prussia of the Franco-Prussian War is not part of Poland.) I guess it makes sense to consider that part of Germany if you're of the "taken fair and square" camp, but it's moot since it's France's by treaty and the whole thing happened pre-Geneva.

Re:International law has changed since WW2.

[Grishnakh]

I guess it makes sense to consider that part of Germany if you're of the "taken fair and square" camp, but it's moot since it's France's by treaty and the whole thing happened pre-Geneva.

If you're part of the "taken fair and square" camp, then you consider it part of Germany after 1870, part of France after WWI, part of Germany after 1940, and part of France after 1945. You wouldn't consider it extra-temporally part of any country, as each time it traded hands, it did so because the winner won the battle/war. Plus, if you go backwards from 1870, the history gets even more muddy and complex as it wasn't that long before then that western Europe was a bunch of small kingdoms, fiefdoms, or whatever. The nations of Germany and Italy are really quite recent developments.

Re:International law has changed since WW2.

[Anonymous Coward]

The rhineland region is one of the classic examples of a disputed territory that has bounced back and forth and populated by ethnic minorities who lean towards one or another nation, but nevertheless don't 100% fit into that nation, neither fully Germanic nor fully French. In any case, as the area is the traditional origin of the Ashkenazi Jews, and therefore most of the Jews in Europe and the world at the time of WWII, I can see a pretty good argument for not leaving the region in the control of the homeland of the Nazis quite aside from a tradition of mostly French ownership of the region.

Re:International law has changed since WW2.

[Grishnakh]

Except that it's changed; according to the Wiki article, after France retook it after WWII, they pushed out all the Germans who had moved there since 1870 (that's 65 years' worth of immigrants), and also strictly forbade any public use of any language besides French, effectively oppressing the peoples' native languages.

So the demographics of the area now are probably quite different from pre-WWII due to these policies.

Personally, I think it would have been nicer if they let the inhabitants of the region vote on what they wanted, whether to join one country or another, or to be independent.

PR=Communications departments

[fantomas]

The scientists "PR departments" will probably be called "Communications Departments" in universities, probably the same in private industry as well. The majority of grants from funding bodies come with an obligation for scientists to promote the outcome of their work, and scientists are encouraged to generally. People look pretty poorly on scientists who want money but won't tell people what they've been doing with that funding.

Generally scientists are encouraged to promote their work by attending conferences etc. They are encouraged to keep their university's Communications Department informed of major achievements, as the Communications Departments' jobs are to promote their university (and hence get funding at the cost of other universities). Scientists are increasingly encouraged to attend courses to learn how to best present and promote their work so if the opportunity does appear (like the local media needing an expert to talk about a topical issue) they can do a fair job of presenting the story in a media friendly way (precise clear summaries, avoid complex jargon, etc).

If you want to becaome a "PR agent for a scientist" probably you need to phone up some communications and promotional people at universities and in the private sectors and ask them. I'd imagine qualifications in journalism, literature, media studies etc might help.

Re:PR=Communications departments

[Rei]

I think you know quite well that the poster wasn't referring to university communications departments putting out press releases or scientists speaking at conferences. They specifically gave an example of the David Suzuki Foundation. Which is itself small peanuts compared to, say, the Heritage Foundation.

Oh, wisdom unseen since Solomon!

[Valdrax]

That would be my approach to Israel and Palestine problems with Jerusalem Just say no one owns the areas... No residences are allowed but you can visit it for the history and religious pilgrimages. Perhaps the UN will make sure everyone plays fair in the area.

How big of an area do you clear out around a few holy sites, and what do you do with the nearly 750,000 people who already live in the city? I'm sure that the Palestinian territories would have *plenty* of room to absorb the roughly a quarter of a million people who are Muslim, and Israel's wide open spaces that give people plenty of room to build *on their own territory, instead of someone else's* could just soak up half a million people with no trouble, right?

I mean dispersing a population density of roughly 15,000 people per square mile on behalf of a couple of temples -- which are the only reason anyone has to be attached to the city -- is child's play right? Easy as chopping a baby in half to resolve a custody dispute.

geek moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh, also popularly attributed to Will Rodgers. There weird bit is all the sources for both are second hand.
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/buy_land_they_aint_making_any_more_of_it/

Lacking direct citation for Twain is pretty odd because he was a writer. Rodgers mostly did stand-up and radio, so I'm leaning to think he was the one who actually popularized it. (I can hear him say it, holding his newspaper open as usual, but at my age yeah that's just as likely creative memory. Anybody else still have the vinyl/tapes?)

Wasn't much of an island.

[Valdrax]

I'm guessing that it would take about 500-1000 years to get anything that was called an island rather than a reef to go away at current rates of sea level rise.

You may have assumed that this is something that sensible people would call an island. It's basically a sand bar, created by a hurricane in the 70s, that both countries wanted solely so that they can claim the surrounding parts of the ocean. No one could or would want to live there. It was an insignificant speck of land that was never more than 2 meters above sea level at its highest.

This is a case where is could easily be both sea level rise AND erosion and subsidence. But I agree that the latter two forces were most likely to be the primary culprit here. The island was ephemeral from beginning to end. Who knows? In a few years, it might come back.

Nothing to do with AGW and sea levels!

[spencertk]

What a lousy initial post regarding sea level causing this little disputed bump to disappear. It is such an outrageous lie as is the associated image. Sea levels have been rising slowly and steadily for well over a century. Check out http://www.skepticalscience.com/Visual-depictions-of-Sea-Level-Rise.html for an excellent very recent article with a chart from back to 1870 along with very recent highly accurate data. Pretty minimal changes in past 140 years. At least seven author/sources are noted. Even the modest rate of change in continued rise since the 40's is well within natural variability in eon scale cycles. In the past 20 years the sea level has fallen in some areas!

During the dispute time frame, the sea level rose a bit less than 3 inches. Had this occurred in the late 1800's the sea level would have risen a bit more than 2 inches.
See: http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/sea-level-tidal-satellite.jpg for the first chart.

Google Paint

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or has Google Maps been...painted...in that area?

You are flagrantly missing his point.

[Valdrax]

I know you don't want to accept this. But the reality is that unless you're willing to spend years learning about the subject, you are not qualified to assess the science. "Dumbed down" or not.

And then what? How do we run a democratic society if the people are expected to never look too deeply at science? In a democratic society, we need a populace that is actively interested in trying to evaluate the work of scientists. How is the public supposed to know what to base their voting decisions on if they're just told to "listen to the experts?" What do we do in areas where the science isn't as solid as global warming and takes a decade or more to settle down -- such as all the various health panics over cell phones, MSG, aspartame, or MMR shots?

If you encourage people to simply place a wide gulf of respect between themselves and scientists, then that wide gulf also can become one of distrust, like that which AGW-deniers and creationists have. If you don't speak the language of scientists and never try to learn it, then why would you ever trust the man in the lab coat more than any other authority figure? To many people in this country, the process of science is as opaque and foreign and is something understood only distantly and with a hearty dose of misinformation, skepticism, and distrust.

The poster that you're unrepentantly bashing as simply unworthy of scientific understanding is someone who is trying to be informed about the issues and trying to make a good policy decision. Your sheer arrogance and belittling of him only makes things worse by trying to ensure that people treat science like religion -- something passed down from on high by people greater than yourself. In the fact of that, is it any wonder that many people simply pick their choice of experts when one looks as valid as the other?

This is absolutely counter-productive unless you simply advocate giving up on democracy.

location on Google Maps

[ChrisCampbell47]

I came in here to see if someone had figured out and posted the Google Maps URL for this location.

Instead, even at +5, I've got 27 comments with the same tired "debate" about global warming.

Slashdot, you suck.

Here's the location, supposedly:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+Moore+Island,+Bangladesh&ie=UTF8&hl=en&cd=1&split=0&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=23.875,57.630033&hq=&hnear=New+Moore+Island&ll=21.638282,89.145126&spn=0.213497,0.276031&t=h&z=12

Yes, it's a PR department.

[Valdrax]

You're calling media relations a "PR department"? You're comparing a small group of people who put out press releases with the massive industry-funded disinformation campaign which organizes massive denier conferences and offers prizes to scientists who can publish papers that support their position. Please, get serious here.

You know, not all PR departments are nothing but lying conspirators out to twist and hide the truth. Most company PR departments do nothing but put out a little press release with some boosterism and self-congratulating -- just like university PR departments do. A lot of crappy science journalism gets its start with a boiled-down press release that proclaims that the university's researchers have released a study proving some fact when the study in truth doesn't say much of anything conclusive.

For example, look at the story that was recently on Slashdot about HFCS causing obesity in rats. Several respectable science journalists have taken the time to look at the study more closely and concluded that it was deeply flawed and didn't prove much of anything. (1 2 3)

So where did the wide-eyed, "Big News!" take on the study come from? Why from Princeton's press release. This sort of things happens all the time in headline-grabbing areas of science, like global warming, nutrition, anthropology / humanoid evolution, cosmology, etc. Universities know that donations and grants come to those institutions that make the biggest splash, and they are more than willing to trump up the importance of a study that isn't as powerful as the headlines might make it out to be. Just like all those massive industry campaigns you decry as so different, lazy newspapers pick up the PR piece and publish it almost verbatim as news.

The problem of self-promoting PR compounded by a lack of journalistic integrity and diligence is just as prevalent in science as in industry. You want to know where the whole "eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you" debate comes from? It comes from press releases overstating the importance of a particular study before it's faced years of peer review and double-checking. And this sort of irresponsible bragging is a large part of why the public is so skeptical about science actually knowing anything.

Seconded.

[Valdrax]

Your disingenuous response is typical of the left-wing side in the debate, and it does little to convince anyone.

As a left-winger and someone who has been convinced that the science does show global warming is happening, I wholeheartedly endorse this statement. Telling people that they're not good enough to understand what the big people are talking about is no way to get people to vote to support the policies you endorse.

If anything it's about as effective evangelism as standing around on a street corner with a sign saying "God Hates Fags" is for converting people to your faith.

So doesn't that mean they gave out 4?

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I mean I thought the ones Carter and Klugman got were as a statement against Bush. (And for hating America too.)

Re:So doesn't that mean they gave out 4?

[Rich0]

Yup.

Poor Bill Clinton must be wondering how he missed out...

I can see a problem with your control

[Colin Smith]

There's the Earth in 2010, the Earth in 2000, the Earth in 1990, etc.

They're coupled.

 

It's known as Continental Drift!!

[howzit]

Why is it that 'Ex-Spurts' are so narrow minded? The Christmas Tsunami was the result of volcanic activity in the Indian Ocean. The Himalayas are fold-mountains caused by India moving North and China having non of it. The epicentre of the Chilean Quake rose more than a meter (3 feet) in a matter of seconds. What goes up can come down. Even a sandbar island.

Local Sea Level Rise???

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the local sea level can rise relative to a land mass. For instance Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, sinks 2 millimetres each year and as a seaside city the sea level is rising albeit very slowly.

Waterworld

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the truthful prophesies of the movie Waterworld begin!

when dinosaurs...

[psyph3r]

CO2 PPM ..2500ppm Co2 today? less than 400ppm. I'm quite sure the earth isn't going to stop it's natural cycles because of our pathetic existence. Especially not because of CO2, which is a common byproduct of most lifeforms on planet. In the grand scheme of things we are truly insignificant. any extra we put out just means the earth can support more plant life. I see this as an opportunistic piece to point at and convince people of the new terrorism. I'd be all for a cleaner environment and conserving resources if it weren't wrapped in sensationalist tyrannical agendas out to control the population.

Again defaulting to AGW...

[iterativeDesign]

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.

Why does everyone default to anthropogenic global warming as the culprit? Global warming or even other events might (and probably do) have a varying significant impact on this island becoming submerged; yet it is shortsighted and laziness on this person's judgment to claim it was global warming to unquestionably. Get some scientific and reliable evidence before you make public claims as facts.

- Why worry about the end, when people are already destroying the present?