What Happened To the Climate Refugees?

Attila Dimedici writes "In 2005 the UN said that by 2010 there would be 50 million climate refugees. They even provided a map of where they would come from. However since that original story was posted the UN has taken down that page. They apparently don't know about Google cache."

Comments

United Nations University, Not the UN

[ideonexus]

This article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with America's science reporting. If the UN had released a report claiming 50 million global warming refugees by 2010, there would be dozens of news articles on it. The supposed incriminating evidence is a Google Cache page with this map that doesn't itself say anything about refugees, but does highlight areas most susceptible to sea level rise. The "50 million climate refugees by 2010" statement is not referenced anywhere in any UN report, it's a six words on one defunct graphic that was part of a larger report on world agriculture by the UN University. This 50 million by 2010 figure comes from Dr. Bogardi at the UN University in Bonn, NOT the United Nations.

The problem with this prediction being made by any scientist is that keeping track of how many refugees there are is difficult (current estimate by the UN is 1 million a year, a figure that the Red Cross lends support to with the statement that environmental disasters are displacing more people than war now) and the causes are debatable. The epic flooding in Pakistan created 10 million refugees, Hurricane Katrina added a quarter of a million refugees, and desertification in Africa is displacing millions. Can we blame these events on Global Warming? Hurricanes and floods happen without a warming world, but a warming world increases the chances of such disasters happening.

Then there are the refugees that no one realizes. In the small coastal town where I live in North Carolina, houses have been falling into the swamp one by one for decades, but the residents blame it on people building their homes in flood zones, not realizing that sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast. People didn't build their homes in the water, the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built, but nobody realizes this because of landscape amnesia.

You can read all about the various estimates concerning environmental refugees on Wikipedia. It took the author of this untruth less than an hour to post their nonsense and the deniers flooded the Internet with it quickly. It took me two hours to research and write this response, because I wanted to know what I was talking about, and I will only reach a very small audience in comparison. This is why I despair when considering how science could possibly stand a chance against the overwhelming confidence ignorance brings the unscientific masses.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

"sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast [sciencedaily.com]."

What the quoted article actually says:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2009) — An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise, at least in North Carolina, is accelerating. Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years. In addition, this jump appears to occur between 1879 and 1915, a time of industrial change that may provide a direct link to human-induced climate change.

It seems more than a little illogical to state that sea levels rise higher in one Atlantic coast state than the others. And the primary sea level rise occurred well before the evil auto culture. But then I'm just an ignoramus according to the above post.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Ephemeriis]

All I can say is that I sincerely wish I had mod points right now.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

This 50 million by 2010 figure comes from Dr. Bogardi at the UN University in Bonn [guardian.co.uk], NOT the United Nations.

from Wikipedia:
"The United Nations University (UNU) is an academic arm of the United Nations"

It took me two hours to research and write this response

You are either a terrible researcher or a liar.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

You tell'em AC!

Why whenever I need to research something, I just type in what I want and BINGO! there's the answer. And if I google "Intelligent, well thought out, compelling article for [fill in topic here], again BINGO! there it is!

And I find that when I google for it, V1@gr4 is the solution for all problems!

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

The Earth's climate has always and will always change and there's nothing we can do about it.

People have always built houses, towns and even cities in areas where environmental changes have destroyed them or forced them to adapt or move.

Deal with it.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Pete Venkman]

Looks like you didn't read either.

"Furthermore, the acceleration appears consistent with other studies from the Atlantic coast, though the magnitude of the acceleration in North Carolina is larger than at sites farther north along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast and may be indicative of a latitudinal trend related to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet."

The article does state that NC's coast is creeping more quickly than at other points along the Atlantic coast.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Cyberax]

"It seems more than a little illogical to state that sea levels rise higher in one Atlantic coast state than the others."

Nothing illogical. 'Sea level' is an averaged value, which depends on currents and winds.

"And the primary sea level rise occurred well before the evil auto culture."

Coal was used in large quantities even before automobiles.

"But then I'm just an ignoramus according to the above post."

And here we both agree.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[FrootLoops]

Maybe I missed it, but why do you say "This article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with America's science reporting"? The author of TFA, Gavin Atkins, appears to be Australian. The hosting site, Asian Correspondent, doesn't appear to be related to American news. I agree with the general statement that science reporting is more often than not just terrible, but I don't see how America's science reporting enters in here. In any case, thanks for the thoughtful post!

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[webdog314]

from Wikipedia:
"The United Nations University (UNU) is an academic arm of the United Nations"

You are either a terrible researcher or a liar.

Right, just like California State University is an academic arm of the California state government, which should be held accountable for everything they put out...

You are either an idiot, or... no, you're just an idiot.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Your response clearly demonstrates what's wrong with your countries science reporting. You go blasting one writer only to make mistakes yourself. Just for a start,

People didn't build their homes in the water, the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built, but nobody realizes this because of landscape amnesia [wikipedia.org].

Wrong. Nowhere in the article does it say the water rose 1.5 meters over 50 years. What it does say is:

The rate of relative sea-level rise, or RSLR, during the 20th century was 3 to 3.3 millimeters per year, higher than the usual rate of one per year.

Averaging to a 16.5cm rise for 50 years. Far from the 1.5 meters you claim.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

The map is also getting misinterpreted. This isn't the clearest thing ever on the web page, but the map was made to indicate a general set of places where people were at list from climate change, not a specific list of everyone who would be misplaced in the next five years. As if I wrote an article predicting a rise in shark attacks, and attached a map of where there were sharks - the map isn't intended to be a predictor, just a guide.

There's no strict definition of a climate refugee (and a lot of argument over what the definition should be.) Am I a refugee if, like Katrina victims, I evacuate to someplace inside my own country? What if I evacuate but have enough money for that not to be a huge problem for me? There are certainly counts right now that are in line with the 50 million figure.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bunratty]

So any statement made by any researcher involved with the UN is essentially the same as an official statement by the UN? Furthermore, if I can show that any of these statements by any researchers turns out the be wrong, the entire field of study and research institution they're involved with is called into question? Using that logic, I can call into question any aspect of anything that's studied and any research institution.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bunratty]

Avalanches have always and will always happen, and there's nothing we can do about it. We can, however, trigger avalanches so they happen when people aren't around so people don't get hurt. Diseases have always and will always happen, and there's nothing we can do about it. We can, however, develop vaccines and treatments to minimize human suffering. Just because we can't fully control nature doesn't mean we can't influence it.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[FooAtWFU]

This article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with America's science reporting.

America has no science reporting. It has sciency reporting, in the Steven-Colbert "truthiness" sense. Now consider that the media is the main way that "climate change" gets communicated to the people of America. The media... and politicians. Is there any surprise that lots of people are insanely skeptical of it? I'd even say that with those inputs, calling it all a load of nonsense is a very rational response.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Deep Esophagus]

The UN Environment Programme specifically cites those figures in their report, and a 2008 report on un.org's own news site repeats those claims:

Citing a report from the UN University, UNEP said that there were now more than 19 million people officially recognized as “persons of concern” – people who are likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. UNEP said that figure is expected to grow to about 50 million by the end of 2010.

That article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with the UN's science reporting. You can't have it both ways -- expect us to believe what the UN says about climate when we can't prove them wrong, and expect us to ignore their claims when they have been proven wrong. Making outrageous predictions like the above is political grandstanding at its worst, and has no place in science.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[larry bagina]

The population of New Orleans dropped 30% from 2000 to 2010. The population of the listed refugee sites has increased. Ok, maybe they moved from one end of the island to the other, but the same population increase occurred for specific cities that were listed.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[pubwvj]

This is like the livestock's long shadow mess they did a while back. They claimed that raising meat is responsible for more global warming than transportation (e.g., cars). This became widely quoted and used as an excuse by the vegan crowd for trying to force every to stop eating meat. The problem was the report was full of errors and in general a fraud. It didn't include the full costs of transportation yet it over included the costs for livestock resulting in totally distorted numbers. More importantly it didn't differentiate between the grain fed confinement animal feeding operations vs the pastured farming of livestock which are two entirely different things. All animal farming got painted with the same broad brush. Additionally, they completely failed to mention that the growing of vegetable and grain crops for humans has the exact same problem and that it takes several pounds of veggies/cereals to equal one pound of nutrients of meat. Finally the FAO did retract their report but they didn't make a big deal about the retraction like they had when they published it and the vegan crowd continues to use the flawed original report as justification for their eco/political terrorism. The UN, FAO, etc are very irresponsible with their reports and press releases.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

"Can we blame these events on Global Warming? Hurricanes and floods happen without a warming world, but a warming world increases the chances of such disasters happening."

The short answer is "no", we can't confidently blame these events on global warming, but that's due to a fundamental problem: events like these have always happened in the Earth's history and had sometimes dire human effects. To understand whether there is a long term change requires a long sample time, and we haven't really had that yet. We won't know for a long time whether this collection of events reflects an increasing trend, or just the vagaries of normal climatic variation year-to-year. It's more than a little frustrating, especially when we DO know that dramatic changes have occurred over long timeframes. For example, there are wide areas of Nebraska that consist of desert sand dunes that are grassed over -- a little drier climate, and it will go back to an arid, unfarmable landscape.

Also, you've left out another big recent example: the severe drought that is occurring in parts of China currently, apparently the worst in ~60 years, and which has had a dramatic effect on global food prices. There was also the heat wave in Russia and the droughts in Australia in the last year.

Normal variation? Part of a trend? Let's hope it's the former. But I think we can agree that most of the media presentation of the issue is awful, and that's a big problem.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[pubwvj]

Also not in the news is the fact that the sea level used to be a LOT higher than it is now and it used to be a LOT lower than it is now. Things change. That's life. None of it had anything to do with humans.

The planet has also been warmer and cooler in the past. When the planet was warmer there was more diversity of life, large swaths of land that are currently too cold for much bio-diversity were more useable by nature and man. When it got colder it was hell. Things change. Given my druthers I would take warmer, please.

With all of this angst over "Global Warming" people are missing the real issue: cut pollution.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the issue is that the ground is sinking (as in Louisiana)? That's the only way sea levels could rise more in one place than another.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[electrosoccertux]

shhh being anti US is all the rage over here on /. you'll spoil our fun!

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[worx101]

And to add on, the Maldives is seriously suffering from rising oceans. The whole populace is in negotiations to purchase land from Australia for it's citizens to move to.... And it's not at risk? Population growth or not, it doesn't dismissed the problem. People will return to there Homes o matter what for the most part.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bunratty]

The data have always showed warming due to burning fossil fuels, ever since Arrhenius predicted it over 100 years ago. The impending ice age approaching was hypothesized by researchers doing exactly what you're doing -- instead of looking at the global temperature trend looking at small geographical areas. Clearly global temperatures are rising. There isn't a "scare campaign" that I can see, just predictions based on a scientific hypothesis, and observations that match those predictions. The problem with rising sea levels is that hundreds of millions of people will have to relocate, abandoning trillions of dollars of infrastructure. Solar power can be used with energy storage systems. Try reading some research on the areas you're discussing instead of spreading misinformation like your post does.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[slasho81]

Your +5 Informative post is why I still have faith in humanity (and Slashdot). Thanks for researching and posting it.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[phantomfive]

You make a valiant attempt to explain away the article, but the actual explanation is much simpler. The UN University indeed is the one who issued the report, but they are merely a UN think tank. Furthermore, UNEP also cited the report, and UNEP started the IPCC, so it is not unreasonable to say that the UN was claiming this. The UNEP is as much a part of the UN as the IPCC.

To really understand this, you have to look at the claim. Let's look at what the UN actually said:

there are now about 19.2 million people officially recognized as "persons of concern"-that is, people likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. This figure is predicted to grow to about 50 million by the end of the year 2010.

Note that the number is not environmental refugees, but actually persons of concern. There is a huge difference between the two, and the second is probably not inaccurate.

Now, on the website in question, UNEP said this

Fifty million climate refugees by 2010

This is obviously not what the original researchers were claiming. Who knows why UNEP put that on their website, but it is most likely an error of their PR agency, not of their science. In short, the scientists were probably right, but the propagandaists were wrong.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[angel'o'sphere]

If yo would read what he posted and compare it what you post, you would see: you are wrong.
Average all over the world as you calculate, might be 16.5cm but at that particular place it is 1.5m

Do you get it? At that particular place that was very clearly written in the orignal post.

angel'o'sphere

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[mvdwege]

Perhaps it escaped your attention, but the bit you're quoting says nothing about the amount of refugees, it is rather an assesment on the areas that are at risk of producing refugees for whatever reason, including rising sea levels

Which was exactly wat the OP was pointing out.

Another data point for the hypothesis that climate denialism correlates with stupidity, I guess.

Mart

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[angel'o'sphere]

Currently we're seeing an unparalled scare campaign by the UN and some environmental organizations based on the same data that three decades ago showed an iceage approaching

Can someone provide some links regarding those organizations?
I learned 1975 that we likely run into a global warming, and I never heard about anyone proclaiming an approaching ice age. After all the next ice age is due in 35k years and not in the next 100 ... that is a complete nonsense claim. (Considering that we don't even know by what ice ages are caused ...)
angel'o'sphere

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess it is the politicians in UN rather than the academics in their Universities that have convinced the /. hivemind so fully of the scientific merits of "Catastrophic Global Warming" then? Since it doesn't matter if researchers turn out to be wrong.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bunratty]

No, it's the continued observations of the warming that has been predicted for over 100 years. If we do not see the predicted warning, then feel free to say the researchers were wrong.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[dave420]

Or increased/moved currents in the ocean, driving more water to a single place, coupled with a local geography that makes a localised increase in retention more likely.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

I simply wonder, if anyone here thought of the Japan earthquake and Fukushima victims and evacuees as "persons of concern". Because they definitely are.

And what about everyone affected by the BP oil spill? In the long run, there will be a lot affected by it. They definitely count too.

etc.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HungryHobo]

Why?
The planet has been richer in CO2, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the past.
When the planet at times has had almost no oxygen, at times it has had more, at times the air has been toxic to breath.

so why worry about pollution?

the real thing we should be worrying about is cats. sooner or later someone will invent a can opener that can be operated with a paw then we're all fucked.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Penguinisto]

In your haste to exonerate the UN, you missed something.

Yes, if you read the actual Google cached page (and not just the map), you'd find something interesting in the headline and very first paragraph:

"Fifty million climate refugees by 2010.

Today we find a world of asymmetric development, unsustainable natural resource use, and continued rural and urban poverty. There is general agreement about the current global environmental and development crisis. It is also known that the consequences of these global changes have the most devastating impacts on the poorest, who historically have had limited entitlements and opportunities for growth."

Now that's not an 'official' UN site... or is it? Let's go to the front page of the grida.no site and see who they are:

"GRID-Arendal is a collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Established in 1989 by the Government of Norway as a Norwegian Foundation, our mission is to communicate environmental information to policy-makers and facilitate environmental decision-making for change. We are based in Arendal, Norway and have offices in Ottawa, Canada and Stockholm, Sweden."

Long story short - even if the UN *itself* didn't put out such a statement, one of its own programs authorized and publicized it - no matter the source.

TFA's author is right in the premise of pointing out excessive alarmism.

As for the actuality of flooding and such, sure, it is happening. OTOH, I'm kind of wondering where those 50m refugees are. Katrina and Pakistan (your sort-of examples) have bupkis to do with rising sea levels - one was blasted by hurricane storm surge in lands which were below sea level since long before human settlement - the other was due to flooding, yes, but not from the sea at all.

BTW - It doesn't help when you're fudging your defense with (obviously paraphrased): 'OAMG it's all environmental and no one can tell if it's AGW or not, so we better FUD them in and count them as AGW refugees anyway!'

Seriously - let's stick to known facts, and stop making extrapolations based on emotion and guesswork.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

You really have no standing to critizice others of taking too long in their research, not when you make the sort of logical mistake you did -- UNU does not give statements for the UN.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Penguinisto]

With all of this angst over "Global Warming" people are missing the real issue: cut pollution.

The urge to be right at all costs is a bit of a bit of a problem in the scientific and political communities. Sadly, it's the rest of us who have to put up with results when people in those two groups happen to travel together on an issue.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[urusan]

You can already call into question any aspect of anything that's studied at any research institution. There's no need to acquire special justification. Questioning past results is an important part of science. Otherwise we'd have the Sun revolving around the Earth and supposed cold fusion.

That said, one should really have a logical argument based on all the relevant available facts when calling such things into question. Otherwise it's all just a waste of time for everyone involved...particularly the scientists involved, who could be making new discoveries in that time.

In this case, the best one can say is that the idea that 50 million refugees would materialize so soon was wrong, and that Dr. Bogardi of the UNU made a serious mistake in his prediction, which was possibly driven by the desire for creating scary headlines. That last bit about the headlines and anything further is speculation and politics, which is outside the realm of science.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Using that logic, I can call into question any aspect of anything that's studied and any research institution.
You're finally getting the hang of science reporting by the media!

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

People didn't build their homes in the water, the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built, but nobody realizes this because of landscape amnesia.

This reminds me of many many things that are related to Tragedy of the commons.

Take, for example, the situation with air pollution in Asian nations. They don't view it as something that is seriously wrong anymore. Their concerns are the economy and taxes, but not that they can't breathe anymore. I believe it was in Calcutta, with its perpetual smog clouds, that environmental concerns are simply not on anyone's radar. When government wanted to force all rickshaws and buses to use LNG instead of kerosene, there was so much unrest that they were forced back on implementing that law. But if people of Calcutta lived in a clean environment, and then were quickly forced back into theirs, the entire Tragedy of the Commons would no longer exist. There would be too much of a contrast to simply go back.

The same thing with almost every tragedy of the commons example. The big programs creep up on you and they become normal.

Another example could be nuclear reactor accidents vs. coal pollution. Coal pollution and accidents can kill many many more people a nuclear accident, but coal pollution falls under the Creeping Normalcy - the pollution simply increases steadily and people die. In a nuclear accident, the pollution tends to initially spread quickly and people's lives are temporarily interrupted.

On the other hand, you take things like Global Warming, that overtime will cause displacement of 500 million to a few billion people, yet, that problem creeps slowly. By the time it arrives, I wander if anyone will even look at it as being caused by global warming. After all, Bangladesh never existed, right? :)

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

The entirety of Japan fell 10 meters after the recent earthquake. You don't need global warming for a coastline to change.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Another data point for the hypothesis that climate denialism correlates with stupidity, I guess.

Mart

Rule 7: Calling someone stupid means you've lost the argument.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a student living in Bonn. I had never heard of the "UN university" so I looked it up. Bonn is a tiny university town and
already has one big university, the aptly-named University of Bonn, so I was suprised to discover that
it had another university hiding somewhere. As it turn out the "UN university" consists of four levels of a UN office building in the middle of the UN compound. From the website "The offices of UNU-EHS are located on the 22nd and 26th-28th floor of the Langer Eugen building on the UN Campus." It is fully funded by the UN and has nothing to do with Germany or Bonn. You made it sound like its some kind of private institute using the UN name, but its not. To call it a part of the UN is completely accurate.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Troed]

Really?

"In this clip professor Nils Axel Morner, from Stockholm University travels to the Maldives and finds out that the ocean levels have dropped in recent years."

http://www.google.se/search?q=morner+maldives

(as a fellow Swede I'm somewhat proud of our professor, one of the world's most renowned when it comes to sea level studies and who's visited the Maldives plenty of times)

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the radical climate we've had the 50 million number probably is accurate. People expect a city of 50 million that had to flee. Overall all in the world we're talking a small number in each country. Look at it this way, sand dunes have nearly reached Beijing China. How many got displaced there due to the ongoing drought? How about on the other side of the mountains where there's been massive flooding? The problem is in separating normal displacement from that caused by climate change. Even Katrina is potentially a factor and we are talking about hundreds of thousands displaced. Before everyone starts shouting that Hurricanes happen every year look at the averages. When is the last time that many people were displaced in the US by a Hurricane? Not in my lifetime and I'm half a century. The normal numbers would be in the hundreds or thousands not in the hundreds of thousands. There's been displacements in Australia due to the worst drought in a thousand years. The disappearance of water sources in Africa have made the displacement of hundreds of thousands a normal event. The problem is separating the man made from over use from that caused by climate shifts. I think people are trying to equate this as due to ocean level rise which it was never stated as being from ocean levels. There are arguably tens of thousands that have been or soon will be displaced since whole island nationals are planning to move soon and not in 50 years. Some have left already. Even places like Bangladesh has seen many thousands displaced due to unusual flooding. I think if you focus on drought and flooding and compare it to yearly averages from the past I think you'll find the 50 million number isn't too far off. The real test is what happens in the next 50 years. A lack of water will be more of a factor for moving than water level rise. Also in 50 years you will see large numbers move from coastal areas since there is a worldwide melt that is well documented and the water has to go somewhere. The climate change deniers tend to be more reactionary than the believers. Personally I read everything I can and then form my opinion. Deniers seem happy to read one article and form an opinion.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

"Note that the number is not environmental refugees,but actually persons of concern."

Note that you forgot their definition of 'persons of concern' - "people likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters" (ie: "environmental refugees").

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[YesIAmAScript]

It doesn't say "at risk", it says "likely". And the reasons are for climate reasons, although not all due to rising sea levels.

This correlates with the story slashdot printed which is that 50M refugees were predicted due to climate reasons.

And the real numbers were much much lower.

The climate change issue has been so poorly represented on both sides. One side says nothing is happening at all. While the other makes overly dire predictions and draws unprovable conclusions (Katrina is due to global warming) in order to try to scare people into action.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

You could easily extend that to all Western media. Or even to all media at all. They are good in telling stories, but they are bad in telling the truth (what ever that may be).

Still the author has a point. The references UN report is an estimation of effects of a sea level rise by 2010 which happened. However, the effect where slightly different from the expected effects (from that other university, see details above).

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

The entirety of Japan fell 10 meters after the recent earthquake. You don't need global warming for a coastline to change.

*facepalm*

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Jiro]

If you read the original article (rather than the headline), it correctly attributes the claim to the United Nations Environment Programme. The reader can decide for themselves whether that counts as endorsement by the UN. Clearly it wasn't decided by the UN in the sense of having a UN resolution on the subject, but it's silly to deny that UN organizations have enough connection to the UN for the things they say to be blamed on the UN.

(And if you like headlines, note that your own link has "50m environmental refugees by end of decade, UN warns" in the headline.)

Also, if you follow the second of the original articles it turns out that now, "In 2020, the UN has projected that we will have 50 million environmental refugees". (And that one actually says the UN.)

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[msauve]

1) The data have shown a correlation, not a causation.
2) There's nothing scientific about the predictions, and the observations do not match as you claim (the subject of the article is just a single case in point.) I'll bet one could develop an equally valid prediction based on MPAA/RIAA copyright submissions and radio/TV broadcasts as the cause of global warming.
3) When observations don't match predictions, instead of changing the hypothesis, the conflicting data is simply ignored. This is antithetical to true scientific. Again, the article presents but one example.
4) Claims of warming are based on reasonably accurate data covering less than 300 years, much less than that if global change is to be compared (everyone seems to agree that local changes can't be considered significant).
5) Proxies for temperatures prior to accurate measurement have been shown to be unreliable. The data has been "cherry picked" to make a case. Again, conflicting data have been ignored, or simply altered to match expectations. (See "Climategate")
6) There is vast evidence that climate is chaotic, and at time frames exceeding our accurate records. Conveniently, the difference in time frame between "weather" and "climate" seems to always depend on the point being made.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[tqk]

Currently we're seeing an unparalled scare campaign by the UN and some environmental organizations based on the same data that three decades ago showed an iceage approaching ...

Can someone provide some links regarding those organizations?

Oh c'mon, buddy, especially on /., that's your job. Report back what you find, or what you found not to exist.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

I can pretty much guarantee you that the UN would have used it in press releases to help "hype up" the impending disaster, alongside an appeal for more power and money of course. So it doesn't really matter if it's "official" or not. It's certainly bollocks.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bunratty]

1. All causations involve correlations. Carbon dioxide certainly is a greenhouse gas, greenhouse gasses do cause warming, so certainly an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause warming. If it isn't the carbon dioxide causing the warming, what is it? Your other points seem to be completely nonsensical. Do you have evidence that the Earth isn't warming, or that the warming is due to something other than carbon dioxide, or an explanation as to why the warming due to carbon dioxide is not as great as we'd predict?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Broolucks]

The issue is that speedy changes might wreak havoc on many population centers, forcing them to relocate. A warmer planet might be nicer for humanity, but you'll be sacking one or two generations in the transition. To the extent that we are not willing to accept something as radical as sacrificing swaths of people all around the world for the good of their great-grandchildren, we'd rather make sure that if we can prevent it, we will. We can warm the planet at a slower, safer rate.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[brit74]

"And we've just had the two coldest winters in decades/centuries here in Europe (and Northern America)... So much for global warming. IMHO of course."
No kidding! They keep telling me that summer is coming, too, but we just had some really cold days here. So much for the "summer is coming" crowd.

"Forget solar power and wind as they're both unreliable and requires so many windmills and solar farms just to cover our current needs that every square mile of the Earth will be filled with them."
No kidding. I mean, the earth has 148,940,000 km of land, and we'd need "496,905 square kilometers to power the world with solar energy" (http://www.greencrawler.com/blog/?p=1513), with a infographic of wind and solar power (http://www.flickr.com/photos/25541021@N00/3895429285/sizes/l/in/photostream/) That's the whole surface of the earth, right?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment is probably the most ridiculous I've ever read on slashdot, and as you can imagine, that's up against some pretty stiff competition.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Your link says 3-3.3mm over the 20th century, which means, unless it accelerated over the last 50 years, would be .15 meters, not 1.5m. And a lot of the problem areas (like New Orleans) are in trouble because of the ground sinking or because of the removal of buffer zones (wetlands, mangroves, etc) not because of rising sea levels.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[rgbatduke]

If you think sea levels in NC have risen 1.5 meters then I really, really, want some of what you are smoking. I'll be sure to let them know when I go to teach at the Duke Marine Lab this summer that their island is under water.

What your reply clearly demonstrates is that the hysteria associated with Anthropogenic Global Warming is pervasive and in some sense, quite insane. I am guessing that you are somehow conflating beach erosion -- an issue that does indeed dominate NC local politics on the coast and which in some cases does indeed have human causes -- with sea-level rise. Here's a hint. You cannot have a 1.5 meter rise in sea level only in North Carolina. There are these silly laws of physics and hydrodynamics, you see...

rgb (alive and well in NC the day after many tornadoes that were not, actually, caused by "global warming" either -- they were and often are caused by cold fronts overrunning warm air, something that happens every spring, some years worse than others. This has been a very cold year to the north of us, and our fairly normal warm spring weather got hit by a fast moving cold front.)

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[ScentCone]

In short, the scientists were probably right, but the propagandaists were wrong.

And yet it's the propogandists that influence the minds of Hollywood celebrities and other high-profile people who then spout off on the subject and encourage people to vote one way or another on politicians that want to involve trillions of dollars on the subject, or use it as a vehicle by which to tax one group and give it to another group. That's the problem.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[jvillain]

I think you will find that that the UN General Assembly is in fact part of the UN. Inconvenient as that might be for your story.

General Assembly, 8 July 2008

GA/10725

Sixty-second General Assembly

Informal Meeting on Climate Change and Most Vulnerable Countries (AM)

Statements

SRGJAN KERIM, President of the General Assembly, opened the discussion by saying that 11 of the last 12 years had ranked among the 12 warmest since the keeping of global temperature records had begun in 1850. Two points were significant: that climate change was inherently a sustainable-development challenge; and that more efforts than ever before must be exerted to enable poor countries to prepare for impacts because it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010.

Link

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[rgbatduke]

And a careful analysis of CO_2 levels and temperature from examining ice cores shows that more or less without exception CO_2 levels lag temperature rises by hundreds of years. The actual evidence shows almost no climate sensitivity to CO_2 forcing. This actually makes very good sense, given the orders of magnitude involved. The earth's climate and its fluctuations are dominated by solar state first, gross geographical changes and long-lifetime oscillations in the chaotic pattern of circulation (e.g. PDO) second, and things like CO_2 levels a distant and almost irrelevant third. A fact that is already starting to be quite apparent as we enter solar cycle 24 heading towards a probable 200 year low peak level of solar activity. Get used to nasty winters -- if we actually start a Dalton, or worse Maunder, style solar minimum we'll all need our woolies and there will indeed be a climate-based human catastrophe. It will be the exact opposite of the one the hysteria of the last 20 years has focused on, of course, but so be it. I bet they still won't make Al Gore give back his "Nobel Prize".

rgb

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

For certain spacings, yes.

In this case, putting a solar panel on every plot of 299ksq (so a 15 k square or hex grid) should do it.

To be fair-- you are including mountains (darn high installation expenses!), swamps, etc.
I'm sure there will be a subset. And there are multiple kinds of solar power.

And if the power isn't 100% sufficient, you apparently need to keep the gas/oil turbines spinning at a low rate so they can ramp up when the wind dies or the clouds block a section.

Still, most houses could be powered for less than 10% of their lot size. In my case, I'll be powering during the day with a grid tied system with no batteries. That should reduce my power costs by about $500 per year and payback the system in 20 years assuming no increases in the cost of power (which in my area have doubled to tripled over the last 20 years).

The anti-solar side overstates things to the negative.
The pro-solar side overstates things to the positive.

But photo voltaic solar is getting cheaper every year now and we are about to hit a period of inflation. $10k in a solar power system could pay for itself in 15 years and then produce a 50% to 75% return over the next 10 years. Plus- saved money- you don't pay taxes on. So saving $500 is like earning $750.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure what you are talking about "not the United Nations"

1) GRID-Arendal is a collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
http://grida.no/

2) The original page and graphic are viewable via waybackmachine.org
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090217054716/http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Paleolibertarian]

1. All causations involve correlations. Carbon dioxide certainly is a greenhouse gas, greenhouse gasses do cause warming, so certainly an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause warming. If it isn't the carbon dioxide causing the warming, what is it?

Actually there IS a strong correlation between the variability of the Sun and global temperatures. I.E. When the sun is hotter the Earth is warmer and when the Sun is cooler the Earth is cooler. Yet. this data is completely ignored by climate scientists.
--
There are 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Denigration and pigeonholing does less for your cause then you may realize. Belittling someone who disagrees(rudely or politely) does not make you look better or further awareness.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who complain about being "anti US" and want to avoid change at any cost -- these are real anti US people, for they think the US can go backwards full speed forever, the future be damned. Not even your enemies want that!

Now, just to be on topic: some people said the climate would be a mess and made wrong predictions... the other party said things were stable and nothing would change regarding weather.

Well, the climate doom people predicted badly, and now the no-warming-climate guys want to discredit them... very well, but something all over Earth happening now seem to me going extremely bad. Reactors are popping out like zits, dammit! What more evidence do you want? The planet turned to a hemisphere?

What next? Mock the climatologists for wrongly lacing their shoes?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[msauve]

Oh, yeah. Thanks for reminding me.
7) When presented with criticism of their data or contradictory evidence, they ignore it, and try to shift the burden of proof.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're saying is true in terms of the climate lag, but your understanding of what it means is miles off. The fact that warming cycles due to orbital changes are followed by changes in atmospheric CO2 does not invalidate or in any way call into question the fact that CO2 causes additional atmospheric warming, nor that anthropogenic emissions have caused substantial warming.

A good idea in the future would be to take anything you hear about climate change and search the Skeptical Science page for it. Read this for more information:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[jvillain]

The problem is that we are now starting to get a long trail of predictions from the global warming advocates that have failed to come true. Another favourite of mine is that hurricanes were going to be rampaging across the Atlantic due to the warming. Catrina being just the start. That is why Al Gores book is covered with photoshopped hurricanes including one turning in the wrong direction. Only problem is that hurricane activity has dramatically dropped since Catrina. Yet we are expected to spent trillions with a T of dollars based on these predictions from computer models that can't be verified in any way, haven't had their code released for review or had their algorithms reviewed. This "Just take my word for it" mentality is what we are supposed to bankrupt our countries on. Just look at the disaster wind power has become for the UK and others to see what the problems are.

1. During the study period, wind generation was:

* below 20% of capacity more than half the time;

* below 10% of capacity over one third of the time;

* below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve;

* below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.

Link

The head of the UK power grid is saying that homes are going to have to get used to not always having power at home.

Link

Then there is the actual life expectancy of windmills. Is this really what we should be spending money on?

Link

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

Close. The right starting and ending letters...different middle, "pula".

po----tion

Cut po-pula-tion.

Nothing we do will matter if we don't stop incenting new babies and let the population naturally fall to 3 billion (even 2 billion- the planet would be a paradise with 2 billion).

If you don't take these measures now- you STILL have take them when we hit 9 billion (10 billion... 11 billion) and life will be a lot more miserable then with dead fisheries, high cellulose fruits and vegetables and no meat except for the wealthy.

We can fix most of these problems in one generation.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Whaaaat???
Your own quote defines "persons of concern" as "people likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters". Since a possible interpretation of "environmental refugee" is "person displaced because of environmental disaster", it is legitimate to equate "person of concern" with "environmental refugee" (i.e., by simple transitivity). Therefore, under that interpretation of the expression "environmental refugees", it is true that your quote claims that there were 50 million of "likely" environmental refugees in 2010.
So no, in the quote there is NOT a huge difference between the two, there is exactly this difference: from "environmental refugee" to "likely environmental refugee". Since people are not leaving the areas identified as "at risk", but, on the contrary, their populations are growing, it is evident in 2011 that those people weren't "likely" environmental refugees in 2010, and therefore the prediction (even accounting for "likely") simply fails.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea level is rising 2-3mm a year in North Carolina, roughly the same as most of the East Coast.
This works out to about 1 foot/century or less, not 1.5 meters in just 50 years.
This is my reference: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/MSL_global_trendtable.html

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the grand parent, the people are not called refugees but "persons if concern". These "persons of concern" were "to be displaced because of environmental disasters" in 2008.

Question 1: If "displaced people" are not refugees, then does refugee mean water melon?

Question 2: Have these people actually been displaced since 2008?

Question 3: Did the number of people "likely to be displaced" grow to 50 million in 2010? Have these people actually been displaced since 2010?

good day

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

-- Another data point for the hypothesis that climate denialism correlates with stupidity, I guess.
-- Mart

Ad hominem attacks add so much to the discussion, thank you Mart for enlightening us! This is why I will never join the "CO2 causes destructive global warming" camp, because the people over there don't want to discuss science or debate meaningful discussion points / ideas. They just like to call you "stupid" or a "flat earther" when ever you want to have a meaningful discussion. I refuse to associate with people like this.

Thanks for solidifying my position.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[zigmeister]

Perhaps it escaped your attention, but the bit you're quoting says nothing about the amount of refugees, it is rather an assesment on the areas that are at risk of producing refugees for whatever reason, including rising sea levels

Which was exactly wat the OP was pointing out.

Another data point for the hypothesis that climate denialism correlates with stupidity, I guess.

Mart

Ok, let's read it again:

Citing a report from the UN University, UNEP said that there were now more than 19 million people officially recognized as “persons of concern” – people who are likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. UNEP said that figure is expected to grow to about 50 million by the end of 2010.

I mean, climate change arguments aside, I think that there is something about the "amount tion on areasof refugees" in that quote, but I just can't put my finger on it. So ya, maybe that report is an assessment or projec that are at higher risk or whatnot, but that specific bit pretty clearly states an amount and a projected future amount.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[zigmeister]

Sorry post got screwed up: last bit should read: I mean, climate change arguments aside, I think that there is something about the "amount of refugees" in that quote, but I just can't put my finger on it. So ya, maybe that report is an assessment or projection of areas that are at higher risk or whatnot, but that specific bit pretty clearly states an amount and a projected future amount.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HiThere]

If it's warm AND MOIST, then the planet will indeed support more diversity. But that diversity takes time to evolve (not just centuries) and I don't think people would give it an opportunity.

For that matter, life over most of the globe was a lot more diverse before people invented archery and nets. This is true whether it was warm, cool, or cold. The only exception is the tropical rain forests, where the climate was so intense that most tools were quickly destroyed by it. Then diversity tended to hang on until stainless steel was invented.

But I do agree that cutting pollution is the most important step, and that global warming is only ONE of the reasons that it should be done.

P.S.: Global warming is not intrinsically a bad thing. It *is*, however, bad for fixed species, individuals, and objects. Fertile areas have a tendency to turn into deserts more readily than deserts turn into fertile areas. Fences, highways, canyons, etc. tend to put obstacles in the way of species trying to migrate into a more hospitable location. And when they get there they're likely to find that it's outside the wildlife sanctuary that climate change has rendered inhospitable. And that some person has claimed the ownership of everything non-human on that turf. Which means THEM, if they try to live there.

In other words, expect climate change, whether warming or not, to decimate the existing species, which are already disappearing faster than at any time since the last Giant Meteor impact. (The dinosaur killer.)
P.S.: I don't think it's a coincidence that a bunch of volcanoes went off on the other side of the world at about the time of impact. I think the shock waves set them off. It's not an either/or kind of causation, but rather a both/and.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[pubwvj]

I'm not so worried about CO2, water vapor and such "pollutants". As you correctly noted, they've been higher and lower in the past. I'm more worried about dioxins, PBCs, mercury in the food chain and their ilk. GMO's getting out in the wild are another worry, not because I have something against genetic engineering (It's a tool like nuclear engineering) but because they're not doing sufficient testing.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[im_thatoneguy]

Stop whining about me lighting your house on fire. Houses have burned before in this area and houses will burn again. None of it had anything to do with humans. Sure I poured gasoline on all the bushes around your house and threw a match into the mix... but it's not like "a burning bush" is a new phenomenon--we even have documentation of this in biblical times. Relax!

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[cdrguru]

I'd say you are an order of magnitude off of "paradise" - we need to get to around 250 million if we want "sustainable".

Even trying to cut the population in half (more than half, really) would require nearly preventing all births for 10-20 years. Sure, it is possible but it is entirely possible that you would wreck the motivation people have for having children completely. If you push too hard on this there is the possiblity that people will just give up.

This is a factor that some of the more radical environmentalists refuse to accept - that if you push hard enough the result will be that people will just give up entirely. All it takes is about 15 years of zero birthrate and you're not going to get it back, ever. Absolutely it is hard to disincent the drive to reproduce - but if you succeed the result could be catastrophic.

How hard would you have to push? Well, in the US and Western Europe today the population growth is negative. Many people feel that it isn't fair to bring children into a world of declining expectations and looming destruction of the environment. Mostly this is among educated young people. In the US we are left with immigration as the only population growth factor there is and I suspect Western Europe is pretty much the same way. This portends some very drastic changes in the coming decades as the population shifts away from educated European-extracted peoples and towards Latin American folks that have been subsistance farming for generations and no goals higher than survival. In most inner cities today the idea of the straight-A student is a subject of ridicule, as is the idea of going to college - what, do you want to be seen as trying to prove yourself better than your peers?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[cdrguru]

The population of Detroit has dropped by around 70% in the last 20 years. Perhaps it is because it is cold there in the winter? Or could it be because the gangs have taken over the inner city and there are no more jobs?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bendodge]

This article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with America's science reporting.

America has no science reporting. It has sciency reporting, in the Steven-Colbert "truthiness" sense. Now consider that the media is the main way that "climate change" gets communicated to the people of America. The media... and politicians. Is there any surprise that lots of people are insanely skeptical of it? I'd even say that with those inputs, calling it all a load of nonsense is a very rational response.

Uh, this article is by an Australian author. http://asiancorrespondent.com/author/gavinatkins/
As a side note, here's a direct link to the map: http://maps.grida.no/library/files/storage/11kap9climat.png

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[ustolemyname]

No. There is a person who is likely (at some point in the future) to be displaced, and someone who is displaced. What the report said was that in 2010 50 million people would be in positions at risk of being displaced.

That's just keeping with the GP's reasoning, not a statement of fact.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[ynp7]

The planet's too damned hot already. We need to cool this bitch down. And in MY lifetime, not that of the grandchildren I'm never going to have.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Big deal. The United Nations has done their fair share in swindling the public on this issue as well.

The SUN is what is making us heat up or cool down, and carbon dioxide levels are a GOOD THING. A warmer planet, especially one with more carbon dioxide would be able to support a lot more life on it. I guess that's not in the best interests of the UN who claims that population must be reduced or the firey inferno's of hell will surely bite us in the backside.

Humans and animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Plant life inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. It's the entire lifecycle of this planet. If you reduce carbon dioxide artificially, plant life will be starved, just as if there was a lack of oxygen we'd have a hard time thriving.

Even if the so-called warming of the planet were happening. . . big deal. The earth changes all the time. Why should the entire earth be forced into draconian bondage so that a few people building their homes at the waters edge could escape having to move? Then again, global warming is not occuring as such. There was a touch of warming in line with the rest of the solar system (you know that big sun thing in the sky? That's more than just a prop put there by "climate skeptics" to "test the faith" of the true believers. It actually does have a purpose, and just like those giant dinosaur things to fundamentalist christians, it's not going to go away no matter how much you have faith that it doesn't exist.) We are actually at a point where our carbon dioxide levels are a great deal less than other periods in history. There was no death and destruction to speak of, so why would there be now?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[im_thatoneguy]

I think the previous Slashdot article hit the nail on the head. The problem is that most people can't understand any of the subjects being discussed so they have to take it on faith that so-and-so is telling the truth. So if one blog says one thing and another blog says another they just go with the one that also says all the other stuff they agree with as equally valid.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[The End Of Days]

Yeah pretty much everyone thinks everything would be great if everyone just listened to them. Doesn't make you right in any way, though.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[The End Of Days]

Hoping to somehow achieve environmental stasis is about as good an approach as prayer, so it's nice to see you conflate that in your attempt to be witty.

What I love is that there are people out there who believe you made a good argument.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[nomadic]

So? What do you think happens when the debate moves to pollution? The same people whining about how global warming can't be real because climate has changed in the path here start whining about how pollution isn't really that bad and poor manufacturers shouldn't be forced by the statists to spend 3% of their revenues on pollution control technology because that will usher in a permanent economic depression. This same debate will be played out, only talking about dioxins instead of CO2.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[WeatherGod]

That is why Al Gores book is covered with photoshopped hurricanes including one turning in the wrong direction.

There are a lot of problems with some of the stuff you have stated, but I want to address this one in particular. The graphical design company that designed the cover of Al Gore's Book/DVD/etc was Australian. Cyclones (Hurricanes in the Western Pacific) spin clockwise when south of the equator. They spin counter-clockwise when North of the equator. It wasn't "wrong" for them.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[ynp7]

You, sir, have just won the Internet for the day.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

"but I don't see how America's science reporting enters in here" — it did get posted to /. though, is that not US based?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[FrootLoops]

[Western news media] are good in telling stories, but they are bad in telling the truth (what ever that may be).

I've always figured they were worse at reporting scientific news than other news. I have no evidence, though, and in fact whenever I've been personally involved in a newspaper story, some of the details have been wrong--just like virtually every science-y story I've read where I'm familiar with the topic has large holes.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HiThere]

Rule 17: Anyone citing Rule 7 as justification for anything has lost the argument.

If you can make up rules, so can I.

Now an actual rule 7 [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule7.htm ] goes:
Rule 7. Pleadings Allowed; Form of Motions and Other Papers
(a) Pleadings.

Only these pleadings are allowed:

(1) a complaint;

(2) an answer to a complaint;

(3) an answer to a counterclaim designated as a counterclaim;

(4) an answer to a crossclaim;

(5) a third-party complaint;

(6) an answer to a third-party complaint; and

(7) if the court orders one, a reply to an answer.
(b) Motions and Other Papers

(1) In General.

A request for a court order must be made by motion. The motion must:

(A) be in writing unless made during a hearing or trial;

(B) state with particularity the grounds for seeking the order; and

(C) state the relief sought.

(2) Form.

The rules governing captions and other matters of form in pleadings apply to motions and other papers.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HiThere]

Even without global warming, we can expect more severe climate variations than we have had in remembered history, because we have (recently) left the little climatic optimum. Global warming can only be asserted to be involved when there is a systematic distortion in one direction, e.g., more years of torrential rains or droughts, and not the other. Then you need to look carefully at the chain of causation and try to figure out why. (E.g., the warming ocean currents have redirected the monsoon is something to look at. And I believe that this is one predicted effect.) Note that this same event will cause new torrential rains in one area and droughts in another. Which makes figuring things out tricky.

But, because we have left the little climatic optimum, we can expect more unusual weather than we are accustomed to. Which means that, as the "noise level" has increased, we need more data before reliable conclusions can be reached. (Predictions are fairly easy, reliable predictions are insanely difficult. And if you can't make a reliable conclusion, you are often forced to offer your "best guess", which administrators will almost always dress up as a certainty.)

P.S.: I am not a climatologist. But I have had a job where I had to make predictions of traffic flows when changes were made. You just can't do even something that simple reliably. You can just make your best effort and then say something like "Well, most of our models say that a bridge there will slow down the traffic.". This conclusion is generally not welcome, and most people find it difficult to believe that an additional link will increase traffic congestion, but it often happens anyway.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Raenex]

How hard would you have to push? Well, in the US and Western Europe today the population growth is negative. Many people feel that it isn't fair to bring children into a world of declining expectations and looming destruction of the environment.

I'd guess it's more likely educated people don't want to be burdened with a bunch of kids while trying to get ahead in the workplace.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HungryHobo]

Why?
there have always been forest fires and they're a significant source of dioxins.

PCBs are just another set of organic compounds. nothing exceptional.

mercury gets released from volcanos all the time, you can be sure the mercury levels in the water and air have fluctuated massively in the past.

GMO's are unexceptional, genes have been transplanted from species to species by viruses and other means for billions of years.

I think people missed my point in my yearlier post but your philosophy of apathy can be applied to absolutely everything. [genocide? sure millions of people have been killed off by totally natural events in the past so no need to worry about that]

So what if we're releasing a load of [anything] ?
There's been loads of [anything] released into the earths atmosphere by [something that isn't human related] like volcanoes, forrest fires, asteroid strikes or new forms of life evolving and poisoning all the others.

now what this philosophy ignores is that while many things have changed the earths atmosphere to extreme degrees, made the CO2 level shoot up and down like a yoyo or released more poison into the atmosphere than every factory in history a great many of the events involved also killed off significant fractions of the life on the planet.

I'd prefer if we kept this planet habitable for ourselves, the rats and cockroaches will be fine whatever happens but we could be killed off fairly easily.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[mdarksbane]

And that raising a child to be successful in the middle class is considered a much larger investment. They must go to music lessons, soccer practice, football practice, and church, as well as be in a good neighborhood to go to a good school (ie, more expensive housing). Then you need to pay for them to go to a good college, where tuition prices are rising much higher than inflation.

And all of this is after you and your spouse have completed your degrees and become established in your fields, so you're pushing thirty by the time you have kids and don't have time to naturally want to have more than two or three.

It has much more to do with cultural values in child-rearing and professional development than it does with any sort of environmentalist nihilism.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[ChrisMaple]

The issue is that the huge population increase among fairies is causing the atmosphere to become heavier and polluted with fairy excrement. If we do not force fairies to wear condoms the sky will soon fall. I know it's already started, last week a piece hit me on the head.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, there it is: the inevitable Australian connection.

Timothy is incapable of posting any "story" that isn't somehow connected with Australia and Australians.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea level doesn't rise locally. The ground subsides. When the entire ocean rises by 1.5 meters, you can blame it on climate change. Locally, it's most likely over pumping of aquifers. In the example you use, there could also be slow slumping into the swamp, as the ground structure responds to the weight of buildings.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[CapOblivious2010]

Also not in the news is the fact that the sea level used to be a LOT higher than it is now and it used to be a LOT lower than it is now. Things change. That's life. None of it had anything to do with humans.

It always seemed to me that the whole "are humans causing global warming or is it natural?" debate totally misses the point. Who cares if we're causing it??? The important questions are: is it real? Can we reduce it? At what cost? Is it better to live with it, or try to avoid it?

Whether or not it would have happened without industrialization is completely irrelevant!

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[93 Escort Wagon]

The problem is that we are now starting to get a long trail of predictions from the global warming advocates that have failed to come true. Another favourite of mine is that hurricanes were going to be rampaging across the Atlantic due to the warming. Catrina being just the start.

Thing is, climate experts never said that - only Al Gore did. As soon as his book came out I heard quite a few climatologists expressing concern over that statement, since there weren't any models that predicted hurricanes would increase in number, and the idea that they'd increase in magnitude was not widely accepted. But Al Gore is, first and foremost, a politician - and his thought process is fundamentally different than that of a scientist. It's like the Republican guy who recently lambasted Planned Parenthood because "90% of their business is abortion" when it's actually 3% - it's not even remotely true, but it played to the fan base and that's what mattered.

Al Gore is also the guy who said the scientists who were pointing out problems with current climate models should "just shut up". That's not good science; and it's doubly silly since a number of those guys were still believers in global warming but were just pointing out the issues with the current climate models.

In the end, the fundamental issue is that these non-scientists give people who don't believe in anthropogenic global warming an easy target. You don't have to argue with the models, and you can ignore the fact that the earth has demonstrably been warming. Thanks to guys like Gore, you can instead focus on his pseudo-science - almost like shooting fish in a barrel.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[oakgrove]

That's exactly the point I make to anybody who froths "b-b-but I read it/saw it on the news". I politely inquire into their area of expertise then I ask them how they would rate the accuracy of any news story they've ever viewed that is about their particular area of knowledge. When the lightbulb goes off, it is a thing of beauty.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Blakey Rat]

Ok, so the obvious question is, how many "persons of concern" were there in 2010? Was the prediction right?

Why would you type all that without solving the mystery? I've tried googling myself, but I can't find the number... their website is awful.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[SavvyPlayer]

GP was referring to a rising water table and its effect on ground stability, not sea level.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop lying.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Belial6]

If that is true, then instead of researching climate change researchers should be researching gravity change, because there would have to be some truly bizarre gravitational effects to make that happen.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[fbjon]

All it takes is about 15 years of zero birthrate and you're not going to get it back, ever.

You're arguing there's a disincentive that is stronger and more permanent than sex drive? Citation needed..

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen,

It's the propagandists who make people like me completely discount the claims. Show me that CO2 levels will reach levels that have not been reached over the last 60+ million years and I'll pay attention. Make claims that take into account the massive changes that have taken place such as tectonic shift (yes it affects weather), the 22+ periods of global warming and global cooling over the last 2 million years; the massive output of greenhouse gases from volcanoes and I will start paying attention.

Too many people think that we have a static system, they ignore the sun and ignore the fact that the earth is not simply a rock. Next thing you know the fact that the earth magnetic field is weakening will be a result of greenhouse gases, or the magnets we've built, or the iron we've smelted.

www.theclassicalliberal.com

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

250 million ...

I really don't think we need to go back to 500ad levels.

With current pollution controls and efficiency improvements we can have a viable population in billions tho I'm a bit concerned about potash and fertilizers.

Why do you think we would need to get down to 250 million? What systems started failing or what isn't sustainable in your opinion?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bunratty]

We're not trying to make the environment static by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. We're just trying to prevent the excessive warming that will cause the sea to flood coastal cities and droughts in populated areas.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[steelfood]

Maybe because its fallacious assertions are repeated on /., a U.S.-based website, possibly to be picked up by larger and larger U.S. "news" outlets.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[bunratty]

The idea is that instead of calling into question one researcher or one aspect of research, some people seem to think that showing any one statement is incorrect calls into question an entire institution or an entire area of research. This is the idea that most arguments against AGW come down to. You can find many comments in this thread along the lines of "some environmentalist once said so-and-so, so I don't believe any of this global warming BS!"

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[crossconnects]

Many climate scientists whose names are on the UN report disavow any agreement with the report, correctly claiming that it was bad science, simply writing to a predetermined conclusion rather than examining the facts. If they were ever recruited for the report, their name appears on the final report even if they resigned because of their disagreement with the conclusions. The only exceptions are the ones who sued to have their names removed.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[phantomfive]

Many climate scientists whose names are on the UN report disavow any agreement with the report,

How many?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[phantomfive]

no, actually you figured it out. In fact I care very little about the exact number of "persons of concern." I couldn't find it googling, so I gave up. On the other hand, I kind of enjoy writing on Slashdot, as perverse as that may seem.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[PuckSR]

Glad that you demonstrated yourself that Americans cant understand or reasonably use reporting. The rate of sea-level rise in North Carolina, according to the source you provided, claimed that it was rising 3 times faster than the normal rate.....not that it was rising 3 times faster than the rest of the Atlantic Coast.
"Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years"

People have a tendency to be quick to justify their beliefs. You just did this by using an article incorrectly and quickly referencing multiple disasters that may or may not be the result of global warming. The person who initially posted the question about the missing refugees is just behaving in the same way that you did, but with the opposite belief.

I tend not to listen to anyone who has a strong vested belief in their opinion. If you go into forest looking for pine cones you will find many, but you might not notice the lack of pine trees.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there IS a strong correlation between the variability of the Sun and global temperatures. I.E. When the sun is hotter the Earth is warmer and when the Sun is cooler the Earth is cooler. Yet. this data is completely ignored by climate scientists.

Just because you're not paying attention doesn't mean the climate scientists haven't looked at that data. In fact, they have, and have discounted it.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Paltin]

This is unlikely. The east coast isn't geologically active in a way that would cause this.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[cboscari]

A little known counter-intuitive fact about our earth is that "sea level" is not the same everywhere. We didn't find that out until after years of making maps that assumed sea level was constant all over the earth.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

people likely to be displaced

Not "people displaced"

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

but I don't see how America's science reporting enters in here. In any case, thanks for the thoughtful post!

You're quite right. The site that "reported" this factoid is in fact an American right-wing propaganda outlet — not a science periodical at all.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a climate scientist?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha - ideonexus basically says -- "IT'S NOT TRUE, THE UN NEVER SAID THAT! Oh, by the way, there really are all these alleged refugees, because of 'amnesia", hehehe!! Oh, by the way - I'm right because wikipedia sez so, and the guy who wrote this article is a D-E-N-I-E-R."
---
And the temperature is still going up, and the sky is falling...

Stop with the shrieking, ideo. The louder you scream, the less we listen.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[mvdwege]

When a person is already quoting Watts like a believer, he has no awareness to further.

I don't waste my time being nice to flat-earthers and creationists, why should I be nice to a climate denialist then?

Mart

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

What your reply clearly demonstrates is that the hysteria associated with Anthropogenic Global Warming is pervasive and in some sense, quite insane. I am guessing that you are somehow conflating beach erosion -- an issue that does indeed dominate NC local politics on the coast and which in some cases does indeed have human causes -- with sea-level rise. Here's a hint. You cannot have a 1.5 meter rise in sea level only in North Carolina. There are these silly laws of physics and hydrodynamics, you see...

Hate to rain on your parade, but North Carolina's problem isn't rising sea levels - it's sinking landmass. The overall effect of water over land is the same, but the causes are decidedly different.

I encourage you to locate and read a copy of the report “Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region,” joint authored by the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US Geological Survey, and the Department of Transportation. The report suggests that there could be an additional 3ft of water over NC by century's end (2,100).

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

mod -1: moron please

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[shilly]

FFS. Of course the *UN* University is *part* of the UN. However, it's not the Official Voice of the UN. It's not the IPCC. It's not the Security Council. It's a quasi-academic institution that does some research.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

The planet has been richer in CO2

Well established.

, sulphur dioxide

Plausible, but please cite your sources (and make them worth reading - peer-reviewed journal articles or better).

and nitrogen dioxide in the past.

I don't recall having heard this assertion before. Your evidence is?

[Hint : I am a geologist, and can understand complex arguments and data.)

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[xenobyte]

Isn't the issue with solar power that the panels require some extremely rare metals that are quite harmful to the environment to produce?

As for the number of solar panels and windmills per square mile, it comes from a fairly simple calculation I did some years ago. Basically you take the energy used in a year for industry, transport (both cars, ships and planes) and homes, and divide by the total land area of the Earth (yes, I know you can put mills out into coastal waters) in square miles. Now you have the need per square mile, and just just have to look up the efficiency of a good solar panel or windmill, and find how many it takes to satisfy the need per square mile. Now, those are current numbers based on a very small amount of the global population being truly 'civilized' with cars, home appliances and so on. If you upgrade all 6-7 billion to this level, you need to multiply by a significant factor.

So, in order to replace all use of fossile fuels with solar and wind power, this is the number. Sure both mills and panels may become more effecient, but the need for energy per person may also need to be adjusted upwards, so on average the requirement for mills and panels will remain relatively constant.

Now, I don't know how far we are with the 2. generation geothermal energy systems, but from what I've read it's the optimal power source. It's super-abundant, inexhaustible and extremely safe with no pollution or waste. It simply takes advantage of the temperature difference between the surface and a few miles down, and does not like the current geothermal energy plants need to be located on the geological hot-spots. Placing a plant there would actually be less advisable as the underground simply is too hot for safe use. The energy comes from the hot core of the earth, which gets its heat mostly from tidal forces. But those tidal forces see the earth as a simple object, so using the heat by moving it elsewhere on it will not interact with the tidal system and thus the energy will never run out as long as the sun and the moon does what they've always done. We're just using energy that was previously lost.

Last, but not least, such plants can be placed completely underground thus removing the visual and auditory pollution all the windmills (and to some degree the solar panel farms) represent. People living near other peoples windmills often complain about both the constantly moving wings and their shadows and the deep but powerful infra-sound the generators in the mills generate. The people owning the mills usually just accept the discomfort for idealistic purposes.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

If you don't take these measures now- you STILL have take them when we hit 9 billion (10 billion... 11 billion)

This is why I encourage the use of the term GIGADEATH - meaning an excess of a billion deaths over births, and a consequent decline in global population.

Which puts a perspective on things :

• PolPot ~ 0.002 GDe ;
• Hitler ~ 0.007 GDe (and an automatic Godwin Law citation);
• World War 2 as a whole ~0.035 GDe ;
• Iraq invasion ~ 0.0005 GDe;
• UN expected population growth 2050-2100 : 2 to 3 GDe;
• my estimate to achieve something like stability : 5 to 7 GDe

I think that we're in pretty close agreement about what will happen. Which of the 4 Horsemen do you think is going to be the big winner in this charnel house? War, Famine, Disease or Pestilence? Do you have children that need to be pitied? Of course you don't.

That reminds me to organise a VA party for this year - 18 years and not old yet.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

All it takes is about 15 years of zero birthrate and you're not going to get it back, ever.

By implication, you believe that the reproductive lifespan of humans is 15 years. That is not correct. The period of prime reproductivity might be that short (an obstetrics specialist may challenge you on that point though), but the duration of some reproductive capability is in excess of 30 years.

In practice, it would have to be a a sustained discouragement of child-bearing - enough to achieve a 90% drop in birth rates. A range of measures would need to be applied, until a sufficient cut-back had been achieved, at which point relatively small changes in policy should adjust the birth rates to maintain the desired population.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

shhh being anti US is all the rage over here on /. you'll spoil our fun!

Bill Gates is (whispers)American ;-0 ;-0

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[DarenN]

One side says nothing is happening at all.

You know, I've never actually heard anyone saying this. The contention of the skeptical side is that the current warming trend is not anthropogenic.

For myself, my major problem is that the catastrophic positive temperature feedback predicted by the people who believe the warming is anthropogenic makes no sense and has little evidence historically to back it up. The very long term temperature cycles show that what we should be actually worried about is the ice-age that follows quickly after most temperature maxima. If the temperature feedback positied existed, the planet would look like Venus - after all, both temperature and CO2 levels have been higher than they are now.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[DarenN]

I think we can agree that most of the media presentation of the issue is awful, and that's a big problem.

Agreed!

I find it interesting that I haven't seen a discussion on population trends - it's easy to point out "natural disaster causes more refugees than ever before" when you completely neglect that fact that as a general rule this is because more people live there. As I've pointed out before, taking Florida as an example, the cost and hardship associated with hurricanes increases, but not because of hurricane frequency or severity, but because the population living on that rather exposed peninsula had exploded. The population of Florida has increased by 10 million in the last 30 years alone. The South Florida Metropolitan Area has increased from ~700,000 to just under 5 million in the last 60 years.
The data on hurricane severity and frequency does not indicate an increase either.

Similarly the drought - droughts are common (and usually cyclical) on great plains (like central China) but the severity of the droughts seems to be measured in human impact. Shedloads more people live in China now than did 60 years ago, so the human impact will be correspondingly much larger. The effect on food prices is even less relevant to the debate - food prices have increased because there's quite a lot of people to feed in China alone, and because the markets are volatile after the Russian drought and corresponding wheat export embargo last year. None of these are necessarily indicators of longer term trends - in fact, we know that there was a drought of similar or worse severity 60 years ago in China.

The climate change debate is now a political one, and largely driven from the US (you may or may not agree with this statement). As with all political discussion in the US it is viciously polarized with no middle ground. This is a problem that needs to be resolved.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[skoony]

so the water level has risen 5 feet in fifty years? thats news to me.did you pull that statistic out of a hat? and only in n.carolina? sea level does'nt work that way.if its high in n.c.,its high in s.c.,florida,etc... perhaps you mean n.c. is sinking?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[tgd]

I bet it was even hosted on a Windows server!

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[AmiMoJo]

The GP also makes the classic mistake of thinking that predictions must be 100% accurate or are completely and utterly flawed. We have the same problem with weather reporting in the UK - the Met Office says "tomorrow it will rain" and when it doesn't we all think "what a bunch of clueless morons" when in fact what they really mean is "tomorrow there is an 80% chance of rain". In that context if it doesn't rain we would think "lucky us".

Predicting the future is hard and also fairly meaningless without stating the probabilities and margin of error. They may well do that in the report, I haven't read it, but science correspondents just tend to grab a few choice claims from the summary and report them as fact.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HungryHobo]

People seem to have missed the point: I was trying to make a point about the insane philosophy of apathy that some posters here seem to have, ie that since temperature or CO2 has been high before we should just ignore it and keep making the problem worse completely ignoring the fact that such changes often coincide with major extinction events.

You can find almost any extreme you're looking for if you don't mind going back far enough.

but anyway, not a journal but reasonable:

sulphur dioxide:
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/110401_bombardment.htm

nitrogen dioxide:
Not perfect but major volcanic events can be a significant source of NO and NO2.
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/32/10/905

but then my point was supposed to be that just because something can or has happened "naturally" doesn't stop it from being very bad.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[silentcoder]

>Which of the 4 Horsemen do you think is going to be the big winner in this charnel house? War, Famine, Disease or Pestilence? Do you have children that need to be pitied? Of course you don't.

Nitpicking time. The four horsemen are War, Famine, Pestilence and Death. Pestilence is just a synonym for your "Disease" (which isn't listed in any classic source of even parody I've read).
Since each of the other three automatically leads to large amounts of Death, that one is guaranteed regardless of which one shows up.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[tbannist]

You're kidding right? There's probably a dozen posts on this particular story claiming that nothing is happening. One of our major problems is that there are several "skeptical sides":

1. Full out denial: It's not happening, that's actually the most common one I run into.
2. It's not us denial: Even if it's happening it's nature, the billions of tonnes of CO we've released can't possibly have an effect
3. It's not bad denial: Even if it is happening and it is us, it's not like it's going to be bad
4. It's not like we can do anything denial: Even if it is happening and it is us, it's going to be bad, it's not like we can do anything about it
5. It's not like we can afford to do anything denial: Even if it is happening and it is us, and it's going to be bad, and we can do something, we can't afford to do anything, it's too expensive

The real skeptical side isn't on that list, they're the ones who say "how do we know this coefficient is correct?". The real skeptics have already moved past all of those positions and are concerned about finding the most efficient and effective ways with dealing with the dangers of Global Warming. Why? Because real skeptics look at the evidence, not what they wish was true.

Frankly, I don't really run into many people who believes there will be a catastrophic (run-away) temperature feedback like the one on Venus. The catastrophic feedbacks that people actually worry about have to do with changing local climates in ways that will be catastrophic for human society. For example, imagine we hit a tipping point and temperature warms rapidly for a bit. We don't know exactly what that will do. We know that it is likely to cause (more) crop failures across our agricultural areas. Imagine if over the course of a few years our maximum food production capability was reduced by 50% over the medium term then imagine then that we have a bad year and storm, floods, or droughts hit us for another 50% for that year. What do we do when we need to feed the entire world on a quarter of the food we're used to growing?

Then there's the water level rise that might cause, what happens if we hit a tipping point and in we have a large sea level rise over the course of a few years? Florida, for example, could be destroyed by a significant sea level rise. Do you think the U.S. can afford to relocate 90% of the population of Florida over the course of two years?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[DarenN]

Before everyone starts shouting that Hurricanes happen every year look at the averages. When is the last time that many people were displaced in the US by a Hurricane?

First of all, hundreds of thousands were displaced by Katrina because public officials in New Orleans did not maintain vital flood defenses and the city is largely below the water level. Claiming this is a result of climate change is the same as claiming that the tidal waves and earthquakes that caused such damage in Haiti, New Zealand and Japan were because of climate change. They weren't.

There's been displacements in Australia due to the worst drought in a thousand years

Citation please. Australia is the most arid continent on the planet. It is equally likely that it was colonized during a period of relative wetness as the drought is exceptional.

places like Bangladesh has seen many thousands displaced due to unusual flooding. I think if you focus on drought and flooding and compare it to yearly averages from the past I think you'll find the 50 million number isn't too far off.

Perhaps, but again the effect of increasing population has more to do with the increase of displaced than any other factor. The volumes of water falling in the monsoon are high, but not unprecedentedly so, but the increase in populations affected is massive in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It still says nothing about the effect of climate change, and more particularly, about the factors causing the climate change which is what we should be looking at, but which doesn't sell newspapers. It's possible that increasing temperatures is causing an increase in precipitation, but I certainly have not seen any comparative studies on the volumes of rainfall, and this would be quite difficult over any useful timespan because the recording of volumes either didn't happen or is unreliable until recently.

Also in 50 years you will see large numbers move from coastal areas since there is a worldwide melt that is well documented and the water has to go somewhere.

Really? The majority of the melting I've heard about is sea ice. The melting of this will have no effect on sea levels - it's already in the sea. The danger is that the continental ice sheet in Antarctica may be starting to melt in large volumes, but the reports on this do not agree (or rather any reports I've read are about the increase in continental ice volume). Glacier melting in the Himalayas cannot be directly attributed to climate change - the prime factor there is soot levels from people in the lowlands cooking their food on stoves. Kilimanjero's glacial retreat is attributable to the destruction of the rainforest on it's lower slopes. Greenland's melting appears to be temperature related. The general picture seems to be a much more significant melting in the northern hemisphere than in the southern one.
 

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Candid88]

In the US we are left with immigration as the only population growth factor there is and I suspect Western Europe is pretty much the same way. This portends some very drastic changes in the coming decades as the population shifts away from educated European-extracted peoples and towards Latin American folks that have been subsistance farming for generations and no goals higher than survival. In most inner cities today the idea of the straight-A student is a subject of ridicule, as is the idea of going to college - what, do you want to be seen as trying to prove yourself better than your peers?

This could have been written at any point in the last 300+ years and would hold equally true, just replace "Latin American" with the predominate ethnicity of immigrants of the day. Strangely enough, society hasn't collapsed and college demand is higher than ever.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Chris Mattern]

It seems more than a little illogical to state that sea levels rise higher in one Atlantic coast state than the others.

Not really. Although we speak of "sea level" like it's a great constant, it is, in fact, an average. Currents and tides make it vary from one place to another, and it can change in different ways from one place to another. Also land subsidence can make a difference in the effective sea level, and that too varies from one place to another. To use an example on the Atlantic coast, the sea level is rising considerably faster in the Chesapeake Bay than elsewhere on the coast.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[worx101]

Well, don't know what to say about him. But, I can tell you from first hand experience that the islands are disappearing. So, I didn't even bother with the link. If it's raining outside and some posts a link saying otherwise even though you can see it right in your face.... I don't think you would give them much credit either.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Troed]

No, you cannot say that from first hand experience since it isn't true. Tell me, why do you post lies on the Internet?

(hint: atolls grow with the sea level. you need to be careful not to extract more fresh water than they get from rain though - but that has nothing to do with rising sea levels)

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[T.E.D.]

Well, in the US and Western Europe today the population growth is negative.

A lot of replies to this, but most only touch on the root of the issue: economics.

In the developing world, a person's only security when they get old is having kids to take care of you. If you don't have kids and you can't work, you'll starve. Even when you are younger, more kids means more hands for manual labor means a better-off family.

In the developed world we have things like social-security and pensions and savings plans to take care of those too old to work. These are often based on how much you earned during your work years. Kids do not contribute to these, and in fact can retard them (particularly savings). Kids aren't allowed to work much, and cost a ton of energy and money to raise and educate to the point where they can contribute to society (at which point they will go start their own family and not contribute much, if anything, to the one that raised them).

So economically the incentives couldn't be more different. In developed societies you have to really want to have kids to overcome the massive disincentives.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[DarenN]

It's not us denial: Even if it's happening it's nature, the billions of tonnes of CO we've released can't possibly have an effect

An interesting way of putting it - it's certainly not in the category of what you name the Full out denial. It's also clear what side of the fence you're on too :)

You could just a validly say "The tiny percentage of CO2 we've released compared to the overall levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and the sheer volume of the atmosphere cannot possibly have had an effect". I have yet to be convinced that CO2 emissions alone are having a significant effect on global temperatures. Many other things that we do are having massive effects, to be sure - soot production and deforestation are the most serious environmental issues to my mind. CO2 production may also affect oceanic acidity, which worries me far more than warming.

I don't really run into many people who believes there will be a catastrophic (run-away) temperature feedback like the one on Venus... imagine we hit a tipping point and temperature warms rapidly for a bit. ... Then there's the water level rise that might cause, what happens if we hit a tipping point and in we have a large sea level rise over the course of a few years?

I snipped a fair bit in the middle here.

The problem with this is that tipping points imply that there are levels after which runaway effects will occur. You've proposed that there may be natural systems that will eventually stop the warming but if, as predicted, CO2->increase in temperature->more CO2->increase in temperature->etc...and anthropogenic emissions cause CO2 production to overwhelm the systems that regulate atmospheric CO2 levels, then you will get runaway warming and the end result is Venusian, unless you're speculating even further about an unknown system that will bring it all back into balance. An anthropogenic "sudden jump of a couple degrees of local warming" is more than possible, mind you, the urban heat island effect is the simplest example. A global significant anthropogenic effect on overall climate due to CO2 emissions is much less certain.

If you're proposing tipping points you're either speculating about a further brake, or you're ending up with Venus. In the first case, why doesn't the brake kick in earlier, and in the second case, given that both temperature and CO2 levels have been higher in the past, why hasn't it already happened.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[danbert8]

This is the same problem as the US deficit. We know it's better in the long term, but nobody has the balls to do what needs to be done for the long term. Suck it up, take a little discomfort now for a better life in the future. Instead of spending trillions mitigating a few percent of CO2 emissions, let's focus on making it easier for people to move to greener pastures as the globe warms. Or spend money convincing people not to move to the coast, and by the time sea levels are a problem, all the people that used to live on the coast are long dead.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[tbannist]

Ah, but it's not the relative percentages that are important. Carbon is put into the air by natural processes and taken out of the air by natural processes. Those processes are at a natural equilibrium. Essentially they take the same amount of CO2 out of the air as they put in. Then we start pouring more in. The same amount goes in and the same amount goes out. You end up with a build up excess CO2 because what we are adding isn't part to the processes that produced the equilibrium.

If you don't understand what I'm saying try this: balance an old fashioned scale with equal weights on each side. The start adding grains of sand onto one side. Eventually that side of the scale will tip down regardless of how much weight is balanced on the scales.

The tipping points are about endless runaway global warming, but rather about certain items that will cause short term rapid heating (we think). For example when temperatures reach a certain level, peat bogs may unfreeze and release a massive amount of CO2 that could rival decades of human emissions. It's not endless run away heating, but a process that will a large but finite amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. It will probably shift us into a new, higher, CO2 equilibrium, which we may continue to unbalance with human emissions.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[rgbatduke]

"Then there are the refugees that no one realizes. In the small coastal town where I live in North Carolina, houses have been falling into the swamp one by one for decades, but the residents blame it on people building their homes in flood zones, not realizing that sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast [sciencedaily.com]. People didn't build their homes in the water, the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built..."

Only if BP is actually writing in a language that strangely resembles English, but isn't, was he referring to a rising water table. His comment here is factually incorrect, as well. If one reads even the headline only of the article he cites, one sees that the correct quote would be that sea levels over the last 100 years rose at 3x the rate from the previous 500 years, and that the rise is on the order of 3 millimeters per year instead of 1 millimeter per year. That means that in the entire fifty years he is referring to, the differential rise in sea level is 10 cm, or around four inches -- if the assertions of the actual science being made, which are multiply dubious in and of themselves, are correct. Any assertion that the actual sea level in North Carolina specifically has risen at a differential rate relative to the rest of the Atlantic coast is already so enormously unlikely that one's bullshit detectors should be out in full force, demanding a truly detailed explanation instead of attributing it in some vague way to "global warming" or "melting of the Greenland ice sheet".

10 cm is roughly 8% of 1.5 meters. I attribute the falling of houses into the water with building in both a flood plain and in wetlands. The first is stupid, especially in NC which regularly gets hit with Atlantic hurricanes because our coast literally sticks out into the Gulf Stream like a big, fat target -- Fran and Floyd, in particular, illustrated both rather graphically in recent years -- houses didn't exactly fall into the sea, they were just flooded out, and the water surge coming downstream has all sorts of effect on the plasticity of swamp soil, sure, on top of that. The second is just wrong -- people actually dug channels to drain the wetlands to build houses there back in the first big surge of recreational building on the coast, something that has had a profound impact on the coastal ecology. So in a way, it is good that this is reversing itself, hard as it is on people who bought and built on a wetlands flood plain. If I had my druthers, NC would pass a law that banned both building or rebuilding, within a mile of the actual coastline (exceptions for established cities and designated build zones, perhaps, at their own risk and with it clearly established that there would be NO groins and beach nourishment provided or permitted to preserve real estate in the designated exceptions) and would reopen the coast proper to "the people", instead of "the people who buy condos that block off beach access to the people" but that's just me.

Next, we can consider the 500 year record. 500 years is a particularly interesting period, since 500 years ago it was 1511, right before the beginning of the Little Ice Age! Solar actively, already low in the 1500's, entered a grand solar minimum (the Maunder minimum) at the beginning of the 1600s, a period of approximately 100 years where the Sun had almost no sunspots for what would be some ten eleven year cycles. Global temperatures plummeted, the glaciers advanced, the Thames regularly froze (people held winter fairs out on the ice in London) and there were active historic droughts in NC that (among other things) killed off "the Lost Colony" and nearly wiped out the Jamestown settlement, all recorded both in written documentary and in the proxy tree-ring record for the area. The 1700's saw a rise in temperature, but then in the 1800s the Dalton minimum caused a brief dip in global temperatures (altho

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

...so it's the research arm of the UN. Case closed.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Ever since condoms sex drive and children have little to do with one another, don't you think ? And if that's not enough, there's abortion.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[fbjon]

None of those are permanent.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Ol Olsoc]

And Nature might fix the problem in around one year.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

And a careful analysis of CO_2 levels and temperature

Whenever a "sceptic" says "careful analysis", I read cherry picking.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

I'm arguing that we are actively incenting births now.

I'm not going for the aggressive 'disincent births' position-- just "stop paying people to have children and stop providing them free food and medical care just because they got pregnant." Only 15 years ago, we gave them free housing as well- and that lead to a lot of extra teen births (get pregnant, get your own free housing, food stamps, and welfare).

Just stop incenting for a start-- then go from there.

(and my real belief is that we reproduce until things break and billions die and nothing we do can stop that.. so this is mostly jawboning... I am lucky and will be dead by that break point most likely).

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

I think we have disease beat.
War the likely start- possibly driven by resource conflict.
Famine would be the largest cause of death.

I think
1) a war that causes disruption
2) mass starvation because the food supply is disrupted (it can happen *really* fast these days- from full shelves to nothing in a few days).

Possible minor social breakdown as a result.
3) Even tho disease is beat (so no plague as the start), once the medical system is disrupted- I think population will be so high that disease will be opportunistic- cholera especially (and there is a new incurable form getting going in india now).

I don't think we'll die form poor nutrients- we would get smaller and adapt to the new diet over time. Parts of the population would die- but net net population would keep increasing.

What gets me is we will have to stop and in much more ugly ways if we run this out to max population before we address it.

Right now, if we just went to a net birth rate of 75% (1.5 children per family) we could mostly fix this in 40 years.

The longer we put off having a smaller young generation the worse its going to be . At some point, a lot of old people are going to have to fend for themselves. And they are not really capable of it.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[riverat1]

The Sun is definitely not ignored by climate scientists. You can't explain the rise of temperatures in the first half of the 20th Century without taking into account the increase in solar radiation. Since then the solar radiation level has been relatively steady and so is not much of a factor. So when people yell "Oh, it's the Sun!" the scientists say "No it isn't." you interpret that to mean that they are ignoring the Sun but they aren't, it's just not that significant a factor in the past 50 years.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[rgbatduke]

Oh, you mean like the "careful analysis" done by Mann et. al that erased the medieval climate optimum and little ice age because they were an "inconvenient truth" in the way of worldwide panic over carbon?

Even RealClimate acknowledges the lag. They just explain it differently. But you can see the data from one of the several studies that all arrive at this conclusion here: http://www.sciencebits.com/IceCoreTruth. Of course this article has a little bit more to say about the ice core data and CO_2 itself, partly because Al Gore in his bullcrap movie put a picture of ice core data and temperature data up on the screen and then claimed that it showed that CO_2 drove the temperature increases at the end of the ice ages. Only in a Universe where time and entropy run backwards do effects precede causes, but then, Al isn't much of a scientist is he? Any more than Mann is a competent statistician.

rgb

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Oh, you mean like the "careful analysis" done by Mann et. al that erased the medieval climate optimum and little ice age because they were an "inconvenient truth" in the way of worldwide panic over carbon?

Bwahhahahhaha. You're such a hoot.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

People seem to have missed the point: I was trying to make a point about the insane philosophy of apathy that some posters here seem to have, ie that since temperature or CO2 has been high before we should just ignore it and keep making the problem worse completely ignoring the fact that such changes often coincide with major extinction events.

I wonder why popular culture fixates on "ostrich syndrome" ; ostriches aren't extinct. "Moa syndrome" would be as well-based in fact, but moas are extinct and so can't contradict one.

[References] Sulphur compounds are added by meteorites ; that's not in dispute. As I recall, you implied that the concentrations of sulphur compounds in the air have been significantly different in the past, both higher and lower. But what is in the air is the difference between what is added by impact (safely modelled as a constant flux), what is released by weathering (may or may not be constant), what is sedimented out by physical processes (likely varies greatly, with the presence of large evaporite basins. IAAGeologist ; I think like that.), and what is extracted from the sulphur cycle by organisms (almost certainly variable). There is every reason to expect there to have been variations in atmospheric sulphur concentrations in the past ; but evidence of it ... IAAGeologist, and I don't know of any evidence.

(This is meant to be a news site for nerds ; evidence matters. The average idiot on the street may be happy with unsupported assertions, but they're idiots who may even be stupid enough to buy houses on flood-plains. See rant below.)

Same comments for the nitrogen compound reference ; there are good reasons to expect nitrogen compound concentrations to have varied in the past, but demonstrating it and quantifying it are different matters. It may be significant for climate models to be able to put numbers on the likely range of atmospheric nitrogen compounds, so the desire for quantification is not purely academic.

[BARELY-CONNECTED RANT]

I'm listening to one of last night's TV programmes with a vox pop. of some fat fool complaining that "my house has been flooded 3 times this year, and someone has got to do something about it"

Listen, you fat fucking fool, you brought a house on a fucking flood plain, and the fucking flood plain is fucking well getting flooded because it's a fucking flood plain, not a hillside.DOH! And you chose to buy it because you are a fucking idiot. Shut the fuck up with your complaining, sell your kids or kidneys to Indians to buy out the mortgage, find some other idiot to buy the wrecked, unsellable house, then fuck off and die because you fucked up.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[shilly]

Did you have a little wank while you thought how pleased you were with your retort?

I only ask 'cos it's got that ring of a smug little twat who thinks he wins arguments by making clever-clever points that are in fact wrong about it. And in my experience, smug little twats like that have to wank over their retorts, 'cos no-one else is going to pull their plonker for them.

It's not *the* research arm of the UN, nobber. If it were, then FAO, WHO, IPCC etc would report into it. It's a small institution that does some research which is under the auspices of the UN.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

>Which of the 4 Horsemen do you think is going to be the big winner in this charnel house? War, Famine, Disease or Pestilence?

Nitpicking time.

The identification of the various numbers of apocalyptic horesmen gets murky as soon as you get away from John's drug-fuelled (?, well, that's how it reads to me) "gospel". Popular culture varies greatly over who they are, and almost no one actually reads the bible these generations. Some people even dispute that the pale horse is called "Binky", shocking though that may seem.

Eschatology on Slashdot. Whatever next?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

I think we have disease beat.

Optimist. (That's not a compliment. And you contradict yourself later.)

War the likely start- possibly driven by resource conflict.

Reasonable ; quite likely even. Want to put money on oil or water being the resource trigger? Or hedge your bets on it being a bit of both? (Naturally the politicians will lie that it's about flange sprockets, widgets or national self-importance, or something equally important. It's unlikely to be about the fouls in Sunday's football.)

Famine would be the largest cause of death.

Safe bet. You'll not be wanting to buy this bridge then?

disease will be opportunistic- cholera especially (and there is a new incurable form getting going in india now).

Oh, another new one. I'd better get my jabs up to date before I go to work there.

I don't think we'll die form poor nutrients- we would get smaller and adapt to the new diet over time.

The appropriate unit of time for such calculations is the generation, which is around 20 years at the moment for humans, but is variable.

Right now, if we just went to a net birth rate of 75% (1.5 children per family) we could mostly fix this in 40 years.

Within the lifetime of the children I choose not to have. Possibly within my lifetime. But planning like that is implausible in a democracy with a 4-5 year generation length for politicians.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[silentcoder]

The John Gospel was the oldest version of the 4 horsemen story, some pop-culture got the mixed up but all the Pratchet works (including Good Omens) stayed consistent with revelations in who they are.

That said- the OP's listing was... er stupid. He had "Disease" and "Pestilence" as two distinct horsemen. The only explanation I can imagine is that he doesn't actually know what "pestilence" means (probably thinks it means rats, cockroaches and such pests).
Pestilence is just an older word for disease (or more specifically in some contexts for contagious disease that spreads rapidly).

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[DarenN]

Hmmm, that certainly makes more sense - any writings on this I've read have referred to tipping points as points after which positive feedback mechanisms kick in and it has never made sense to me such positive feedbacks that led to runaway global warming could be as boundless as the various authors suggested.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HungryHobo]

depends if there's a dam above his house which isn't being managed properly.

there was an unprecedented flood near where I live a while back which was very likely largly due to a new manager at the dam above the city keeping the water level higher(to increase electricity output) but as a consequence the dam wasn't able to buffer the city from flooding so well as it had been doing for decades.

A lot of poorer students got fucked over hard because they were in cheap ground floor or basement apartments which got flooded out badly destroying everything they had.
Here it's also pretty much impossible to get contents insurance if you're living in a shared apartment.

so no.
sometimes people can get fucked over when they don't have alternatives or when it's genuinely someone elses fault.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[riverat1]

The "continental" ice sheet on Antarctica is melting, particularly in Western Antarctica. And the rate is accelerating. But Greenland is still ahead for now. It is the sea ice around Antarctica that has grown some.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

That sort of thing is very uncommon, and if it recurs the dam manager is going to get lynched. Literally.

The fat fool I was ranting at has got flooded three times in one year because he's brought a house in a fucking stupid place.

Example 1
My home town has spent most of the last thousand years being built along a road on a hillside ; the road then cuts straight across the flood plain of the river, over the river several hundred metres from where the Romans had a ford 2 millennia ago, and straight up the hillside on the other side of the valley (where the Romans built their fort, to defend/ monitor the crossing point).
For two millennia, people have been not-building on the flood plain because it's a plain and it floods. DOH!
In the last 20-odd years, people have started building and selling houses on the flood plain. And then they complain about getting flooded. DOH!
Stupid idiots.

Bad shit for the poor people down in the river valley when the dam bursts. But economically, you've always got a choice. Even in pretty tough times (and I was a poor student once too ; I do remember), you can choose whether to rent a ground floor apartment, or an upper floor apartment. And that can make enough difference.
My personal logic, from bitterly learned lessons, is to avoid ground floor flats (because they're relatively easy to burgle), and to avoid top floor flats (because cheap landlords don't fix leaking roofs with any degree of urgency, but the people in the flat upstairs are pretty conscientious about putting buckets under leaks).

Example 2
I'm house hunting at the moment. On this afternoon's walk with the wife we saw a very nice development of apartments backing onto the Ythan estuary. Then I did the sums : maximum high tide was 1m higher than the state of tide at the time (I read the tide tables ; I'm like that) ; allow 1~2m for storm surge (low pressure) and 1m for storm waves (the mouth of the estuary is quite narrow). So, the door steps of the apartments should be 3-4m above the water level of that moment.
This is not rocket science.
The doorsteps were about 2m above river/ sea level. OK, the apartments were all built with a garage at ground level and the accommodation perched on top of the garages. So someone has thought about it. but you won't find me living there.
I might go to watch the flooding there though. Take a flask of whisky, a rain coat and some clothes to change into after I piss myself laughing.

[/self] Adds "elevation!" to my written list of explicit requirements for the house hunting ; I know the area well enough to know where to avoid though.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

I know exactly what pestilence means ; I just had a brain fade trying to remember the names of the 4 Horsemen. And trying to find a clear listing later showed there's more murkiness than I expected. Mind you, it's religion ; clarity of thought and precise definition of terms should not be expected.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

On the disease issue- I do not think a disease will come along that will significantly stop our population growth rate. Diseases will come along that annoy us. That's what I meant by "beat".

And it's only beat as long as organized society doesn't break down. So you are right- I'm a bit contradictory there.

Again your are right that we might not adapt fast enough and at some point have a lot of deaths from low quality food. But I think it's more of a degradation.
I don't think water or oil. I think strategic metals or rare earths.
And arable land perhaps.

Right now we have this weird "move in and out breed the natives" form of warfare going on.

Yea- I agree nothing will be done in time.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

If we use geothermal on a massive level, then won't we discover unintended effects?

Solar isn't just photovoltaic- the stirling engine version provides a lot of energy with mirrors and salt. I think they should take the efficiency hit and go with passive parabolic mirrors tho. They have some lower efficiency technology (11%ish) which uses no rare metals if I recall correctly.

Energy use per person is dropping for now. Devices are much more efficient than they used to be. When I was younger, we used to trip 20 amp circuit breakers all the time. Now, I never do. CFL (even better the new LED's), and high seer A/C make a big difference.

However- our lower usage would be a lot higher for large parts of the world- I agree.

I don't think we have to replace all. It can happen on a price basis partially.
Every time the price of fossil goes too high, more people go to alternative energy and then fossil fuels drop in price (because demand drops).

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

... the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built...

Uh huh. Right. You are saying that the water rose 1.5 meters in 50 years in North Carolina due to AGW.

Sorry, could you run that by us again?

Thank you.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

You only have to click on the link to see that the UN University in Bonn IS associated with the UN so I'm sorry but it is the UN saying this. And, tell me how the water can rise higher in North Carolina than anywhere on the Atlantic Coast. My high school physics tells me that water rises evenly because of an amazing thing called GRAVITY. Experiment: Fill a large flat bowl with water. Place several ice cubes in the bowl and watch them melt. Does the water rise higher on one side of the bowl than the other? There are several reasons why it appears that an area of land is disappearing into the sea. Erosion is one. You're right, hurricanes and floods happen without a warming world and have happened for longer than man has been on the planet. If you also research history you will see this. My problem is the global warming scientists lied about rising world temperatures. If any other group of scientist lied about their research they would be discredited and questions asked. Finally, there may be many "deniers" (a word used by the "alarmists") but there are many more "sceptics" who need to see more truthful evidence not a movie by a failed politician which has holes blown right through it.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[HungryHobo]

Yes I'm sure you've very happy with yourself that you avoided one hazard when choosing a location.

but just also make sure to avoid anywhere near the ocean at all in case of tsunamis and any cities over fault lines and anywhere in Tornado Alley and anywhere which often experiences hurricanes and anywhere that has or could have problems with wildfires and anywhere bellow cliffs or steep hillsides in case of landslides or avalanches and anywhere near an active or dormant volcano and anywhere near deep lakes in case of limnic eruptions and anywhere which experiences serious dust storms and anywhere which experiences extreme cold and anywhere where the land is unstable and might have large sinkholes.

ok I'm fairly sure there's got to be some parts of the earths surface that I've not just eliminated...

At least one of them also has to be close to a population center where there's at least one job you can do.

all you have to do is move in there and you can feel smugly superior to every single poor fucker you ever see who's just lost everything to a natural disaster.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe he's referring to the Slashdot article.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to propogandists like the Koch brothers who, until recently, silently funded anti-climate change groups to muddy the waters of the public debate and make it sound like climate change was started in Hollywood by Al Gore, right?

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

Yes I'm sure you've very happy with yourself that you avoided one hazard when choosing a location.

It is only rational.

but just also make sure to avoid anywhere near the ocean at all in case of tsunamis

Not necessary, and your parodying tone suggests that you know that you're shooting your own argument in the foot.

You only need to be sufficiently far above/ inland from the normal coast to reduce the likelihood of experiencing direct problems to the (literally) astronomical. At the moment, we don't have any technologies for deflecting an incoming asteroid (in the continent-wiper size range), so the approximate 1 in 100k/year (very approximate) probability level is a suitable baseline.

In my region, that means being more than a km inland and more than 50m amsl, this being the approximate run-up of the tsunami from the Storegga Slide of 9ka BP. Our current house is at 80m amsl (but you could have predicted that).

and any cities over fault lines

Errr, fault lines that have significant activity on-going. I've spent plenty of time in Inverness (Great Glen Fault ; killed someone with an earthquake in about 1835, so passes the astronomical criterion), which is about the biggest surface-expression fault in the country. But I've no real worries about holidaying or working in "active" areas, because the duration of holiday/ work is low enough to dilute the increased risk to acceptable levels.

and anywhere in Tornado Alley

Why would I want to go to America ; it's full of dangerous nutters with guns and on it's own this raises the risk level sufficiently.

and anywhere which often experiences hurricanes and anywhere that has or could have problems with wildfires

They'd be in or near the tropics ; pay me and I'll go there, but I won't go of my own volition, it's too hot. Probability between 0.5 and 1.0, which exceeds the ~10^-5 criterion.

and anywhere bellow cliffs or steep hillsides in case of landslides or avalanches

I take care around cliffs etc (I'm a geologist by trade, and a mountaineer by hobby) because I've been on the receiving end of rockfall, and attended funerals because of rockfall. I've no illusions about what gravity can do to rocks.

and anywhere near an active or dormant volcano

Fine for holiday (we're just back from Tenerife ; last year we were on Santorini ; I'm pushing for Etna next year because it's cheaper than Iceland) ; not for living. In the order of 100,000 people died last century because they lived too close to volcanoes for too long.
BTW, as a geologist, I treat the concept "dormant volcano" as a piece of real-estate marketing speak ; i.e. it's a lie. If something is visible as a volcano, then it's likely enough to be active. Treat with care.

and anywhere near deep lakes in case of limnic eruptions

Ah, you're clearly not any sort of earth scientist, are you?

and anywhere which experiences serious dust storms

Shit : not given.

and anywhere which experiences extreme cold

My wife spent a decade and a half living and working in Siberia (the pension benefits are better), and I've visited there in winter while courting her ; "extreme cold" is a manageable risk. As I said, I'm a mountaineer for fun.

and anywhere where the land is unstable and might have large sinkholes.

Again, read your geology text books. I cave for fun.
Actually, I have an ongoing conversation with a South African speleologist about a technique for detection of subsurface cave from (potentially) ground level or even a

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[ScentCone]

What is an "anti-climate change group?"

Regardless, the "debate" absolutely needs to be muddied, with things like facts. The crystal clear propogandist version, as delivered by people just like Al Gore, is full of exactly the sort of Hollywood hooey you seem to be pretending isn't exactly the problem.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

I don't think water or oil. I think strategic metals or rare earths. And arable land perhaps.

The arability of land depends very directly on the availability of water. No water? it might as desert.well be stones in the regdesert.

Right now we have this weird "move in and out breed the natives" form of warfare going on.

Umm, Please be clearer. I can see the in/out for Iraq/ Afghanistan (my nephew is there ; fool!) ; Pakistan (as important ; barely addressed) doesn't fit ; Saudi is just an off-the-horizon problem. But the "breed the natives bit? ... Please explain.

Yea- I agree nothing will be done in time.

Agreed. I know that my children won't suffer ; I hope yours won't either.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

In the u.s. the hispanics openly talk about taking back their land for mexico* and are growing their population faster than the native population. In a few years they will have peacefully taken over the land.

In Europe islamic immigrants are breeding much faster than the natives. You could see an islamic europe in 50 years without a shot being fired.

I think it is happening in some asian and middle-eastern areas as well.

I can't see how my children and grandchildren won't suffer. But there isn't anything we can do about it.

Water isn't the only basis for arable land. As we use the land harder, it becomes poisoned with mineral salts and well salt. It needs time to rest- it needs rainwater irrigation to clean it. Good land is like a fully charged battery and we've been discharging it too fast for a couple hundred years now.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

* the irony of "taking it back for mexico" is that most of them are not related to the native american tribes who originally owned the land but are instead related to the aztecs or incas.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

In the u.s. the hispanics openly talk about taking back their land for mexico* and are growing their population faster than the native population.

OIC : "out-breed", not "out [... pause ...] breed".

In a few years they will have peacefully taken over the land.

The Paisley problem.

(In the Ulster War, one of the problems that Paisley (father and son) have been having is that the population has steadily been shifting towards being majority-Catholic instead of majority-Protestant, which would have then undermined their entire moral case for resisting Unification. (Of course, unification still wouldn't have happened ; the Irish had long since told the Ulster people that "WE do not want YOU". And the whole question is becoming moot with the expansion of Europe.)

In Europe islamic immigrants are breeding much faster than the natives.

An assertion often made, but I'm not aware of it being formally considered an issue.

You could see an islamic europe in 50 years without a shot being fired.

It's hell living in a democracy, isn't it?

I can't see how my children and grandchildren won't suffer. But there isn't anything we can do about it.

Oh, you've had children? Oh well, your choice ; your children's suffering is the consequence of your choices.

Water isn't the only basis for arable land.

Huh? [/self : looks through a year of "Soil Science" notes ; /self repeats "Huh?"]

As we use the land harder, it becomes poisoned with mineral salts and well salt. It needs time to rest- it needs rainwater irrigation to clean it. Good land is like a fully charged battery and we've been discharging it too fast for a couple hundred years now.

Ah, salt poisoning. Well, yes, if you overdo the irrigation, then you can certainly screw the soil. Well established, thanks to Nebchadezzar et al, (-800). So you don't over-do the irrigation. But sufficient water remains a necessary prerequisite for agriculture.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Maxo-Texas]

A grammar nit... Really?

It's hell living in a democracy with respect for the rule of law when the people coming to dominate the population don't respect democracy or the rule of law.

Yea, one child. Sue me. It's in line with my belief that we should spend a couple generations having 1 child per 2 people. Most of these problems would fix themselves.

You can have well watered land which won't grow crops. Water and dirt are not the ONLY basis for arable land. As monty python would put it, Among the many requirements for arable land, these include Water, soil, nutrients, a lack of plant poisons.

Arable land is not merely wet dirt-- you can grow crops in it. They can be picky.

From your tone, I'd assume that we never lose arable land and salt poisoning is rare instead of inevitable. Googling produces 2009 many for "Salinization of agricultural land is an increasing global problem. "

Meanwhile...China lost 123 million hectares of arable land from 1997 to 2009. It could lead them to internal strife and externally to war.

I think we are mostly in violent agreement.

Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[RockDoctor]

Not being a grammar nit ; I didn't understand what you were trying to say (which is the purpose of the exercise).

It's hell living in a democracy with respect for the rule of law when the people coming to dominate the population don't respect democracy or the rule of law.

Most of the Muslims that I've lived and worked with have a higher opinion of and adherence to the law compared to the (nominal) Christians. They may differ in their opinions of what the law should be (e.g., many think that alcohol should be banned outright, while "Smoking, Meh!"), but they are taking steps to ensure that they become the democratic majority. So that's all right then.

I wonder what a native American ("Indian", "Aztec", "Inca", whatever) makes of this angst. If they were laughing out loud, I wouldn't blame them for a second.

As monty python would put it, Among the many requirements for arable land, these include Water, soil, nutrients, a lack of plant poisons.

[Grammar nit : Monty Python is a proper noun. >G<] Chloride, as in "half of sodium chloride" is an essential plant nutrient ; too much is a poison. Sulphur (typically as sulphate), ditto. As Paracelsus commented centuries ago, it's the dose that matters. You seem to have got the message (more than most people) that "soil" is a lot more complex than "dirt" ; I had a reasonable inkling about that as a kid (Dad's always been a keen botanist, as well as a chemist ; and we both knew that soil isn't just chemistry), and I spent 1/4 of an academic year at university putting some formal flesh onto the bones of that knowledge. Soil is complex stuff.

Your Google cite is probably right that salinization is an increasing problem. But that doesn't mean that it's inevitable. It isn't rocket science to avoid, and it is possible to rectify partial salinization in a relatively short time (only decades). But it does require reducing agricultural loading of the soil (lower yields) and it takes time, which probably explains why, as pressures on agriculture increase, it's becoming (Google asserts, and I'm happy to accept) more common.

"Violent agreement", indeed.

I think (not that I've studied it in any depth, just taking a normal citizen's interest in neighbourhood affairs) that you'll find that China's largest single cause of arable land loss is desertification in the West, in large part driven literally by wind erosion, and more distally by deforestation. Of course, China not being a democracy, they do have centrally mandated plans and processes to plant large areas of new forest, managed grasslands, etc to try to control the erosion and actually return some of that land to usability in due course. It's a genuine question whether they've done enough, quickly enough. And they probably have ridden rough-shod over many people's human rights in the areas they're trying to re-forest/ restore. Which they'd counter with concerns about the human right of their future citizens to not starve.

There are also genuine concerns about the silt-trapping consequences of the "Three Gorges" dam project on the Yangtze. That's will have effects downstream. You can question whether the Chinese have reckoned these correctly, but you can't claim that they have been (literally) reckless.

What happened to them?

[maxwell demon]

Well, obviously they fled through time to 2020. :-)

Re:What happened to them?

[lxs]

What happened to them was that they were rebranded as "economic refugees" or "fortune seekers" and left to starve. The lucky ones are called "illegal aliens" (wouldn't want to make them sound human now would we) and work shitty jobs for slave wages.
World wide food prices have doubled. Changing climate is one factor contributing to that. Revolutions are always economic in nature, and North Africa is all revolutions these days. It is happening right now but if you refuse to look then you won't see anything. Or you can blame facebook or Charlie Sheen or whatever.

Re:What happened to them?

[ildon]

I like how you don't actually know what the word "alien" means.

Re:What happened to them?

[shilly]

I like how you're too dumb to recognise that he knows precisely what alien means, and was pointing out that using a word that has a precise technical meaning but also has a popular meaning of extra-terrestrial being is a clever bit of propaganda that aims to dehumanise migrants. Fuckwit.

Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[js3]

Shouldn't we be happy that it didn't happen.. instead of gloating about it?

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[geek]

100 million people will die in 5 years if you don't give me 10 billion dollars right now to fix it. If they don't die, don't complain that you gave me 10 billion I squandered on hookers and cocaine, be happy they didn't die. 5 years from now I'll need another 10 billion.................

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, lets all take a moment of silence to be happy about it.

Done?

Okay, now, can we start holding people responsible for made up science? Lots of time and money is spent on this nonsense, including my tax dollars, so instead of pretending like fake global warming science isn't harmful in any way, lets hold corrupt (or just plain bad) scientist accountable.

If I told my boss some critical system failure was imminent -- in my opinion as an expert -- and he spent years of time and money trying to prevent it and it turned out that it was an inaccurate prediction, he would not say "well, we can be happy it didn't really happen." And rightfully so.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[bunratty]

That's an interesting analogy, but it fails on many different levels. There's not a single entity asking for money to fix the problem. We do observe the warming predicted by climate researchers. If you can show that the predicted warming is not happening, you might have something.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you can show that the predicted warming is not happening"..

How about this:
NOAA Making Stuff Up And Contradicting Themselves

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/noaa-making-stuff-up-and-contradicting-themselves/

or this:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/11/steig-on-antarctic-warming-rossby-wave-trains/

The data being used to support the theory is pure bullshit. But instead of objectively looking at the criticisms, you blindly roll along repeating the mantra.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[bunratty]

I don't see any data there from which I can conclude anything about the overall temperature trend of the Earth. Every piece of data I've seen shows warming. A climate skeptic analyzed temperature data recently and came to the same conclusion. Even though fellow skeptic Anthony Watts was in favor of this analysis, his immediately dismissed his results as soon as they showed warming. If you have data that shows something different than warming, let's see it.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[sanzibar]

orly. how about this... http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/disturbing-imagery-of-arctic-ice-loss-over-the-last-15-years/ so why is the entire agw crowd talking about record heat in the arctic and record loss of ice? the facts tell a different story but dont let that stop you.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[bunratty]

That also shows nothing about the global temperature trend. If you want to focus on small geographic areas, we can look at the trend in Arctic ice, which is clearly melting, and the trend in Antarctic ice, which is also clearly melting. You're showing only two cherry picked images from one specific location, not the overall trend in that location, and certainly not a global trend.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[angel'o'sphere]

You probably remember we had a hugh volcano eruption a few months ago in Island, or?
Ofc this year is a little bit colder ... rofl.

Why dont you compare a 1870 ice map with the one from 1996? that would perhaps make more sense as the climate trend from 1986 to 1996 was not disrupted by large volcano eruptions if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway: comparing 2 photos and drawing any conclusion from that us complete nonsense anyway.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[MobileDude]

Delicious gem - you get a +1 friend for that one, geek!

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm happy that a snake did not bite me while working in the yard today, and that I did not get food poisoning from the pizza for dinner last night and that my wife has not smothered me in my sleep for being a smart-ass.

I must be the happiest guy in the world because nothing bad ever seems to happen.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's not a single entity asking for money to fix the problem.

Correct. Instead we're all paying more for fuel, water and power to distribute the costs over many, many entities.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[sanzibar]

please don't be stupid. the mantra is the world is burning and the ice is melting. an updated pic showing it all to be bullshit, is full of goodness. and if by your premise you are suggesting the volcano is causing the current cooling trend, the problem is solved. Its all about the sun. Now please tell Al Gore his business ventures are now ruined.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[angel'o'sphere]

No, the updated pic shows nothing.

The ice is melting and all is burning, why don't you look at some photos of the Alps, Kilimanjaro or Himalaya?

volcano is causing the current cooling trend, the problem is solved. Its all about the sun

1) We have no trend. We have a year that is a bit colder in the start then previous years. But it is not as cold as it is supposed to be!!!
2) The cooling has nothing to do with sun or clouds. It comes from sulfor and other chemicals counter acting the CO2 ... that lasts as long as it is washed out by rain which will be in 6 months latest and then the temperature rising trend will continue again.
Man how stupid are you that you start arguing against man made climate change?
Are you just 15 and learned last year the first time about it? Global warming we have since ore or less over 100 years, and everyone knows that, only the USA behaved as if there was nothing and only accepted talk about it in the most recent time.
Google a a bit about ski seasons in "The Alps" e.g.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[sanzibar]

So i like how the agw crowd tries to back-peddle when faced with mounting evidence that their models and hypothesis is bullshit...

"But it is not as cold as it is supposed to be!!!"
Your trying to persuade me the "cold" we are seeing is really "hot cold". rofl!!! full on stupidity.

So how cold was it supposed to be? There is not a single agw model that backs up the cooling trend you claim.

So in fact we could say that it is much colder than your agw models predicted. Hence the photos showing the massive ice increase. The fact is, it is much much colder than it was "supposed to be".

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry, i got lost somewhere in the middle with all those supposed ... trend, claim, increase

Did yo press "answer" on my post but intended to answer to someone else?

Regardless to whom you answered your post is not really coherent. Are you now an "agw denier" (shame on you - because that is plain stupid) or are you now a "agw denier hater" (shame on you as well - because that is plain intolerant)?

Or are you just making fun of me or my parent poster?

The fact is, it is much much colder than it was "supposed to be".

The fact is: no it is not much much colder than it is supposed to be. It is only a little bit colder than the year before. If you are referring to the 2 satellite images of the north pole that previous poster has linked: the first one shows a ridiculous small ice field. The second one shows an ice field that is half the size it should be.
Meanwhile we had several years where at summer time was no ice at all at the north pole ...

So in fact we could say that it is much colder than your agw models predicted

1) there are no agw models ... whre did you get this idea from?
2) there are no predictions for single winter. There are predictions for the general trend.

You seem to mix up climate trends with weather reports.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[sanzibar]

the problem is, you are caught in their twisted logic.

The "not as cold as it is supposed to be" argument is a logic fallacy. Cold is fucking cold. You want to try and redefine cold as some sort of "hot cold". See the stupidity yet? Cold is cold.

Second, the agw hypothesis rests on questionable data that is used to produce models. Remember the hockey stick? Its all about Warmer and Warmer. No Cold. Up and Up.

Case in point and what you fail to observe in those two photos:
1. 1996 "ice is melting rapidly" oh noes! This proves global warming we all going to dies - they say
2. 2011 "uh oh the ice all came back - bigger and stronger" shhh. lets say its hot cold. they stupid, they believe anything we say.

But... http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif

AGW modelers missed this CLIMATE trend. Now they try to invent more bullshit to cover it up.

Further, their code sucks. Take a look at this snippet:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/why-scientists-should-not-be-allowed-programming/

So, if you cant start to see by now, I would highly recommend that you take some time to educate yourself in the *deserved* criticisms of AGW.

Now bug someone else. I cant help you.

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[angel'o'sphere]

The "not as cold as it is supposed to be" argument is a logic fallacy. Cold is fucking cold. You want to try and redefine cold as some sort of "hot cold". See the stupidity yet? Cold is cold.

Erm ... sorry I don't get it. When it is supposed to have an average temperature of like 10 degrees but in fact it has 15 degrees, then it is not as cold as it is supposed to be, agreed?

Case in point and what you fail to observe in those two photos:
1. 1996 "ice is melting rapidly" oh noes! This proves global warming we all going to dies - they say
2. 2011 "uh oh the ice all came back - bigger and stronger" shhh. lets say its hot cold. they stupid, they believe anything we say.

You fail to observe that this are 2 fotos, and not a trend. With two random fotos you can always try to prove something and you always will fail.

If you don't know the difference between weather and climate you should perhaps educate yourself ;D

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[sanzibar]

So you think this is about a few degree difference of cold? You really are lost.

Perhaps this will help you. It gives a good read of some of the criticisms and fairly shreds one of the Global Warming High Priests you worship.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceandpublicpolicy.org%2Fimages%2Fstories%2Fpapers%2Foriginals%2Fcomments_dr_richard.pdf

Now think about this. If you really believe AGW, why are you contributing to the co2 output? The Global Warming High Priests tell you that you are killing innocent little babies. But you continue to exhale without a care in the world as if you don't believe. In the time it takes you to read this, you just killed 10 little babies!

Mee thinks you not really an evil murderer. You know the theory is bullshit. So why you worship evil High Priests? or are you really a sadist?

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[angel'o'sphere]

Dude, you have no clue. I have ... stop posting me bullshit links please.

If you don't know anything aout the topic, you better be silent.

The rest of your post after your link is pure idiocy ... troll somewhere else.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Should we be happy that it didn't happen?

[sanzibar]

still killing little babies i see.

must be hard to face the truth.

lucky for you grist has online confessional. I guess this wraps up the religion debate...

http://climatequotes.com/2011/04/24/a-tour-of-grists-earth-confessions-website/

Don't worry, it's ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they keep pushing this date out by 10 years we'll be able to solve the problem with cold fusion.

Rush Limbaugh ate them.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the only logical explanation.

Re:Rush Limbaugh ate them.

[FoolishOwl]

There was some online graphic novel I once saw with that as the running gag. The artist also had a really good autobiographical peace about 70s futurism and how it disappointed him. I haven't been able to find the comics online again since I read them the first time.

Interglacial Period

[bill_mcgonigle]

Sure, we're in an Ice Age, and in an interglacial period where we'd expect ice sheets to be retreating and temperatures warming, but give me money and power and I'll put a stop to it!

Re:Interglacial Period

[10101001 10101001]

Sure, we live in a world where we'd expect to see arid land be arid, untreated water to be full of pathogens that make people sick, various simple ailments that left untreated result in long-term debilitating disease, etc but give me money and power for irrigation; sanitation, regulating adequate drainage, and mandating water treatment; paying for doctors and the development and buying of medicine; etc and I'll put a stop to it!

Nah, fuck it. If it's natural, it must be better!

News from this 'Anthony Watts' denier...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are brought to you by the coal and oil industry. Read about climate at http://www.skepticalscience.com/

Re:News from this 'Anthony Watts' denier...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha ha.

Skeptical science.

From a guy making up conspiracy theories about coal and oil. NEXT.

Re:News from this 'Anthony Watts' denier...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Renewable Energy Industry is the new coal and oil industry.

Only this time, much more sinister.

Re:News from this 'Anthony Watts' denier...

[sanzibar]

so if the majority of the energy you consume comes from coal and oil, i suppose you mean to say that "denier" science is funded by YOU! and how come your not so worried about the billions flowing in from the "new" energy speculators? you think the renewable markets are any better? moron

Re:News from this 'Anthony Watts' denier...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, imagine the consequences should their sinister plan of reducing pollution, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, and promoting sustainability come to pass.

no. we gloat and marginalize them.

[dlt074]

these people are dangerous. we must be pointing this out at every opportunity and never forget that this whole Global Warming er i mean Climate Change is nothing more then a political movement. it seeks to control, regulate and enslave everyone... all under the premise that the world needs saving and their way is the only true way. convert or die.

what should be scaring the hell out of everyone is the very 1984, Winston Smith way they went about trying to edit their propaganda. what happens when they learn from this and the collective memory forgets their false prophecies?

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[ArcherB]

Did Slashdot become Fox News?
Deniers on my Slashdot?

Are facts that you don't like suddenly "Fox News"?

Let me see if I got the formula right:
Facts I don't like = Fox News
Fox News = Fake
Facts I don't like = Fake

Nice!

Refugees don't come labeled

[rossdee]

There are many refugees in the world. Some of them have moved because of economic conditions (which may be caused by climate change) or civil wars (which may be also influenced by weather - remember that one of the causes of the French revolution was the bad weather caused by an Icelandic volcano eruption (the year without a summer.

And nobody knows how many illegals there are in the USA...

Scientific American throws in the towel

[jollyreaper]

Scientific American (irony not intended)

Okay, We Give Up
We feel so ashamed
By The Editors | Friday, April 1, 2005 | 55

There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.
In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.

Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details.

Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.

Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No more discussions of how policies affect science either-so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.

Scientific American is a trademark of Scientific American, Inc., used with permission

© 2011 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded insightful ? Did nobody look at the date ( April 1 )?

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[jmac_the_man]

So wait. As I understand it, the problem with Intelligent Design is that it's not falsifiable, right? There's no way to set up an experiment with observable results to disprove the statement, "A supernatural Creator created mankind." That's the problem, right?

By contrast, a subset of modern evolutionary theory states that "Dinosaurs became extinct roughly 65 million years before the first humans." This is falsifiable. Lets say an archeological team discovered a fossilized brontosaurus near a pyramid site in Egypt. Let's also say the brontosaurus had a block shaped like it was used in constructing the pyramids strapped to its head. Let's further say that the brontosaurus was found in the same soil layer that you'd expect other ancient Egyptian artifacts to be found in. And then lets say they found another brontosaurus near the Mayan pyramids. And one near the Great Wall of China. Eventually, science would come to the conclusion that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. (The fact that no one has been able to do this points to the strength of the original theory.)

The statements "Man is causing Global Warming" and "Man is not causing Global Warming," by contrast, are both falsifiable. A lot of the "Man is causing Global Warming" science is hard to falsify, but that's because the people doing that research are hiding their original numbers and only using massaged data to "hide the decline" in the amount of Global Warming taking place. For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." 2010 has come and gone, and there aren't 50 million climate refugees. Therefore, his falsifiable statement has been proven false.

The correct scientific thing to do is to discard his prediction and move on. Moving on means making changes to similar predictions that are based on the same data, or directly on his prediction. It means giving up whatever money was set aside to deal with the climate refugees. It means maybe next time, listening to the people who say that there won't be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years.

It doesn't mean mocking the people who disagreed with the original prediction for something that has nothing to do with what they said or did. A challenge to a theory isn't "an attack on science," but refusing to let go of an idea that has clearly been proven false is.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone happen notice the date?

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Xacid]

Woosh!

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[andycal]

That specific article and its tone was the final straw that convinced me to cancel may SA subscription. I resent the presumption that asking for alternative points of view puts you on the lunatic fringe.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[MobileDude]

Yeah, right about the time I cancelled my sub. Haven't missed it a bit.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

check the date moron...

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[10101001 10101001]

So wait. As I understand it, the problem with Intelligent Design is that it's not falsifiable, right? There's no way to set up an experiment with observable results to disprove the statement, "A supernatural Creator created mankind." That's the problem, right?

Yes and no. The main problem with Intelligent Design is that it's a faux theory. It searches for examples of things that aren't necessarily fully explained in evolution, says "it's too complex and I don't know how exactly it came about", and then rejects any other theory that gives even a partial explanation because "an Intelligent Designer made it" is a more complete answer, even if "an Intelligent Designer made it" is the sort of answer you pull out of a hat. In short, the problem with Intelligent Design is it starts with a complete answer then looks for problems. Science is fundamentally the reverse, finding a problem then looking for answers along with as you note an acceptance of falsifiability; ie, there is an acceptance in science that your best working answer for far might be wrong.

The statements "Man is causing Global Warming" and "Man is not causing Global Warming," by contrast, are both falsifiable. A lot of the "Man is causing Global Warming" science is hard to falsify, but that's because the people doing that research are hiding their original numbers and only using massaged data to "hide the decline" in the amount of Global Warming taking place.

Ie, you start with the presumption that all the scientists involved in global warming research aren't scientists, already have the answer, and massage the data to produce the problem. Such implies the sort of grand conspiracy that is hard to believe, most of all because there's a lot of individuals/companies who have a vested interest in proving global warming researchers wrong (oil, coal, etc companies come to mind along with genuine scientists). If scientists by definition do science and you claim all global warming scientists aren't doing science, how is such not an attack on science/scientists?

For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." 2010 has come and gone, and there aren't 50 million climate refugees. Therefore, his falsifiable statement has been proven false.

The correct scientific thing to do is to discard his prediction and move on. Moving on means making changes to similar predictions that are based on the same data, or directly on his prediction. It means giving up whatever money was set aside to deal with the climate refugees. It means maybe next time, listening to the people who say that there won't be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years.

Correct. That's the appropriate response. In the future, claims of ten millions of "climate refugees" will be even further scrutinized, as they should be.

It doesn't mean mocking the people who disagreed with the original prediction for something that has nothing to do with what they said or did. A challenge to a theory isn't "an attack on science," but refusing to let go of an idea that has clearly been proven false is.

Correct. The theory there would be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years is false and should be disregarded. The theory there's climate change is still going strong and should be well regarded because the long-term temperature data still strongly supports that. Thankfully, I'm sure you're not the type of person who would conflate the two theories and use the falseness of one to imply the falseness of the other.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

I point you to the comments higher up that shows the claim that there would 'be 50 million refugees' was a misquote from the actual science practitioners. No scientist said there would be 50 million refugees.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[c6gunner]

I resent the presumption that asking for alternative points of view puts you on the lunatic fringe.

Yeah, all lunatics say that.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[jmac_the_man]

If scientists by definition do science and you claim all global warming scientists aren't doing science, how is such not an attack on science/scientists?

I have no idea what you're talking about here. This guy was wrong. Stating so is not an attack on science. Continuing to defend his idea, despite the fact that it has been proven wrong, is an attack on science.

You start with the presumption that all the scientists involved in global warming research aren't scientists, already have the answer, and massage the data to produce the problem. Such implies the sort of grand conspiracy that is hard to believe, most of all because there's a lot of individuals/companies who have a vested interest in proving global warming researchers wrong.

I started with the fact that there has been some violation of the scientific method in the case of some of the studies that global warming supporters point to. "Hide the decline," which I referred to, is how one global warming researcher referred to a "trick" by which he conflated temperature sources from two disparate sources to produce an alarming graph, which made the case for global warming look stronger. The same researcher convinced (conspired with?) science journals to attempt to prevent people who disagreed with global warming theories from publishing their work. We could argue about how grand a conspiracy this makes, or whether he meant "trick" in the sense of "deceive" or "a cool thing I did," but those are questions of degree. Poor scientific controls mean that maybe it's worth it to take another look at the research, or the legislation that was passed based on assuming that it was true.

The theory there would be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years is false and should be disregarded. The theory there's climate change is still going strong and should be well regarded because the long-term temperature data still strongly supports that. Thankfully, I'm sure you're not the type of person who would conflate the two theories and use the falseness of one to imply the falseness of the other.

Of course I'm not. I wrote my post because the falseness of intelligent design (which has nothing to do with the topic) should not be conflated with truth/falseness of "Global warming isn't a manmade phenomenon." There's serious questions about global warming*, which can and should be answered by science. But when research shows that you were wrong about something, the correct answer is to disseminate that knowledge and maybe change other predictions. It's not to go HURF DURF THE PEOPLE WHO SAID THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN BELIEVE IN THIS OTHER THING WHICH IS CLEARLY FALSE.

*There's serious questions about everything else science studies, too.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped subscribing to SciAm specifically because they try to drive political policy through purely scientific endeavor - which the editors of SciAm would realize was hopelessly stupid if they took their heads out of their collective asses for five minutes and looked around.

The April Fool's joke, above, only serves to show that they are still woefully ignorant about the "real" world.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[10101001 10101001]

If scientists by definition do science and you claim all global warming scientists aren't doing science, how is such not an attack on science/scientists?

I have no idea what you're talking about here. This guy was wrong. Stating so is not an attack on science. Continuing to defend his idea, despite the fact that it has been proven wrong, is an attack on science.

Perhaps because you're selective quoting me out of context? The line you quote comes at the end of the paragraph you quote directly below which was in response to charges that all global warming scientists destroy their original data and only release intentionally manipulated results ("massaged", as you put it, implying malicious intent), a charge the stretches well beyond the scope of the one scientist or group of scientists claiming "50 million climate refugees".

You start with the presumption that all the scientists involved in global warming research aren't scientists, already have the answer, and massage the data to produce the problem. Such implies the sort of grand conspiracy that is hard to believe, most of all because there's a lot of individuals/companies who have a vested interest in proving global warming researchers wrong.

I started with the fact that there has been some violation of the scientific method in the case of some of the studies that global warming supporters point to. "Hide the decline," which I referred to, is how one global warming researcher referred to a "trick" by which he conflated temperature sources from two disparate sources to produce an alarming graph, which made the case for global warming look stronger. The same researcher convinced (conspired with?) science journals to attempt to prevent people who disagreed with global warming theories from publishing their work. We could argue about how grand a conspiracy this makes, or whether he meant "trick" in the sense of "deceive" or "a cool thing I did," but those are questions of degree. Poor scientific controls mean that maybe it's worth it to take another look at the research, or the legislation that was passed based on assuming that it was true.

In the same way we should "take another look" at basically all source code because programmers often refer to code they write as a "hack". The idea that this hints at a conspiracy with "questions of degree" is to ignore that programmers and scientists have a jargon that taken out of context can be taken to be malicious. By the same token, the idea that one high level programmer might actively push one's own company, other companies, or other programmer friends and colleagues to avoid bad code from a bad programmer isn't a conspiracy. It's an effort of convince, yes, but there's nothing remote illegal, amoral, etc about it. You do realize conspiracies have to involve an evil act and not merely a concerted effort, right? Otherwise all organizations would be conspiracies.

Having said that, yes effort should be taken to look at all evidence that is used as a basis for legislation. That doesn't mean "another look". It means a decent first look. The general issue with legislation is not the lack of enough second looks but the lack of enough first looks. The latter would seem to be of a much higher priority if one cares about such things.

The theory there would be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years is false and should be disregarded. The theory there's climate change is still going strong and should be well regarded because the long-term temperature data still strongly supports that. Thankfully, I'm sure you're not the type of person who would conflate the two theories and use the falseness of one to imply the falseness of the other.

Of course I'm not. I wrote my post because the falseness of intelligent design (which has nothing to do with the topic) should not be confla

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[jmac_the_man]

The line you quote comes at the end of the paragraph you quote directly below which was in response to charges that all global warming scientists destroy their original data and only release intentionally manipulated results

Not quite. I never said that "all global warming scientists weren't scientists" as you put originally. I never claimed anyone wasn't a scientist. I changed the of what you said to make two distinct points clearer. The first was that when I referred to an "attack on science," I meant "defending research which has been proven to be false," which the OP was doing. It looked (and I'm still not sure) like you were saying that I was attacking science, and if you were, I still fail to see how. The second point was problems with global warming research, which I addressed below.

In the same way we should "take another look" at basically all source code because programmers often refer to code they write as a "hack".

I debated putting a line in my original reply about how I know that he called it a trick because someone hacked into his e-mail, and how that is an example of "hacking" not necessarily meaning bad, and in doing so comparing it, facetiously, to his usage of "trick." The problem isn't that he called it a trick. The problem is how many people his actions (remember, it wasn't just the "trick") deceived.

Having said that, yes effort should be taken to look at all evidence that is used as a basis for legislation. That doesn't mean "another look". It means a decent first look. The general issue with legislation is not the lack of enough second looks but the lack of enough first looks. The latter would seem to be of a much higher priority if one cares about such things.

I would love it if we could take a better first look at this guy's 2005 report about 50 million climate refugees. I'll print out this article, you fire up the time machine

"Granted, ID, GW, etc are all separate subjects and poking fun at ID and trying to conflate science as one monolithic block is stupid.

I wrote my post because the falseness of intelligent design (which has nothing to do with the topic) should not be conflated with truth/falseness of "Global warming isn't a manmade phenomenon. There's serious questions about global warming, which can and should be answered by science. (Of course, there's serious questions about EVERYTHING science studies.)

I have no idea what the last block you wrote means. Global Warming and Intelligent Design could both theoretically* be true. Or neither of them could be true. Or either one could be true and the other could be false. Is that what your saying? Anyway the quotes above are you and I both saying, in essence, that the correct response to a global warming theory being proved wrong isn't to go "OH YEAH? WELL CREATIONISTS ARE STUPID!" I'm glad we agree on what I was trying to say. Have a nice afternoon.

*Intelligent Design isn't technically a theory, but I couldn't come up with a better word.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[jbengt]

The theory there would be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years . . .

Technically, that would be a hypothesis, not a theory.

Also, the quote from the GP: 'For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." ' is in line with TFA, but does not jibe with the report that TFA purports to refute.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[10101001 10101001]

Not quite. I never said that "all global warming scientists weren't scientists" as you put originally. I never claimed anyone wasn't a scientist.

You claimed that global warming researchers weren't following the tenets of science in so far as you claimed they went out of their way to avoid trying to falsify theories, which I can only deduce as being equivalent to calling them not scientists.

I changed the of what you said to make two distinct points clearer. The first was that when I referred to an "attack on science," I meant "defending research which has been proven to be false," which the OP was doing.

I understand now what you mean, but the issue is "attack on science" has a broader meaning. There are those who do no research yet claim their beliefs as science. As such, they attack science by subverting people's understanding of what is science. That clearly seems to be an attack on science.

It looked (and I'm still not sure) like you were saying that I was attacking science, and if you were, I still fail to see how. The second point was problems with global warming research, which I addressed below.

I think that's based on a misunderstanding on my part. I think it clear you meant something like "all global warming researchers are crooked" and "all scientists who use their data have been mislead". That isn't an attack on science. It's just a rather preposterous conspiracy theory involving all global warming researchers--again, it's preposterous because oil companies would at the drop of a hat hire and pay well a global warming researcher who could actually prove this conspiracy with collected evidence, not by pecking away at emails and hoping to find evidence within the bowels of the conspiracy. That's one of the many reasons why I'm more inclined to accept the idea that global warming researchers are being taken out of context and their actions miscast. After all, when you don't have evidence on your side, what choice do you have but to smear your opponent?

The problem isn't that he called it a trick. The problem is how many people his actions (remember, it wasn't just the "trick") deceived.

You mean that he kept more bad research papers out of peer review journals than would otherwise be there? Yes, I guess in that way he caused a deception in that now one can go back and point out that peer review journals only have a handful of bad global warming research papers instead of possibly a good many bad global warming research papers. I'm not saying I don't have a problem with this, exactly. I'm just saying, I can see how it could happen without a real intent to deceive.

Having said that, yes effort should be taken to look at all evidence that is used as a basis for legislation. That doesn't mean "another look". It means a decent first look. The general issue with legislation is not the lack of enough second looks but the lack of enough first looks. The latter would seem to be of a much higher priority if one cares about such things.

I would love it if we could take a better first look at this guy's 2005 report about 50 million climate refugees. I'll print out this article, you fire up the time machine

I see what you mean, but I thought you were speaking of legislation going forward. Obviously, I wasn't speaking of using a time machine. Honestly, I don't know of any legislation that was constructed to deal with "50 million climate refugees", and I'm pretty certain if there was it wasn't crafted with a "and then in 2015 we'll do whatever the '50 million climate refugees' scientists says in dealing with the next projected batch of refugees". As such, I'd imagine any legislation involving "climate refugees" has already effectively expired and so any new legislation involving "climate refugees" would involve a "first look". But, th

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[argStyopa]

Of course, this was meant to be funny, but the fact is that SciAm long since stopped being a "science" magazine, and turned into an advocacy magazine.

From slash articles on Bjorn Lomborg, to umpteen editorials and thinly-designed hit pieces on the Bush Administration's politicization of science data, SciAm abandoned objectivity entirely. Certainly, they'd always had a vaguely leftish tilt, taking an obvious anti-Reagan stance in the 1980s, but the magazine nevertheless maintained SOME credibility at that time by not pushing their politics too far.

The problem with today's level of technology is that it's beyond simple understanding.
Either you listen to experts who have their own biases and politics (ala FOX or CNN), or you try to grab as much raw data as possible - only possible thanks to the internet - and logically try to parse it yourself, despite the knowledge that you may not personally have the training or experience or both needed to interpret it correctly.

Yes, a strong case has been made for AGW (weakened, IMO by the grandstanding and uncritical adulation of Al Gore, frankly). But AGW != GW, and as much as I've seen points that are persuasive, I've seen a lot of goalpost shifting and smoke and mirrors, more akin to televangelism than to science.
Several months ago, in discussing this subject, I found a list of more than 160 serious climate scientists that objected to AGW - http://www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/ - interestingly, that site no longer comes up? Google cache at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QW7i-7So08MJ:www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/+copenhagen+climate+challenge&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

Strange? Hard to decide?

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Listen Up]

Nobody noticed that this article was published Friday, April 1, 2005? April Fools Day. And the moderators voted the parent up to a 5? Wow...

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

"So wait. As I understand it, the problem with Intelligent Design is that it's not falsifiable, right?"
It's as falsifiable as evolution is provable.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Uberbah]

From slash articles on Bjorn Lomborg, to umpteen editorials and thinly-designed hit pieces on the Bush Administration's politicization of science data, SciAm abandoned objectivity entirely. Certainly, they'd always had a vaguely leftish tilt, taking an obvious anti-Reagan stance in the 1980s, but the magazine nevertheless maintained SOME credibility at that time by not pushing their politics too far.

Translation: point out that ideology-driven conservatives are push policy based on ideology, facts be damned, and you've "lost objectivity".

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

"So wait. As I understand it, the problem with Intelligent Design is that it's not falsifiable, right? "

Wrong.

The problem with ID is, that every time someone hypothesizes that "[feature] could not possibly have evolved naturally", someone does an experiment that shows otherwise.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[argStyopa]

Not as a justification but an honest question - aren't ideologically-driven liberals EXACTLY THE SAME?

And yes, I'd say that if you're a science magazine not simply discussing the scientific merits of one argument or another, you're veering dangerously close to losing your objectivity. I can't recall seeing similar excoriation of the Obama administration in SciAm, for their
- burying of the report undermining the case for Cap and Trade
- deliberately blurring the lines in oreports between peer-reviewed findings and the Secretary's comments, making it seem like the Secretary's recommenation (for a moratorium on offshore drilling) had been peer-reviewed - PRECISELY the same method (& White House explanation) that the Bush White House had used to edit Climate reports.

I'm sure their lack of outrage is just coincidence, right?

Read their Bjorn Lomborg piece - it's at least a dozen pages of the most ad-hominem, puerile garbage that wouldn't even manage to make a persuasive argument on a no-login forum, much less pass for thoughtful discourse in a monologue-medium like a magazine.

Re:Scientific American throws in the towel

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the "Man is causing Global Warming" science is hard to falsify, but that's because the people doing that research are hiding their original numbers and only using massaged data to "hide the decline" in the amount of Global Warming taking place.

Pure and utter bullshit. Who is "hiding their numbers"? I'm guessing you're referring to the "Climategate" incident in 2009 based on your particular use of the phrase "hide the decline", an oft-repeated-by-the-denialists phrase supposedly indicating it has something to do with the scientists at the CRU actively trying to hide data within graphs.

As oft-repeated as it is, though, it's been even more oft-debunked, so I won't bother even addressing how clueless you are when it comes to this "scandal" (hint: if there was some "conspiracy" to falsely prove climate change, where in the e-mails does it mention said conspiracy? You have a lot of misunderstood phrases taken out of context, but nothing along the lines of "Alert Lord Gore, inform him the coverup of the data is complete! His plans for world domination will come to fruition!!!" anywhere within.) Instead, I'll issue a challenge you'll never take up: The original data for most of what was being worked on in the hacked e-mails comes from weather station data that's freely available at the Global Historical Climatology Network or the National Centre for Atmospheric Research. Feel free to contact either of them and ask for a copy of station data covering the last 100 years and do your own analysis and thus falsify the theories. Recommendation, ask nicely. Like every other person on the planet (who doesn't live on The Jersey Shore), scientists don't like douchebags.

If you can prove the analysis, you'll be the hero of not only the denialist movement, but the scientific community as well. After all, science #1 goal is to be shown it's wrong because it's in doing so that we learn. But, we all know you'll never do that.

For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." 2010 has come and gone, and there aren't 50 million climate refugees. Therefore, his falsifiable statement has been proven false.

Well, that's true...except for it all being completely false. Read the articles mentioned and read the first comment to see that no scientist actually said that.

It means giving up whatever money was set aside to deal with the climate refugees.

There was money set aside? None of the articles mention it. I realize it's a moot question, but...do you have a source for this?

It means maybe next time, listening to the people who say that there won't be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years. It doesn't mean mocking the people who disagreed with the original prediction for something that has nothing to do with what they said or did.

But, when one group goes out of their way to be wrong so often, you just have to mock them. I know I do. Oh, and I can't find any reference to anyone disagreeing with this until 2010. Apparently, for a group that's ordinarily so vocal in their ignorance, the denialists were silent on this "issue" when it first appeared. Perhaps it's because in 2005 people actually knew that no scientist said there'd be 50mil climate refugees and saying so then would invite a lot of backlash for such a gross misreading? Mention it now, and pretty much no one but the denialists even notice.

A challenge to a theory isn't "an attack on science," but refusing to let go of an idea that has clearly been proven false is.

I couldn't agree more, and yet...here you are defending it.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone didn't read his sig.

Scary

[tthomas48]

Not scary that the predictions are wrong, but that populations in those locations are increasing. We'd better hope these climate change predictions continue being very, very wrong.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

There hasn't been a single correct one to date yet, why would they start telling the truth now?

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[The Grim Reefer2]

Someone didn't read his sig.

There seem to be too many people that haven't these days.

Anthony Watts is a known shill

[mangu]

The author of that propaganda piece is a known shill of whatever industry pays him.

Here's a video that he tried to take down unsuccessfully.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[tripleevenfall]

Ad hominem is not useful in evaluating the article, and does nothing to address the veracity of it.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[diretalk]

Vote parent UP!

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Runaway1956]

Known shill? Possibly - I don't know him. But, in this instance, I have to agree with him, shill or not. I remember Al Gore promising apocolytipic events would happen by now. How 'bout that hockey stick?

Believe me, I take mankind's continued survival pretty seriously, but you'll have to admit that the global warming activists have employed to many of thier own shills. Not to mention, they demand to much faith. Here, on slashdot, I expect people to resist any kind of faith-based bullshit. How many insults have been hurled at theists, because they can't prove a damned thing they believe in? Come on people - stop being faithful to people who claim to be scientists, but haven't proven a damned thing.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Anonymous Coward]

hi5

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[tripleevenfall]

Science and religion aren't held to the same standard on /.

Religion is dismissed because "science is repeatable". Global warming can't stand up to the criticism they give other kinds of faith, but is regarded as not only science but the holy grail of science.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[angel'o'sphere]

Known shill? Possibly - I don't know him. But, in this instance, I have to agree with him, shill or not. I remember Al Gore promising apocolytipic events would happen by now. How 'bout that hockey stick

So ... they did not happen? Where have you been hiding when Cathrina happend? What did you do the last 4 days? Even *I* in the backyard of europe where we still live in the stone age have heard about the catastrophe in the USA happening the last 4 days. How many are dead and how many are homeless?
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/04/17/severe.weather/index.html?hpt=T2
Man, just because you hate Al Gore does not make him wrong.
angel'o'sphere

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you under the impression that events that have happened regularly throughout history are suddenly "because" of human caused climate change when that hasn't been the case before?

How illogical.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[tripleevenfall]

It's sampling bias.

The same poppycock that results in people believing things like "deaths come in threes" or that there are a massively larger number of earthquakes worldwide versus how many there were before we had the ability to measure and detect them like we do today.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Mashiki]

That's pretty much normal spring weather here in North America. The tornado/severe weather season here starts in April when the streams shift. Some years we manage to squeeze by until mid-may before weather like that starts to happen, not often but we do.

This is why in most places like that there are severe weather sirens. I'll let you put 2 +2 together.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, the news says it is the worst weather (and the highest count of tornados) since 50 years.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Crashmarik]

"Well, the news says it is the worst weather (and the highest count of tornados) since 50 years" If it bleeds it leads, or if its not horrible its not news, and if its not horrible you can count on newspeople to make it horrible

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Mashiki]

Well, the news says it is the worst weather (and the highest count of tornados) since 50 years.

If it bleeds it leads. This is sensationalist news, nothing more, nothing less. And highest count in 50 years? Well in the US they only have about 50 years worth of tornado tracking that's considered reliable in most places, and some of those are only reliable to 1970, but tornado numbers have been far higher. Hell where I live the 'accurate temperature and tornado count' is only goes back to about 1973.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Anonymous Coward]

... so, it was human caused climate change that caused them 50 years ago then?

(as far as I know, there's a correlation between those events and the current climate system with a cold phase PDO. 50 years ago we also had a cold phase PDO)

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[HiThere]

An excellent point.

OTOH, while the alarmist reporting is just that, the weather has been increasingly unusual for the last decade or so. I'd just put it down to leaving the "little climatic optimum", but the average seems to tend towards warmer. E.g., when I got married 21 years ago we thought the middle of March a very safe date to pick for an outside ceremony. Fortunately my wife didn't like sun, so we didn't actually plan that, but we did plan lots of outside processions, etc. Around dusk it started to rain and hail, quite surprising us. But by an large things went off well. This year, however, it's the middle of April and it's still occasionally raining. Nothing catastrophic, so it's not making the news...except that the drought warning has been canceled. Note that if it were just one day there'd be nothing unusual about it. Even 30+ years ago it would occasionally rain lightly one day as late as June. And, as I said, if it was only this one year I'd just blame it on "freak weather". And if one year was hot, and the next cold I'd blame it on leaving the little climatic optimum (which we *have* done). But the changes are generally in the same direction...hotter...with only an occasional swing to colder.

Now leaving the little climatic optimum means that we can expect wilder weather swings than previously. (We entered it around the 1930's I think. So it's not reasonable for people to remember what it was like before we entered it, but you get both fewer floods AND fewer droughts in the little climatic optimum, and the weather is just stabler.)

Unfortunately, many of our systems for handling weather problems evolved during the little climatic optimum, so they are unsuited to weather outside of it, where wild swings in weather are more common. Additionally the increase in the number of people has meant that even those systems were already strained. (We've been getting drought warnings with normal rainfalls, because more people use more water.) (Also, around here rains after the weather has warmed means more growth in brush and grasses, which will dry out over the summer, making the fall fire season much more dangerous. That's when we can expect the disaster, but when it happens the news won't bother to blame it on the late spring rains. So you won't hear about it as an effect of global warming. This kind of indirect causation of disaster is actually the most common mode of action.)

So, yeah, the news is not to be believed. And you should just expect wilder swings in the weather. But that's not what we're seeing. It's averaging hotter, where the average should stay the same.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[sonicmerlin]

People like you getting modded insightful are why I avoid Slashdot these days. The "hockey stick" talking point has been debunked so many times, including on this site, that all I can do is roll my eyes when people bring it up. The lack of trust that computer professionals have on this site for climate scientists' conclusions boggles the mind.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Culture20]

So ... they did not happen? Where have you been hiding when Cathrina happend? What did you do the last 4 days? Even *I* in the backyard of europe where we still live in the stone age have heard about the catastrophe in the USA happening the last 4 days. How many are dead and how many are homeless?

This is normal weather in "Tornado Alley". Slightly less usual for the Carolinas, but still within normal range. Europeans have no idea what strong weather is like, and you're getting suckered by US news media with its "OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE: coming up after this commercial break" style of marketing.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[npsimons]

Ad hominem is not useful in evaluating the article, and does nothing to address the veracity of it.

Normally yes. But when someone keeps spewing the same falsehoods, even after being corrected, multiple times, it is wise to consider ignoring anything they say. As others in this thread have noted, there are multiple falsehoods in this story, some of which make it look like Watts is really stretching, at best. His attempt to silence his critics doesn't help his case any either.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[budgenator]

Gavin Atkins != Anthony Watts.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[budgenator]

That's pretty normal spring weather over here, if you want unusually violent look at the Super Outbreak of April 3-4th 1974, 148 tornadoes in 24 hours. The F3 that went through the Marshal Space Flight Center, jumped over Monte Sano Mountain, and went through Redstone Arsenal to Huntsville went right over me.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[budgenator]

The amount of trust Climate Scientists have in the output of computer program that interate over the same data to project climate decades and centuries into the future boggles my mind.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[angel'o'sphere]

For your area perhaps, but in this case it seems dozens of states got hit and the amount and severity seems to be unusual.
Anyway, I have ofc no clue and only see what the media tell us.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Runaway1956]

I drove truck for years. Many, many times, I've raced tornados across one state or another. My father in law was 84 when he died in 1998. The old man told us tales of tornados wiping away entire towns before WW1, between the world wars, and after. In fact, I lived in Xenia, Ohio for a couple years as a kid. Imagine my surprise soon after we moved away, when I watched Xenia being wiped off the map on the evening news.

Tornados are nothing new, they are no bigger, and no more deadly than they were decades or centuries ago.

Put this all into perspective. In a nation of 350 million people, a few dozen are killed by storms. Uhhhh - how does that compare to cataclysmic events from the past, such as Pompey, or Vesuvius, or - well, you can parse history as well as I can.

I call bullshit to any alarmist conclusions regarding a monster hurricane and a few tornados.

Of far greater concern are the oil spills and the nuclear plant disasters.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[pixelpusher220]

The East Coast isn't 'tornado alley'. They don't have sirens in NC or VA precisely *because* it isn't normal.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Culture20]

Did you read my next sentence where I said it was slightly less normal for the Carolinas? But Hurricanes and tornadoes are not unheard of there (like in Europe).

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[pixelpusher220]

not unheard of but not even close to the massive devastation that they caused this time.

I was more pointing out you're statement that 'normal for tornado alley' was ridiculous considering they are hundreds if not thousands of miles from there.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[Mashiki]

Some impressive moderation there. I guess people are still pretty butthurt over their religion starting to turn to the point of scientology.

Re:Anthony Watts is a known shill

[budgenator]

From April 3 to April 4, 1974, there were 148 tornadoes confirmed in 13 US states, including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and New York; and the Canadian province of Ontario. It extensively damaged approximately 900 square miles (1,440 square kilometers) along a total combined path length of 2,600 miles (4,160 km).[1]

My area, that's an area equivalent to Western Europe.

There are ?

[unity100]

What do you think the people classified in 'migrant worker' category in increasing numbers are ? famine, plague, drought, are causing people to relocate and seek work.

refugee definition

[Anonymous Coward]

If people move to Siberia or North Dakota for that matter due to moderating winter weather are they considered refugees?

Accuracy Not Distance

[flyneye]

uhm...
            Well, yeah Miami and Phoenix fill up every Octember and empty every Mapril. No news there.
I unnerstand Palm Springs is nice if you like naked bacon.

Interesting map.

[taxman_10m]

Anyone know if the regions in China on the map that show droughts are the same places experiencing droughts now?

Re:Interesting map.

[Anonymous Coward]

The places they show droughts in TX and OK on the map are most certainly experiencing drought right now. I find this story incredibly strange. The map does show places where severe events have happened in the past 5 years. New Orleans, Afghanistan, etc... How many people who read this map are aware of the daily plights of the million in afghanistan due to weather events? It is almost like the author is counting on the ignorance or the reader to not be aware of the world outside their immediate area. And that is not exactly a stretch for the crowd it seems written for.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[pubwvj]

Hmm... So the facts go contrary to what you want and you declare them invalid. Great thinking. We've got this problem on both ends of the political spectrum so you're in good company. Party away.

What it really comes down is...

[plazman30]

The earth is insanely unpredictable. Any belief that what we do to the planet is the only thing that affects weather and climate is extremely naive. Has the Earth experieced warming in recent decades? Yes it has. Is Man the ONLY reason this is happening. I really really doubt that. This planet has gone from ice ball, to tropical over a number of periods in the 4 billion years the Earth has been around.

Sensationalizing things in the hopes of getting donations for your cause so you can keep getting a paycheck in not the answer.

When people ask me what to do about Global Warming I tell to plant to some trees, since they scrub a lot of CO2 and to pray the Yellowstone Super-volcano doesn't blow up any time soon.

I think the planet will take out our species out long before we can do it ourselves with global warming.

Re:What it really comes down is...

[bunratty]

I've never heard anyone say "what we do to the planet is the only thing that affects weather and climate". That is not what the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming states. It states that in addition to all the natural effects on climate, humans can raise the temperature of the Earth several degrees above where they would naturally be if they hadn't burnt billions of tons of fossil fuels. Humans' impact of climate is dwarfed by natural effects, but that doesn't mean we can't affect the climate. You're employing a false dichotomy.

Re:What it really comes down is...

[ChrisMaple]

Although "the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming states...that in addition to all the natural effects on climate, humans can raise the temperature of the Earth several degrees above where they would naturally be if they hadn't burnt billions of tons of fossil fuels", that's not what the proponents of Global Warming say. Their claim is that "in addition to all the natural effects on climate, humans DO raise the temperature of the Earth several degrees above where they would naturally be if they hadn't burnt billions of tons of fossil fuels", and they claim it not as hypothesis as but as established fact, and they claim that those who reject their claims are malicious.

Re:What it really comes down is...

[bunratty]

I haven't seen anyone say that we've already raised the temperature several degrees. The latest I've seen is just over 1 degree Celsius. We have in fact observed this temperature increase, and cannot find any reason for it other than increased greenhouse gasses.

Someone needs to read his links

[mangu]

If you had taken a quick look at the link you provided, you'd have seen this graph that shows how temperatures rise very quickly after an ice age and then slowly creep down over millennia.

If we are in an interglacial period, climate should be cooling, not warming.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[bill_mcgonigle]

Look at the right side of the graph. That's us, time 0, still in the upward swing. For whatever reason, this interglacial period looks most like one that's 61,000 years long, not the usual 12,000 year one.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[blueg3]

Both your and GP's comment have the serious problem that you don't quantify the rate of temperature change in the glacial cycle. Any temperature change can look "very quick" if you scale the time axis appropriately.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... RIGHT side of the graph?

Take another look. Particularly at the x axis.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[Rockoon]

If you had taken a quick look at the link you provided, you'd have seen this graph that shows how temperatures rise very quickly after an ice age and then slowly creep down over millennia.

The graph shows temperature rise takes between thousands and tens of thousands of years, and you have disingenuously declared that to be "very quickly"

Dishonest much?

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[mangu]

The graph shows temperature rise takes between thousands and tens of thousands of years, and you have disingenuously declared that to be "very quickly"

Very quickly compared to the time it takes for temperature to fall back again. The graph clearly shows we are already long past the post-glacial warming period and should be in the cooling phase right now.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[Rockoon]

Take a good look at the graph. I real good look. Draw some conclusions that fit it please, without simply looking for a "confirmation" of what you already think.

The graph does not "clearly" show what you claim. Thats just wishful thinking..

A plain-as-day observation is that if we are supposed to heave peaked again, it was at a temperature less than all the other times..
Another plain-as-day observation is that the only other similar region is the one on the right that leveled-off for about 12,000 years before peaking.. and we right now at about 12,000 years of level-off...

It is clear that the claim that this period should have peaked cannot be substantiated by that graph, let alone that it did in fact did peak. Thats just not in the graph.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[Anonymous Coward]

"Very quickly" in terms of a 400Kyr chart is a little deceiving, especially considering we don't even have hundreds years of consistently good data. You'll note that the line is jagged, not smooth and the jumps are in thousands of years with no fine detail. Note also that every measurement to date of prehistoric temperature is interpreted, not actual, making detailed projections dubious.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[emt377]

If you had taken a quick look at the link you provided, you'd have seen this graph that shows how temperatures rise very quickly after an ice age and then slowly creep down over millennia.

If we are in an interglacial period, climate should be cooling, not warming.

I see about one degree per 10000 years on the upswing. Sustained over a century or more, one degree C per 25 years means it's 25/10025 = 0.25% caused by interglacial warming and 99.75% something else. Or, rounded to the nearest integer, 0% and 100% respectively. Clearly, finding out what this 'something else' is rather than pretend it doesn't exist would seem to be prudent.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[riverat1]

One thing to keep in mind is that the cycle of glaciations and interglacials are apparently driven largely by Milankovitch cycles, that is variations in the various orbital cycles (eccentricity, obliquity, axial precession, apsidal precession and orbital inclination) of the Earth. These various cycles have different periods so there are times when they match up to increase the effect and other times when they tend to cancel each other out. This graph shows expected insolation at the top of the atmosphere at 65N for the period from 800,000 years ago to 800,000 years in the future. It appears the present time is one of those times when the cycles are canceling out to some extent which may account for the extended interglacial period we appear to be in. That said, the temperature of the present interglacial peaked about 8,000 years ago and has been on a very slow downward trend since then which would be expected to continue in the absence of the present unnatural increase in greenhouse gases.

Re:Someone needs to read his links

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, that's not science.

Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[wisebabo]

... but here in Vietnam we DO hear quite a bit about the rapid encroachment (and salinization) by the ocean into the Mekong delta. It is clear that with the ocean coming in (I seem to remember an encroachment figure of 1.4km/yr.) and that hundreds of thousands have already been displaced because they can no longer farm there. (This has driven the growth of the big cities which is where I live). The government is constantly projecting that millions more will move in the next few decades (This is from their Thanh Nhien News which is a pretty widely read paper, there's an English website you can visit).

Of course matters will soon be made even worse as upstream countries start damming the Mekong. (They may be doing so because the freshwater source in the Himalayas is losing its snowpack cover. This may also be due to climate change.)

Vietnam is supposedly one of the most susceptible countries to sea level rising but I can imagine things could be even worse in an even poorer (and closer to sea level) country like Bangladesh.

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[phantomfive]

Vietnam is supposedly one of the most susceptible countries to sea level rising but I can imagine things could be even worse in an even poorer (and closer to sea level) country like Bangladesh.

It is. National Geographic has a fascinating article on how Bangladesh deals with things like rising oceans and other types of floods. Note that they also have one of the highest population densities in the world, which makes it even harder to deal with.

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[electrosoccertux]

... but here in Vietnam we DO hear quite a bit about the rapid encroachment (and salinization) by the ocean into the Mekong delta. It is clear that with the ocean coming in (I seem to remember an encroachment figure of 1.4km/yr.) and that hundreds of thousands have already been displaced because they can no longer farm there. (This has driven the growth of the big cities which is where I live). The government is constantly projecting that millions more will move in the next few decades (This is from their Thanh Nhien News which is a pretty widely read paper, there's an English website you can visit).

Of course matters will soon be made even worse as upstream countries start damming the Mekong. (They may be doing so because the freshwater source in the Himalayas is losing its snowpack cover. This may also be due to climate change.)

Vietnam is supposedly one of the most susceptible countries to sea level rising but I can imagine things could be even worse in an even poorer (and closer to sea level) country like Bangladesh.

surely you can come up with some legitimate report of these 1.4km/year losses of property??? no???

you know I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the sky is actually orange

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[PhreakOfTime]

the 1.4km/yr is the rate at which the soil is becoming to salty to use for growing. It is not going under the water, the water table below becoming salty is making it unusable. The land above is still above sea level, but the effects of the ocean underneath that land is changing. You are free to check the source cited, it was provided to you. (Thanh Nhien News). Are you so lazy that you are unable to look at the site yourself, without a direct link holding your hand to get there?

You should make sure you understand the concepts involved before posting such trite nonsense.

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[Anonymous Coward]

surely you can come up with some legitimate report of these 1.4km/year losses of property??? no???

http://www.dztimes.net/post/social/increasing-salinity-threatens-deltas.aspx
"In Ben Tre Province, a salinity level of 4 percent has traveled as far as 40 km inland. In places such as Phuong Long Commune in Hung Le District, which is 35km from the river entrance, salinity has reached 8 percent.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment forecasts in 2030, about 45 percent of the soil in the Mekong Delta will be too salty for rice production and daily human activities."

http://www.nea.gov.vn/en/EnvirStatus/StateOfEnvironmentNews/Pages/MekongDeltaBracesAsSalinityPenetratesDeeper.aspx
"The Southern Institute of Water Resources Research has forecast that seawater will penetrate the Mekong Detla mainland as far as 70km from February until May in the dry season.
Seawater penetration in Ben Tre Province last year damaged and reduced productivity of nearly 1,600 hectares of rice, prevented rice cultivation on 4,500 hectares and 10,200 hectares of fruit trees, destroyed 300 hectares of crops and killed shrimps on 300 hectares. The total damage was estimated at approximately VND200 billion (US$9.5 million)."

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[tqk]

the 1.4km/yr is the rate at which the soil is becoming to salty to use for growing.

I thought that was due to deforestation. The coastlines used to be covered with banyan (?) trees which filtered out the salt. Those have now been eliminated.

This was mentioned as to why a tsunami so devastated Myanmar/Burma a few years ago.

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you so lazy that you are unable to look at the site yourself, without a direct link holding your hand to get there?

Translation: I'm full of shit and now I'm pissed at you for pointing it out.

You should make sure you understand the concepts involved before posting such trite nonsense.

Trying to blame someone for not finding a vaguely hinted ludicrous fairytale which you crazily assert exists is a sign of serious psychological disturbance. I suggest you seek medical help. If your thoughts are not normally this unorganized you may even be having a stroke. If you think this is even slightly possible you need to seek emergency treatment immediately.

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[jamesl]

Development of Sea Level Rise Scenarios for Climate Change Assessments of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

... subsurface water and hydrocarbon extractionâ" are especially problematic in Asian delta regions where population densities and agricultural production are greatest and most critical for socioeconomic reasons. In most cases, the rates of subsidence in deltaic environments, human-induced or even naturally occurring, are many times greater than the rates of historical or projected eustatic sea level rise expected with climate change.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1165/downloads/OF10-1165pages1-10.pdf

The real danger comes not from the seas rising but from the land sinking.

Re:Didn't know about the UN prediction...

[DiamondGeezer]

That effect happens on coral atolls as well. It's caused by over extraction of ground water. Definitely manmade but nothing to do with climate change. Also deltas sink over time. An entirely natural process.

Oblig

[gmuslera]

xkcd

Many people don't know about Google Cache.

[bondiblueos9]

I think they would only care that many members of the public don't know about google cache.

Oh goody.

[Toze]

Another religious debate. /flee

Almost as good as the 'FBI confirms aliens' post

[guanxi]

Slashdot now reposts Daily Caller propaganda? It's almost the quality of the 'FBI confirms aliens' post recently. I like this comment in the Daily Caller article; I'm glad /. helps drive their page views, and can follow instructions:

Be sure to leave comments on any website that makes this claim, and link to this and the Asian Correspondent website.

The article is a bit absurd. It looks for the 50 million refugees in the Bahamas, St. Lucia, Seychelles, and Solomon Islands. Safe to say, if you look for 50 million carbon-based humans there, you won't find them.

What is a 'climate refugee' and how many are there? Does this disprove AGW or point to some evil conspiracy? It's surprising to see /. wasting space and its reputation on this nonsense.

Maybe /. will become News of the World for geeks: Sensation for nerds but stuff that doesn't matter.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[tripleevenfall]

Here is a link to the map, whuch the UN took down but was still to be found in Google's cache.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/un_50million_11kap9climat.png

The cache of the original page:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5OWrvQs5P5YJ:maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010+http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

Alberta

[SquirrelDeth]

The planting season has already been delayed one month here. And we still have snow on the ground in April. Snowed yesterday matter of fact. And yet polar bears north of here are supposed to be drowning due to ice melting. Time to move to the north pole where its warm and the ice melts because it sure as hell is not melting south of the arctic circle.
The farthest north settlement in Canada has a terrific climate people are wearing bikini's there and winter coats several hundred miles further south weird. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFS_Alert

Re:Alberta

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth hurts your bullshit position so what part of the above post is untrue?

Re:Alberta

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what your definition of bikini weather is, but the current temperature in CFS Alert is -31C with a windchill of -36C. Check for yourself: Environment Canada - Alert, Nunavut

The shape of the sea surface changes

[mangu]

It seems more than a little illogical to state that sea levels rise higher in one Atlantic coast state than the others

Not illogical, only it takes some analysis to understand.

What happens is that the global warming is causing the ocean water to become less dense, both by dilution by melted ice and by thermal expansion from the increased temperature.

The surface of the ocean is approximately an ellipsoid whose exact shape depend on a number of factors. When the surface rises due to the increase in water volume this rise is slightly different from place to place. At the latitude of North Carolina this increase happens to be more than in other places.

Re:The shape of the sea surface changes

[drainbramage]

The sea hates North Carolina.

Re:The shape of the sea surface changes

[jvillain]

What happens is that the global warming is causing the ocean water to become less dense, both by dilution by melted ice and by thermal expansion from the increased temperature.

That would be a heck of a story if there actually was warming to create this expansion. Melting glaciers put cold water into the ocean not warm water. If you think the air is some how heating the water you should have a look at the graphic over here.

Link

Re:The shape of the sea surface changes

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, atmospheric scientists and oceanographers know about heat capacity and thermodynamics.

Observations of ocean temperatures show:

1. The upper layers of the ocean have warmed.
2. The warming is top-down, not bottom-up (contrary to the implication in your link that the atmosphere has warmed due to the oceans).
3. The amount of ocean warming is entirely consistent with the heat flux attributable to atmospheric warming.
4. The observed ocean warming is able to explain much of the observed sea level rise (due to thermosteric expansion), with glaciers explaining most of the rest.

In short, yes, the oceans have a much larger heat capacity than the atmosphere. No, this doesn't mean that the atmosphere is unable to influence ocean temperature or sea level.

Re:The shape of the sea surface changes

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes, the good old "don't know the difference between heat capacity and radiative forcing".

Surely the "skeptics" here should ask themselves why an overwhelming majority of their arguments come from one guy, and an overwhelming majority of his arguments are trivial to debunk.

Re:The shape of the sea surface changes

[Namarrgon]

Melting glaciers put fresh water into the ocean, which is less dense than salt water.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Runaway1956]

No, but I read the title of the summary. "What happened to the climate refugees?" And, I can answer that. They've all taken refuge, hiding in all the alrmist's cavernous asses. I suspect that Al Gore is hosting an entire clan in his fat ass! And, if it weren't filled with vacuum (HA! "filled" and "vacuum" in the same sentence!) they could host another clan, or even an entire tribe in his fat head.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[tripleevenfall]

The facts aren't contrary. This was a completely valid prediction. The election of Barack Obama prevented this.

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." -- Barack Obama, 3 June 2008, upon winning his party nomination.

Maybe they are 1 year late in coming ?

[unity100]

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/15/us-farmers-threaten-by-worst-drought-since-1930s/

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/15/cuba-is-dealing-with-the-worst-drought-in-50-years/

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/17/hailstorms-damage-crops-across-states-in-india/

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/15/dozens-tornadoes-rip-through-u-s-southwest/

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/15/cuba-is-dealing-with-the-worst-drought-in-50-years/

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/16/air-pollution-worries-iran-as-sandstorms-wreak-havoc/

Re:Maybe they are 1 year late in coming ?

[brit74]

What's funny is that I read down your list and got to "Developer Friendly Free PHP5 OOP Codebase", and expected it to be part of your larger list. (Gee, climate change is responsible for a free php5 codebase? That doesn't sound too bad.)

Re:Maybe they are 1 year late in coming ?

[unity100]

cost reduction.

Re:Maybe they are 1 year late in coming ?

[DarenN]

So what you've actually "proved" is that there was an equivalent terrible global drought 50 years ago...

Re:Maybe they are 1 year late in coming ?

[unity100]

glad to see you are not trying to ignore the existence of the events.

now, you can opt to notice that there isnt 'one' drought, but many, and there arent only droughts, but many other off-scale situations that are affecting masses in these last few years. however, the catch is, these linked all happened THIS year.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly... we've had three whole years of lovin' Obama healin'. The planet is not dead yet, it's going for a walk.

Please stop bashing the UN

[DNS-and-BIND]

We really don't need any UN-bashing here. Slashdot is usually very good about this, I don't know how this story got through the editing process. Look, it's an inconvenient truth, one which should be quietly ignored. All they were trying to do was alarm people and get them to stand up and take notice, so we could do something about global warming. The fact that the prediction didn't exactly turn out the exact way it was said is immaterial. What's important is that we make progress on climate change legislation. Let's all remember in 2005, Kyoto wasn't a dead deal and there was a lot of room to influence the process in a positive direction.

Re:Please stop bashing the UN

[karlwilson]

We really don't need any UN-bashing here. Slashdot is usually very good about this, I don't know how this story got through the editing process. Look, it's an inconvenient truth, one which should be quietly ignored. All they were trying to do was alarm people and get them to stand up and take notice, so we could do something about global warming. The fact that the prediction didn't exactly turn out the exact way it was said is immaterial. What's important is that we make progress on climate change legislation. Let's all remember in 2005, Kyoto wasn't a dead deal and there was a lot of room to influence the process in a positive direction.

Didn't turn out the exact way it was said? It turned out to be completely opposite. I'm all for a more environmentally conscious population, but these climate scare tactics are being used purely by corporations and academics to generate profit. (Carbon credits anyone? What a scam...)

Re:Please stop bashing the UN

[downhole]

I really hope you're joking... otherwise, this is basically evil. It's okay to lie to the people, as long as it's supposedly in service of what you think is a greater good? This is exactly why so many smart people don't believe in AGW. People see that you're lying about this, and they start to wonder what else you're lying about.

Add up the lies and ridiculous hyperbole about what global warming is going to do, the blatant money-making schemes (see carbon credits), the political power-grabs by the same people who have been trying to grab more and more power for decades, the ad-homium attacks against the opposition, and the ineffective things that we're supposed to do to stop it, and it's no wonder that so many people think that it's all a giant scam.

Re:Please stop bashing the UN

[Airdorn]

Alright, so its ok to yell fire in a crowded theater as long as your intentions are pure?

Re:Please stop bashing the UN

[quantaman]

I think you're being too harsh on the actual AGW proponents. In my experience the scientists actually make fairly conservative claims, "the lies and ridiculous hyperbole about what global warming is going to do" mostly come from the AGW-deniers. They either blow out of proportion some isolated statement from a scientist, or in this case heavily distort the original report to make it sound ridiculous.

As to why so many smart people believe in AGW, I think this article is a great illustration. If you just read the summary a smart person might think this was pretty damning for AGW, it's only when you read the comments when you realize how distorted the original article was. If you don't happen to read the right resources and are stuck in the information bubble where the original article came from, a smart person could very easily be mislead about many topics.

Re:Please stop bashing the UN

[Trogre]

Well yes, if the theatre is actually on fire.

(not that I disagree with your point at all, but that needed to be said)

Re:Please stop bashing the UN

[ChrisMaple]

The UN is an organization without a good reason for its existence. Communications are quite good today, no purpose is served by sucking funds from hard-working people to feed fat bureaucrats, no reason to give crazed dictators yet a another stage on which to spew their hatred, no good reason to give large numbers of satrapies imaginary jurisdiction over their superiors. The UN needs to be recognized as the enemy of civilization that it is, and defunded.

ok. But we are talking about the UN's bogus claim.

[electrosoccertux]

The author of that propaganda piece is a known shill of whatever industry pays him.

Here's a video that he tried to take down unsuccessfully.

that's nice but I don't care about that I would like to know why the UN said this in the first place if they knew that there weren't going to be climate refugees. I mean seriously, if it were coming true real estate would have fallen apart in those areas, which is wasn't. So it seems clear the UN had an agenda which they are now failing to hide and cover up.

April 1st

[electrosoccertux]

looks like that was an april fools joke

Re:April 1st

[Sir_Sri]

that doesn't make the article any less insightful. The first 4 paragraphs are not practical joke funny, they're irony and sarcasm. The last paragraph is the only traditional 'joke' part of the story, but the rest of it is definitely insightful, as the article itself clearly recognizes. There are lots of comedy shows that use comedy to be insightful about the political process after all.

Ironically the anti-ICBM stance from 6 years ago might have been wrong. Though obviously the success and failure of anti-missile systems is probably classified to varying degrees, it's hard to know if the stance against anti-missile systems was based on wildly out of date (and therefore useless) data, or just overzealous evangelizing, or if it actually is right, and all this money the US, Russia, Chicom and israel are spending on it is being wasted.

That map is from 2007

[mangu]

If you take a look at the map in your link, you'll find it signed "Emanuelle Bournay - Oktober 2007".

The allegation is that UN predicted in 2005 that there would be 50 million climate refugees. Nowhere in that map one sees mention of how many refugees there would be, it just shows the regions more likely to be affected by global warming.

Re:That map is from 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

The original cached page shows the article and the graphic packaged together, although the graphic was moved breaking the link, it was still up.

Re:That map is from 2007

[ArcherB]

The map sited this(PDF) paper as a source. That paper was written in 2005. Emanuelle Bournay was the cartographer who drew the map.

From the paper:

As far back as 1995 (latest date for a comprehensive assessment), these
environmental refugees totalled at least 25 million people, compared with 27 million
traditional refugees (people fleeing political oppression, religious persecution and
ethnic troubles). The environmental refugees total could well double between 1995
and 2010. Moreover, it could increase steadily for a good while thereafter as growing
numbers of impoverished people press ever harder on over-loaded environments.
When global warming takes hold, there could be as many as 200 million people
overtaken by disruptions of monsoon systems and other rainfall regimes, by droughts
of unprecedented severity and duration, and by sea-level rise and coastal flooding.

Re:That map is from 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

The graphic cites two publications from 2005. I don't think this is so much a case of making up sources as it is a failure to provide the correct links - both by the cited blogger, the article, and of course slashdot.

they died, &/or we killed them with the 'clima

[Anonymous Coward]

unproving their deaths should be simple as their lives were never proven to have even begun yet, except on the deleted colorrmap.

we're all (pardoning the chosen ones, eugenetics, wearons peddlers etc.) refugees, particularly now what's really becoming clear, is that we still have somewhere to be alive, until all the efficiently scheduled dying stops. if we get blown away with the 500million unproven climate charge carcasses, that shouldn't upset the apple cart, or us, as most of us were never chosen to be/stay alive, like our neogod leaders are, no matter what fauxking murderous madness they force us into, we still worship them almost as much as they worship themselves, & our resources, which we give freely onto them, as it was written, by them.

no

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a simple word. no

Re:ok. But we are talking about the UN's bogus cla

[Scrameustache]

the UN had an agenda

To its initial goals of safeguarding peace, protecting human rights, establishing the framework for international justice and promoting economic and social progress, in the six and a half decades since its creation the United Nations has added on new challenges, such as climate change, international terrorism and AIDS. While conflict resolution and peacekeeping continue to be among its most visible efforts, the UN, along with its specialized agencies, is also engaged in a wide array of activities to improve peopleâ(TM)s lives around the world â" from disaster relief, through education and advancement of women, to peaceful uses of atomic energy.

They would like to know in advance where they will be needed.

P.S. seriously, /., another site redesign and you still can't parse apostrophes and hyphens? Encode everything in UTF-8 already, jeez!

What happened to the climate refugees?

[kawabago]

Their arrival has been delayed by bad weather.

Re:What Happened To the Climate Refugees?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. That's interesting. Not only did you find a way to get your completely inappropriate political bend in on the story but you've also failed to avoid answering the question in any meaningful way. No to mention that most people who actually label themselves as Republicans who claim they're "going Galt" probably don't even know what the term means let alone anything about Rand's politics.

In essence, your post is a troll and people who associate themselves with the Republican party are to Objectivism what people who wear upside down crosses and listen to Slayer are to paganism.

junglevians predicted to die in floods did?

[Anonymous Coward]

babys, puppy dogs, oxen etc... god was nowhere in sight, & the survivors are sick & starving yet today. still unproven, therefore uncountdead. no wonder the map needed editing? what about the georgia stone? being moved (inland) to utah we hear. the freemormons?

it's all in the teepeeleaks etchings, as it's all happened before, & even before that. disarm? not yet?

Politics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this categorized as politics?

Don't overlook the economic factors

[damn_registrars]

There are plenty of people around the world who would prefer to be refugees than be in their current situation, but they are held back by economic factors. You can't claim refugee status while you are still in your birth country, and you can't leave your country if you don't have the financial means to leave. There are plenty of areas where climate shift has had detrimental effects on peoples' ways of life, but some of those same places are under other circumstances of economic repression at the same time, making it impossible for the people who live their to actually leave and become refugees somewhere else.

DID the UN claim that?

[mangu]

I would like to know why the UN said this in the first place

Is there any evidence that the UN made this prediction at all?

From TFA to the original paper there is a huge difference. For instance, TFA cites population growth in islands like Bahamas, St. Lucia, and Seychelles, which were never mentioned in the paper.

What Dr. Myers actually said is that there were 25 million refugees in 1995 fleeing disasters caused by desertification and global warming and that number could double in ten years. This seems a perfectly reasonable claim, if one wants to discuss it the best way would be to get hold of Dr. Myers method for counting refugees and defining which ones are "environmental" and see if that prediction became true.

Now, instead of doing this, TFA says the UN has "removed" a page that they, so much smarter than the UN that they are, recovered from Google cache. Then they invent a lot of false data, but they never realized that the actual paper is readily found by googling so their lies are easily debunked.

Re:DID the UN claim that?

[Broolucks]

I think this underscores a major problem in this debate, though: nobody actually reads the papers, nor make a serious attempt at parsing the whole picture. People read press reports, aggregates, blogs, and everybody knows how much information gets distorted through these lenses. Or they will focus on a single graphic and give it much more relevance than is probably warranted by the hour an intern spent making it.

So the thing is, you will get people who will interpret some piece of information as saying that China will get flash flooded or something equally inane. Those of them who are climate alarmists will believe it, whereas those of them who are climate deniers will point to that as evidence that climate change is full of shit. Neither will realize that they are basing their beliefs on distortions. This makes reasonable discourse on this subject particularly difficult, since there is nothing you can say that you can guarantee won't be grossly misinterpreted by either fringe, and that's essentially what laymen will see in the end.

Re:DID the UN claim that?

[Anonymous Coward]

People read press reports, aggregates, blogs, and everybody knows how much information gets distorted through these lenses.

That's what they want you to believe. People should only trust the "official word" of the government and the big three or four popular media outlets because they are the only ones that can reach factual conclusions that are not biased or subject to outside influence.

Re:DID the UN claim that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the locations mentioned come from the map at the UN site. And whine whatever you like, but that map kind of did mention those locations.

So while perhaps there could be some discussion about who takes credit for the actual screwup, but can we please all agree that the UN did make that claim and then tried to cover it up ?

Then why was that on the UNEP website?

[lscotte]

Then why were the pages on the UNEP website? The UNEP is part of the UN (yes, that's United Nations). It is not relevant whether or not UN University or United Nations came up with the data - it was published on the UNEP site, and is now gone.

Re:Then why was that on the UNEP website?

[tqk]

Then why were the pages on the UNEP website?

What I'd like to know is, why's nobody mentioned https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Maurice_Strong yet. Even Jesse Ventura devoted a whle program to him.

Re:Faceplant

[Majik Sheff]

Erm...

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/astronomy/q0262.shtml

You don't need to imagine a bulge. It's well documented.

As a thought experiment, if there's more water available and gravity continues to function the way is has for at least the past billion years or so, wouldn't you expect tides to rise at a faster rate closer to the equator?

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[CrazyDuke]

Did it ever occur to you that he is accusing one of your sources for ego boosting propaganda of the very same thing you are accusing his of?

Anyone remember this story?

"The moral at the end of the Greek version is that 'the story shows that this is how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them."

Misery loves company.

Original paper is NOT about global warming

[mangu]

With so many people posting their own version of facts, it helps knowing the past history of such people, so that you can disregard their claims. What made me google for this Anthony Watts was the claims he made that the UN had predicted 50 million refugees coming from Bahamas (population 330000), St. Lucia (population 173765), and Seychelles (population 84000).

With numbers like these, something looks wrong. So I googled for the original study to find out what it said. it was no surprise that neither Bahamas, Seychelles, or St. Lucia were mentioned there.

What it says is that there are million of refugees coming from regions affected by desertification and that number is increasing.

And you know what's the funny thing about all this? If you take the trouble to actually read the paper Dr. Norman Myers wrote, you will notice that he does not mention global warming at all. What he calls "environmental refugees" are, in his own words, "people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together with associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty. In their desperation, these people feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt."

In their haste to deny global warming, people like Anthony Watts do not even try to find out who they should write against...

Re:Original paper is NOT about global warming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In that vein, it should be noted that (outside of highly unlikely corner cases of 1 meter rises in sea level causing a boat full of people going 'Dude, where's my island?' to wash up on your shores), it can be a bit tricky to identify the root cause of somebody's refugee status.

A reasonable percentage of Africa's ghastly little bush wars, for instance, are proximately about some goofy ethnic struggle or an ego clash between two psychotic strongmen; but the punchline generally boils down to the fact that the local subsistence agriculture/pastoralism hasn't actually been providing subsistence of late, which really stirs people up.

The assorted uprisings that a number of arab states are currently seeing are in the same boat. It isn't as though the populace just noticed that their leaders are brutal kleptocrats. A spike in food prices, though, has pushed them from feeling poor and downtrodden to feeling desperate and downtrodden.

Even if one wishes to leave macro-level climate out of the picture entirely, it isn't at all difficult to identify regions where high-intensity agriculture, and often shoddy practices, are converting farmland to desert or marginal scrub at a fair clip.

Re:Original paper is NOT about global warming

[Intron]

Other points to note are:

1) Some wars are fought over resources - like the Kenya-Ethiopia conflicts. So are those war refugees also environmental refugees? Its not very clear who you count.

2) The UN article started with a total of 25 million environmental refugees in 1995 and predicted it could double by 2010. That's where the 50 million number comes from. I don't see anyone providing the actual number now. How far off are they?

Re:Original paper is NOT about global warming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I haven't been able to dig up anything terribly concrete. Refugees are annoyingly fuzzy and somewhat tricky to count anyway(since they tend to be the ones who didn't get very far, and are living in vast squalid crowds in assorted 3rd-world warzones, or the ones who ran like hell for somewhere else, and are busy hiding out from somewhere else's equivalent of the INS, or the hard-to-count 'moved from the depressed hinterland to the teeming slums of local postmodern megacity' internal migrants) and, as you note, deciding exactly who is a 'refugee' and which ones of those are 'environmental' doesn't make the situation easier.

How bad does a nonviolent agricultural collapse have to be before 'economic migrants' become 'environmental refugees'? How sincere do people who are probably fighting over resources have to be that they are really fighting about whose god is better before the 'environmental refugees' become basic 'refugees'?

Re:Original paper is NOT about global warming

[Surt]

According to most republicans, there are 10 million+ refugees in the US alone, so not far off.

Re:Original paper is NOT about global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

From your linked document :

As far back as 1995 (latest date for a comprehensive assessment), these
environmental refugees totalled at least 25 million people, compared with 27 million
traditional refugees (people fleeing political oppression, religious persecution and
ethnic troubles). The environmental refugees total could well double between 1995
and 2010. Moreover, it could increase steadily for a good while thereafter as growing

So he's right. The study does predict 50 million refugees by 2010. Furthermore, he does not claim the study mentions these destinations specifically, the map at the UN site mentioned them (it's DAMN hard to find concrete predictions in global-warming related papers these days. The IPCC even dropped short-term forecasts entirely after totally missing ALL their previous 10-year "95% certain" predictions)

In a way, this is really smart. You see, when making a "95%" sure prediction 10 years out, you should only have 1 mistake every 10 * (100 / 5) years. So by making 3 "95% certain" mistakes in 30 years, the IPCC has thereby excluded all chance of making a mistake for 570 years (!). Now THAT's smart.

As to why anybody believes these clowns, that is utterly beyond me. I thought we stopped believing scientists if their predictions do not pan out. Well the IPCC's predictions are about as failed as any prediction can possibly be. IF we follow the scientific method, that means the IPCC is discredited, along with everyone who defends them. But of course, there's money involved.

Re:Original paper is NOT about global warming

[locallyunscene]

I wish I could mod this up to +10; this is standard practice for shilling. Choose a target. Pick a claim made. Reductio Ad Absurdum the claim. Laugh at the ridiculous "stupid expert" or outrage at the "bias-blinded expert". Bonus points for:

- Choosing a claim made 15-20 years ago. Old enough to likely not be 100% accurate, but not so long ago that people will notice.
- Associating the claim with some disliked political organization.
- Implying a cover-up of some type.

This is why

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to know why people don't give a shit about climate change (or believe it's happening at all)? This is it. For the past 20+ years all they hear is this ridiculous, end-of-the-world hyperbole and none of it ever comes true. The ice caps didn't completely melt. Florida is not under water. Nobody on the coast had to sell their condo. People still live on the equator. It still snows in basically the same places it always had. This is the same exaggerated bullshit people tried to convince me of in 1991. Back then they were certain it'd happen by the year 2000.

Ah... climate skeptics...

[Yvanhoe]

The ICCC has published scientific results and is updating them when they find something wrong in them. That is not supposed to be shocking. There has been some errors in the evaluation of sea rise levels in older ICCC reports. Now they are a lot less catastrophic.

Re:Ah... climate skeptics...

[ErikZ]

But the whole reason all those new laws, regulations, and taxes were passed was because of the Catastrophic climate change.

Do you think THOSE will be adjusted?

Re:Ah... climate skeptics...

[Yvanhoe]

Probably not. Then you have what you deserve by not voting for scientists.

Re:Ah... climate skeptics...

[cbeaudry]

What is that supposed to even mean?

Re:Ah... climate skeptics...

[riverat1]

Are you talking about the IPCC? If so their predictions of sea level rise have always been very conservative and have understated how much sea level will rise.

The clue is in the title...

[fantomas]

The clue is in the title: "Scientific American"... it is a journal that believes the scientific method is the best method to use when trying to interpret information.
  I guess if you prefer another methodology for resolving diverging points of view, interpreting data or explaining unknown phenomena you need to choose another journal? Something with a title like "Politics weekly" "Sociological review" "Religious opinions" or so forth?

Whether or not the scientific method is the best method to resolve all debates is another issue... but I think it's a fair guess that "Scientific American" probably thinks it's the methodology it will use to approach problems. Probably an American bias there as well I should imagine ;-)

Better stay out of Europe, Timothy.

[John Hasler]

This sort of thing could get you arrested as a denialist.

wait

[Max_W]

Don't hurry love.

Just wondering

[Sycraft-fu]

If we can disregard any research or claims that are funded by the coal and oil industry, because their backers have a stake in things, can that go the other way? Can we disregard any research funded by a green group, or someone with carbon credit stakes? Both stand to gain from pushing anthropomorphic global warming (yes green groups stand to gain, more money, more influence, more of their agendas get implemented). How about stuff financed by the UN? They have a stake in it too as it would give them more control, something they very much want.

Just saying that the whole "Attacking the funding," thing cuts both ways. You cannot act as though one side is pure and noble and the other is evil and corrupt. Rare is that the case with humans. Both sides have humans with agendas on them.

Finally if you are going to go after someone for their funding source, you should go and provide some evidence. If he's funded by big energy, provide a citation.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[rainmouse]

No, but I read the title of the summary. "What happened to the climate refugees?" And, I can answer that. They've all taken refuge, hiding in all the alrmist's cavernous asses.

It's terribly sad that the majority of comments on the linked article are vastly more informed and actually relevant than the rather childish posts appearing on this article in /.
The actual projection was not even about global warming and yet here all people can talk about is the utterly irrelevant bickering of reds v blues from a continent making up less than 5% of the worlds population.

And that's a real credible site

[Sycraft-fu]

A place that talks about Planet X (http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/02/20/what-about-march-152011/) and a "miracle radiation antidote" (http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/03/17/dmso-the-antidote-for-radiation-poisoning/). Ya that for sure is where I'm going for quality news.

Re:And that's a real credible site

[unity100]

relevance ?

news in the links, are still news. verifiable.

Re:And that's a real credible site

[Sycraft-fu]

Goes to credibility.

The site appears to be a place that prints sensationalistic crap, without regards for veracity. As such I do not put much stock in what it has to say.

Remember you have to evaluate the quality of your sources. What they choose to report and how they choose to report it varies an awful lot and not all is credible. Would you find an article from Fox News on the Democrats credible? Probably not, and with good reason. Same article from PBS? Probably more credible.

That site sets off my "Internet nutter," flag in a big way. If you want to persuade people, use a better source.

Re:And that's a real credible site

[unity100]

are you saying that what is described in the links, with references, are NOT happening ? are you using the perceived credibility of the site that hosts those links, to negate the existence of those events that are linked ? have it occurred to your mind that, the reason why you are able to find these news on such sites is because the syndicated established private channels do not want to make them news, to not upset voters and their supporting parties, which generally end up being right wing, and supported by very corporations that own those news channels ? fox ? cnn ? et al ?

again, are you or are you not telling me that the events listed in those links are not happening ?

Re:And that's a real credible site

[Anonymous Coward]

May I suppose you're talking about Planet X?

Re:And that's a real credible site

[unity100]

dont dodge. are you saying that, what are being told in those links, those droughts, hailstorms, sandstorms, are not happening.

No this is why

[presidenteloco]

It's because many people's minds can't even grasp an issue that has 200 year-scale inertia.
"Oh, it didn't happen this year. See. They're lying." Comments like that just show the profound total
misunderstanding about the scale in space and time of these phenomena.
Read "Climate Wars" by Gwynne Dyer. He has a sobering discussion of the planning that conservative
organizations like the Pentagon are doing for global warming's effects. He also discusses how the real recent
data is worse than the worst-case projections of IPCC.
Gwynne's got a brain the size of a planet so he's actually capable of thinking rationally about these issues
and you should probably believe some of what he says.

Brainwashed followers

[Anonymous Coward]

www.climatedepot.com

Cue the moronic Slashdot "I saw it on TV so it MUST be true" crowd, leaping to the defence of their 'man made global warming' dogma.

Idiots.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Gerzel]

Here's a fact you might or might not like.

Science changes.

In fact the ability for science to change is one of the most basic requirements for something to be science. Scientific fact is ALWAYS based on the data and knowledge we have available at the time and can change if new data and knowledge come available.

Just because the exact nature of the theory and its associated hypothesis have changed doesn't mean that the basic theory itself has necessarily been invalidated.

An example would be Newton's laws with the introduction of Relativity and Quantum physics. Both contradict Newtonian physics in many places, but we still use and teach Newtonian. Why? Because Newtonian principals are still valid, they just have to be modified in light of new discoveries.

+Infinity

[Sycraft-fu]

People need to understand what a problem these kind of tactics are. The reason is that many of the "Ok for use with GW because it is so important," tactics are that of con men. For example requiring complete acceptance of the claims and shouting down anyone who questions it as a denier or an idiot, that's a favourite of con men. That's how they distract from their lack of evidence, it to attack anyone who dares question their claims.

Another favourite is claiming consensus. This one is used by the most common con men, advertisers, all the time. "4 out of 5 doctors agree," "Trusted by more people," and so on. They try to sell you on the idea that since most people agree with a stance, it must be right. Of course Feynman pointed out that is bunk, since most people aren't that good. Having a lot of opinions one way or another doesn't matter.

Yet another is a position of authority sort of thing. Something along the lines of "You can't question this because you don't understand how it all works. You have to be a highly trained expert to understand it, which I am and you are not, so you need to take my word for it." They just brush off bothering to explain anything by claiming that you can't understand it anyhow, it is a mystery that your mind cannot penetrate, so just take their word on it.

They also love to have claims where no matter what happens, it supports their position. X happens, they claim "This is clear evidence of what I said." Then the opposite of X happens, they claim "This is again clear evidence of what I said." They are able to tell a story to explain how anything fits their claims. They don't revise their claims based on new evidence, they shoe-horn the evidence in to showing how it supports their claims.

Well you'll notice that these things are common with con men, and if you want a great example look no far than most religious evangelicals. However you'll also notice a lot of this goes on the the global warming debate. Now that doesn't mean that the people involved are con men necessarily, however it really gives many people pause. Why are you acting like con men if you aren't trying to con people?

I know why the religious types do it: They have a preordained conclusion, that being whatever they take their holy book to claim, that they want to be true. They then do what it takes to try and support that. They aren't looking at evidence to reach a conclusion, they are trying to force evidence to support their conclusion, ignoring or shouting down that which doesn't, and getting mad at anyone who questions them because they have no real support.

Fine, but why then do AGW types do this, if their position is one on science, on fact? It gives many cause to wonder.

Re:+Infinity

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, Enviromentalism is a religion. What could be a more noble cause than saving the planet herself?

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[lulwhut]

or maybe they just thought his sig was idiotic.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Mashiki]

According to the flappy heads in global warming speak. The science is settled on everything relating to global warming therefor will never change.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Anonymous Coward]

or maybe they just thought his sig was idiotic.

You should drop Taco a little note to let him know.

Scientific American (irony not intended)

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats up with the America hate on Slashdot? Bigotry is still bigotry even when the mob approves of it. Clearly, you are no better than Americans.

Uh Re:United Nations University, Not the UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, the point is that none of the areas of concern has experienced a population loss or generated any refugees. So it's not at all stupid to point out the report is suspect.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Gerzel]

No. The fact that humans are having a direct influence on climate change, and the trend globally will be that the planet will warm up is setteled and probably will not change.

The exact effects locally, how fast it will occur and other details are still up for change.

Please try to keep the conversation civil by the way. There is no call for the use of names or insults. Global warming really isn't a conspiracy. Yes it really is based on a vast amount of good scientific evidence and good people are working on the problem. It isn't about taking away your right to drive a big car or to make everything like the EU or to bring about some one world government.

The fact is that mankind genuinely faces a greater and greater risk of being wiped out as time goes on. This risk comes from a variety of sources. Many of which we cannot change directly, others we can. Global warming is one that we have evidence that we can.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Mashiki]

The only evidence is that we're still exiting a glacial period, and have no clue how the environment works. We've only scratched the surface of our understanding of how the interlocking segments of the entire climate move together.

As for keeping it civil? Better let the warmists know, their new civility is 'attack'.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[HiThere]

Those who bothered to track down the original paper claim this it was, indeed, a completely valid prediction, and that it wasn't prevented. It just didn't predict was it is being claimed that it predicted. It predicted "environmental refugees" and included people being forced off of farm land because it would no longer sustain them, etc. It also gave only a rough figure of "about twice what it was in" 1995(? don't remember the precise year. Whenever the study it was based on was made.) Now the study gave the number for that year for 25 million, so that's where the 50 million comes from. And considering the number of conflicts going on in areas where most people are subsistence farmers, that may be a very low projection.

P.S. I refuse to take anything that Barak Obama says as evidence of anything except that he's a politician. But he's *probably* better than his opponent (John McCsomething) would have been. Probably. This is known as damning with extremely faint praise.

More UN Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

UN Climate Refugees + UN IPCC + ClimateGate + UN WHO Pandemic Scare (no pandemic) = Fraud.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great Mister Smarty Pants, Now you're making me want to moderate, so that I can follow you and mark you troll for all my mod points. Then repeat and follow. Maybe I will. Maybe I will.

What Happened To the Climate Refugees?

[brit74]

"What Happened To the Climate Refugees?" Easy, they disappeared to the same place as all the "I'm going to go John Galt" Republicans complaining about socialism (even though taxes on the rich are much lower than they were through most of the Cold War).

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[gadget junkie]

Here's a fact you might or might not like.

Science changes.

[...]

That's why serious scientists should be leery of predicting things they do not have a good bead on far into the future. But then, Climate studies have been hijacked by politics. Call me back when the models explain the Maunder minimum.

P.S.: no, the right answer is not that my shaving foam causes sunspots to become rare.

In The Middle Ages, We Called These Guys "Church"

[RobotRunAmok]

The world was always coming to an end, the Apocalypse was just around the corner, you were a sinner, you needed to change your ways, but buy some indulgences and we'll let you off the hook. Hurry, sign here, The End is Near.

Nowadays, The Roman Catholic Church is out of the Apocalypse & Indulgences business, so the Church of Global Warming has risen to fill the void. Same threats and labels (replace "heretic" with "denier"), same hucksterism (replace "indulgences" with "carbon credits"), same promotion of despair-in-the-face-of-overwhelming-forces (replace "God" with "Science!!"), same hypocrisy by the movement's leaders (replace the avarice and power abuse of various archbishops and cardinals with the jet-set lifestyle of Al Gore and his rockstar acolytes).

Sorry, Ye Faithful, I don't need to be a student of "climatology" to know how this ends. I'm already a student of history, and we've been through this all before...

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Culture20]

The actual projection was not even about global warming

What was it about, then? Regular political/religious refugees?

Warm areas have no life at all

[mangu]

When the planet was warmer there was more diversity of life, large swaths of land that are currently too cold for much bio-diversity were more useable by nature and man. When it got colder it was hell. Things change. Given my druthers I would take warmer, please.

Are you aware that the warmest parts of the globe are deserts?

Ice ages might be bad for biodiversity in the Northern latitudes, but our main problem today is desertification and global warming only makes it worse.

Re:Warm areas have no life at all

[ghostdoc]

erm...no...the driest parts of the globe are deserts (by definition). Antarctica is a desert, and it's not warm.
The warmest parts of the globe are the bits around the equator, obviously. They're also the wettest and most abundantly fertile and biodiverse.

"Global Warming" will apparently cause the world to become warmer, wetter and with higher concentrations of CO2. All of which encourage plant growth (this is what they do in greenhouses, after all).
If we wanted to engineer a world that could support a larger population, then a good first step would be to make it warmer, wetter and with much higher CO2 levels.

Re:Warm areas have no life at all

[PlusFiveTroll]

>Are you aware that the warmest parts of the globe are deserts?

Most of Antarctica is considered a desert. Rarely snows it's so cold, but what does fall tends to stay around forever. Deserts have more to do with mountain ranges blocking moisture then temperature alone. It's the marginal area's that humans have the worst effect on. We use up the surface water and exacerbate the problem by poor land use.

Time

[b4upoo]

We don't always see things happening slowly around us. For example the population of South Florida is always growing. Who is to say that the recent weather patterns are not causing people to avoid moving here? I would think that a lot of people would have great fear of moving to New Orleans as well.
                  In essence we are only on the leading edge of this catastrophe. I'm certain we will see populations shifting about soon enough.

Un, what?

[DavidTC]

I see a page cache from grida.no, which is not the fucking UN. The UN is not in Norway. In fact, going to grida.no clearly says ' Established in 1989 by the Government of Norway as a Norwegian Foundation'. They just collaborate with the United Nations Environment Programme.

On that page, I literally see this text: 'Fifty million climate refugees by 2010. Today we find a world of asymmetric development, unsustainable natural resource use, and continued rural and urban poverty. There is general agreement about the current global environmental and development crisis. It is also known that the consequences of these global changes have the most devastating impacts on the poorest, who historically have had limited entitlements and opportunities for growth.'

Yes, that does say 'Fifty million climate refugees by 2010.'...in no context whatsoever.

So, in short, we've got something not produced by the UN, on a non-UN page, that says as some sort of image subtitle, 'Fifty million climate refugees by 2010.'

Yeah, boy, the 'UN' sure got that one wrong, didn't they?

Hilariously, if you follow the links, they talk about how the island that the 'UN' said would have problems now have more people on them, which is a) not actually disproving anything about people fleeing them, just that people are being born faster, and, BTW, you can be a climate refugee, have your house destroyed, and still being the county, duh, and b) appear to have a total of one or two million people, so it would seem rather insane for anyone to predict that 50 million people would leave them.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Pseudonym Authority]

North America makes up 10% of the world's population. You're argument is invalid.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Pseudonym Authority]

Neither, they are the same thing, thus they were formed at the same time.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Anonymous Coward]

The facts aren't contrary. This was a completely valid prediction. The election of Barack Obama prevented this.

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." -- Barack Obama, 3 June 2008, upon winning his party nomination.

Uh no. What Obama really said was:

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.

You only quoted part of the sentence, you left out the modifier that changed it from ridiculous to reasonable. Why do you Obama haters do that? What's the point? How can you think lying about him is a legitimate tactic when in practically the same breath you accuse climatologists of lying about global warming to advance some sort of twisted agenda?

What it says to me is that you are just another tribalist - the kind of person who is likely to say "My country, right or wrong!" because you aren't intellectually honest enough to realize that the full quotation continues with "If right to be kept right, if wrong to be set right."

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[zemkai]

Your confusion reminds me of an old saying. Perhaps it will help:

"If you are under 30 and a conservative, you have no heart. If you are over 30 and not a conservative, you have no brain."

unless you live under a rock, or are just stupid,

[toby]

You'd know that there *are* millions of climate refugees.

Start here or here or here ("12 out of 13 'flash' appeals in 2007 related to weather"). Here's 3/4 of a million soon to be refugees in just ONE island nation (now go add up the rest).

Pretty nice writing that snide and ignorant summary from your comfortable suburban basement, wasn't it?

and rightly too

[toby]

What a smug, clueless jerk-off he must be. Europe can do without this type that thrives in North America.

double faceplant

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking about the rise in sea level, not the bulge at the equator.
There are not two places on the Atlantic coast where the difference in the mean sea level has changed by 1.5 meters.
Just completely sad and disgusting.

Re:unless you live under a rock, or are just stupi

[ChrisMaple]

Your reference to 3/4 million turns out to be less than half that, and the period of the problem is predicted to 100 years, which hardly amounts to "soon to be refugees".

Most book stores have "reading comprehension" self-help guides. Buy one.

Population Increase?

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change or not I'd be more concerened that the population of places that clearly can't handle large populations like the Bahamas have gone up by 50k+. Glorified sand bars weren't meant to support that many people.

Still, pointing at population increase in places like major Chinese cities proves pretty much nothing except this one report was wrong about timelines. Population can swarm into a place faster than the rate of global change. One is like a rushing herd, the other is a creeping glacier. It isn't a matter of if they will arrive but when.

They took down the site not because of some "cover up" (nice conspiracy theory crap there) but probably because they realized it was wrong. Exaggerating climate change like that doesn't do real climate science any favors. No more than the total denial people do us any favors.

You really need to ask?

[Lord Kano]

There are no climate refugees because this Climate Change doomsaying is bullshit.

The scale of the change we're talking about is 1.5 degrees over 150 or more years.

We first have to assume that the climate is changing. Second we have to assume that humans are the cause. Third we have to assume that humans can reverse the change. Fourth, we have to assume that the change will have a negative impact on the organisms of the planet.

Only the first one of them is even possibly the case.

When someone tells you that there's no time for you to check for yourself and that you must listen to them, they're bullshitting you.

LK

Re:You really need to ask?

[bunratty]

We don't have to assume anything. We know humans produce carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and we know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We can observe the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and we can calculate how much warming we should expect from this increase in carbon dioxide. We observe the predicted warming.

If you're going to try to claim that humans are not the cause of the warming, you'll need to show:
1) Why the increase of carbon dioxide would not cause warming, and
2) What is causing the warming instead

No one has answers to either of these questions. That leaves only one hypothesis to explain our observations. If you have an observation that falsifies the hypothesis, or an alternative hypothesis that explains our observations, let's have it.

Re:You really need to ask?

[Lord Kano]

1) Why the increase of carbon dioxide would not cause warming, and

You know, or at least you should, that it's not really possible to prove a negative.

What is causing the warming instead

You have yet to prove that warming is happening. Don't get the cart before the horse.

LK

Re:You really need to ask?

[bunratty]

1) I'm not asking for a "proof", just a hypothesis. One hypothesis I've heard is that the warming will cause an increase in humidity, which will cause extra clouds, and the clouds will reduce the sunlight warming the Earth. To my knowledge, however, we haven't observed this increase in clouds.

2) We certainly have proved the warming is happening. That's why we're so sure AGW is a good hypothesis, because observations confirm the predictions it makes. Without these observations, it would be mere speculation, as is the idea in #1.

Now if you have no evidence to falsify AGW and no alternative hypothesis to explain the warming, I have to accept the one hypothesis we do have evidence for.

Re:You really need to ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also have a simple question. 1000 years ago Greenland was farmed commercially because it had a far warmer climate than today. Was atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration greater then than today?

The scientific predictions of climate change are generated by mathematical models with many parameters factors that are carefully adjusted to agree with observations. THat hardly comprises proof

Re:You really need to ask?

[scdeimos]

Now if you have no evidence to falsify AGW and no alternative hypothesis to explain the warming, I have to accept the one hypothesis we do have evidence for.

Unfortunately you'll never see a competing hypothesis coming from the IPCC. Their charter and document submission guidelines prevent them from looking at any evidence contradicting human-induced climate change. You'll also note in their charter and document submission guidelines that they also conveniently define Climate Change as anything beyond normal climate variability attributable to human activities. I'm not making this up, you can go read it for yourself.

Re:You really need to ask?

[bunratty]

Anyone can come up with an alternative hypothesis. Any of the global warming bloggers could write a paper and publish it, or even post their research on their blogs. But they don't do that -- they spend their time nitpicking the research others are doing, just as the author of the article discussed in this story did. You'll never prove a hypothesis incorrect by nitpicking. You need to present data that falsify the hypothesis, or present an alternative hypothesis that explains the observations better. I don't see anyone doing that with AGW. They're trying, but the data to confirm their hypotheses never seems to materialize.

Re:You really need to ask?

[bunratty]

No, carbon dioxide was below 300 ppm for the past million years, until humans began burning fossil fuels. There are other factors that can cause warming other than an increase in greenhouse gasses.

Arrhenius estimated the amount of warming we see today without any observations about how an increase in greenhouse gasses affect global temperatures. Now that we do have observations, of course we use them to estimate the parameters more accurately. As we gather more observations we make our predictions more accurate. It has nothing to do with "proof" and everything to do with refining our models as time goes on, just as is done in the rest of science.

Re:You really need to ask?

[Shotgun]

Son, all that kool-aid you've been drinking is going to rot your teeth.

Follow the links in my sig. It's even in video form, so you don't have to tax yourself with reading.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Anonymous Coward]

You misused "You're". Therefore, North America makes up 27.5% of the world's population!

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Pseudonym Authority]

Your correct, therefore I'm am an idiot.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[budgenator]

>

Science changes.

In fact the ability for science to change is one of the most basic requirements for something to be science. Scientific fact is ALWAYS based on the data and knowledge we have available at the time and can change if new data and knowledge come available.

Firstly the problem is about the moist air column,

what the alarmists really believe is that a tiny bit of warming due to CO2 will cause the humidity to increase causing a tall moist column of air which will retain much more heat than the CO2 ever could

The Skeptic on the other hand believe that the extra humidity will just become rain and not increase the air temp very much and that air temperatures are an insignificant compared to ocean temperatures.

The data just doesn't support the alarmists, for the last 10 years or so the warming hasn't been significantly above normal climatic cycles, even Phil Jones admits this, and the temperature anomaly is actually negative for the last couple months!

The only Climate refugees I've heard about, was Australians, and that was due to the dam operators so brainwashed into expecting a AGW drought, they had held too much water back and had to do emergency releases which caused massive flooding.

Now it's 50 Million by 2020

[Anonymous Coward]

50 Million Environmental Refugees By 2020, Experts Predict

So, I guess they just moved the goal post, but that same nice round 50 million number. Seriously, they must be just pulling these numbers out of thin air?

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Jarik C-Bol]

You are absolutely correct. Unfortunately, far to many people don't realize this, and behave as if the current theory based on available data is absolute fact. Then they start mouthing off at people who disagree with them (people who know how science works) calling them brain dead mouth breathing morons who are incapable of reasoning for themselves. This leads to arguments on /. where everyone ends up walking away dumber for having participated.

The Ulitmate Resource

[Paul Fernhout]

The Earth gets something like 10000X times more energy every day than we use that day in our civlization.
    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

So what is the problem you are so worried about? There is room for quadrillions of people living in space habitats in the solar system, too. Why be such a doomster? Renewable energy is now close to the price of fossil fuels, but without the environmental costs (where fossil fuel companies privatize short-term profits and socialize long-term costs). We mainly have social problems, not technical ones. See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource

Have you really studied the technical possiblities for making the world work for everyone, and further, making the solar system work for quadrillions of people? We do have some big problems, but we have billions of people to help solve them. It's problematical to on the one hand say humans are a geological force and then on the other to deny that such a powerful force could be used to some benefit if we had the social will to do so. Thin film solar, wind generators, moving away from meat consumption, grinding up rocks for fertilizer, and maybe even cold fusion, are all parts of the solutions.
http://remineralize.org/
http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog#177
http://pesn.com/2011/01/17/9501746_Focardi-Rossi_10_kW_cold_fusion_prepping_for_market/

It is people who have used their creativity to come up with those sorts of ideas...

Amazing! The first /. comment is not a joke

[GoodBuddy]

Thanks for this comment. I see that there are lots of critiques of the answer which are also valuable and interesting. What surprised me most is that for most /. posting all I see is a lot of jokes. Pus it probably took quite a while to formulate this response.

I used to read /. comments for the insightful responses that people made to questions and articles. But for quite a while all I see are jokes. At least for the top rated articles. Did they do something to the karma system? Perhaps stop giving karma to people who make jokes?

Are you kidding me?

[joorgawt]

I was lucky enough to see this before the link was taken down. Here is what i found.

On the map it says "Climate refugees will mainly come from developing countries, where the effect of climate changes comes on top of poverty and war." Not a word about rising flood waters making people move. Instead it two links to the sources that gave them data for the maps.

One was: Norman Myers, 'Environmental refugees, An emergent security issue', 13. Economic forum, Prague, OSCE, May 2005;
That begins: 'There is a new phenomenon in the global arena: environmental refugees. These are people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together with associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty'

The other was: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005 ; Liser, 2007. That lead me to this page, http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx
Again no flooding.

So what Gavin Atkins did was take something that was not said. And made some random population samples to prove something that was not said is not true.

And now the internet is a buzz. Another nail in the global warming coffin. Science is defeated by mis-direction and lies. YAY! team.

I find it ironic that a site that pretends to be pro-science would post an anti-science page without even checking the facts.

Sun Come Up

[Squuiid]

Maybe not 50 million, but definitely more than in 2005... http://www.suncomeup.com/

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[rainmouse]

North America makes up 10% of the world's population. You're argument is invalid.

Citation perhaps for this mysterious figure? Everywhere I see quotes the USA's population as 4.5%
eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

Re:unless you live under a rock, or are just stupi

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't so arrogant and stupid you would've realised these 4-6 year old articles are all based on the inaccurate report the summary talks about.

We have absolutely no way to verify that Pakistan or Aussie floods have anything to do with climate change - keep in mind that pro-AGW camp repeatedly tell us local weather patterns are no indication of anything, or is that only when it doesn't help their argument?

As for the Maldives - they've not needed to evacuate yet have they? This is in fact the exact point the article is making. Sure they may well need to some time in the near future - though many islands are finding that the sea level rise is slow enough that the coral supporting the island is able to grow with the sea levels - but they haven't needed to yet. Despite the dire predictions leveled by the world's media, we're not facing an inundation of ex-islanders running from the tides - as they said we would be by 2010....

This isn't evidence that the whole thing was a giant sham, or that we're all going to be fine - but it is damn fine proof that most of the predictions were fucking FUD! Little more than fear-mongering, specifically designed to stir folk into a frenzy of action. Whatever their (or your) reasons for thinking this was a good idea, it wasn't. Lying to the public is rarely a good idea, as when they find out you've done so, it's fucking near impossible to regain the same trust (at least for 4-5 years until they've had enough of the other parties lies... oh wait, wrong topic :s) - just look at the drug war: tell people that weed and ecstasy make them impotent and will kill them - yet when they see people merrily taking them with no such side effects, they happily ignore the real side-effects because the fake ones have been shown as FUD. No matter what real science is done in the mean time, the people don't have any reason to trust you anymore.

     

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[rainmouse]

What was it about, then? Regular political/religious refugees?

Environmental refugees. Drought, Earthquake, Mudslide etc. At the time of the report in 1995 there were 24 million refugee's and climbing. Using the growth rate there were some speculation on the map that the figure could reach as high as 50 million by 2010 but this estimated figure was not even mentioned in the report.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[The Grim Reefer2]

North America makes up 10% of the world's population. You're argument is invalid.

Citation perhaps for this mysterious figure? Everywhere I see quotes the USA's population as 4.5%

eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

The last time I checked the US had not annexed Canada, Mexico, and all the Caribbean countries. There are more countries in North America than just the US. According to Wikipedia the population of NA is 529 million. If you assume a planet population of 6 billion then NA contains over 11% of the worlds population.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[rainmouse]

You are referencing the entire continent of North America instead of the USA, considering the comment was rather clearly about USA it renders your debunking somewhat irrelevant and the population figure stands. Unless of course the USA has absorbed Mexico and Canada while I wasn't looking.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[pixelpusher220]

Call me back when the models explain the Maunder minimum.

What if by then it's too late to fix the catastrophic damage to our environment? Waiting until you have all the answers isn't always the best idea...

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[pixelpusher220]

temperature anomaly is actually negative for the last couple months!

Yeah we should totally ignore DECADES of actual temperature rise because a few MONTHS show it going down *a little*. The 10 hottest years on record are still in the last 15 years.

The sea is level

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there are the refugees that no one realizes. In the small coastal town where I live in North Carolina, houses have been falling into the swamp one by one for
decades, but the residents blame it on people building their homes in flood zones, not realizing that sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast [sciencedaily.com].

No, the sea is approximately level, so the rate that the sea level rises can't be higher in North Carolina than in other nearby states. The cited article compares to the rate of sea level rise at different times, not at different places.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[hesiod]

If right to be kept right, if wrong to be set right.

Oh, I see how it is, you think that those on the left are wrong!?!? Typical...

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[GooberToo]

The 10 hottest years on record are still in the last 15 years.

Where did you hear that? From everything I've read, roughly a century ago was the hottest years on record and current years have come close but not exceeded. Furthermore, most research indicates that the signal in the temperature data is actually far lower than the noise of the available data; which means error always exceeds the deviation they hope to prove. Not to mention, the reliability of the available data has been brought into question given that the source (censors) of a lot of data has not been maintained. The data is of such poor quality, there is actually a rift between meteorologists (80+%) and climatologists (which is a specialization of study of specific data; meaning climatologists are meteorologists who look at past data much father back). And given that climatologists get their funding by predicting doom and gloom and meteorologists don't, that's pretty interesting. Not to mention, all climate simulations have been completely debunked at bullshit to date.

I happen to believe climate warming is real - as do most meteorologists. But contrary to the propaganda abound, there isn't much which really indicates what the hell is going on or what the actual source is - and anyone who says otherwise is either lying, ignorant, or more likely, lying and getting a grant.

Yeah dinosaurs had a wildly different climate

[Nicolas MONNET]

It's not like most of them cared about it changing!

It snowed today in Canada.

[DarthVain]

Climate Change. Bring it!

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[The Grim Reefer2]

The actual projection was not even about global warming and yet here all people can talk about is the utterly irrelevant bickering of reds v blues from a continent

North America makes up 10%

You clearly stated you were referring to an entire continent as that is what you posted. Then the reply was in regards to the continent of North America. You asked for a citation for the statement:

North America makes up 10% of the world's population.

Which is exactly what I gave you. Perhaps you meant the US, but it is obviously not what your stated, and is in no way clearly stated as such.

Innumeracy

[Gary W. Longsine]

Your post was thoughtful, unlike TFA. The only thing you missed was the perfect opportunity to recommend that all Slashdot overlords, submitters, moderators, and participants equip themselves with the following ignorance reduction module (aka an excellent book):

Innumeracy - Mathematical Illiteracy Consequences by John Allen Paulos .

I don't find the feedback loop argument consistent

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

some *tiny* amount of warming -> more warming -> yet more warming -> even more warming

First, why exactly isn't it 500 degrees (or something like that) on the surface if every warming causes more warming ? Note what that skepticalscience page says :
more co2 -> warming
warming -> more co2
(and by now "natural" co2 release far, far outstrips human co2 release)

You must see that if that's true, then it's over. Since human co2 emissions are drops in an ocean compared to what oceans throw into the athmosphere as a reaction to warming. It may very well be true that humans caused the initial, tiny, temperature spike (but that would be the humans of ~ 1800-1850, and the real cause of present time global warming is a ridiculously small event), but everything else was a feedback loop that's unrolling until the oceans run out of co2 and we lowly humans just don't have the resources to prevent it from happening.

I mean, answer me this question : if there is a feedback loop, then we're doomed to let the warming run it's course, independant of how many economic sacrifices we make or don't make. Increasing human co2 output makes little difference. Decreasing it makes little difference (even a full stop of human co2 emissions - we all drop dead after stopping our car - would not stop the warming, or even mitigate it's effects by 1%).

So if people truly believe in the feedback loop theory of global warming (and without the feedback loop theory, you can't have AGW as far as I understand it), then why do these people support co2 limiting policies ? If there is a feedback loop between the athmosphere and the oceans that's warming up the planet, then limiting co2 output is like trying to rescussitate an Egyptian mummy : the ship has sailed.

Please, answer this if you can. It's very hard to get decent answers to questions like this.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

You forgot the last two...

5. ...
6. PROFIT!

Sustainable population levels

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

If you calculate what reasonable energy levels would be using only renewable sources, and food using only organic farming without fertilizer and divide that by what it takes for a USian to be comfortable, you only get near 100 million, not even 250 million.

The problem with any number far below the current population size is that the only way to accomplish such a number is by killing. If you limit births, you depopulate medical centers, while creating a huge supply of care-needing older people. If you choose to populate the medical centers, that labor cannot be used for the actually productive parts of the economy, adding to the problem. The only way to get it down even a single billion humans, in a way that does not crash the world economy, is by killing a billion humans. That sucks ? Of course, but the alternatives suck more : if we do crash the world economy, we will probably lose more than a billion humans ...

As for efficiency improvements, that's worse than doing nothing : Jevon's paradox.

In reality the only viable option going forward, while losing oil, is converting our energy infrastructure to nuclear, and make sure we can electrically create food from water + co2 + trace elements. That *could* (in theory) work, and sustain 6 billion people, or even 100. But hey, you have fukushima and such idiocies like "natural food is healthier" (just ask anyone over 50 exactly how true that statement is), so politically, we're pretty much doomed to try the non-working things.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[gadget junkie]

Call me back when the models explain the Maunder minimum.

What if by then it's too late to fix the catastrophic damage to our environment? Waiting until you have all the answers isn't always the best idea...

Do not take it amiss, I mean it as a friendly comment... but this reminds me of the "do something!!!" scene in "Spaceballs".

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[pixelpusher220]

Fair enough, though the anti-AGW folks, usually scream that 'science' used to say the earth was cooling. Insinuating that scientists are making stuff up because they changed their conclusions.

reasonable to account for changing data and conclusions, but my experience is the anti people are anti change of any type regardless of the facts.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[budgenator]

Even if the last 15 years produced the 10 hottest years, for the sake of argument, how would that show whether it was due to man-made causes like CO2 rather than natural cyclical temperature variation. The temperatures in the 1930's were certainly comparable as scientists are still debating whether they were warmer or not, and CO2 levels were much lower then.

Re:So, where is the google cache link?

[pixelpusher220]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/12/climate_change

"it forecasts that 2010 will probably end up being the hottest year since records began in 1850, surpassing the previous high recorded in 1998."

"Each of the last ten years features in the top 11 warmest years recorded in all datasets."

Saw this too, 1934 hottest year on record as something skeptics point too. Except this is only in the US, not global temps.

Here 80s hottest, then 90s, then 00's

any other questions? :)

Re:unless you live under a rock, or are just stupi

[riverat1]

... but it is damn fine proof that most of the predictions were fucking FUD!

No, it's just proof that you and most people don't understand the time scales involved in those predictions. Many of them are coming true faster than the original predictions predicted.