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Northeast Passage Becomes Viable Trade Route
Stirling Newberry writes "The New York Times reports on the continued expansion of the sea route along the Russian side of the Arctic Ocean. It was only in 2009 that outside ships were allowed to ply this lane, but Russians have used it since the early 20th century. What makes this year a landmark is that the polar ice cap is smaller at its September minimum than before, allowing large container ships and oil tankers — the backbone of sea commerce — to travel between Europe and Asia, saving time and money over the Suez route, as well as avoiding several politically unstable regions of the world. Putin has been pushing development along the route. While the northwest passage is only gradually opening, the opposite side of the Arctic Ocean looks set for expansion. Siberian Riviera anyone?"
I buy kondo in Vladivostok for just this.
Good? :(
Another Global Warming Wankfest
Russia has, historically, been known to start wars for ports/trade routes. This one was so locked in ice that it could never be used. Now, however, it is viable?
Scary
Wth is a "riveria"? The word you are looking for is riviera, numbnuts.
Sure, all coastal cities might be gone in fifty years, but who cares; it's lovely spring weather at the pole.
There is ALWAYS an upside.
In before the tree-huggers drop the "Klimate Change" protest signs and pick up the battered old "Global Warming" protest sign in the corner. ManBearPig is real!!! I"m Super Cereal!!!!!
The sparring over oil rights, right up to the Pole have been hotting up.
Russia, Iceland, Sweden, among others are looking at the prospect of drilling in the seas - which scares the heck out of me. One good chunk of ice and then what? I hope it proves too costly to attempt.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Still waiting for Godzilla.
But not Matthew Broderick. Or Raymond Burr.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
But... but.... isn't money more important than our environment?
I don't respond to AC's.
I dont think anyone 'denies' what is going on (well maybe some do). But I think many question the reason. That is where you see the most debate. But hey lets tax everyone that will fix it! Most financial blunders of the last 150 years have been caused by democrats then blamed on anyone but themselves.
I'm poor, so to me, money is a LOT more important than the environment.
Yes, it is good. It makes major economies more efficient which is a step towards increasing wealth overall.
This sounds like what should rightly be termed a "rising tide fallacy". This increasing wealth will be concentrated among a very few who will use it to further pervert markets and politics.
Which is not to say that flat or decreasing wealth is good or better. Rather, it simply acknowledges that increasing wealth is not necessarily good, under the current circumstances, and that it may be a net "bad". An unfortunate state of affairs.
Actually quoting the register
So this is sort of non-story hype.
I don't see anything saying republicans are the instigators of this or that it's political at all. There's no reason to make hateful accusations. It's just convenient side effect of the melted pole.
The rumor on the Intertubes is that the U.S. still leases Alaska from Russia.
Cheers.
Yours In Minsk,
K. Trout
Most climate change skeptics are not of the ilk you describe (although there are very famous ones, many who are politicians)... What most climate skeptics dispute is anthropogenic global warming, and most of them ask the next question thoughtfully - what does global warming (anthropogenic or otherwise) mean? The shrillness on both sides of this debate seem to resort to name calling and revel in the erection of straw man arguments such that they can make the other side look crazy.
For my own part, I don't believe the case for anthropogenic global warming is an open and shut case. I realize there are others who think I'm a lunatic for not being able to come to that conclusion. But the essence of science is thoroughly vetting theories... anthropogenic global warming is a theory whose final chapter is yet to be written.
As for the "what does global warming mean?" - well that is even less well thought out by both sides. Climate change believers think it's the apocalypse. Climate change deniers think it means nothing. Deniers point to harsh winters like last year and say "Global Warming is hooey"... Believers point to every hurricane and say, "See? I told you so"
Melting ice caps point to a warming planet. Opening up new shipping lanes is just one positive that is a result of global climate change. There are undoubtedly negatives. What all those positives and negatives are is unknown by all.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
Since Canada lays claim to the Northwest passage how long till it fully opened and how can Canada set up the toll booths?
First, the 'deniers' all denied that anything was happening, that it's all normal variation, etc.
Now they MUST accept it's happening, but they deny that people could have anything to do with it, and insist that we are powerless to do anything about it.
Next, look for 'deniers' to accept that humanity is 'a factor' but not the only reason, and expect them to refuse any actions to ameliorate the problem, because they can't completely fix it anyway. (already starting)
Finally, expect the blamestorm to fall upon climatologists for failing to convince them there was a problem, and the reaction to be 'well, it's too late anyway, why change?'.
It's ALL a rationalization to deal with fear of change, lack of responsibility, and a failure to imagine any other way of doing business or building technology and agriculture.
He would be so proud.
When oil shoots up to thousands of dollars a barrel, just imagine how much poorer you'll be.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That's shortsighted thinking.
Even in a city, you depend on the environment. It's not just about polar bears. It's also about crops, coastal cities, and illnesses, for instance.
For instance, if coastal cities start getting flooded in New Orleans style, that's going to be pretty darn important, if only because dealing with the resulting mess is going to cost a lot of money, which will eventually come out of your pocket.
Also, even if wherever you are benefits, some other places will suffer, which will result in mass migrations to wherever you are. That will also have economical costs.
It's just U.S. Republican's that are denying it. No one else on the planet.
"Most financial blunders of the last 150 years have been caused by democrats then blamed on anyone but themselves."
Really, like deregulating and loosening up credit?
Like insisting that debt doesn't count?
My, you ARE a 'denier', aren't you?
And - it's funny that the only REALLY socialist act in the last 50 years was in reaction to an inflationary spiral (sparked by you know, 'market forces'), and was performed by a prominent Republican President (can you say: "wage and price freeze"? Sure. I knew you could.)
That's shortsighted thinking.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the OP, but short sighted thinking is precisely what makes money on Wall Street. Poor people tend to live in the short term as well, as in "what am I going to eat TODAY?"
Until these problems are addressed, I don't think most people in the world are going to care much about the environment.
I don't know, but it works for me.
We'll have none of this realistic view on climate change hooey here. Please revert to wild accusations and finger pointing, please.
Just another ignorant American.
Are we not coming off a solar activity peak?
The armchair climatologist in me expects the ice sheets will return in the next 2-3 years and this will, once again, not be a shipping lane. The earth may be warming slightly, but without a high level of solar activity I don't think it will be enough to drive off the ice sheets.
"What all those positives and negatives are is unknown by all."
Yup. Unfortunately, civilization depends on stability. Without food, people revert to beasts and barbarians pretty damned quickly.
Is it as ironic as AGW believers who live right next to San Francisco Bay, which was dry until about 20,000 years ago?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
My engineer friend points out that if this saves fuel for large shippers, that should decrease global warming, resulting in a future closing of the passage to these largest ships, right? :)
Reality can't be fooled. You can pretend you're not walking off a cliff all you want, but you're still going to fall right the moment you step over the edge.
Poor people aren't that much of the problem. Most of the problem is caused by large businesses and powerplants.
But beasts can be killed and eaten. And thus the circle of life is complete. mmmmm, yummy beastflesh.
I don't think there is an irony there, since AGW does not mean that there was no warming happening before humans arrived. It merely means that humans are accelerating it.
"No cheap fixes like pumping sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere"
Wow, starting out with terraforming our own planet, as opposed to starting out by refraining from the behavior that caused the problem in the first place.
And hey, why bother vetting solutions with those who actually, you know, studied the problem?
What could possibly go wrong?
So "No cheap fixes"?
YES - it's YOUR fault for being a greedy son of a bitch.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
New Orleans flooded because the city got cheap on their sea walls.
In a close and balanced system, a tiny increment can fuck things up over time. Our CO2 spewing energy needs are adding extra CO2 to this system. Over time it will increase the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is ancient science, as is CO2 being associated to it.
Increasing temperatures means melting ice, which translates to rising sea levels. Coastal cities may be at risk. London has been building tide barriers for decades. They're not doing it for fun, it's called being prepared.
Increased temperature means increased disease, bugs that spread it, eg malaria, would normally die in colder climates, they are now found in areas they haven't been seen in before, as in up mountainous areas around the world. The mild winters in Europe are seeing issues with poor crops, seeds are coming out too soon, and die when there's a proper winter cold snap).
You are trolling, of course. Trying the old sitting on the fence stance. The simple question is, how much evidence from the vast majority of experts (you do read valid science journals, and not just blogs?) do you require? Precisely what do you need to accept we're creating a problem for future generations.
Don't forget the "warming" is the mean over the entire planet. The climatologists predict this will mean bigger swings in winters and summers, not a slightly warmer time for everyone.
I know! Opening the passage means easier oil transportation, which means cheaper gas. Which means accelerated global warming, which implies faster melting of the ice cap, which implies the passage will open even more, which means even cheaper gas!
Sound travels extremely well and fast in water, and is close to inescapable to ocean life. The noise pollution produced by boats is having adverse effects on at least whales and dolphins: http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-scream-noise-pollution.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7003587/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/noise-pollution-disrupts-whale-communication/
New Orleans flooded because the city got cheap on their sea walls.
I would say New Orleans flooded because they decided to build a city in a place requiring sea walls to keep the streets dry. At best it's a calculated risk that the sea walls will keep the city dry
Don't bother trying to explain that simple point. There is a large contingent on slashdot so mind-numbingly stupid they don't understand it and never will.
http://www.arcticbridge.com/
http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/press/top/2002/02/2002-02-15-05.html
It's been active in trade routes in Churchill Manitoba through to Russia (direct) for a couple of years now from what I've heard.
And yes, "global warming"/"climate change" is why it's basically permanently open now. Old news. *wry grin*
I'm not saying New Orleans got flooded due to climate change, I'm saying it's an example of the kind of consequences that can be expected if the sea starts rising enough.
You can't just shrug it off with "oh well, sucks for the polar bears, but I don't care". You will very much care, because if things get off kilter enough, they won't be so polite as to keep the damage to places and things you don't care about.
We very much depend on the environment being inside some parameters. If the sea level rises too quickly, it can be virtually guaranteed that quite a few places won't adapt in time. The levees were underfunded for quite some time, btw.
According to the National Hurricane Cente, Katrina cost about $100 billion. That's not exactly cheap, especially in the current economy. If you think it'll get solved with more levees, those cost quite a bit of money as well, and need actually getting funded unlike the New Orleans ones.
And if you don't get affected directly, you'll get affected indirectly, because in the modern world economies are linked.
You should look up the word "anthropogenic".
Finally, expect the blamestorm to fall upon climatologists for failing to convince them there was a problem [...]
I really liked that scene in The Last King of Scotland, where Idi Amin said to his adviser, who said he had warned the king about this circumstance, "BUT YOU DID NOT WARN ME STRONGLY ENOUGH!" I can see this blamestorm proceeding thusly...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
It means "human caused". And the "A" in "AGW" is referring to the current warming trend. Not all warming trends ever. Not denying the existence of any warming trend other than the current one.
Did you have a point, or were you just encouraging dictionary use in a case where it was probably not needed? If the latter I commend you despite your over-zealousness.
The enemies of Democracy are
irrelevant to the point. They say it isn't happening, then rely on the prediction of it happening.
This is because denial is a tool to have EPA regulations dropped. ALL the dissenting views about man made global warming stem from, people trying to stop EPA regulations.
This is extremely frustrating for those of us that have watched the science and data unfold sine the 70's. where it has gone from an observation, to study, to a great deal of data, to the only acceptable theory. Science worked, but the message is being intentional confused.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
SO... you wouldn't mind dumping radioactive waste into some pit in your backyard? I mean, it will save you a penny a KWh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and it's also a calculated risk when every you drive over a bridge, that doesn't mean bridges are a bad idea.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Except you have a livable environment, but not money. So keeping your environment should be more important than the money you don't have.
Maybe your bad logic, economics and values is the reason you're poor.
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make install -not war
For my own part, I don't believe the case for anthropogenic global warming is an open and shut case. I realize there are others who think I'm a lunatic for not being able to come to that conclusion. But the essence of science is thoroughly vetting theories... anthropogenic global warming is a theory whose final chapter is yet to be written.
So here's my question: How certain does a scientific theory have to be before you will act upon it? Consider a payoff matrix that looks something like this:
A) You act assuming AGW is true. If you're right, you lose $1 trillion per year. If you're wrong you lose $1 trillion per year.
B) You act assuming AGW is false. If you're right, you lose nothing. If you're wrong, you lose $10 trillion per year.
It's kind of like health insurance for the planet: If you don't have a problem, it's a bad deal, but if you do have a problem and don't have the insurance, you're in big trouble. And unless you have another Earth that you can easily get to, it's not like we can run a controlled experiment, so you have to make a decision based on probabilities.
Of course, we know that the vast majority of governments and businesses are betting on B, but that has more to do with it being cheaper in the short term than it being right.
I am officially gone from
The Federal government built their sea walls, because New Orleans is the nation's second largest port, and by far the main port for the entire middle of the continent. It was the Feds who got cheap, designing a Cat-3 sea wall in Cat-5 hurricane country - that collapsed under a Cat-2 storm.
And then the Feds failed to do their part to rescue them.
Everyone knows this. You Republicans will lie about anything, including the negligent murder of a major American city. Why do you hate America?
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make install -not war
Of course it has to be the right fix. The wrong fix is what we need? And of course the scientists have to "bless" it. They're the ones who know better what's happening, and what's likely to happen depending on what we do.
You Republicans are stupid.
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make install -not war
Now that it's going to make a few rich fucks richer I see it as a good thing!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's not open and shut, it has been determined by decades of study.
Man made emission are driving the temperature up outside it's normal cycle.
Unless some remarkable new data comes in, it's done.
"Believers point to every hurricane and say, "See? I told you so" "
Believers? it's a scientific facts. And climate is trending, not a specific hurricane or hurricane season.
People say that, ignore them; look at the science.
". But the essence of science is thoroughly vetting theories... "
ah, so gravity isn't real because its a theory thats not fully vetted? what does fully vetted even mean? It's a nonsense statrment.
No, Scientific theory that have been through tested become 'facts'. . . . but still theories. Very few things become Laws anymore.
Gravity, scientific theory and fact
Evolution, scientific theory and fact
Man made climate change, scientific theory, fact.
Can new data change those things? yes, of course, but it would requires seriously strong evidences.
The strength in a scientific theory is it's ability to make predictions.
Gravity: Predict hos fast an object will be moving after a period of time
Evolution: is something today's evolved from something else 100 million year ago, there will likely to be a product 'between the two' at around 50 million years*
Man Made Global warming: temperature will rise about normal cycles; and they have. More CO2 means a worse effect- Also shown.
Yuo're not a lunatic, your ignorant or stupid, or most likely experience cognitive dissonance while competing ideas are bouncing around in your head. Of course, if you don't educate yourself, then they never will go anywhere.
With your attitude we will all be wondering what to do the 50 million refuges we didn't bother to plan for when we had the time to do so.
What going to happen when millions of people from one nuclear country, start moving into a neighbor nuclear country?
we have the time, knowledge and skill to mitigate an extremely larger global event. The first time in history. Sadly, people whose belief don't allow for global climate change, and people who stand to gain from lowering EPA standards are lying.
*This is an extreme simplification
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For me the irony of that isn't in the anthro vs. non-anthro debate. The irony is in people regarding a few more meters of rise as apocalyptic, when the "apocalypse" has already occured in their own backyard.
As for the "anthro" aspect of it, I always like to imagine a couple of guys in the area during that time. One turns to the other and says, "Put out that fire. If you don't, the earth will heat up, the valley will fill, and we won't be able to walk to the Farallon Hills anymore".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I think I somehow parsed "was no warming happening before humans arrived" as something like "would be no warming in the absence of humans." That's what I get for reading slashdot while thinking about the physics I was working on in the other window.
In that case, my point would have been that accelerating and causing are two very different roles. Perhaps a better term would be human-augmented global warming.
It should be pretty easy to calculate that bigger sea walls are worth it to protect one of the nation's biggest ports -- you know, the reason why such a large fraction of the world's population is on coasts, especially near the mouths of large rivers?
The enemies of Democracy are
I just wish someone would come up with 2 different terms. One for general global warming, and one for man-made global warming.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
As for the "what does global warming mean?"
Dead simple on one level. Higher average global temperature. More energy in the atmosphere and eventually the oceans. (We can probably ignore the effect on rocks.) This is a direct consequence of a higher CO2 concentration in the air, by simple physics. (Some other gases too.) Given that CO2 diffuses pretty well, it's not too hard to measure the increase. The problem is in the detail.
It does not necessarily mean warmer weather where you are located. Climate and weather are very complex, and very non-linear. It probably means things are stormier, but we really don't know that for sure. (It might well make things drier in your area.) The effect on sea levels is easier to calculate, or it would be except for the effects of melting permafrost and ice, which are seriously complex monkey wrenches in the sums. What we do know is that it changes the loading on the climate dice, and we don't know all the game rules yet. Alas, what we also know for sure is that this is a game we can't really afford to lose because of the stake we have in it; that's why climate scientists are so insistent, that along with the fact that by the time it's clear to absolutely everyone, it'll definitely be too late to do anything about except die by the million. (You might like playing russian roulette where you don't know how many chambers have live rounds, but many people have less appetite for risk.) I hate it when a green fanatic points at a big storm and says "evidence of global warming"; it's not. The longer term frequency of these things, the size of the peaks, the total energy across the whole world, that's the evidence. Maybe it's not as immediate and easy to see, but it's far more dangerous because of its sheer scale.
And is it anthropogenic? Well, that's certainly the #1 theory (combined with a whole mess of complicated feedback effects) as the alternatives are all rather more far fetched. Humanity as a whole has been very busy over the past century or so burning fossil fuels, and many of the natural buffers are now believed to be used up. (Deciding this beyond all doubt is a long-term project; the real question is whether the evidence is good enough to act, and again, a lot of people think it is.)
Just to be clear, if there really was a truly cheap believable technical fix for all this — a "magic wand", if you will — then the climate scientists would be proposing that we wave it. Right away. But nobody seriously thinks such a thing exists, so they're trying the cheapest and most humane option that could work: changing the economic system. I think the alternatives are worse, much much worse.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Aha! You've hit upon the way to make sense of the situation to both sides of the argument - money. A precise economic analysis of the cost of both A and B would help determine whether to act or not. But articles like this one show that we still don't know the costs and benefits of either scenario so we have to do what causes all the bickering - take some things on faith. And the two sides take different ideas to heart, which effects their analysis of which scenario is cheaper, A or B.
Personally, I like your idea of buying some insurance. I also don't see anything wrong with cleaning up the place I live in. Why some people are so against cleaning up the Earth makes me wonder what kind of filth they live in in their own homes.
You need to educate yourself about the difference between a "reserve" and a "resource". "Oil shale" (a somewhat politicized term) is a reserve, and there is a great deal of evidence showing it will never be a resource. There is a great quantity of long chain hydrocarbons embedded in "oil shale", but very little of it will ever be extracted.
One detailed scholarly article about oil shale
Summary: There's a lot of the stuff, but the logistics of turning it into real oil appear impossible to overcome. This is because the energy cost of extracting the stuff and converting it into a useful form is about the same as the energy one gets from it. "Shale Oil" seems to have a net energy gain of about 2:1 or 3:1, which makes it not really worth getting, regardless of the price of oil. In order for an energy source to provide useful net energy to society it needs to have a net energy gain better than 5:1, preferably 10:1 or better. For comparison:
Result: there's a lot shale oil in the ground. It is destined to stay there.
Believers? it's a scientific facts. And climate is trending, not a specific hurricane or hurricane season.
The "trend" can be influenced on what starting point one uses for their data. If we pick one year I can show "scientifically" that the temperature is rising. If I pick another the "science" shows global cooling. There seems to be a lot of discussion on what the "normal" is for the environment. We can only assume that the current global temperature is somehow "normal" but as we all know at some point in history the global temperature has been much warmer and much cooler. I can certainly agree that the current global temperature is desirable since it involves no adaptation on my part to live in an unchanging climate.
What we must all realize is that the climate has changed and therefore will change in the future. We will have to adapt to whatever changes come to us.
What really bothers me about those that believe in man-made global warming is the "need" for me to spend considerable amounts of my money on things that reduce my standard of living with no means to determine if this cost will result in any payback. This could all be for nothing if we are wrong. Even if we are "right" we cannot determine how much is enough to stop this global warming "trend" that people claim is happening.
You can talk all about environmental refugees and resource wars all you like and it makes no difference to me. We've had those forever and nothing is going to change that. We will always have volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, famine, floods, hurricanes, and so on and so on. My "carbon footprint" will not change that.
Here's where I can agree with the global warming alarmists, we need to get off of foreign oil. If the US, Japan, China, and most every European country cannot become energy independent then there will be resource wars and refugees moving into nuclear capable countries. I've seen this before, I didn't come up with this, but I find it a very convenient summation:
We have three choices.
- Continued use of fossil fuels and all the failings that come with it.
- Agrarian society. (Subsistence farming for most, transportation reduced to beasts of burden and sail driven ships.)
- Nuclear power.
These are the choices we have for the foreseeable future until we either run out of fossil fuels or some new technology comes along. I suggest we move on to nuclear power now and we might avoid the worst of the resource wars and environmental refugees. There is also the possibility of avoiding the global warming threat but that is not of a concern for me. If global warming is what it takes to get people to agree with building more nuclear power then I can play along. What I see from most of the global warming alarmists are watermelons, they are "green" environmentalists on the outside but "red" communists on the inside. I can agree to just about any environmental policy that does not require the growth of government or the reductions of my freedom. Get the government out of the way of nuclear power development and we can all be happy.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
What was placed on the arctic ocean floor at the North Pole on Aug 2nd, 2007?
a Russian flag
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
*Implying Demorats don't lie just as much as Republodumbs.
If I was allowed to open a fuel reprocessing plant, or sell it to one that was allowed to open after the regulator-imposed ban on them was lifted, no, I wouldn't mind much at all. Be hard to find, though, because no-one would be stupid enough to dump fuel that still has enormous value.
Yeah, tell that to the millions of children starving to death because your dumb policies drove the price of grain up 100% in a year.
Funny how the only acceptable theory is even more heavily defended than relativity. I didn't hear ANYONE calling the Italians "relativity deniers" when they appeared to have violated it. But then, maybe that is because physics is real science, while climate "science" is a religion (sacrifice to the gods of climate or they will destroy us from the sky with their mighty millimeter natural disasters that have always occurred but we pretend like they never did until just now). We'd be better off with the Aztecs in charge. Cutting out the hearts of "just" a few Iraqis would have a lot smaller destructive effect on the world's economy than the bloodletting you people want to unleash.
I see, you would rather die than change. Interesting.
Wrong. Civilization is about adapting to change. Only the weak civilizations fear change. The strong ones welcome it. Of course, ours has become a weak one thanks to growth of government and loss of freedoms over the last hundred years, accelerating into the last decade.
Modify your numbers. If you are right, and act, you lose a hundred trillion dollars and still get hit anyways because "it wasn't enough". If you are wrong and act, you lose a hundred trillion dollars.
Boy, talk about a shifting goalpost. Next you'll be telling us it is "creating or saving" warming, then "supporting warming". lol
If we pick one year I can show "scientifically" that the temperature is rising. If I pick another the "science" shows global cooling.
No, if you cherry pick one or two particular years you can show a cooling trend up to 2010, if you pick any other year you will see a warming trend.
Just what we need in these uncertain times, a saviour who knows the true way. I am humbled upon your knowledge that unsettled climate will only be a boon for agriculture, for I had feared that it may devastate our existing farming systems.
Please, Lord Mosley, tell us more. Will the britons be blessed with tropical fruit, and the Maritimes be the new Caribbean? Will papa be home for christmas?
How much of your attention does it take to breathe?
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The reason the sea wall collapsed was because they anchored it in peat. It was known for decades what a Katrina scenario would do and the city didn't do anything to fix it. They still haven't done anything. They rebuilt the walls to the pre-Katrina specs. This is a problem of money. New Orleans is a very poor and very corrupt city in a poor and corrupt state and has been plagued by incompetence since it's founding. I watched them set the Mississippi River bridge on fire about 3 times when they were trying to paint it. Yes, the bridge is made of steel of concrete and they till set it on fire. The school boards was issuing pay checks to dead teachers and all you had to do if you lost your pay check from the city was call up the city and tell them. They didn't bother to verify that the original check had been cashed. New Orleans reelected the representative with 100k in cash in his freezer cause he went on TV and told his constituents that he had a very good reason for having the cash but he wasn't going to tell us. When Katrina hit, the president asked the governor of LA if she wanted federal aid and she was too busy panicking to say yes. The Feds can't send the national guard into a state without permission, and LA didn't grant the permission because the entire state was busy having a nervous breakdown. This has nothing to do with Republicans/Democrats and everything to do with rampant corruption and stupid people. Point of fact, most of New Orleans and LA is heavily Democrat so I'm not sure how that stacks with your "republicans hate america and democrats are fun loving saviors" philosophy.
I see, you would rather die than change. Interesting.
No, the problem is that it's you who would rather lie than change.
Aha! You've hit upon the way to make sense of the situation to both sides of the argument - money. A precise economic analysis of the cost of both A and B would help determine whether to act or not.
Been there, done that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review
the chest-beating poker-faced munchkin certainly gets about doesnt he.
Thank you for making my point in my original post. Ad hominem attacks are the problem here. I understand fully the notion of scientific "theory" "law" and "fact". The "theory" of gravity is well tested - millions of times over, and thus is sometimes referred to the "law" of gravity. Even though it's still a theory, it is so well accepted that only an idiot would argue against it. Evolution falls into the same camp, although there are more "cracks" in that theory than the theory of gravity. But I'll concede that the theory of evolution is a law. Then you put anthropogenic global warming theory into the same line, and use these other, completely unrelated theories to say that anthropogenic global warming is a law and a fact.
I'm struggling through my "cognitive dissonance" here and wish I had the clarity of thought you have on this, but I just can't keep from asking stupid questions... For instance, if it is a fact that human behavior is contributing to global climate change, how much of that change is being driven by humans? Is it the main driver? A secondary driver? A tertiary driver? What other drivers of climate change are there? Let's face facts here... global climate change has been taking place on Earth long before humans started driving Hummers. It is the norm. Isn't that a "fact"?? If it is, do we understand in any great measure the causes of those swings in global climate? Do we know, precisely, how ice ages are triggered? Do we know how the Earth climbs back out of an ice age?
I got exactly what I expected from you on this topic. A true believer reflexively attacking someone who asks what I believe is a valid question. Well done.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
Responding to the wrong post, obviously, as I was very clearly talking about starting points, and the previous poster's POV that solutions shouldn't be vetted by scientists, and must be cheap.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
So several billion people burning grass and trees to cook and stay warm isn't bad for the environment? I think so: deforestation and all the soot in the air.
But, still, my argument is valid. So long as Wall Street rewards short term behavior with cash, the long term environment just won't matter. Sure oil may be $500/barrel in 2050, but no one cares since they are rewarded for now.
I don't know, but it works for me.
I can see Russia from my boat!
"You killed my yogurt!" --Fred Fredburger
No, if you cherry pick one or two particular years you can show a cooling trend up to 2010, if you pick any other year you will see a warming trend.
Isn't that pretty much what I said? How is any one year more or less scientifically valid than any other to take in computing this trend?
Point is that there is still a debate over whether or not we are actually seeing global warming. I recall pointing out to some people that it has snowed in Baghdad for the first time in 80 years. That there were polar bears spotted in Iceland for the first time in 80 years. That Peru had the coldest winter in 80 years. Chicago had the coldest winter in 80 years. They dismissed all of that as "regional" cooling but that the rest of the world is warming. If I assume this is true then why should I assume that polar ice caps melting is a result of "global" warming and not "regional" warming?
What is "normal" global temperature anyway? Maybe the world is "supposed" to be warmer. Maybe humankind would be, as a whole, more productive in a warmer world. Yes, a warmer world would suck for those that got flooded out but the rest of the world could be better off.
To me most of the global warming alarmists are either "watermelons" (green environmentalists on the outside, red communists on the inside) or the useful idiots that bought into the watermelons' theories. The global warming theories would be much more convincing if the "solutions" did not involve more government and less freedom.
Personally I really like the idea of burning less fossil fuels. I am also realistic enough to know that we cannot remove fossil fuels from the economy without some serious side effects in less than fifty years. To remove fossil fuels from the economy we need an alternative. Right now the only alternative to coal, which is probably the biggest producer of "green house" gasses, is nuclear power. To stop burning coal in fifty years we need to start building nuclear power plants today.
For people to burn less fossil fuels we need alternatives, alternatives to sitting in the dark. Nuclear power is one of many answers to that problem but the USA has not built a new nuclear power plant in 35 years. I find it impossible to believe that no one has been able to find a way to build a profitable and safe nuclear power plant in that time excepting some sort of government interference.
Government is the problem not the solution.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Isn't that pretty much what I said? How is any one year more or less scientifically valid than any other to take in computing this trend?
In a statistical science like climate science generally the longer the trend period the more accurately it reflects the true situation. I don't think anything less than about 20 years is likely to be reasonable for detecting climate temperature trends. Climate scientists mostly use 30 years. The only years you can use to show a negative temperature trend are all less than 20 years ago.
There really is very little debate in the climate science community over global warming. Snow in Baghdad, cold winters in Peru and Chicago are anecdotes, examples of natural variability in weather. If Chicago continues to have colder than normal winters for most of the next 20 years then maybe you have something. The polar regions warming more than other regions is a predicted effect of global warming.
I would say the "normal" temperature would be what it would be without the influence of human caused factors. But that's not really the issue. Our civilization, its infrastructure, agricultural and food systems are built around the climate as it has been and change will be disruptive. The greater and faster the climate change the more disruptive it's bound to be. That disruption will cost money to deal with as we have to adjust to changing conditions.
What does global warming theory have to do with the proposed solutions? Climate theory is a scientific endeavor to understand how the Earth's climate works. It is based on empirical knowledge. Since that theory points in the direction of increasing CO2 levels being the primary cause of the sharp warming trend we've seen since the 1970's the obvious scientific solution is to quit increasing CO2. Since the main cause of the increased CO2 levels is human burning of fossil fuels the obvious solution is to cut back and eventually end the use of fossil fuels. I'd love it if the free market had a answer for that but it is notoriously poor at accounting for the long term (like 50-100 years out). I'd love to hear your solution for that but as far as I can see the government, as the agent of its citizens, is the only thing that can force the free market to look longer term.
I'm realistic too. It will take at least 30-40 years to wean ourselves from fossil fuels but the sooner we get serious about it the less costly it will be in the long run. I'm not against nuclear power per se but it is one of the most expensive ways to produce power. Solar PV power is already cheaper than nuclear power. Recently some proposed coal plants were cancelled because at the rate the cost of solar PV is dropping they will be cheaper than coal by no later than 2020.
The main reason no nuclear plants have been built in the US since the 1970's is economics, not government interference. The cost of building and operating coal power and now natural gas power is so much cheaper than nuclear power that it doesn't pencil out. The only organization that is going to fund research to create safer, cheaper nuclear power is the government. It's too expensive and takes too long for the payoff to materialize for private entities to take it on unless the answer is already obvious.
Saying "government is the problem, not the solution" is too simplistic to me. What it really comes down to is how involved the citizens are. If enough of us want something to happen it will* but until the past few years we've been mostly to fat and happy to care that much about it. Now we have the TEA Party and Occupy Wall Street so things appear to be picking up.
*The 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 18 took only about 4 months to be passed in the Senate and House and ratified by enough states.