Slashdot Mirror
New Batch of Leaked Climate Emails
New submitter kenboldt writes "Someone going by the alias 'foia' has dropped a link to a zip file containing thousands more emails similar to those released in 2009. There are apparently many more which are locked behind a password, presumably waiting to be released at some time in the future."
The University of East Anglia has released a brief statement indicating that the emails were probably obtained during the 2009 breach and held back until now as "a carefully-timed attempt to reignite controversy."
The previous leaked e-mails had two results:
Sham news reporting like Fox News cherry-picked out-of-context blurbs that made it sound like the scientists couldn't agree on anything.
Real news reporting actually read all the conversations and saw the conclusion was that the scientists were unanimous in agreeing that climate change is real.
That they'd do a second leak proves that the leakers are morons who think this offensive sound-bites Fox reports will have some kind of impact, whereas the actual content of the e-mail will reaffirm what everybody already knows. Climate change is real and these upcoming leaked emails won't change anything.
Also I love that Fox sympathizers have to commit a crime (hacking into an institution) just to get ammo which they mistakenly think will bolster their "cause". If they had the brains to actually read the emails themselves, they'd see it hurts them.
If they are so infuriated about the timing they could publish the emails themselves in less sensible times, thus evading some of the shitstorm and gaining back a bit of reliability.
Right, because last time around, it turned out that there was a big conspiracy and lots of people got fired and no one believes in global warming any more.
oh, wait, that's exactly what didn't happen.
Are we forgetting that the Koch brothers funded a separate study that pretty much confirmed the results? Crazies will be crazies, but I don't expect reasonable persons to be swayed by this.
Following some bullet-pointed quotes such as "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day" and, "Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels," the message states:
"Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline. This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets. The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning to publicly release the passphrase. We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics."
Listen, I'm all for the publication of the data and methods these scientists are using. But what exactly is releasing internal e-mails supposed to accomplish? Acting all righteous about "hiding the decline" and then you turn around and censor what you release?! That's pretty funny to me. Who do you think climate change is going to hurt the most anyway? My fat American ass shoving honey coated whole wheat pretzels into my gaping maw while surfing the internet? Or the truly poor people? You know that subsistence farmer in Africa or China where a drought, famine or conflict could wipe him out at the drop of a hat? When times get tough, I'll have to give up my XBox Live Gold Account ... what the hell is someone living on less than $2 a day going to do?
It'll probably turn out like the UN anyway where the US pays $362 million and China pays $29 million so that's some pretty flimsy motivation there when the wealthiest nations will most likely be footing the bill.
My work here is dung.
Climate scientists are providing context to the leaked emails here: http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=9931
Americans' Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
And every time there is evidence that it is just a political con game
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/
As the hockey stick was, as the emails demonstrating knowledge of the fraud that was ongoing did you just get the greens closing ranks and hoping if they keep a united front up, the ludites hatred of all things tech, and the political class's willingness to profit from crisis will carry their position forward.
That's a nice article you linked there. Richard Muller? Maybe you bothered to follow up with what he actually found? The rest of Slashdot did and I think you might be interested in it.
My work here is dung.
No, it's just more confirmation that these guys don't know why things are but are far more concerned that the number deliver the right message.
Mister Limbaugh, could you please restate that in English?
The issue is that a set of emails can not counter all the other evidence and research. If I falsify tests on gravity and write some emails about it, does this mean that gravity is not a universal constant? The mentality of people who pounce on these emails as proof that "global warming" isn't real are the same ones that used snow storms as proof. They totally miss the overall picture.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Unreal how some think "deniers" believe that climate change doesn't exist. The earth's climate has been constantly evolving over billions of years.
Problem is we've been able to accurately measure the minuscule changes in climate for about 50 of 14 billion years. Second problem is we have absolutely no idea what climate changes the earth can sustain and which ones the earth cannot sustain.
Still no definite answers here. Some of this junk research "confirming" that climate change exists adds confusion to those not smart enough to understand this.
The saddest part about the whole climate debate is that neither side behaves rationally anymore. The debate has become so politically polarized that I feel it is difficult to trust nearly any evidence presented by either side, although the recent Koch-funded study looked like good science. Add in the fact that climate is so vastly complex it is impossible, without intensely studying it, for even the generally scientifically inclined to make judgments given the facts, and you have an issue that it becomes nearly pointless to even talk about anymore. Every time it comes up on Slashdot it inevitably comes down to a flamewar. And that flame comes from both sides.
And you aren't helping.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
What we get is every 10 years a new set of predictions and models explaining why the last 20 years models and predictions weren't correct but we are still doomed anyway
In the words of Issac Asimov
The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
I stole this Sig
Could've been worse. Could've been Climategate II: Electric Boogaloo.
Look moron, there's no grant money for disproving gravity yet there's plenty enough for the other way around. And you gravity believers try to equate us to nazi sympathizers by calling us gravity deniers. We're gravity skeptics, and we're just waiting for conclusive proof to make a decision. Most gravitymongering hype is bullshit and it's all just being pushed by media profiting off fear and politicians profiting off pro-gravity legislation. So until we hear from neutral sources unanimously coming to a consensus, we will rationally remain in doubt.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Believe models that have never predicted anything correctly.
You mean like the models that predict ocean currents, pacific oscillation, jet stream, gulf stream, and whose decadal temperature predictions are, if anything, a bit on the conservative side?
Trust data that is manually manipulated, incomplete, inaccurate, disparate, and only goes back a blink of the eye in terms of the planet's history.
Yes, every data set has been manipulated. Weird that no one seems to come up with a data set that is clean, or without statistical error. I mean, they'd get their names into the annales of science pretty much immediately. I'm sure Exxon has a few billion lying around with which to sponsor such a study. Weird that they don't... they must know something we don't. Wait, they just know something you don't. And how much data do you need? Are you going to be happy when climate data goes back to when the earth was a loose amalgam of space dust?
Trust politicians whose only concerns are money and power, and whose only "solutions" involve shifting money and power, and not reducing consumption or pollution, or building things that are actually green, like nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Al Gore might be a convenient whipping boy, but no climate scientist is quoting Al Gore. Not to mention that you'd crucify him if he weren't putting his money where his mouth is. Nice straw man, but no win.
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
There's no need to believe when you have a physical model for how man influences the current trend, data that supports the existence of the physical model and data that disproves the assumption that CO2 emitted by man does not influence the global temperature.
Believe that the Earth will be doomed if temperatures rise closer to points in Earth's past, despite the fact that throughout all of Earth's history, higher temperatures are when life flourished.
One straw man, one lie through omission and one lie through commission in one sentence. Nice going.
1) No one is arguing that the earth is doomed, outside of people like you. Climate scientists are arguing that life is going to get mighty uncomfortable for a large swath of humanity, costing everyone on earth a nice chunk of change to adapt to.
2) Humans weren't around when temperatures and CO2 concentrations were much higher than now.
3) Mass extinctions are tied to high temperatures and high CO2 contents. Look up PETM extinction event.
Man, whatever it takes to continue living your own life, and screw whoever comes after you, right? Nice going. The last guy who made this his official motto caused massive international bloodshed.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
No, they aren't, and no, they haven't.
And no, I'm not wasting my time with this because like most intelligent adults I already understand that having doubts is what people who are right do. Having doubts is scientifically valid. It's how science gets done, not religion.
Having no doubts and exuding false confidence is what people who are wrong do all the time.
In other words, shove those fucking emails up your ass. They do not mean what you desperately wish they mean. Global warming is a done discussion. Governments and corporations are already moving to adapt -- except for a few parasites like the Koch brothers (who are funding much of the anti-science "research" that you are lapping up so eagerly), who simply need to be pried off our nation's neck and burned like the blood-ticks that they are.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Stop muddling this argument with verifiable facts. Global Warming activists hate it when you show them facts.
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made. You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
There's no need to falsify info proving global warming if it would be easier to produce evidence DISproving it. Certainly not for financial reasons.
-B-
True. I really like what was said in the comment section here: "The correct response to bad science, if that is what you are alleging, is more science, not stolen emails."
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
And you just proved his point.
Your source proving the fraud accusation?
Last I checked, Mann had been cleared by not one, not two, at least t-h-r-e-e different boards of inquiry.
Except the oil companies are making a fortune out of 'Global Warming' by increasing their prices and governments are making more from 'Green Taxes'?
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made.
Where?
You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
Oil companies grew to love 'Global Warmnig' when they realised it makes oil more attractive than coal.
After all, that's why Margaret Thatcher pushed it in the first place; it was another stick to beat the coal mining unions with.
"data that supports the existence of the physical model and data that disproves the assumption that CO2 emitted by man does not influence the global temperature."
Of course CO2 emitted by man affects global climate. CO2 emitted by every creature does the same. There is no living being on this planet that does not affect the climate around it.
Problem is we have so little understanding of how the earth reacts to these changes over time. The earth has sustained itself through *much* more drastic changes than anything man has introduced.
Best thing we can do is observe common sense. Recycle, limit chemicals released into the atmosphere, etc. Problem is we've been spending trillions and trillions of dollars in order to be "green" beyond simple common sense activities when we have absolutely no idea if that money is well spent.
To be fair it could be because it makes all the denialists (remember that 24% of *Slashdotters* are denialists, and 9% are "skeptical" - and that's a technical/science-oriented community) change the channel and reduces the likelihood of them changing back (because they'll get a reputation as a "warmist" channel).
It's like showing a movie with a topless scene to an audience containing ~50% uptight puritans. They'll run away and label you a smut peddler.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001317verification_of_1990.html
Those are the IPCC predictions from 1990 out to now. Gee for some reason we are well under the temperature they predicted.
Or Hansen's 1988 model
here
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/hansen20.gif
Oops
This is what your climate skeptic had to say
I don't understand, that's not my climate skeptic, you linked to an article from 2004 written by Richard Muller. I merely provided you the results of his research, I didn't even indicate whether or not I sided with him!
So lets just ignore the part that the greens were pushing about the climate skeptic who had a come to god moment.
What the fuck are you talking about? You brought Richard Muller into this conversation -- are you "the greens"? Furthermore, you used an article he wrote seven years ago to summarily discredit everything apparently even somehow validating "the emails demonstrating knowledge of the fraud that was ongoing." What the hell, man?
Lets look at what one his team members had to say about his come to god paper.
"But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped. Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html#ixzz1eTMUgUpc"
When you identify me as a "green" that you "can't talk to" I don't know why I continue to help you but here's another article you might find informative that follows your Daily Mail article by a matter of hours. It's a little more valuable because instead of it being some news organization (WSJ, Daily Mail, whoever) hell bent on making a story and cherry picking comments to make them sound the most inflammatory, it's actually Judith Curry actually telling you how she actually feels. She has reservations and that's good but she opens with:
I had a 90 minute meeting with Richard Muller this evening. I have to say that there isn’t much that we disagree on.
My work here is dung.
I believe in global warming, I believe mankind causes it, I believe it is a serious threat to human civilization even.
The thing is, nothing will be done until trillions have been spent building sea walls to protect the rich nation's coastal cities, irrigating the rapidly drying areas, building drainage in the rapidly flooding areas, killing mosquitoes in the new swamp lands, and any number of other band aids that you can think of.
There is simply no social or political will to cut CO2 emissions because there is simply no way to do it without reducing the perceived future quality of life for billions of people around the world (even if actual quality of life might be better than the worst case scenarios for global warming). Hell, even if we started reducing emissions today, which isn't going to happen, it would take decades to hit a point of stability where CO2 going into the atmosphere is equal to CO2 coming out, and even that may not be enough to avoid some of the worst effects.
It's simply not going to happen. If you're worried about the long term effects of global warming you'd be better spending your money on researching and developing Geo-engineering mega-projects because that is the only cost effective way you are going to prevent the worst effects. Yeah, the risks are large and the costs are non-trivial, but they are tiny compared to the costs of moving away from a fossil fuel economy at the rate that averting global warming would take.
I'm sorry, but #1, you had about 20 years to educate yourself on this issue. #2, there are plenty of rational discussions around this that are polite, fact-based and available online. IPCC reports are one. The NOAA studies are another. Those are just two samples out of a good dozen. There's a huge host of information available if you want to learn.
If you are still complaining that you don't understand the topic at at least a basic level, it's because you haven't been trying. And quite frankly, I'm tired of lazy people complaining that they don't know what's going on, and then voting based on sound bites they heard on CBS. You don't know what's going on? STFU and look it up.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Disagree.
I don't see what one's credibility has to do with the language one uses. Credibility comes from having data that backs one's position, and there's lots of it for climate change, including multiple groups that came up with the same conclusion.
But it is a black and white issue: it either happens or it doesn't. I don't understand what would constitute an acceptable way of putting it in your view.
I won't pretend that his language or his attitude are appropriate or helpful to situation but I can understand the frustration. How long can most of us talk about evolution with a creationist before we start to show how exasperating the whole argument is? How long can we talk about vaccines and autism without losing our cool a little bit? Or about the moon landings being a hoax? Or that electric fans can cause deaths in enclosed spaces.
On the one side there is a body of evidence supporting the theory that doubles every time you look at it, on the other there is... what exactly? Either the doubters chose to believe that tens of thousands of scientists are grossly incompetent or that tens of thousands of scientists are conspiring against the rest of the world.
So yeah, his language is inappropriate, but his message is spot on.
IPCC reports are fact-based? Really?
Like the way lots of movie dramas are "based on actual events", probably.
Believe models that have never predicted anything correctly.
Never say never.
Trust data that is manually manipulated ...
As opposed to what? Automatically manipulated? Do you think that baseball stats just magically turn from huge sets of numbers into RBIs and Hall of Fame records?
Trust politicians whose only concerns are money and power, and whose only "solutions" involve shifting money and power, and not reducing consumption or pollution, or building things that are actually green, like nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Actually I'm just asking you to trust scientists and admit that it's happening ... I don't think any of these peer reviewed journals conclude with "Now let's talk solution and my stock portfolio!" They're just telling you what's happening, man.
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
I'm confused, are you acknowledging that there's a current trend upward? Downward? You just totally ripped all that data to shreds, what exactly are you saying when you say "current trend."
Believe that the Earth will be doomed if temperatures rise closer to points in Earth's past, despite the fact that throughout all of Earth's history, higher temperatures are when life flourished.
The fear isn't that the temperature is going to get 'hotter than anything in history of the Earth.' The fear is that the rate of change accelerates to a point where a lot of the food chain starts to falter and entire species go extinct that we depend on for functions known or unknown. If you think I'm worried about life, I'm not. I'm worried about humans. You and me. And how much unnecessary death will result from this. This Earth has seen some hard times and life's still around. I just want to be sure that in thousands of years man is still around because the dinosaurs are completely gone. I'm not worried that we're going to magically ruin Earth so that no life can exist on it. I am a little worried that we knock evolution back down to something stupid like prokaryotes and cockroaches, though.
My work here is dung.
The amount of incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation is approximately in balance at all times. In the absence of a greenhouse effect, the Earth would need to be about 255K to produce enough outgoing longwave radiation to remain in balance. Due to the greenhouse effect, not all of the outgoing radiation makes it to space. To maintain the balance, the Earth must be warmer than 255K so that enough outgoing longwave radiation makes it through the atmosphere and into space. That's why average temperature on Earth is actually around 288K. All other things equal, if the greenhouse effect is increased, the Earth must warm to reach a new balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation. This is as close to fact as science can get, and isn't really up for debate.
The only legitimate argument against warming caused by increased greenhouse gases is that negative feedbacks will decrease the incoming solar radiation. That can primarily be accomplished by clouds and aerosols, neither of which are well understood or predicted by models. However, even with the uncertainty about negative feedbacks, it is very likely that increasing greenhouse gases is resulting in a warming of the Earth.
Just because there is poor agreement on the regional impacts of a warmer Earth does not mean the Earth isn't warming. The increase in greenhouse gas concentrations is largely due to human activities. It's a fact that the model human lifestyle produces large amounts of carbon dioxide. The increase in greenhouse gases is very highly correlated to industrialization.
This is an environmental issue. The preponderance of evidence is very strongly favors that humans are mostly responsible for the warming of the Earth that has already occurred in the past decades and that the Earth will warm at a faster pace in the future if current trends continue.
We should be very concerned. The regional climate changes will likely place greater strain in some areas on the availability of essential resources to support the human population. It is not out of the question that the overall impacts of such a warming could place enough strain on resources that the Earth would be unable to support a human population of seven billion people and growing. Nobody really knows what the impacts would be, but those concerns are hardly unfounded.
When I go back there now, it is totally fucking unambiguous to me that on a global scale the temperature is rising. Look up from your feet at some previously snow-capped mountains -- it's not that damn hard.
I would, but a) I don't live near any mountains, and b) it's way to cold to go outside right now.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Probably. But I'm honestly growing a bit ambivalent as to how one should approach people about climate change. Normally, I would say civil discussion is the most effective way to reach someone, but considering the seriousness of the matter, when nothing happens at some point you ought to start getting angry.
If somebody were pouring gasoline onto my house, and were about to set fire to it while insisting that I have nothing to worry about because surely nothing is going to happen, I wouldn't be very civil with them. We more or less have the same situation right now, only at a much slower pace.
By refusing to accept facts and take responsibility for the situation we have created, millions will be forced from their homes around the world, people will die from starvation and floods, species will become extinct, etc. etc.. How can we in good conscience stand by and be civil about it as others spread lies and misinformation for their own personal gain?
How many thousands of years have whole forests burned due to natural causes? My guess would be enough to release way more greenhouse gas than our burning of fossil fuels.
Your guess would be wrong. The difference being that the carbon is forests is carbon that is already in the carbon cycle. If forests don't burn they eventually decay and release the carbon back into the atmosphere anyway. The carbon from fossil fuels is carbon that has been sequestered from the carbon cycle for in most cases 100's of millions of years or more. So it is carbon that was not in the carbon cycle until we added it back in. The proof of the fact that your guess is wrong is that the CO2 level in the atmosphere has never been above around 300 ppmv for millions of years but since the advent of human burning of fossil fuels it has risen to 390 ppmv in a bit over 200 years. That is unprecedented in the existence of the genus homo.
And it doubles to what end?
So they keep accumulating more and more and more and then what? They want a carbon tax? Sure, that will solve it all.
The best thing AGW folks could do is to start press hard for Nuclear energy. It's here, and it's non-CO2. If they stopped trying to tax people and enforce austerity measures and instead said, hey let's go nuclear, then they would get what they want (low CO2 emissions) and the other side would get what they want (no higher taxes or energy cutbacks). Further, the West could go tell the middle east to go fuck themselves.
If indeed AGW is such a threat, such a dire situation, then everyone should be more than willing to set aside their anti-nuke bias and ignorance and embrace it as the one way we can solve this problem.
But if instead they object, then we will all know they've been blowing smoke up our asses.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Start to inquire with the following:
1. Coal plant operators
2. Coal plant builders
3. Coal mining corps
I can vouch that #2 will give you the money if you can convince them that you're not a fraud, for a reason of having observed one do everything to win favor of crappy populist organizations like Greenpeace through buying their local activists dinners to attend their seminars on how less polluting the new coal plants are. Insider info here.
Fact is, big corporations want to make money in the future in addition to now, and that means cleaning the dirty image that is in the people's (and politicians' who decide on new building permits) minds right now. So if you can do a reliable study that global warming isn't man made, then coal industry will be able to reliably shrink it to a small fraction of the current one, and still make the same profits.
We're talking pretty damn big figures here, all up for grabs. Perhaps the fact that no one has yet succeeded in taking that money is one of the best capitalist-style pieces of proof that it really is likely man-made. Because greed really does motivate people.
The proof that the 30% increased in CO2 concentrations is from burning FF's is found in the ratio of C12 to C13 isotopes in the CO2.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Climate scientists don't make much money.
Lying climate change deniers like the Koch brothers and many thousands of their other petrofuel and polluter cronies do make millions.
You are a lying fool.
--
make install -not war
If the carbon cycle was worth the paper it takes to write two words, we wouldn't have coal deposits or limestone cliffs. It's too slow. Until we started digging the stuff out of the ground, every carbon based life-form on this planet was carbon negative, and even then, we're still carbon negative in the grand scheme of things. While we might be able to put a large chunk of the carbon back into the atmosphere, we'll never get it all (not that we'd want to, anyway: things might get a little stuffy).
Photosynthetic life has been committing slow suicide by depleting its primary "food" source, and then dumping its results "on the ground" to rot. Sure, that releases some carbon into the atmosphere, but methane isn't particularly useful to most life, and the rest winds up turning into coal.
Similar story for those life-forms that use carbon dioxide as building material (crustaceans). They dump their used product on the sea floor and it becomes limestone.
Here's something to consider. Some billion years ago (I don't know the exact numbers, might be just hundreds of millions), the entire world was desert (mostly barren rock, maybe some sand), but plants spread out and converted the world to lichen covered rocks, grassy plains and forests. Now, we have spreading deserts. Why? Sure, we may have started some (maybe even all) of them by cutting down too many trees (and other agricultural practices), but considering what plants did in the past, that should not be the case. For some reason, the plants are unable to overtake the deserts. There are two major differences that hamper plant growth: there's a lot more sand now (shifting sand can bury plants), and there's a lot less carbon dioxide in the air. The plants can't get enough food to grow quickly enough to encroach on the deserts.
We are part of the carbon cycle. Originally, we were on the same "side" as everything else, sucking carbon out of the atmosphere (net, otherwise we wouldn't grow), but now we are on the other "side", pushing it back in.
If carbon dioxide causes (or contributes) to global warming (and that's still an "if") and causes sea levels to rise, so be it (and my butt is maybe 4m above sea level). Sure, rising sea levels will mean less arable land, but higher carbon dioxide levels will mean better growing conditions, so the net might be more arable land.
If the carbon was worth anything, we wouldn't have this discussion because humans wouldn't be able to find enough carbon to put into the atmosphere for anyone to notice. Probably wouldn't have the Internet, either.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
You think climate scientists appreciate that person not speaking for them? I'd say they wouldn't appreciate you speaking for them.
Only a very few people have rejected the IPCC assessment. They're practically all not climate scientists. There's over 97% agreement with the IPCC report. The report is detailed, in which climate scientists have a pretty damn good idea of how the Earth reacts to these changes over time.
If you did more than 10 minutes googling you might know what you're talking about. Instead it's obvious that you don't care to know. You just want to post anonymous lies about climate science.
--
make install -not war
I'm doing A but fantasizing about B because I'm tired of the enviro-extremists telling me that the science is settled and denying, or even questioning, their (sometimes) ridiculous assertions is tantamount to being a Nazi.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Pretty much everything you said is either factually incorrect or misleading (and recognizable as silly right-wing memes). I don't think you really care though, you just want to badmouth "Der Libruls".
/. and let the adults talk until you can be bothered to look up any iota of information on the subject that doesn't come from the members section of Rush Limbaugh's website. You are literally the equivalent of someone trying to disprove the theory of gravity by noting you can jump up several inches away from Earth, so those science eggheads must have it all wrong. That's the level of ignorance we're dealing with. Go away.
Hint: Climate scientists are aware of past environmental changes. This is not new information. You are not unusually well-informed. You are not the lone voice of sanity in the wilderness, you are just a loudmouth idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, repeating nonsense spewed by other, more cynical loudmouth idiots. Your post shows such fundamental misunderstandings of the data and issues involved that it would be best to leave
short term energy storage is a way easier challenge to solve than hundreds of years of guarding dangerous nuclear material. Shit, I can store all the energy needed to heat or cool a house for a day in a tank of water that would easily fit in most homes. have excess energy, charge up your store.
electric cars will have these things called "batteries" that happen to store energy.
smart meters exist now. the internet exists now. energy management software exists... wait for it... now.
and, solar just reached parity with grid power in the northeast. woot! before incentives, even.
repeat after me: by the time you finished building a fancy reactor, you'd be able to utilize renewables more cheaply. good luck finding non-guaranteed private capital getting that reactor built too.
ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show "ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published 'misleading and inaccurate information' about climate change."
And that article is just the tip of the iceberg. There's also Exxon's funding of the infamous Heartland Institute, a "libertarian" anti-science denial shop. Heartland used to deny smoking caused cancer but unsurprisingly switched to denying global warming when their sponsorship changed. Exxon used to fund Heartland directly, but now funds them indirectly through conservative groups like the Scaife and Olin foundations.
It's hard for me to imagine how an educated person in 2011 could have ever been ignorant of how oil companies fund global warming denialism, but now there's no excuse.
Where?
Are your really that naive? The oil industry has acted so brazenly in its disinformation campaign, and funding of astroturf and denialist "research". The paper trail is there for everyone to see. "Merchants of Doubt" is a recent history book the chronicles just how perfectly the wool has been pulled over your eyes -- in plain sight!
There's something interesting about the human condition there -- and you are being played by people who understand you better then you know yourself. Of course, this just makes you mad, and you want to say that *I* am the one who doesn't understand. This is called projection.
There is something interesting about the human condition there.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The "oil companies" have also been engaged in a denialists disinformation campaign. The conspiracy is actually larger than just Exxon; however, and includes a powerful block of neoliberal elites. There is a history book called "Merchants of Doubt" that shows the paper trail quite clearly.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
Showing that the amount of CO2 we pump out into the air should have an impact on the climate is pretty easy: Recipe for Climate Change in Two Easy Steps. It's the global warming deniers that need the help of the data models that you say are all wrong to find enough negative feedback loops to compensate.
It's also all those who claim that solving the issue is just a matter of sequestering some CO2 that have to prove that their plans can actually work on a global scale: Putting the Genie Back in the Toothpaste Tube. That said I agree with you that there's no way we will stop global warming: as a species / society we are too lazy to fight the entrenched interests or change our way of life.
As the saying goes: Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?