Melting Glaciers Cutting Peru Water Supply

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a story that may repeat itself in all mountainous areas dependent on glaciers for their water supply, the glaciers in Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range are melting so quickly (PDF) that the water they supply to the arid region is being threatened 20-30 years earlier than expected. Of the time needed for the region to adapt to the coming water shortages, previously thought to be decades, researchers now believe, 'those years don't exist.'"

Comments

Ooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Front page story making me feel alarmed and afraid at the same time. Must stop using electricity and save the planet before man made global warming frees us from this ice age we're in.

Re:Ooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up on chaotic systems. I think you'll find that forcing them is not great.

Re:Ooo

[NotQuiteReal]

Read up on chaotic systems. I think you'll find that forcing them is not great.

And things always go the way you think they will... let's give it a kick, couldn't be worse, right?

Re:Ooo

[Black Parrot]

Must stop using electricity and save the planet before man made global warming frees us from this ice age we're in.

By some accounts, GW is in fact counteracting the onset of an ice age. Unfortunately, according to these analyses, GW's forcing is much stronger the IA's forcing, so it's not keeping us in a stable state. (Hence the melting glaciers, shifting habitats, etc.)

If we could cut our GW's forcing back to a small fraction of what it is, we might be able to apply it as some practical terraforming, to extend the duration of the paradise that our species grew up in.

But most people just invoke "ice age" as an excuse to avoid doing something that will cost a lot of money in the short run.

And an *enormous* amount of money in the long run. Politicians like to fall down and kick their feet over the public debt that our descendants will inherit, but those same clowns don't care a fig if we leave them a foobar planet to live in.

Re:Ooo

[BenJCarter]

Why mod this post Troll?

Re:Ooo

[umghhh]

This and the fact that stop global warning by talk- with-big-business-and-US,-Chinese-and-other-silly-but-authoritarian-govs'-(are those not the same???)-so-that-a-common-approach-and-global-action-can-be-achieved sort of approach was never going to go beyond talk makes me think t hat one indeed should start looking at the ways to adopt instead of talking with idiots. OTOH these idiots have enough burning power to make you choke anyway so dealing with them is a must only talking instead using a stick is not working as we see.

Re:Ooo

[thegarbz]

avoid doing something that will cost a lot of money in the short run. And an *enormous* amount of money in the long run.

I'm interested in your source for this. The only reason I'm asking is because of an article I read early this year in one of the Business Review Weekly magazines. The economist was arguing the exact opposite, that the global effort to change the lifestyle and energy sources of half the population of the world would be orders of magnitude more expensive than to simply adapt as a species and relocate or provide resources in some other means to people dispersed by global warming.

Of course this ignores any emotional attachment which people have to their homes, but I can see where he may be making a valid point. For example the system rolled out in Australia is an incredible economic reform and some say it will cost the nation over $1trillion in GDP over the next 38 years. That's a lot of money for a 0.0005% reduction in carbon output in the world.

I think we as a species need to come up with a smarter way of tackling this problem because if the numbers are right we'd basically be bankrupting the world to get humans carbon neutral.

Re:Ooo

[FatLittleMonkey]

For example the system rolled out in Australia is an incredible economic reform and some say it will cost the nation over $1trillion in GDP over the next 38 years.

You ask for a source for his claim, then throw that out there in the same post without any hint of a source? (And Andrew Bolt isn't a source. Indeed, he's an anti-Source. He (and his ilk) suck the validity out of any claim they make.)

The Carbon Credit scheme is supposedly revenue negative, that is, the amount of "compensation" and tax cuts exceeds the amount of carbon tax added. It will have a minimal effect on long term revenue, and therefore a minimal effect on the GDP. How would it somehow cost us $26 billion per year?

But think about, it's just moving taxes from one part of the economy to another, even with a small net change (positive or negative), how could it have any greater effect on GDP than any other future policy change? Or than major policy changes in the past, like floating the dollar, bank deregulation, the GST, or the Resources Super-Profits Tax? So how does someone come up with such a general number (a trillion) over such a specific timeframe (exactly 38 years, not 35, not 40, 38!) Doesn't any of it ring your bullshit alarm? Mine's going like a firehouse choir.

Re:Ooo

[Anonymous Coward]

1tril over 38 years, that all?! We lost more than that with the housing bubble. [sarc]Heck, 75 tril was lost in just 5 years from copyright infringement caused by Limewire alone.

Re:Ooo

[Black Parrot]

How much do you think it's going to cost to move, say, New York City, to higher ground?

How many other cities would that question be relevant to?

And that's just the one glaringly obvious cost.

Re:Ooo

[thegarbz]

The number does ring the bs alarm, but the premise does not. Australia is a country which makes the vast majority of its wealth through the export of carbon intense products, mainly coal, iron, and all that other wonderful stuff. The tax cuts are directed at isolating Australians from the increase in cost that the carbon tax puts on producers. Unfortunately that ultimately makes us less competitive on the world market. The government's own numbers recognise this. They've address and acknowledged that the introduction of a carbon tax will have a negative impact on GDP. Ultimately though who knows if the economists are right.

Also w.r.t source I'm interested in his source to counteract something I've read, a source I no longer have. I presented this not as an argument but rather as something I've heard and I'm interested in his other view. It's for my benefit, not yours.

The whole moving money via a fixed tax is a stupid idea to being with. At least a few other countries have rolled out a ETS without some silly complicated phase in tax period. The problem with it is that I know who the "big polluters" are. I see him every morning in the mirror. Magically pretending that by moving money around a bit we can produce energy that is magically clean yet doesn't cost more than the dirty energy defies all logic. We're going to pay heavily for this.

Re:Ooo

[thegarbz]

Well that's the thing. It's not places like New York City that need to be moved, but rather low-lying pacific islands.

There are entire countries that basically have large parts of the population living below sea level. Not all solutions to rising sea levels involve picking up a city and moving it up a hill.

Re:Ooo

[Anonymous Coward]

But most people just invoke "ice age" as an excuse to avoid doing something that will cost a lot of money in the short run.

"Cost a lot of money"? More like an INSANE amount of money. We're basically talking about moving back 100 years. In order to cut emissions, that's exactly what's going to have to happen. That's a pretty damn big demand.

Re:Ooo

[drobety]

the system rolled out in Australia is an incredible economic reform and some say it will cost the nation over $1trillion in GDP over the next 38 years

I consider the "cost" argument a very poor argument: we have to realize that a huge part of the "costs" have never been factored on the balance sheets in the first place when it comes to environmental damages ("damages" as in decreased productivity in the long run). These costs were kept off balance sheets because of the view that all economic activities were taking place inside a huge, seemingly infinite sphere from which we could draw and in which could discard carelessly.

Unfortunately, we realize now more and more that what at first appeared as a seemingly infinite sphere is actually very finite, and even shrinking. A lot of the costs to move toward a sustainable global economy were just costs which existed in the first place, they were just left out of the accounting equations of the global economy.

Re:Ooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, "Shifting habitats"... I've read that climate changes so fast that even birds can't keep up with it. They didn't mean those of seasonal migrating kind?

Re:Ooo

[riverat1]

The real alarmists are the people who say we're going to bankrupt ourselves responding to global warming. Most of the money spent would be the same money we would be spending on non global warming friendly energy anyway. The global warming friendly part just adds maybe 3% from the studies I've seen.

Re:Ooo

[dukerobillard]

I don't think we'll have to move NYC. I think we can hire some Dutch engineers to build dykes along the lower-west side, across the East River to Brooklyn, and then up by the Throg's Neck, between Queens and the Bronx. Aside from keeping above water, you'd get the reclaim all the land under the East River.

This would be the coolest project to work on.

Re:Ooo

[Black Parrot]

Hmm, "Shifting habitats"... I've read that climate changes so fast that even birds can't keep up with it. They didn't mean those of seasonal migrating kind?

Around a decade ago they noticed a problem in the far north, with plants and the critters that eat them getting out of synch on when spring is supposed to happen. Apparently one depended on the time of year, the other on the ambient temperature, which of course is happening earlier w.r.t. time of year. So the plants were blossoming before the bugs that depend on them come out, or vice versa. (Sorry; don't remember the details.)

More recently, the buckeye tree, namesake of a certain powerhouse football team in Ohio, has had its range shifted northward due to warming, so that the team's home town is now barely within the trees range, and won't be within it at all in another decade or two.

As one wag put it, when it starts messing with football, people will get serious about global warming.

Re:Ooo

[Anonymous Coward]

For example the system rolled out in Australia is an incredible economic reform and some say it will cost the nation over $1trillion in GDP over the next 38 years. That's a lot of money for a 0.0005% reduction in carbon output in the world.

I don't have actual numbers for this, so I'm going to take yours, and put them in a more useful form.

$1trillion over 38 years is $26billion per year. The GDP of Australia is $1.23trillion (source: CIA world factbook), so that's a 2.1% decrease in GDP. (This is assuming US dollars rather than Australian dollars, but the two are pretty close to parity at the moment; so if I'm wrong, it's still close enough for a rough comparison.)

Australia is responsible for 1.3% of global CO2 emissions (source: a wikipedia article based on a UN publication), so a reduction in Australia's CO2 emissions that causes a 0.0005% reduction in worldwide emissions is a 0.04% reduction for Australia.

From these figures, then, a 0.04% decrease in carbon emissions causes a 2.1% decrease in GDP. This seems ... a bit unlikely. To take an extreme example, if you reverted to subsistence agriculture, you'd get a 100% decrease in carbon emissions and a ~99% decrease in GDP. So this result, derived from your figures, suggests that the carbon-emission-cutting measures being undertaken in Australia are less efficient than just reverting a proportion of the economy to subsistence agriculture - by a factor of about 50.

Re:Ooo

[Alphadecay27]

More recently, the buckeye tree, namesake of a certain powerhouse football team in Ohio, has had its range shifted northward due to warming, so that the team's home town is now barely within the trees range, and won't be within it at all in another decade or two.

I assume you are referring to:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-09-12-3324435158_x.htm

which states:
The coalition doesn't have any evidence that the buckeye's range has been pushed north but says global warming threatens to make that happen. and Lytle said healthy adult buckeye trees can tolerate a wide climate range, although seedlings are more sensitive. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan could eventually give buckeye trees a more comfortable habitat.

So, basically... There is no evidence the range has shifted at all. It may shift in the future but the existing trees are not likely to be threatened.

I'm not a denier. I am convinced the science behind AGW is basically true because I have examined the evidence to the best of my ability not because I had a "revelation". I'm in favour of taking reasonable and effective action to reduce CO2.

I don't believe you were trying to intentionally mislead anyone but there are too many sensationalistic articles out there that basically follow the template: *Global warming causes X... We're all going to die! * note: global warming has not been found to cause X

Re:Ooo

[Black Parrot]

So, basically... There is no evidence the range has shifted at all.

The article I read showed maps, 'then' and 'now'.

Re:Ooo

[Anguirel]

Without even getting into the actual costs of adapting to the changed climate, a slow and measured move from inherently problematic energy sources (that also happen to contribute to the air pollution problem) to alternative sources (that also happen to not contribute to air pollution, though they each may have their own problems) is less costly than a rapid change when everyone panics because the end comes much faster than anyone expected and generates multiple was for control of those last resources (and, likely, also consumes more of them than are actually gained by victory). You can then tack on the reduced pressure for the adaptations required (as the change will likely still happen, just more slowly), which again reduces costs as the demand increases more slowly allowing supply to keep up.

Any way you look at it, the costs are lower to start making changes now, and major changes made now will have compounded impacts over the coming years.

Re:Ooo

[Coren22]

I'm not terribly concerned about New York, but New Orleans shouldn't have been resettled after the hurricane...that place drew the short straw badly...

bonanza

[harvey the nerd]

This melt off should be an interesting opportunity for archaeology and paleontology. Will such treasures reach back 1000, 5000, 40,000 years?

Re: bonanza

[riverat1]

Well, considering that humans didn't arrive in South America until around 15,000 years ago, 40,000 years is out. But more likely most if not all of the area under the glaciers in Peru has never before been seen by human eyes. 15,000 years ago the last glaciation was winding down so the glaciers were probably much bigger than they are now. I doubt those glaciers have ever been significantly smaller since then than they are now.

Re: bonanza

[Runaway1956]

There have been a couple of stories about 3000 to 5000 year old corpses recovered from these melting glaciers. One of the is famous, but I've forgotten his name. Igwi or something. Ohhh, here, I'll google for a couple stories:

Ötzi here, in a PDF
http://geog-www.sbs.ohio-state.edu/courses/g820.01/sp06/alpine_iceman.pdf

Incan ice children and others here:
http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/featured/glacier.htm

Re: bonanza

[Black Parrot]

This melt off should be an interesting opportunity for archaeology and paleontology. Will such treasures reach back 1000, 5000, 40,000 years?

Possibly. I know there have been instances where parts of mid-Twentieth Century air crashes were recovered (including body parts whose prior owners have been identified). And the Iceman's state of presentation indicates that he had not been melted out since he died ~5000 years ago.

Re: bonanza

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, considering that humans didn't arrive in South America until around 15,000 years ago

No, that's not an accurate statement. The correct statement is:
"The oldest evidence of humans in SA was from around 15,000 years ago".

If we find new evidence which dates further back, we'll revise that number.

I doubt those glaciers have ever been significantly smaller since then than they are now.

They have. If you go back far enough in time the planet didn't even exist, let alone glaciers.

Re: bonanza

[riverat1]

They have. If you go back far enough in time the planet didn't even exist, let alone glaciers.

I qualified it with "since then" which meant 15,000 years ago. Before the current interglacial the last time the glaciers in Peru had a chance to not exist was during the previous interglacial period over 100,000 years ago. There definitely weren't humans in the Americas then.

Re: bonanza

[Dripdry]

"Ingwi"? You mean men have been slaying dragons with electric guitars and playing over-long solos for that long? Incredible! Malmsteen: I guess the name means "Really Old" in German.

Re: bonanza

[Sique]

Ingwi means nothing in German. Ingwer would be Ginger though.

And Ötzi (or Oetzi for the umlaut-challenged) is named thus because he was found at the upper end of the Ötztal valley.

Re: bonanza

[umghhh]

you are not often here are you - I can see from logical and (OMG) systematic approach to argument that you are not used to /. discussions. Good to have you here though get an account and get abused properly I'd say.

Re: bonanza

[umghhh]

these are not the same glaciers that induced the story. The ones in Alps are melting all right and produced a nice body for science and touristic attraction for Northern Italy (I think). The other thing I was wondering about is this: global warming is this: the change in climate caused by melting ice caps may cause decrease of temperatures further down towards equator as massive amounts of cold water hit the oceans. Hos is this going to affect averages?

Other thing that wonders me is the climate warming is based on average temperatures per earth and year which is a terrible proxy for determining anything and is a no go for a discussion with a person that is bound to use any feasible fallacy to prevent you from reaching any conclusion. I guess we do not have one but I somehow feel that some explanations of this could help explain the phenomenon of: it is warmer in general but today morning I was freezing in my apartment this morning (because I set the air conditioner too low).

Re: bonanza

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, here in Brazilian north-east city of Sao Raimundo Nonato, Piauí state we have a archaeological site with human inscriptions more than 40.000 years old, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serra_da_Capivara_National_Park

Re: bonanza

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless of course you find human remains in the glacier area that are more than 40,000 years old so that your understanding of South American anthropology can be modified. Never call anything impossible.

Re: bonanza

[Krau Ming]

you forgot Encino Man, duh!

Re: bonanza

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, as drought conditions develop in many parts of the world or ice cover decreases, human artifacts appear. There is clear scientific data that shows warming and cooling cycles and wet and dry cycles periodically over the last 10,000 years. The medieval warm period had a warmer climate than today! The little ice age was a disaster for Europe! The northwest passage is called such because wooden ships sailed through it in 1905! Chicago was covered by a mile deep layer of ice 10,000 years ago. Obviously, the climate has warmed and not due to man. And the climate has cooled, not due to man. People need to be concerned that science has been destroyed by incompetent and corrupt news journalists who have a tendency to want to hype negative information without regard to understanding the science or the well known facts.

Re: bonanza

[riverat1]

Nevertheless 40,000 years ago those glaciers would have been considerably larger than they are now so there is no possibility that human artifacts will be found under them. The was the height of the last glaciation (ice age).

Re: bonanza

[riverat1]

If you're going to claim the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today you're going to need to cite some peer reviewed literature to back that up. I haven't seen it.

The Northwest Passage was first navigated by Roald Amundsen from 1903-1906 in a wooden ship armored for the ice conditions. It took him 4 years.

By 10,000 years ago the Chicago area didn't have that much ice left over it, maybe none. It was 20,000 years ago when the last glaciation started ending.

Re: bonanza

[cusco]

I first visited Huaraz in the Cordillera Blanca in 1987. The entire eastern side of the valley was beautiful glacier-capped mountains. Even in mid-summer a wind from the east would bring a definite chill to the town. People said that previously the western side of the valley was the same way, but that it had lost its glaciers. I didn't pay much attention at the time.

Went back to Huaraz a few years ago, and the change was stunning. At least 3/4 of the mountains have lost their glaciers already, and the remaining ones are obviously smaller. I've compared some of my 1987 photos with the 2007 ones, and the change is appalling.

Lima gets its water from a different watershed, but that one has the same issues. Seven million people living in the middle of the driest desert in the world, and they're drinking fossil water. There has been a gradual movement from the capital back into the countryside on the part of the children and grandchildren who made it into a megalopolis, I hope they're all well settled when Lima runs out of water.

Re: bonanza

[Black Parrot]

Well, considering that humans didn't arrive in South America until around 15,000 years ago

So many anomalous finds have turned up over the past 20 years that whatever-ologists are abandoning that traditional view. IIRC, they're now saying maybe as much as 25,000 YBP.

Re: bonanza

[riverat1]

Interesting story. Some glaciologists might want to look at your "before and after" photos.

Re: bonanza

[riverat1]

You may well be right. Exactly when humans arrived in the Americas is pretty fuzzy.

But to the original point it's unlikely that most of the ground under those glaciers has been free of ice in the last 100,000 years if not for more than a million years so there probably aren't any human artifacts under the ice. There may well be some human artifacts within the ice that will become exposed though.

Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really just that simple. If the local environment is not conducive to human habitation, fucking move somewhere else. There is always going to be someplace on the face of the earth becoming less habitable, and others becoming more habitable. The history of the human race is one of migration from area to area as conditions change.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Mitchell314]

Easy to say if you were raised in a more habitable place or if you're financially sound enough to move. Otherwise, I guess you're stupid for being born poor or in a poor place.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Lemmy Caution]

Oddly enough, there is a pretty sizable intersection between people who don't care about global warming, or have no interest in mitigating it, and those people who are staunchly against open borders.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Surt]

These are people who lived in places with water. And that water is going to go away, suddenly, as could happen to literally any source of water other than desalinated ocean.

The history of the human race has involved a great deal of migration. Unfortunately, the earth is now full, and there is no place to migrate to anymore which is not already oversubscribed. Migration from now on means war.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really just that simple. If the local environment is not conducive to human habitation, fucking move somewhere else. There is always going to be someplace on the face of the earth becoming less habitable, and others becoming more habitable. The history of the human race is one of migration from area to area as conditions change.

Yeah, same with all the animals. Except, of course, for the non-migratory ones.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

before there was the means to ameliorate local suffering, this was called evolution, or survival of the fittest. Now that it is technologically possible to spread the wealth, should we? To take from the lucky and give to the unlucky do we propagate mediocrity and perpetuate neediocrity?

At what cost? Cosmic irony would be that wealth is used to save the lost rather than gain the stars.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[EdIII]

Not everyone believes in evolution, which is part of the problem, but this is an issue of time scales.

Species go extinct because they could not adapt to the environment. That is normal. What is not normal is man made acceleration of environmental changes. Where I live there used to be an ocean, but that was on geological time. What we are doing is like radically changing the temperature and pressure in a room in 1/1,000,000 of a second.

Evolution simply cannot allow species to adapt that fast, and there will be extremely few species that can. Man will probably be one of them, but I don't want to be around for that level of adaptation. It is going to suck.

Then factor in how complex the interaction is in the various ecosystems and you start having a chain reaction where all life might cease, or at least a mass extinction event where the planet "resets" itself and different live evolves all over again.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[EdIII]

Yeah, I was about to say. Nothing more ignorant and simplistic said on /. in awhile.

"Like just move"

That's worked out real well for the Ethiopians. The animals that are too "stupid" to move, well sucks to be them I guess.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[GrpA]

Why is the parent marked Troll? Closed borders are exactly why people can't move en-mass from one area of the planet to another... And countries that are upset by such serious issues and cannot sustain broad migration are not suitable for internal migration.

In fact, it seems a perfectly logical response to the post it was referencing...

GrpA

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and when they move the neighboring countries will welcome the refugees with open arms. Oh wait your a fucking moron never mind.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try telling that to border patrol.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[mysidia]

Can this comment be construed as an invitation for those effected by melting glaciers, to pack up their stuff in an RV, and take up residence in your back yard?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[roc97007]

It's more of a racial thing than an individual thing. Some individuals will inevitably be caught between rock and hard place when the habitable area moves.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

You misunderstand evolution. Any adaptation that allows for survival in a given environmental condition is *already* there when that given environmental condition appears. It just so happens that everyone that *doesn't* have that adaptation dies off. Natural *selection* picks for traits that have already existed. An organism doesn't observe the environment and suddenly tries to "evolve".

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Black Parrot]

Cosmic irony would be that wealth is used to save the lost rather than gain the stars.

I love space opera as much as the next gnerd, but unless Einstein was seriously wrong we're never going to gain the stars.

A life-long one-way trip to the nearest neighbors may be feasible, but it's not likely that anyone will every want to pay for it, and even less likely that there will be anywhere to live once we got there.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Black Parrot]

It's really just that simple. If the local environment is not conducive to human habitation, fucking move somewhere else.

And you'll welcome them into your country with open arms, right?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

The "cost" is increasing freedom: the unalienable right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, among others.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Col Bat Guano]

I guess you are putting out the welcome mat so they can move in with you then?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[tragedy]

You misunderstand evolution. Well, at least your comprehension of it isn't as absolute as you seem to think. The scenario you put forth is one possible example of evolution, but not the only possible one. A more likely scenario is one in which the environmental change is fairly gradual and, during the transition, a variation occurs making some subset of organisms more able to survive in the conditions the environment is transitioning to. The case where the environment shifts overnight is almost certainly less common and, even when it does occur, it's still more likely that the mutated subset of organisms that take over the niche don't come from the affected region, but repopulate it from nearby areas unaffected by the environmental change.

In any case, the kind of changes that require rapid adaptation by a population generally aren't very pleasant for the population. They're usually mostly, or absolutely destructive to the local population. Humans, as a species, or in smaller groupings, can survive all kinds of things. That doesn't mean that big changes don't cause all kinds of suffering and death on the individual level, however. This is something that some people seem to misunderstand (or callously dismiss when it doesn't affect them directly) leading to statements like "Don't live in places without water, stupid".

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the parent marked Troll? Closed borders are exactly why people can't move en-mass from one area of the planet to another... And countries that are upset by such serious issues and cannot sustain broad migration are not suitable for internal migration.

In fact, it seems a perfectly logical response to the post it was referencing...

GrpA

Well, now the parent is Insightful, and some dumbfuck mod marked this guy Troll. Why? What's he trolling? Just because u might not agree does not make him a Troll, he's presented a valid point relative to the discussion, he's not flaming, etc.

If you disagree, put up an argument don't fucking mod him down. You know who you are, asswipe. Your mod points would be better spent marking me flamebait. Now go fuck your mother some more, she won't quit calling me and that whore gave me the clap once already.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[dotancohen]

Creating dams makes land uninhabitable: No problem!
Global warming makes land uninhabitable: No problem!
Nuclear accident makes land uninhabitable: Burn more coal!

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote]Unfortunately, the earth is now full[/quote]

Actually, it's not.

http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population-lived-in-one-city/

http://true-progress.com/the-earth-can-feed-clothe-and-house-12-billion-people-306.htm

One problem is big ass North Americans taking too much food and space.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone believes in evolution, which is part of the problem, but this is an issue of time scales.

Species go extinct because they could not adapt to the environment. That is normal. What is not normal is man made acceleration of environmental changes. Where I live there used to be an ocean, but that was on geological time. What we are doing is like radically changing the temperature and pressure in a room in 1/1,000,000 of a second.

Evolution simply cannot allow species to adapt that fast, and there will be extremely few species that can. Man will probably be one of them, but I don't want to be around for that level of adaptation. It is going to suck.

Then factor in how complex the interaction is in the various ecosystems and you start having a chain reaction where all life might cease, or at least a mass extinction event where the planet "resets" itself and different live evolves all over again.

The history of the planet is such that in good conditions, species proliferate and become more and more diverse.
There is an ongoing, "slow" process where local conditions can cause specific sub-species or niche species to go extinct; there's always a certain level of constant but slow fluctuation. This is the kind of natural selection you're thinking of, where a species may have a chance to adapt to changing conditions after or during the change.
However, there are also large-scale "extinction" or "survival" events, and these are the major driving factor in long-term evolution. When such an event occurs, it results in a massive kill-off because the only species to survive are the ones which are already adapted to the new conditions. The first type of selection I mentioned allows for life to become very diverse during good periods, increasing the odds that at least one of the variants has the traits needed before the next extinction event.

The "tree" of species isn't uniform and regular linear expansion like the Christians would have you believe. It explodes into a wide array of variations, then an extinction event occurs and most branches are culled, leaving only a few which, when conditions are ripe again, proceed to once more explode in diversity.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Uberbah]

He understands it just fine. Take the polar bear, for example. It's dependent on arctic ice forming in the ocean so it can go out and hunt seals. Now, if that ice were to be drastically reduced over the course of a couple thousand years, the polar bear would have some time to adapt to finding new sources of food or migrate. But make that drastic reduction in ice over the course of a few decades, and now the bear doesn't have the time to make those adjustments without flirting with extinction.

Shorter version: it's the sudden change in environments, stupid. See also: the meteor impact that killed off the dinosaurs.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[lannocc]

Migration from now on means war.

So we must refuse any governance/ownership system where this is the case. For the interest of longevity, I cannot accept it as necessary!

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[dotancohen]

[quote]Unfortunately, the earth is now full[/quote]

Actually, it's not.

http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population-lived-in-one-city/

http://true-progress.com/the-earth-can-feed-clothe-and-house-12-billion-people-306.htm

One problem is big ass North Americans taking too much food and space.

And where do the people in your hypothetical city grow their food?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[jamesh]

One problem is big ass North Americans taking too much food and space.

That's the problem??? If there were less people on the planet we'd all be able to take up more food and space... seems like the problem is too many people. To take your argument to the ridiculous, if we all lived in 2m x 1m x 1m (taller people would need to bend their knees) boxes being fed nutrients intravenously there would be room for 5 x 10^14 people (assuming the boxes could float on the ocean), and that's only if we stack them 1 box deep. That doesn't mean those people would have a happy existence.

http://true-progress.com/the-earth-can-feed-clothe-and-house-12-billion-people-306.htm

Maybe it could... but just because it could it doesn't mean it's a target we should aim for.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Uberbah]

Looks more like dismissing real problems with cute hypotheticals that would never actually happen. And just how much land would be required to support these one-world cities? That bit if information seems to have been left off the pictures for some reason....

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Surt]

So we're at a mere 60% of the absolute maximum capacity even now? You realize, right, that at max capacity, one extra person born means one dies. Now think about the mechanism of how that happens. Now think about whether or not that mechanism would be operating even now. Now you're getting it.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Plunky]

Unfortunately, the earth is now full

The earth is in no way full, there is plenty of space for everybody.. Probably what you meant to say is that the earth is now fully claimed and the folk wallowing in luxury don't really want to share with poverty stricken peruvians.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Surt]

So no freedom then? Because free people will act selfishly, and keep more than they need (in case of a rainy day, or perhaps more apropos to this case, a droughty day). People will rightly (in terms of their self interest) turn to hoarding if their assets are threatened by migrants. It's a terrible misfortune, but your choices really are limited to war, oppression, or radical change in human nature.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Surt]

Umm ... yes. The earth is not literally packed with humans shoulder to shoulder one deep. There isn't, however, enough of pretty much anything to go around any more. The earth has 148,940,000 km^2 to go around if wikipedia is to be believed, so that's .021277 km^2 per person, or 21,277 square meters, or a square 146 meters on a side. Not a lot of space. It gets much worse when you consider only really conventionally usable land, which loses you about 2/3rds of the total. Suddenly things start to look really cramped even if westerners are willing to give up wallowing in their luxury.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[laron]

before there was the means to ameliorate local suffering, this was called evolution, or survival of the fittest. Now that it is technologically possible to spread the wealth, should we? To take from the lucky and give to the unlucky do we propagate mediocrity and perpetuate neediocrity?

What does luck have to do with fitness or mediocrity? I'm pretty sure that you and me have no inherent genetic advantages over somebody who finds himself on the wrong end of an environmental disaster. I admit that there may be exeptions, like people who willingly live in cities in a dessert without sustainable water supply or near the ocean but below the level of said ocean.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes there may be other options than giving up and moving:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_growing

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

"unalienable"? well personally I still don't expect to see the real fallout in my lifetime, but let me let you in on a little reality. those "rights" don't exist without society that supports them, therefore they are relatively meaningless in the context of world disaster.

On a more focused note, personally I care about the welfare of me and mine more than the lives of every mother fucker from buttfuckistan as well as anywhere else, and my, and every other semi rational person in the world is the same, the government I vote for looks after my interests and guess what fuck poor people from another country. What is it with slashdot nerds constantly defending the poor and downtrodden, like they, somehow in their comfortable little basements are somehow oppressed in the same way as an eritraian lesbian?!?

look, I can sympathise with the poor and downtrodden, I don't have some sort of belief that I am better or more worthy or chosen. I got relatively lucky coming out of the vagina I did. but fuck if I am gonna squander my luck to help some fuck in another country, my efforts go towards me and mine, and social efforts that help me and mine, not make it worse for myself and mine to make it better for the unfortunate.

People think that huge populated countries like china will be looking for territory to put their huge population in. Like the rich people will risk their own positions to have a war to find accomodation for their poor? much less risky to eliminate vast swathes of said poor. And the poor will give them a reason sooner or later. Occupy wall street? at some point it will be line wall street with dead poor people that we dont have any jobs for anyway because of the benefits of automation.

  I'm an automated machine owner, not a cog, so a little advice to anyone who doesnt want their future descendants to be fertiliser, get your savings into setting yourself up to not be a worker, we need less of them daily. (And glad of it,, demanding fucks. pro-tip, don't just look at what you produce towards the company bottom line and then think you should get that same percentage of the profits, you are compensated for your efforts and if the company goes down you walk away to the next job, having not risked bankruptcy to cover your companies debts)

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pmontra]

In principle yes, in practice it doesn't work so well. Moving has costs and we're writing about millions of people and possibly billions on a global scale in future. A lot of them won't move or will be left behind. Furthermore there is historical evidence that people living in places that are still good don't like the idea of getting snowed under by immigrants and oppose resistance to their arrival. There is no need to go back in time, just think of all the restriction to immigration any country has in place, from visa to border patrols. That might be a display of lack of compassion but it's is also true that if living in a place is OK with one million people around, that very same place could become ecologically unsustainable when many more people arrive. We can't move all the people of the world in some "still good areas". They'd be destroyed as well. Where would be a nice place to live in a one billion people USA? What about a two billion people Europe? We'd better have kept climate under (its own) control.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[umghhh]

fits nicely into immigration policies of majority if not all countries on earth....

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hairyfish]

That's the problem??? If there were less people on the planet we'd all be able to take up more food and space... seems like the problem is too many people.

Bingo! All the major issues we face are because there's too many people. Famine? too many people, not enough food. Oil crisis? Too many people, not enough oil. Global Warming? Too many people, not enough trees If by some bizarre occurance the planet was restricted to a stablised population of much less than now (let's start with 1Billion people for arguments sake), then pretty much most of the major problems would disappear overnight. This is why I have a big problem with charity. While it sounds bad to not help other people in need, saving lives is merely fueling the fire by allowing more people to survive and breed. We need less people. For the greater good, let those who are suffering die and give the rest of us a chance at a sustainable future.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[mhelander]

If your premise is that you need less people I think statistics indicate that helping people in need would be your best bet (in addition to sounding, as you put it, less bad). As I understand the general mechanism, people tend to compensate for uncertainty regarding the survival of their offspring by having more children. With access to for example better medication, the argument goes, parents can afford to have fewer babies.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Sique]

It is more complicated than that.

Evolution builds on variation. Each generation is quite similar to the parent generation, but the individuals differ slightly from each other and from the parents. Thus they are differently adapted to the environment they live in and have thus different chances of survival and having offsprings themselves. Recombination (mostly) and mutation (quite seldom) will provide for new variations in each new generation.

But individuals can also react to environmental pressure, by either influencing and adapting the environment to their needs (like plants, beavers or ants, or humans), or by migration away from the environment into new biotops and trying to gain a foothold there.

If the environment changes gradually, the chances are high that in each generation there are enough individuals well adapted to the slightly changed environment, so the species as such survives, even with individuals whose habitus is gradually moving away from the ancestor's.

If intensive environmental changes happen, species with high variation, short generation cycles and a high number of offsping per individuum have higher chances to adapt fast enough to the changes. If the environment is stable, species with low variation have less to invest into new offspring, because each descendant will be about as well adapted as the respective parent, thus those species have advantages.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are assuming here that there would not be enough food to go around for locals and migrants in a climate situation responsible for driving such relocations but is this necessarily the case?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[f()rK()_Bomb]

Indeed, some European countries and places like Japan are actually seeing declining population as people wait even longer to have kids with longer life expectancy and healthcare.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Bengie]

While I agree with the up-front logical argument of "We have too many people, we need to get rid of the excess", I do not agree with the social implications. One could further argue that strait out mass executions of excess poor people would help also, as it is for the greater good.

Who gets this power to kill? Who over sees them? What ramifications will this have on other humans in society? Will it cause civil wars and uprisings that will undermine the existence of society in the first place?

We need better education on over population, financial rewards for not producing, and some sort of punishment to stem offenders, preferably in the form of fines and taxes. One child policy?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Bengie]

"You realize, right, that at max capacity, one extra person born means one dies."

It's worse than that. The deaths will be delayed, starvation will increase, making lots of people susceptible to disease. Eventually a breaking point will be reached and there will be a collapse and many more than just the "each extra" will die. You also have the problem that food production varies over time. What the Earth can support one year, may not be enough for the next. We don't even know the sustained long term of 100+ years would be.

Like a bridge that can support 1000 people. When you add an extra person, no one dies. So you add a few more. At some point the bridge breaks and/or weakens at a faster than expected rate, maybe at 1100 people, then 800 people die.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Do you reckon that recent breach of lightspeed might indicate that Einstein was seriously wrong?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

For the greater good, let those who are suffering die and give the rest of us a chance at a sustainable future.

Back in your socioeconomically illiterate grave, Malthus! Back I say! The power of christ compels you! The power of christ compels you!

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

It's really just that simple. If the local environment is not conducive to human habitation, fucking move somewhere else.

Leaving Las Vegas.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[P-niiice]

hyep. Habitable places just moving all over the place for no reason at all. I found a rainforest on my lawn yesterday. Had to shoo it away with my water hose. Left genetic diversity all over my patio.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[wytcld]

Who gets this power to kill? Who over sees them? What ramifications will this have on other humans in society? Will it cause civil wars and uprisings that will undermine the existence of society in the first place?

The US & Chinese presidents. Those close enough to stage coups if they get out of hand. Full employment via military conscription. Depends on what you call "society."

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[nedlohs]

On some part of the 40 million square kilometers of arable land that isn't part of the city.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sam Kinison

You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don't send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, "You know, we've been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn't BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don't live in them, assholes!"

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[budgenator]

There is quite a bit of unused land in Detroit right now. Seriously people generally don't seem to like cities, and from what I see only live in them when they have no other viable alternative, Humans seem more likely "Village People" than "City People". Even when people do live in cities, they self-organize into neighborhoods, when can be likened to "villages" inside the cities.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[budgenator]

And we all thought that science was settled too.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[koan]

Obligatory Soylent Green reference.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[couchslug]

The reality is if you don't get a choice, adapt or die. Nature doesn't care what you want and mercy doesn't exist.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[couchslug]

Exclusivity protects ME from competition. I demand MY country favor ME because....MY country belongs to ME.

The idea that the strong should sacrifice for the weak outside their own culture may be morally delectable under certain constructs, but is NOT at all logical. Given finite resources, in nature animals COMPETE for them. If you aren't fast enough to catch the slowest zebra, tough shit.

I'm not interested in filling MY lifeboat until it sinks. At some point one has to push off and smash fingers until they let go.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[couchslug]

War is actually a NORMAL human process though the modern pretense is different.

War trumps law, for in the end law requires force to enFORCE it.

"Migration from now on means war."

If I have one loaf of bread and need to feed self and wife, anyone else attempting to take that bread will be killed if I am able. That's Nature's way. Hungry bears don't give up food to competitors, so why should I?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

[quote]Unfortunately, the earth is now full[/quote]

Actually, it's not.

http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population-lived-in-one-city/

http://true-progress.com/the-earth-can-feed-clothe-and-house-12-billion-people-306.htm

One problem is big ass North Americans taking too much food and space.

And where do the people in your hypothetical city grow their food?

In the vast rest of the world.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[elrous0]

Do you reckon that recent breach of lightspeed might indicate that Einstein was seriously wrong?

I would be more willing to bet that the findings were flawed. But we'll see.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Lemmy Caution]

The nation-state is not the only, nor the strongest, unit of human association. I have more in common with many Canadian, Europeans and South Americans - including affiiliation by family and work - that with most US citizens. National citizenship should be an administrative category, a mechanism for participating in the public sphere - not a team sport.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Migration from now on means war.

From now on?? Did you miss the barbarian invasions or something? The colonization of the west of North America? It's been the source of war for countless generations.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[dogmatixpsych]

They grow their food in the places that are not city (most of the world, based on the first link) and import it in. They'd just have to leave open the most fertile growing regions and put the city elsewhere. Or, they grow their food vertically in vertical farms (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming). I'm sure we could come up with some sort of technological solution to where and how we grow food if we all lived in one large city.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[TheRaven64]

We have deserts in America, we just don't live in them

Whoever said this has clearly never strayed far from the coasts...

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pixelpusher220]

adapt or die

It's nice being cavalier with peoples lives. Best hope they aren't so cavalier with yours when yours is on the line...

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Surt]

I'm not assuming. The evidence is already out there. Look what happens every time there is a starvation situation. People hoard food, and people die. Thinking that the solution to the impact of climate change will be to handle it differently is wishful thinking, things aren't going to get better, they're going to get worse as we multiply food shortages by water shortages.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Surt]

I agree with you completely. I'm only suggesting that smart people be preparing for this outcome.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pixelpusher220]

I'm not interested in filling MY lifeboat until it sinks.

Very true. How about when your lifeboat is no longer 'adaptable' to the new environment? Hopefully the other people aren't quite as 'me first' as you are. It's called compassion...

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Surt]

No, I merely meant to contrast it with when migrations sometimes didn't mean war.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[CrimsonAvenger]

We need better education on over population, financial rewards for not producing, and some sort of punishment to stem offenders, preferably in the form of fines and taxes. One child policy?

Why do we need any of those things?

In the civilized parts of the world, population is already declining, once you ignore immigration. Yes, even the USA is in a slight population decline, ignoring immigration and the children of immigrants (legal and otherwise). Europe is heading for a moderately massive population implosion at current rates....

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pixelpusher220]

Except that the corporations polluted, over-fished or otherwise mismanaged it...so it no longer produces enough to sustain.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I agree with the GP, but we are very close to being able to attain the stars now. Yeah, it's pretty much as you describe, not a sci-fi wonderland where individuals shuttle back and forth between them, but we could still spread across the galaxy before the heat death of the universe.

We know approximately how to get there (Orion-style), but we still have some work to do in terms of packing enough infrastructure to reproduce itself, and efficiently enough for people to live in artificial habitats full time.

If I had to bet, I'd bet that saving the lost lies along the same path. The milestone where essentially no labor is required to sustain humanity coincides with packing enough self-replicating infrastructure to colonize the stars.

The one-way nature of the trip for individuals is no obstacle. People are a pioneering lot. Sure, it won't be you or me that's willing to do it, but someone will.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[cusco]

Yes, but each of those individuals use more resources than an entire family of 6 in a Lima slum. If we intend to reduce birth rates by improving living conditions and education we're going to need an order of magnitude more resources to accomplish that.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[cusco]

Actually mass executions of rich people would be more productive. Britney Spears alone consumes enough resources for an entire town in the Amazon to survive on, and the annual spending of Larry Ellison probably exceeds the entire social budget of some countries.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Luckyo]

Ration and take it away from corporations?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Luckyo]

There was a great line on "penn and teller's bullshit" when they talked about organic farming.

"We can feed about four billion if entire world goes to organic farming for food supply. There are six billion of us now. I don't see two billion volunteers to vanish..."

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[dotancohen]

So what was the point of showing the whole world population as a single city? If they still need the rest of the world to supply the food, then is does not matter how the humans are dispersed on the globe.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[SleazyRidr]

That's almost exactly how hsthompson69 described it

There's a small change in the environment, and the creatures that can't cope die. Then there's another small change and the creatures that could cope with the first but not the second change die off. Eventually it changes far enough that only the best adapted to that change are left. In the case of a sudden change, all the creatures that would have died over the course of the change die all at once.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[frank_adrian314159]

If everyone were like "Village People" overpopulation would not be a problem. On the other hand, YMCA's would be overcrowded. And you'd have to put up with disco. So I'm not sure this would be of overall benefit...

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[nedlohs]

To show that there's enough space for everyone to fit in a first world urban environment without using up all the world's farmland, etc.

Well I'm guessing since I didn't make the point in the first place.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pixelpusher220]

1. Corp polluted, over-fished production area
2. Take it back from Corp.
3. ????
4. Eat?


If it's already wasted/squandered/polluted, taking it back isn't exactly useful.

Look to the Gulf for examples. Or perhaps that Russia that's leaking a BP Gulf spill every 2 months...

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

...and even less likely that there will be anywhere to live once we got there.

This depends on whether it's possible to build a self-sustaining colony in space. (Not with current technology, but reasonably likely in the future.) If it is, then all you need are some asteroids for raw materials, which are probably much more common than habitable planets.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[tragedy]

Almost exactly except for the part saying: "Any adaptation that allows for survival in a given environmental condition is *already* there when that given environmental condition appears". That situation is unlikely most of the time.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[dukerobillard]

So, is it okay if people start migrating from the Sahara to your backyard?

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[riverat1]

The question is not how many people we can squeeze on to the Earth. It's how many can we have and sustain indefinitely into the future.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Black Parrot]

Do you reckon that recent breach of lightspeed might indicate that Einstein was seriously wrong?

I would dearly love to learn that Einstein was wrong and we can go as fast as we please.

But although we occasionally get an experimental result that tells us our understanding of nature is all wrong, it's vastly more common that we learn that the experimental result is wrong. If you're going to bet, go with the odds.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Luckyo]

You'd be surprised how well nature reclaims and rejuvenates itself when extreme load from human activity is removed.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[phantomfive]

No, but it might mean that light has an extremely small mass, and that the mass of high-speed neutrinos is even smaller, and thus the true C is slightly higher than the speed of light.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Bent Mind]

Well, I guess it all depends on your definition of full. There are those people that won't believe there is an over population problem until the bodies are stacked to the upper reaches of the atmosphere and fed by single-cell organisms. Then there are those people who think a place is crowded if they can see a neighbor from their front porch. You can enjoy living like a cockroach so long as I can't see you from my front porch...

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pixelpusher220]

You might be surprised that there is still a restriction in Germany on eating wild boars because of Chernobyl.

Hundreds of miles away, 25 years later. They don't reclaim stuff to the point of being able to consume the produced goods quickly enough to support a planet when the arable land area starts changing by the decade.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

I think what you're trying to express is the idea of a gradual "evolution by out-breeding", rather than "evolution by natural selection". Natural selection is always cruel -> organisms are killed before they can produce offspring. Natural selection is never going to be a pleasant thing, on any timescale, for those selected against.

As for out-breeding, that's actually pretty cruel as well -> those being out-bred are essentially starved out for resources as they can't compete, and again, start dying before they can produce offspring.

Now, as for which scenario is more or less likely (indirect natural selection by outbreeding by a competing subset of your species, or direct natural selection by cruel forces which cut your life short before you can produce offspring), I'll argue that you're making a distinction without a difference.

People would love to think that evolution is some sort of inherently good and noble thing, since we're a product of it and we like being the top of the food chain living in first world conditions, but make no mistake, nature is a cruel fucking mistress. Those majestic redwoods? They had to kill off a whole ecosystem to take over their current range. And their predecessors had to do the same before that. And so on, and so on. Life is a messy, ugly thing, and trying to reconcile it with human ideas of "good" and "evil" is kind of silly.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

If the adaptation for a given environmental condition *doesn't* exist when that environmental condition appears, the entire species dies when that environmental condition appears. Species survive because they are diverse enough to contain at least *some* subset which will be able to survive in a state that is different from the current one.

So while you may correctly assert that this scenario is unlikely, (and in fact it's categorically true that *most* species fail to survive), it is categorically true that for all species that exist today, their ancestors had the necessary adaptive genome *before* every point in time in the past where conditions changed to the detriment of their peers.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

Those polar bears that could find new sources of food or could figure out how to migrate somewhere else *already* have that trait within them. Those polar bears that could *not* find new sources of food or figure out how to migrate somewhere else would be doomed no matter how slowly you adjusted conditions. The polar bears don't sit around, watch the food move away and the ice melt, and then decide "oh hey, let's evolve!" They either have the traits necessary (however complex those traits may be) to survive changes (on any timescale), or they don't.

As for meteor impacts that killed off the dinosaurs, be very clear -> natural selection doesn't care *what* the selection is, how quick or slow it is, or whether or not it has anthropogenic or extra-terrestrial origin. A meteor hit. Things changed really quickly. Those things that *already* had the necessary adaptations to survive lived, and those that didn't have them died off. In some cases, species survived because some subset of them already had the necessary adaptations. In other cases, entire lines went extinct. Such is nature.

Shorter version: the environment is always changing, stupid. See also: Darwin's "On the origin of species"

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

But individuals can also react to environmental pressure, by either influencing and adapting the environment to their needs (like plants, beavers or ants, or humans), or by migration away from the environment into new biotops and trying to gain a foothold there.

You're simply describing complex behavioral traits. Individuals react to environmental pressure because of genetic endowments that give them the capacity to react while their peers that die off fail to react. Regardless if the environment changes gradually or quickly, those reactions *are traits too*.

If intensive environmental changes happen, species with high variation, short generation cycles and a high number of offsping per individuum have higher chances to adapt fast enough to the changes.

Now that's an awful simplification of an elegant but complex concept of natural selection. It all depends on *what* intensive environmental changes are happening - you could have intensive change that selects *against* high variation, short generation, large # of offspring individuals. Say some extra terrestrial race comes down to earth, and specifically comes here to test bio-weapons against high variation, short generation, large # of offspring individuals. They spray the planet with "Agent Purple", and kill off all the species that fit that stereotype. In that case, low variation, long generation, small # of offspring species actually *win* the evolution game, under what is arguably a *very* intensive environmental change.

The important thing to understand here is that *evolution doesn't care*. It doesn't have a direction it wants to go in, and it doesn't have to fit our ideas of "good" and "bad". It's all about survival, no matter what may come, and make no mistake, we've got *no* idea what could possibly come.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Luckyo]

That would be because of "even small amounts of radiation are unhealthy" hypothesis. It has been rebuked many times in science, but it's extremely popular among people so it's politically impossible to truly address the people.

At the same time Chernobyl itself is a nature haven, with wild animals returning and due to lack of hunters, they are much more abundant then in any other nearby area.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pixelpusher220]

That would be because of "even small amounts of radiation are unhealthy" hypothesis. It has been rebuked many times in science

Bullshit. Sources? And then prove that the levels seen in Germany are below 'normal' levels.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[Luckyo]

You can find countless sources through google, ranging from the (in)famous study on hormesis, to multiple researches done in 50s and 60s on low level radiation which was hushed because "low level radiation is either harmless or beneficial" didn't win big grants - "radiation mutates, kills and destroys" on the other hand... As several scientists were quoted back then, "the best way to get funding in 50s and 60s was to scare the pants off congress". Which is what they did.

Take the study on mice they did in 50s. They put two mouse groups in cages, test group and control group. Test group got constant low level gamma irradiation, while control group didn't. They measured that mice (and their descendants) in the irradiated group constantly lived LONGER (hormesis) then control group while having no statistically visible difference in things like cancer and birth defects. After tests with active irradiation were over, they continued to monitor the mice and noted that the only difference was that longevity benefits went away along with radiation. Test group mice lived and bred just as well as control group ones. No long-term defects or harm was noted to have come to test group mice.

If you want an example of human "testing", take a look at Mexico City. Background radiation in there is at least twice as high every day as it was in Tokyo on the worst day after Fukushima. No visible spike in birth defects, cancer and other problems associated with high doses of radiation in comparison to other large cities of same level of wealth.

And I urge you to try and find a single peer reviewed study that proves that low level radiation is harmful. There are several that hypothesize this, but none (that I know of) that could present proof that stood the test of peer reviews. What we know is that HIGH doses of radiation are harmful and that the level of irradiation is related to way you're irradiated, with internally sourced radiation having more impact then external. What you find in pigs in Germany is low doses of Cs-137 which is known to cause problems in significant concentrations due to the way it's metabolized by out bodies and because irradiation is internal. Problem is, you're not very likely to get significant doses from "irradiated boars", who themselves live with Cs-137 radiation in their tissues just fine. The authorities are being cautious here (and rightfully so), but if you had to choose between going hungry and eating a german boar, you'd likely cause far more damage to yourself by going hungry then by eating the said boar.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[tragedy]

No.

The reason being that environmental conditions in fact often do change slowly enough that numerous generations exist during the transition. Now, the conditions that drive evolution often are harsh and involve massive die offs, but it's a long way from universally true that beneficial mutations always pre-exist the event that drives change. Sometimes there isn't even an event that drives change. Sometimes a subspecies branches off from another species not because conditions changed, but because the mutation allowed the subspecies to move into an adjacent environmental niche it previously couldn't survive in.

Still, it's probably stretching for me to say that your scenario is in the minority. The fact is that we understand the basic method of evolution, but the exact circumstances are going to be broad and varied and no-one really can say what circumstances dominate.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[seantide]

This doesn't logically follow. An open border does not guarantee migration will work nor does a closed border make it work. A closed border protecting you FROM migrating people's might well save you. Harsh, but reality is like that at times.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[seantide]

You seem to be missing the point. If you allow everyone into the lifeboat, no one lives. Survival frequently requires cruel things. So many people cry and white about what is fair and compassionate, but the truth is there is nothing in nature much that cares. Nature is a deer screaming in the woods while its eaten, alive. To believe in some fantasy where the world is any different from that is delusional.

Yes, when possible, we mitigate that harsh reality as much as we can, but don't criticize someone for pointing out where the limit is.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[seantide]

We take up food and space because we earned it by building an infrastructure to support ourselves. A lot of the rest of the world cannot because they breed uncontrollably and do little to sustain themselves.

American has many faults, not currently being over populated isn't one of them.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[pixelpusher220]

don't criticize someone for pointing out where the limit is

You mention compassion when possible. yet the original poster had none.

I'll point out he's an ass all day long and be perfectly justified.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

Sometimes a subspecies branches off from another species not because conditions changed, but because the mutation allowed the subspecies to move into an adjacent environmental niche it previously couldn't survive in.

If the adjacent environmental niche is different than the current environmental niche, then conditions local to the organism have changed. Only those organisms that *already* have adaptations that will survive in the different, adjacent niche, will survive there, so again, the capacity to survive in an environment must exist *before* the environmental conditions are imposed (by whatever means that may be) upon that organism.

Evolution, by its elegant characterization by Darwin, is an act of *pruning* and destruction, not one of directed or constructive post hoc adaptation. Calling them "beneficial" mutations is placing a value judgement that has no place in natural selection -> either the organism has mutations that will let it survive and procreate in local conditions, or it doesn't. If it doesn't *already* have the mutations necessary to survive and procreate in whatever local conditions it finds itself in, it is cruelly pruned from the genetic tree.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[tragedy]

Believe me, I have no fantasies about evolution being a kind process or having an end goal. I have a major problem with your notion that the traits to adapt to new conditions always exist within the population already. Maybe one reason I have such a problem with this is that it's an argument heavily used by creationists. They use it to explain away examples of adaptation, essentially claiming that mutation never produces useful new traits but that all useful traits are already extant in the population.

In any case, if conditions change extremely suddenly and in such an extreme fashion that all members of a population that don't have the right adaptive trait die off right away, then the situation you posit is the only way evolution can occur. The changes that drive evolution, however, usually aren't quite that sudden or absolute. It is very hard to make an absolute statement about what actually happens more in nature, however. It does seem likely that most environmental changes driving evolution are going to happen over such a time period that numerous generations are going to occur.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

Make no mistake, I'm not making a creationist argument :) Random genetic variation within a population is more than enough to host a bunch of completely "useless" traits *right now* that will become critical to survival *later*. Calling a trait "useful" or "useless" is again, a value judgement that evolution simply doesn't care about. Either a trait that already exists in an organism allows an organism to survive and procreate in given local conditions, or it doesn't - natural selection makes no judgement calls beyond that.

Now "gradual" evolution may only prune out a very small percentage of organisms in a given generation, rather than "extreme" evolution, where a large portion, if not a majority of organisms in a breeding group are pruned within a generation, but again, the trait *must be there* (due to whatever random mutations may exist within any given population) before it is selected for.

For example, if a small and gradual environment change simply increases the average mortality rate of a certain subset of organisms in a breeding population, it may indeed take generations upon generations to breed out that trait (especially if it's recessive in some fashion and doesn't necessarily get expressed). But from evolution's point of view, timescale doesn't matter. The same effect could be accomplished in one generation if that trait that was selected against couldn't make it to sexual maturity and pass on their genes.

And therein lies the rub, I suppose - I seem to get the impression that you believe there are two scenarios for evolution, that depend on timescale, and you consider the one that works on the longer timescale somehow "better" or more moral than the one that works on the shorter timescale. I take umbrage at that implication because it reeks of religious moralizing, which is an argument heavily used by creationists :)

In the end, evolution (or more properly, the origin of species - "evolution" can be a loaded term, assuming that we're always moving to "higher" life forms), is a combination of dumb luck environmental factors and random genetic mutation. It doesn't care if the environmental factor pruning an organism from the population is a kid with a bb-gun, a solar flare, a meteor impact, a local carnivore, or a microscopic virus - all of it (even the bb-gun) is simply part of natural selection.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[seantide]

But ass or not... he is right that sometimes if you use compassion, you end up saving no one at all.

Sometimes life forces you to make tradeoffs, correct? If you are compassionate to the ones wanting into the lifeboat, and doing so kills everyone, was your compassion of any worth?

Just thinking out loud, I have no idea about the OP :)

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[tragedy]

Ultimately it looks like we're arguing a matter of perspective. I certainly don't consider any particular form of evolution in any way moral or immoral (leaving eugenics out of the debate since ethical considerations clearly apply there). I think part of the problem with our disconnect is that I am thinking of traits that arise from a mutation and spread to a subset of the population to be, at that point, evolved. In other words, if it hasn't been selected against, then it has essentially made it. It may die off out of the population again before it gets a chance to convey an advantage to its carriers, or some environmental change or migration to a new niche might occur and give it a chance to shine. The way you seem to be looking at it, you don't consider it evolution until something happens that causes outright speciation with the old population gone or at least geographically or otherwise environmentally isolated.

So, it looked to me like you were saying that, when whatever environmental change occurs, evolution occurs only when individual x exists who happens to have had a beneficial mutation. Rather, it seems what you're saying is that trait X exists among a subset of the population which stems from an individual who had a mutation that wasn't beneficial at the time, but wasn't harmful enough to prevent it spreading to numerous descendants. All we really seem to be disagreeing on is how sharp or fuzzy the line of natural selection is and where exactly it falls. Whether or not a moment of natural selection from existing phenotypic variation is also the moment you call evolution.

For example, if we have population A, with subset Ax, who have mutation-derived genetic trait X that's been passed down for generations and whose members can still freely interbreed with the rest of A (the mutation doesn't make offspring infertile, nor does it make members of Ax undesirable enough that breeding is unlikely), I would argue that Ax has already been naturally selected for. In other words, from my point of view we're past the bright line where trait X can be considered to have evolved. However, A clearly has not yet been naturally selected against and Ax is clearly not a new species yet, so the trait has evolved, but no speciating natural selection event has yet occurred. Then a big enviromental change may happen that kills off all local members of A and leaves Ax. At that point, I think we can both agree that evolution has taken place, and possibly speciation. The problem there is that speciation has only occurred if all members of A are either dead, or if the other members are now isolated from Ax again. If all members of A are dead, then Ax is a new species or is inevitably on its way to becoming one. If they're just isolated, then A and Ax might get back together and be one species again. It will probably take many more mutations before they're a completely separate species. Then there's the whole problem of where you draw the line. There are species like lions and tigers and donkeys and horses that are still close enough that interbreeding still works and the hybrids are sometimes even fertile. There are other species that are fully genetically compatible but that simply don't mate because they're natural enemies or because they're not physically compatible or because they consider members of the other species too wierd (completely alien mating dance, for example) or ugly to mate with.

Anyway, the more I think about this, the more I get overwhelmed by the possibilities. The whole thing is gigantic and chaotic. We understand the general process. We can look at the genetics of all kinds of things and get a pretty good idea of what went down, but we can't really be 100% sure about many of the specifics. We're probably both wrong and both right to a degree. I suppose we should just thank our lucky stars we're not creationists or Lamarckians or something like that.

Re:Don't live in places without water, stupid.

[hsthompson69]

I suppose we should just thank our lucky stars we're not creationists or Lamarckians or something like that.

Fun fact - Lamarck was actually right in certain circumstances (where in utero conditions, created by behavior of the mother, can affect the phenotype of the offspring - for example, women who consume lots of carbohydrates and have elevated blood sugar levels make their children more susceptible to insulin resistance, which leads to a generation who has even *worse* blood sugar levels during carbohydrate consumption, which will get even worse for *their* children in utero - you can see this effect in populations where the western carbohydrate heavy diet has been introduced, and each successive generation seems to be more obese and more diabetic at younger and younger ages).

I think I now understand your point of view - for you, mutation *is* evolution. For me, the origin of new species is evolution. And in regards to species, I find that the only real bright line we can use is "can these two organisms produce viable offspring" (and even that gets funky when viable offspring is only *occasional*), so for me, even vastly separated breeding populations, if they can actually produce viable offspring (even if "artificially" by some sort of intervention beyond normal mating patters), they're the same species. So if a mutation occurs that drops an organism out of the breeding pool (which, could theoretically occur twice in close succession, leading to a new breeding population), you could have de novo creation of a new species, but I'd argue that this kind of phenomenon is incredibly rare.

Put another way, I'd argue that a mutation is only evolution if it lets those organisms with that mutation out compete their peers - essentially creating a harsher environment for their peers that drives them out of the breeding pool. Random mutations that don't confer any survival advantage (however small) are just as likely to rewind as fast forward. Now, doesn't *have* to be about species, per se, you could simply imagine that there is a "micro evolution" with the competition of genetic sequences within a species, and while such genetic changes might not create an incompatible species, they will only propagate if they are not selected against in comparison to other alternate genetic sequences in the same location of the genome.

Anyway, thank you for the interesting conversation, and Happy new year!

"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

So basically the projections were wrong, but the culprit is the evil consumer who does not recycle his soup can, not the guy who made the projections in the first place.

Unless God himself gave the schedule for those glaciers to melt, the notion of having them melting "earlier than expected" is a joke.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically the projections were wrong, but the culprit is the evil consumer who does not recycle his soup can, not the guy who made the projections in the first place.

Unless God himself gave the schedule for those glaciers to melt, the notion of having them melting "earlier than expected" is a joke.

I don't find this to be a joke. This just emphasizes how little we know about how the earth's systems will react to global warming. My fear is we won't listen to scientists until it is too late and we have killed off the majority of the organisms that help us counter the CO2 we are pumping into the air or the other effects, e.g. ocean acidification.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ShieldW0lf]

I don't find this to be a joke. This just emphasizes how little we know about how the earth's systems will react to global warming. My fear is we won't listen to scientists until it is too late and we have killed off the majority of the organisms that help us counter the CO2 we are pumping into the air or the other effects, e.g. ocean acidification.

I'm reminded of the kid who won the Ontario science fair by figuring out how to biodegrade plastic bags. Everyone always told him that it would take thousands of years for bacteria to break down those bags, so he instantly saw that if they break down in thousands of years, something's doing it, and that something can be cultured.

The environment changes, the organisms change. The universe loves organisms, and she'll never stop springing them up in places you'd never think you'd find them.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The universe loves organisms, and she'll never stop springing them up in places you'd never think you'd find them.

I agree fully in this statement. I often watch documentaries and the most interesting to me are the ones on extremophiles, some living in acidic caves with no light. In the end, Earth will be alright because humans will be dead, it may take a million years to recover but it will balance itself.

What we humans don't understand is we are stuck on earth for the near future(probably the next 1k years at our current rate, maybe less if we reprioritize) and we depend on the other life forms to survive, even if not directly, we do depend on them.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Mistlefoot]

"Unless God himself gave the schedule for those glaciers to melt, the notion of having them melting "earlier than expected" is a joke."

God trumps science?

and +5?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Black Parrot]

So basically the projections were wrong, but the culprit is the evil consumer who does not recycle his soup can, not the guy who made the projections in the first place.

Unless God himself gave the schedule for those glaciers to melt, the notion of having them melting "earlier than expected" is a joke.

We have consistently discovered that the IPCC's reports on GW are too conservative. Everything is happening faster than the "alarmists" have been predicting.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[CAIMLAS]

The real question is this: are the estimated figures (which the scientists initially used to base their predictions) wrong due to accelerated climate change - things like mean and maximum temperatures? Or were the scientists wrong simply because they didn't understand the model well enough, or had a bad model on which they based their predictions?

Understanding why the estimation was off by decades might be important information to know, and all that. I am personally highly skeptical that an average temperature change in the region of a tenth of a degree or whatever it has been over the past decade could be responsible for this.

It's also possible that the size of the glaciers was initially wrong, too. Or maybe the rate or amount of melt was improperly estimated.

Is it possible this is just more reactionary knee-jerk fear-mongering bullshit due to a larger-than-normal rainfall in Peru this past year? That couldn't possibly be it, could it? I happen to know there are other places in the world which have had lower than average rainfalls this past year. (A more likely explanation may be that Peru has been stealing all of the clouds...)

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ralphdaugherty]

Unless God himself gave the schedule for those glaciers to melt, the notion of having them melting "earlier than expected" is a joke.

You can replace "earlier than expected" with "faster than previously projected" if that helps. Most people don't need the help to understand it.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read that as 'earlier than the politically correct prediction'.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ralphdaugherty]

Is it possible this is just more reactionary knee-jerk fear-mongering bullshit due to a larger-than-normal rainfall in Peru this past year?

One thing that wasn't normal this past year was a three foot snowfall on a high desert in Peru that hadn't had any significant precipitation in over 150 years.

Not saying it has anything to do with the glaciers melting faster. Just responding to your hypothetical about abnormal precipitation in Peru this past year.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

"Unless God himself gave the schedule for those glaciers to melt, the notion of having them melting "earlier than expected" is a joke."

God trumps science?

and +5?

Bigotry trumps metaphor?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

One thing that wasn't normal this past year was a three foot snowfall on a high desert in Peru that hadn't had any significant precipitation in over 150 years

How can you know what kind of weather occurred in Peru over the last 150 years? Did someone find Mayan engravings? Or there is this very old guy that can swear that this never happened since he was born? Or maybe it was a Union soldier that got lost and decided to start a weather journal?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

Unless God himself gave the schedule for those glaciers to melt, the notion of having them melting "earlier than expected" is a joke.

You can replace "earlier than expected" with "faster than previously projected" if that helps. Most people don't need the help to understand it.

The next time I make yearly projections about storage usage for a client and they get pissed because they run out of space in the middle of the year, I'll remember to spin this as a growth that is "faster than previously projected".

Unfortunately (for me), when I suck at making projections I lose contracts because my salary is not subsidized.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[BlueStrat]

My fear is we won't listen to scientists until it is too late and we have killed off the majority of the organisms that help us counter the CO2 we are pumping into the air or the other effects, e.g. ocean acidification.

You mean listen to the scientists that were wrong in their predictions regarding this glacier melt in the first place?

Yeah, that sounds like it'll turn out well.

This just emphasizes how little we know about how the earth's systems will react to global warming.

If we, by your own admission, know so little about the Earth's climate system, why in $DEITY's name would anyone think it's a good idea to engage in attempting to modify the behavior of a system we don't understand and can't predict, particularly when such proposed attempts come at great cost, suffering, and death to huge numbers of people?

Strat

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[riverat1]

Scientists, when they made those projections, were being conservative, just including the factors they were sure of and discounting factors that were not well characterized yet. How much ridicule would you be heaping on them if they had overstated their projections?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ralphdaugherty]

Unfortunately (for me), when I suck at making projections I lose contracts because my salary is not subsidized.

The data is changing. Carbon is increasing faster. The projections were more accurate when they were made given the info at the time.

And if they overproject, people like you say even nastier things than above.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean listen to the scientists that were wrong in their predictions regarding this glacier melt in the first place?

Wrong in that they *underestimated* how bad the problem is. And for you, this is reason to further ignore them? Now just to prove to us that you can't even maintain internal logical coherence across 2 simple sentences, we have:

If we, by your own admission, know so little about the Earth's climate system, why in $DEITY's name would anyone think it's a good idea to engage in attempting to modify the behavior of a system we don't understand and can't predict

Exactly the point: we need to stop fucking with it.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good news. You managed to show absolute ignorance in only 4 important areas (that's 1 per sentence) with that brilliant comment. Those being: meteorology, geography, South American history, and USA history. You might benefit from knowing that the Incas were the native people of Peru (the Mayans being more central America), and that reasonably accurate records of rainfall exist wherever farming is important, and that "Union soldiers" were combatants in the American Civil War several thousand miles away - although, probably by pure chance, the timing would be roughly right in this context.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[BlueStrat]

Wrong in that they *underestimated* how bad the problem is. And for you, this is reason to further ignore them?

Yes. Yes, it is. What's to say that any so-called "solution" they propose is any more accurate? What if they overestimate the "cure" and toss the planet straight into an "ice-world" climate?

Exactly the point: we need to stop fucking with it.

Well, since the only way to accomplish that is to slaughter most of humanity and have the survivors return to hunter-gatherer existence or just have humans perform a self-extinction, that's not an acceptable option.

Although I'm sure most here would be fine with you volunteering to go first.

Strat

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm. the projections were not 'wrong' (first of all, these projections are estimates, based on a set of factors that may be constantly in flux and are influenced by our action and inaction all the time). so yeah, the projections were based on factors that changed so wildly in such a short time, that they now must change.

and don't try to dramatize the issue by vilifying an abstract 'evil consumer'. we are all just consumers, the only way to remain as such, would be to carry on our consumption in a sustainable manner.

what are you, 7?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if they overproject, people like you say even nastier things than above.

Oh heavens no. People might say nasty things! Anything but that... why, it's so terrible, avoiding it needs to be our primary objective and we should modify our behavior accordingly. Fuck what you honestly believe is true given the data you have and the understanding you have achieved ... that is not as important as appeasement!

Is your name "daugherty" because it's your name or because you're a girlie-man?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

You might want to look at this Wikipedia article. It's a timeline of meteorology. Apparently you have some severe misunderstandings about how long human beings have been taking note of the weather.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Uberbah]

Well, since the only way to accomplish that is to slaughter most of humanity and have the survivors return to hunter-gatherer existence or just have humans perform a self-extinction, that's not an acceptable option.

Or, you know, stop over consumption and make do with a perfectly reasonable lifestyle based on energy saving technologies that have been around for decades.

The problem isn't humanity, the problem is shortsighted, selfish little shits like yourself that were ready to crucify Carter for suggesting you put on a sweater during the winter.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[artor3]

Your life expectancy is probably around 80 years. If you get shot tomorrow, it's not the statisticians who are to blame.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[catchblue22]

The environment changes, the organisms change. The universe loves organisms, and she'll never stop springing them up in places you'd never think you'd find them.

More realistic version: The environment changes, the organisms die, or at least the ones unsuitable for the new environment die. Evolution is a process of death, either death as an early termination of an organism, or death as a failure to pass on genes. If you step back and look at the grand process of life, it has a beauty to it. The great Permian Triassic extinction brought the rise of the dinosaurs, and the extinction of the dinosaurs allowed a whole new set of species to appear, including our own.

But when you bring it down to your own life, a moral person cannot possibly take pleasure in the thought of the extinction of his children, of his grandchildren, let alone the extinction of his entire species. And that is really at the heart of the issue of global warming. The geological record gives good evidence that (a) the climate can get a great deal warmer than it is today and (b) that those periods of warming are associated with large scale extinctions. There is strong evidence that a warming world will have a profoundly different distribution of precipitation. Given that our current agricultural systems are dependent on our current precipitation patterns, it seems likely that changing precipitation patterns will result in a reduction in agricultural production. If there is less food in the world, then famine is likely to result. The systems we have developed where most of us can live in cities while others far away grow our food will be put under stress. A survey of history will clearly show what happens then. The disinterested intellectual systems of reason decay. Fear grows with material shortages, and with it grows superstition. Humans start to lose track of objective reality, they start to make decisions based on illusion and superstition. As they lose track of reality, humans become increasingly unable to implement the necessary changes to survive in a changing world.

If you want to get an idea of what I am talking about, read about the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages, especially in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Read about the major mass extinctions, and then ponder the question whether humans would have been able to rise above the environmental pressures that destroyed more than 90% of species in the time of the dinosaurs. And even if we weren't to go extinct, consider what it would look like of 90% of us were to die. Not just 90% of those in some far away desert, but 90% of the people in your own country. Consider what such a world would look like. It won't happen tomorrow. It won't happen next year, nor even in a decade. If you live another 30 years, you will see enough to see the shape of things to come. But you will still be able to consume comfortably for some time to come. It is your children who will have to deal with the consequences of your selfish consumption.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[BlueStrat]

Or, you know, stop over consumption and make do with a perfectly reasonable lifestyle based on energy saving technologies that have been around for decades.

So, Mr. Climate & Global Economy Expert, exactly what is "reasonable" and how do you plan to force China, India, and other countries to adhere to the restrictions on their development that would be necessary for any meaningful results? How do you determine how much is enough and what is too much? Please tell us because, so far, nobody has any clear and provable answers.

The problem isn't humanity, the problem is shortsighted, selfish little shits like yourself that were ready to crucify Carter for suggesting you put on a sweater during the winter.

OK, the Carter comment let's us all know you're a True Believer, and like cultists and other religious zealots, you're immune to logic and facts. Maybe you can see if Carter would be willing to ask his alien friends on the UFO he claimed to see for a solution.

Strat

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[catchblue22]

How can you know what kind of weather occurred in Peru over the last 150 years? Did someone find Mayan engravings? Or there is this very old guy that can swear that this never happened since he was born? Or maybe it was a Union soldier that got lost and decided to start a weather journal?

Ok, I have some homework for you. Go home and read your textbook on Sedimentology, focussing specifically on lake sediments caused by runoff. Read about how the flows of rivers can be read by drilling sediment cores out of lake beds. Then find your textbook on Glaciology, and read about how cores of ice drilled from long term ice deposits can be used to track snowfall. While you are at it, you can read about how rainfall events leave specific signatures in sand and dirt, including rivulets and specific patterns in the distribution of different sizes of sedimentary particles. I suspect snowfall events could also be inferred with similar observations.

You would be amazed at what geologists and geographers can find out simply by using observation and logic.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible this is just more reactionary knee-jerk fear-mongering bullshit due to a larger-than-normal rainfall in Peru this past year? That couldn't possibly be it, could it?

No. You're talking about a local weather event. We're talking about the climate, which is a global system.

They sell things called books. You can even get them online. You can probably get them online for free. Some of them have information about climate. You might want to read one instead of watching whatever idiot was on the "News" channel you worship.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

How can you know what kind of weather occurred in Peru over the last 150 years? Did someone find Mayan engravings? Or there is this very old guy that can swear that this never happened since he was born? Or maybe it was a Union soldier that got lost and decided to start a weather journal?

Ok, I have some homework for you. Go home and read your textbook on Sedimentology, focussing specifically on lake sediments caused by runoff. Read about how the flows of rivers can be read by drilling sediment cores out of lake beds. Then find your textbook on Glaciology, and read about how cores of ice drilled from long term ice deposits can be used to track snowfall. While you are at it, you can read about how rainfall events leave specific signatures in sand and dirt, including rivulets and specific patterns in the distribution of different sizes of sedimentary particles. I suspect snowfall events could also be inferred with similar observations.

You would be amazed at what geologists and geographers can find out simply by using observation and logic.

If you actually have evidence that someone did all that complex soil and sediment analysis in a specific field in Peru, please provide a link, as I will definitely include that in my museum of the least optimally spent money. What about other regions in Peru? Or Bolivia? Or Thailand? Unless the scientists have a very impressive algorithm allowing them to pinpoint locations where something never happened so they can raise flags if that thing actually happens.

Nah, your post sounds like the biggest dump of techno-babble I witnessed since many years ago when I read an article about the capabilities of the data-mining software available at the NSA, that allegedly could allow them to predict the next terrorist attack by running a neural network analysis on the log files from download.com (or something).

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

Scientists, when they made those projections, were being conservative, just including the factors they were sure of and discounting factors that were not well characterized yet. How much ridicule would you be heaping on them if they had overstated their projections?

Scenario 1:
2001 - scientist says that glaciers will melt in 100 years
2011 - scientist says that glaciers will melt much faster than 100 years

Scenario 2:
2001 - scientist says that glaciers will melt in 10 years
2011 - scientist says that glaciers will melt much slower than 10 years

In both scenarios, the problem is the projection, not the events that happened in that 10-year span.

Why being so dramatic? It is a very sad state of affairs that it is now politically incorrect to mention that an alarmist statement is nothing else but an alarmist statement.

And as usual the Chuch of Global Warming is very active on Slashdot and keeps modding down comments that are not fanatically pro-IPCC.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Solandri]

If you're estimating how many years of fresh water you have left, that's an engineering question. "Being conservative" means erring on the short end, rather than the long end. Factors which are not well characterized yet are assumed to be worst case, not discounted. Basically, you're trying to answer "What's the worst that could happen, so I can plan ahead for it?"

OTOH, if you're estimating the melt rate for glaciers for a study on climate change, then that's a science question. "Being conservative" means erring on the long end (i.e. no change). Basically, you're trying to answer "Is something happening?" If that's what happened then it begs the question - who took a study on climate change, and decided to use it to estimate remaining fresh water supply?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

> You managed to show absolute ignorance in only 4 important areas

You win, since you only show ignorance about one thing: sarcasm.

> and that "Union soldiers" were combatants in the American Civil War several thousand miles away

See above comment.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

You might want to look at this Wikipedia article. It's a timeline of meteorology. Apparently you have some severe misunderstandings about how long human beings have been taking note of the weather.

There is a huge gap between theory and practice. Just like CSI - yes, criminals can be put in jail because of DNA evidence, as long as the crime lab has unlimited funding and an army of field techs that can spend countless hours processing every inch of every area possibly linked to a crime.

Now if you tell me that someone actually created a reliable log (or even just a log) of weather reports for 150 years in a specific area in Peru, then it's wonderful news, but it will take more than a generic Wikipedia link to prove that. Can you even tell me what "high desert" area we are talking about?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

Your life expectancy is probably around 80 years. If you get shot tomorrow, it's not the statisticians who are to blame.

If everybody is dying before 80 years, would you then say that there is a problem with the life expectancy projection, or that it is abnormal that people die so young?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[zmooc]

What projections?

All we have is the IPCC claiming "if these things, about which we are certain enough, happen, the climate will change about this fast." However, this does not include the vast amount of things they were not certain enough about to take into account in their official reports. IPCC gives us the lower bound based on things everybody agrees about. We should expect the climate to change much faster than this very safe lower bound and that's exactly what is happening with this glacier, with the arctic ice cover and with methane leaking out of permafrost.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

You are right and the IPCC is right. Also, we were never at war with Eurasia.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[hxnwix]

Good Lord, could you possibly be a dumber piece of shit?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[chrb]

I am personally highly skeptical that an average temperature change in the region of a tenth of a degree or whatever it has been over the past decade could be responsible for this.

You assume the local change is the same as the global mean change. In fact, due to the way a mean value is calculated, change in the global mean temperature can be caused by localised small or large increases and decreases. Also, check out the global mean deviation from ice age to temperate Earth and associated climatic events... you may be surprised by how change of the mean temperature by only a few degrees has historically caused a collapse in global fish stocks.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[catchblue22]

I give an outline of a scientific argument. You give sneering insults. It is only technobabble to someone with no background in geology. My outline of topics is basic sedimentology. Smaller sedimentary particles take longer to settle than larger particles. Faster water picks up more and larger particles than slower water. Seasonal patterns in sediment deposition give delineation of years. In this way, past precipitation patterns may be inferred. As to rivulets, you should read about how we infer the past existence of liquid water on Mars. Your agressive and content free reply betrays the insecurity of ignorance.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

who cares they aint merkins anyway , global warming is a scamand Jeebuz willbe here before it effects God fearing Amerkins.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or do what my wife and I do - don't have kids. I've always said that there is no problem facing humankind that wouldn't be solved if we all just agreed not to have kids for a hundred years or so.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Tom]

The environment changes, the organisms change. The universe loves organisms, and she'll never stop springing them up in places you'd never think you'd find them.

I don't think anyone is seriously afraid for life on earth as a whole. But the changing environment may well be very, very unfriendly to some current species. Such as Homo Sapiens. And that is worth worrying about.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Jedi Alec]

Unfortunately (for me), when I suck at making projections I lose contracts because my salary is not subsidized.

Doesn't really matter, does it? The client is still well and truly fucked and needs to take action promptly.

As AGW metaphors go it really isn't all that bad...

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[mynicknamewasused]

"Everything is happening faster than the "alarmists" have been predicting." hmmm.. how about no. /quick google search/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/predictions-of-global-mean-temperatures-ipcc-projections/ http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think4/post/how_to_talk_to_a_skeptic_hansens_prediction http://braincramps.net/?p=1292 http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/20014-how-has-the-ipcc-done/

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[BlueStrat]

Good Lord, could you possibly be a dumber piece of shit?

Oh, gosh! Now I'm convinced!

You're superior powers of debate and your masterful and fact-filled argument have totally destroyed the points I raised.

And yet, I'm the one modded "Troll" and "Flamebait" after presenting an on-topic and sincere opinion held by a large sector of the population, if not the majority.

I'm just wondering if the mods in question are paid or stupid, fanatical, and venal enough to abuse moderation for free.

Strat

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[copponex]

If you actually have evidence that someone did all that complex soil and sediment analysis in a specific field in Peru, please provide a link, as I will definitely include that in my museum of the least optimally spent money

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the dumbest motherfucker alive who is somehow capable of using a computer.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ralphdaugherty]

How can you know what kind of weather occurred in Peru over the last 150 years?

The fact that this Peruvian desert had no precipitation left it as one of the few places on earth with sodium nitrate prior to WWI. Europeans imported it for fertilizer and explosives. Germany had to devise a way to synthesize nitrate for their war efforts.

So yes, many people historically were aware of the lack of precipitation in that Peruvian desert and what the recorded precipitation was by the locals due to it being an extremely rare event.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Studies are done world-wide of lake sedimentology and glacier ice chronology to better understand climatic and human activities over periods where historical records either don't exist or are limited. Have they been done in Peru? Yes. For example, this one deals with human activities over ~1400 years, and this one deals with sediment cores from Lake Titicaca and wet/dry climate cycles. This paper is a good example of how multiple studies from several sites can be combined together to better understand the history of climate change across a larger region (South America and the Carribbean). Lakes in arid areas are particularly interesting because they are so sensitive to changes in climate, so they get studied a lot.

There are additional citations in those papers, and if you search for "Lake Titicaca" "sediment core" and "climate", you'll find plenty of studies in the Peru/Bolivia area, but because most of what you've done is sneer at the idea that anyone could figure out anything about past climates, I doubt you'll really care. However, if other people want to investigate the topic there is plenty available. It is inevitably technical, but the basic principles are not hard to grasp with a bit of effort.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Troed]

We have consistently discovered that the IPCC's reports on GW are too conservative. Everything is happening faster than the "alarmists" have been predicting.

FYI:

In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios.

None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.

- Kevin Trenberth, IPCC lead author 2001 and 2007

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/06/predictions_of_climate.html

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoy your comments. Do you have a newsletter I can sign up for?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read what he said ?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[drobety]

What the heck "culprit" as to do with this? It's just science: the more we research, investigate, and the better we measure, the better our understanding of how things work and the more accurate our predictions. "Earlier than thought" in the present case is important, it means that infrastructures to deal with reduced source of water during the dry season will have to be put in place sooner than later.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[BlueStrat]

Can you even tell me what "high desert" area we are talking about?

How dare you! Of course he can't! And it's unfair that you even ask! Didn't you get the memo? Criticism or questioning regarding AGW claims in any manner or form is verboten! Just look at the moderation of my posts in this discussion for proof.

Heretic! Denier! :D

Strat

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Xyrus]

Understanding why the estimation was off by decades might be important information to know, and all that. I am personally highly skeptical that an average temperature change in the region of a tenth of a degree or whatever it has been over the past decade could be responsible for this.

First, the average global temperatures have risen about .75C, not a tenth of a degree. Second, there are some regions that warm much more than others the Arctic regions have seen deviations of more than 5C in some places). Temperature changes affect weather patterns, which in turn affect precipitation amounts. Less than average precipitation plus warmer than normal temperatures plus particulate matter (black carbon and such) will result in rapid shrinking of glaciers.

If you would RTFA you'd know that they are talking about a multi-decadal problem. These glaciers have been retreating for decades, and it seems they're accelerating.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[locallyunscene]

What a troll. This has nothing to do with the IPCC, and the scientists in this case were being the opposite of alarmist.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Xyrus]

In both scenarios, the problem is the projection, not the events that happened in that 10-year span.

This is why we can't have nice things. The problem isn't the projection. Only a complete idiot would make such a statement. THE GLACIERS ARE STILL MELTING. It doesn't matter if it happens in 100 years or in 30 years. It will still have a substantial impact on the area. It's just that now, they have even less time to prepare for it. It takes a climate change to significantly impact a glacier that's been around for thousands of years (and will now vanish in a geological blink of an eye).

The original estimates were conservative because they didn't have everything worked out. Now they've completed additional research identifying other factors and improved the science. The improved science now points to a more rapid melting than the original results indicated. That's how science works.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[drobety]

It sure is not a joke. Unfortunately, it is a problem which is more serious, and potentially extremely more serious than we collectively realize. New York Times, Dec. 16:

Edward A. G. Schuur, a University of Florida researcher who has done extensive field work in Alaska, is worried by the changes he already sees, including the discovery that carbon buried since before the dawn of civilization is now escaping. “To me, it’s a spine-tingling feeling, if it’s really old carbon that hasn’t been in the air for a long time, and now it’s entering the air,” Dr. Schuur said. “That’s the fingerprint of a major disruption, and we aren’t going to be able to turn it off someday.”

I suspect the "spine-tingling" part might have to do with the Permian-Triassic extinction (90%+ of all species wiped): A rise of a few degrees in temperature led to massive release of methane which brought a total 6-degree rise, which led to total mayhem for life on Earth, and which best current explanation is:

The cause of the burp was probably global warming triggered by huge releases of CO2 from the Siberian Traps. Methane is a greenhouse gas too, so a big burp raises global temperatures even further. Normally, long-term global processes act to bring greenhouse gas levels down. This kind of negative feedback keeps the Earth in equilibrium. But what happens if the release of methane is so huge and fast that normal feedback processes are overwhelmed? Then you have a "runaway greenhouse". This is a positive feedback system: excess carbon in the atmosphere causes warming, the warming triggers the release of more methane from gas hydrates, this in turn causes yet more warming, which leads to the release of more methane and so on. As temperatures rise, species start to go extinct. Plants and plankton die off and oxygen levels plummet. This is what seems to have happened 251 million years ago.

That sure seems an extreme scenario, easy to swipe aside because of its extreme nature. Problem is, we can't, in all intellectual honesty, really dispel it. Replacing the "Siberian Traps" with the "burning of fossil fuels" means we are currently on a path toward a future in which that scenario has a higher likelihood, whatever it is. Unfortunately, the laws of nature don't care about the personal worldview and state of mind of each of us, and no amount of sarcasm has ever been able to counteract the natural laws, the (relatively short in geological time) human historical record is clear on that.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[locallyunscene]

You sound hopelessly confused. First you needlessly dispute the meaning of conservative by providing two definitions and then apply them differently to the same scenario. Then you throw in a non-sequitur reductio ad absurdum claiming "climate science" has no place estimating fresh water supply. The only way this argument is remotely coherent is if you assume that "engineering" is unrelated to science. However, that is completely ridiculous as engineering is applied science.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be under the assumption that we had very much to do with it. It's certainly possible but we also know (as you stated) that there have been many warming periods in the past, even before humans.

I mean yeah, most likely we're affecting the process but it's something that would have happened anyway.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what you are basically saying is that either no research was done and that there is no data or that there was research done and it even though it means the data does exist you are focusing on the money spent. Obviously, wasting money is immoral, but wasting natural resources is not.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

I give an outline of a scientific argument. You give sneering insults. It is only technobabble to someone with no background in geology. My outline of topics is basic sedimentology. Smaller sedimentary particles take longer to settle than larger particles. Faster water picks up more and larger particles than slower water. Seasonal patterns in sediment deposition give delineation of years. In this way, past precipitation patterns may be inferred. As to rivulets, you should read about how we infer the past existence of liquid water on Mars. Your agressive and content free reply betrays the insecurity of ignorance.

You still haven't provided evidence that what you describe has been performed in that area of Peru. You only rehash your "expert opinion" about what could be possible, and you feel insulted that people don't take your word on it.

Also I would like to point out that in a same post you first complain about me insulting you, then you say that I am insecure and ignorant. I'd love to say something about a kettle and a pot here, but maybe it would be interpreted as another "sneering insult".

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

If you actually have evidence that someone did all that complex soil and sediment analysis in a specific field in Peru, please provide a link, as I will definitely include that in my museum of the least optimally spent money

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the dumbest motherfucker alive who is somehow capable of using a computer.

Don't worry, the day you move out of your parent's basement and you start to work and pay taxes you will understand.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Global warming pshaw. If republicans say there is none then there is none. Man making warming, that's gods work.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Maxo-Texas]

Over population is the root problem that is ignored/shouted down.

There is no need to have no children (as one of your anonymous reponders replies). Just have 1 child for one generation and then return to 2.1 children and population of the earth drops below 4 billion in about 40 years.

The oceans replenish, land recovers.

The economy absolutely crashes but products are plentiful.

---

With overpopulation we destroy the fisheries (already happening), increase the chances of a pandemic, have increasingly fragile complex food and energy delivery systems ( if we have a world war that interrupts shipping now, billions would die).

The environment is increasingly polluted, the water supply is exhausted to the point that the oceans become more saline, all assets are exhausted faster.

---

The specific cause can't be known- but something real bad happens within 50 years. I hope I'm dead by then.

And the kicker is - there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop it at this point.
It's like we are locked in a train headed towards a canyon where the bridge is out. Everything seems fine for now.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

In both scenarios, the problem is the projection, not the events that happened in that 10-year span.

The problem isn't the projection. Only a complete idiot would make such a statement. THE GLACIERS ARE STILL MELTING.

A word of caution about calling other people idiots or typing stuff in all uppercase: venting and being insulting are secondary emotional payoffs that are not worth it because they can make one look insecure and prevent other people from taking the content seriously.

This being said, please note that there is no dispute about the fact that the glaciers are melting. If you read the title of my post (or yours) you'll see that it is about the projections. I understand your point that they don't matter and I thank your for your positive contribution to the discussion.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[budgenator]

Why does everybody assume that every time a glacier recedes it's due to global warming caused by human activities, neither the article or the referenced paper mention a possible cause for the recession but everybody assumes it's due to warming even after last year where

"3 Aug 10 – “Over 1 million fish (now updated to 6 million) and thousands of alligators, turtles, dolphins and other river wildlife are floating dead in numerous Bolivian rivers in the three eastern/southern departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija."

"For a second day running it snowed Wednesday in Southern Brazil and in twelve of Argentina’s 24 provinces including parts of Buenos Aires as a consequence of the polar front covering most of the continent’s southern cone with zero and below zero temperatures." Snow in Brazil!
That's pretty much what you would expect during a La Niña, and this year is shaping up that way too.

Here's a clue, it takes a lot of energy to melt ice and air just doesn't have the specific heat capacity to do much of it, Rain has a lot of specific heat, insolation is also a good candidate, as is wind, but the most likely candidate is almost always a the good old wintertime drought where it's just not snowing enough to replace normal summer melt. Let's wait for some credible research before we get all "Chicken Little" with it.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

How can you know what kind of weather occurred in Peru over the last 150 years?

The fact that this Peruvian desert had no precipitation left it as one of the few places on earth with sodium nitrate prior to WWI. Europeans imported it for fertilizer and explosives. Germany had to devise a way to synthesize nitrate for their war efforts.

So yes, many people historically were aware of the lack of precipitation in that Peruvian desert and what the recorded precipitation was by the locals due to it being an extremely rare event.

You may not get mod points because this whole thread has gone in all kinds of directions but this is actually interesting information.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ShieldW0lf]

Truthfully, I find it hard to imagine that more warmth, more water and more carbon dioxide are a recipe for disaster in terms of the habitability of the planet. What's being described is a greenhouse. More plants, more jungles, more life, more food.

Better for life.

Humans will have to move. If you're one of those people who has everything you value tied up in your house which is underwater, you'll be unhappy, and considering how we love to live on the coasts, that will be a lot of people.

But in the end, it will be BETTER for life.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ralphdaugherty]

Thanks. Who knew I would learn stuff like that from an interest in climate change.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dendroclimatology - tree rings - would be a more logical starting place.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[budgenator]

Heretic, Blasphemer, supplicate before the Altar of Gaea, say 25 Hail Gores and send a tithe to the Brotherhood of Mann.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[samwichse]

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?client=opera&rls=en&q=sedimentology+peru&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=N&tab=ws

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[catchblue22]

lol. If you want a series of videos that combines tongue in cheek humor with strong arguments backed up with references to real science, check out this guy's youtube channel. His videos are very well produced, enjoyable, and enlightening.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[mcgrew]

So basically the projections were wrong, but the culprit is the evil consumer who does not recycle his soup can

If you'd said "beer can" you would have a point, as it takes five or ten times as much electricity to produce aluminum from ore as it does to recycle. Soup cans are mostly made of steel, and throwing them away does nothing to harm the environment. To nature, and old unrecycled soup can is just another rock, but an old unrecycled aluminum can causes global warming to worsen.

And by "earlier than expected" they mean earlier than science projected them to.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[CAIMLAS]

I'm not talking about a local weather event any more than the OP is - TFA is about melting glaciers in/around Peru, ffs. That's local. Yes, it's part of a global system. However, unlike your supposition that it should therefore be a uniform event on account of it's global nature, universal systems have local effects. It's cold in San Francisco during the summer, whereas it's rarely cool on the opposite US coast at the same time. The Midwestern US is almost always colder than Alaska during the winter.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

Opera... seriously?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[mcgrew]

The universe loves organisms

Very likely, but unproven. The Earth loves organisms, Mars not so much. If and when we find life elsewhere in the solar system you can say the solar system loves organisms and the galaxy probably does. If (big if considering the speed of light and distances between star systems) we find life in other solar systems, we can say the galaxy loves organisms. It will be a LONG time before we can say with certainty that the entire universe loves organisms.

It's far more likely we'll find extraterrestrial organisms than not, but to say "the universe loves organisms" is a bit premature.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[budgenator]

I'll be honest I just looked at the graphs from Mauna Loa and the data itself and to my eye it's been pretty flat since early 2009, do you have a reference for you claim? I always understood that the cap and traders were blaming the flat CO2 levels on everybody's economies being in the crapper.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ralphdaugherty]

Yeah, it was in news last month. I just googled carbon levels 2011 and the info came up in Durango Herald for Nov 21, 2011. (Sorry typing post into phone.) UN agency WMO found levels now rising at 2.3 per year. Had been around 2 per year for last few years, so actually accellerating despite major economic downturn.

Just as an aside, I think only thing that will slow down carbon burning will be exploding prices when a huge Saudi oilfield peters out in a few years (symbolic event) but have no illusions that the damage will have already been done to go over 450 by then (in the 2030's). And of course our unusual catastophic events will continually worsen in the meantime.

Someone wrote that this is all a good thing, like a rainforest everywhere. Between seas several feet higher and saturated with carbon, it's not going to be like today but warmer.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

Yes, I can tell you what high desert area we're talking about. It's the Atacama desert. It's actually mostly in Chile, but it does touch the border of Peru. It's known as one of the driest places on Earth (_the_ driest according to many) and the snowfall made international headlines as a notable freak event. People have lived in the region for millenia, including people of European descent for centuries. Amazingly enough, people keep records. Some people keep records on a daily basis and save those records. We call those journals or diaries. Any precipitation at all in the area is an extremely unusual event that gets recorded by witnesses. Your sarcastic disbelief that records could even exist about rainfall in this region comes off, to anyone who thinks about it for even a moment, as ridiculous and ignorant.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

Er, yes I can. It's the Atacama desert. It made headlines worldwide for being so unusual. Taken by itself it's just a freak event. Your disbelief that it even happened is a little silly.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

To be fair, there are no glaciers in the Atacama desert region. You need precipitation to have glaciers... oops, we're back round to evidence of no precipitation again.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Solandri]

I'm not confused at all. Engineering and science have different goals. Science seeks to discover facts. Engineeering seeks to design systems which work, even in the face of uncertainty about facts.

I did not claim that climate science had no place in estimating fresh water supply. I merely pointed out that if you choose to do so, you must change your assumptions to reflect your change in goal: Discovery of physical phenomena, vs. construction of a system which will operate under the influence of those physical phenomena.

My studies as an undergraduate concentrated on construction of earthquake-resistant structures. Seismologists at the time were reasonably certain that the maximum vertical acceleration possible in an earthquake was typically (far) less about 0.6g and never more than 1g. There had never been an earthquake in recorded history which exceeded 1g peak vertical acceleration. Engineers designed structures with those figures as maximums. Then the Northridge earthquake hit and several seismograph measured a peak vertical accelerations in excess of 1g (the greatest being something like 1.6g). The I-5 freeway overpass which collapsed near downtown L.A. is thought to have failed because the vertical acceleration exceeded its design maximum.

While it feels comfy and safe to take refuge in historical statistical evidence, as engineers we should have realized that if an earthquake can produce horizontal accelerations in excess of 1g, then it's not that farfetched to think that some freak underground geologic structure could somehow reflect those movements in the vertical direction. Engineers accepted the "conservative" estimates of seismologists without question, and forgot that our "conservative" estimates frequently err in the opposite direction. Science strives for accuracy. Engineering strives for handling the worst case.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It could also be a localized indication of a geothermal event which has nothing to do with overall global warming. It's not like Peru is somehow isolated from regions with active volcanism. (Quite the contrary.) If the Earth below a glacier starts warming up over a span of years, what else would you expect to happen?

Such an event might be more scientifically interesting to geologists rather than climatologists. However this requires more research and data.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

Okay, please try to understand this. People _live_ there. There are important mining interests there. It's a desert. Knowing about rainfall in the area is important for a number of reasons. For example, if there's a heavy wet season every ten years ago in an otherwise dry area, you get mudslides. You hear about that sort of thing in the news all the time where unexpected heavy rains have just killed hundreds or thousands of people in a typically dry region. Your childish dismissal of an entire, important, field of study as an example of "the least optimally spent money" is pathetic. The people who study these things and tell people "don't build your homes there or you'll be killed by mudslide/flood/earthquake/fire/etc. within 20 years" are doing a very important job, not wasting money, and saving people's lives. They're also too frequently not listened too.

You're clearly a judgemental guy. I'm sure you've watched flood victims on TV frequently and sneered at what morons they are and told anyone who would listen that they deserved it for living in a flood plain in the first place. Given that, do you think that research into what the 100-year flood level is (and into how that level will change due to all the human construction with it's well-engineered drainage systems) is wasted?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

Not sure if there even are any trees in the Atacama desert, except maybe in Oases, which are atypical of the region by definition.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[haruchai]

In some areas, deforestation of the lower slopes can lead to a shrinking of upper ice - a likely cause of the reduction of the glaciers on Kilimanjaro

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

Your sarcastic disbelief that records could even exist about rainfall in this region comes off, to anyone who thinks about it for even a moment, as ridiculous and ignorant.

Maybe you missed that day in class when they discussed Theory Vs. Practice, but just saying that "people keep records" does not count as proof, especially in a matter such as having detailed weather records in Peru for the last 150 years. So no, I still don't believe such records exist, but I guess it is easier for you to call me ignorant than to bring up actual proof of what you are saying.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[haruchai]

Greenman3610 (Peter Sinclair) is pretty awesome and Potholer54 (Peter Hadfield), a science journalist of long experience, is amazing as well.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

Your childish dismissal of an entire, important, field of study as an example of "the least optimally spent money" is pathetic.

If you take a minute and read my actual post, the dispute was over the fact that if extensive soil analysis would have been performed in that specific area, it would have been very expensive. I don't know how you jump to a conclusion that I am dismissing an "entire field of study".

Given that, do you think that research into what the 100-year flood level is (and into how that level will change due to all the human construction with it's well-engineered drainage systems) is wasted?

No. You are now lost in the overblown interpretation of one statement I made and you keep piling up arguments about something I never disputed. It's a little like talking to yourself, but with the added benefit of having me to blame for the rambling part of the dialog.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[haruchai]

You seem to think that Slashdot should be a clone of WUWT. Sorry, it's not and it shouldn't be. And modding down is a way of filtering out the useless noise; it's not perfect but it works.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[catchblue22]

To be fair, there are no glaciers in the Atacama desert region. You need precipitation to have glaciers... oops, we're back round to evidence of no precipitation again.

Fair enough, though in scanning satellite photos, I notice some mountain peaks that do have some ice, though likely not much. Most especially, Nevado Coropuna, a very high altitude volcano (~6000m) seems to have glaciers. Those are likely due to precipitation caused by air being forced upwards by the mountain. I suspect (though I do not know) that the ice on this mountain would be somewhat old (centuries perhaps in places?), though there would be a limit because of (a) volcanic activity and (b) the slope of the mountain would cause the ice to flow to lower elevations. I suspect that ice cores of the ice on this mountain would indicate precipitation rates for the surrounding areas. Imagine the mountain received precipitation and the surrounding areas didn't for many years. Then an event occurred such that the surrounding areas actually did receive precipitation. I suspect that such an event would result in even more snow on the mountain than other years, which could be read in ice cores.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[catchblue22]

Addendum: Here are some other peaks with ice closer to the desert: Cerro Aucanquilcha, Callejón Cañapa, Cerro Palpana, San Pedro, and several more.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this a problem? The central issue is that the planet has too high a human population, and that high population is too dense in some areas. So it occurs to me that it's a self-correcting system. Life persisted 251 million years ago.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like you got all the evidence you need that knowledge of historical rainfall patterns in the geographical area in question has in fact been attained, correlated, and checked. And in response, you left with shrivelled up balls and admitted neither error nor correction.

I will definitely include that in my museum of the least optimally spent money

So which is it, you expect answers to your questions, but when you find they exist, this is what you think of them? You can't have it both ways. You pretend the science isn't there, then when it is, you deny it wholesale. Guess which party here is the vapid reality-denying fucktard? (Hint: You)

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

Good grief. By your standards, clearly nothing would ever count as proof. What does this even have to do with theory vs. practice anyway? You're just being obstinate for no good reason. It's a desert. It was famous as one of the driest places in the world before this freak snowfall happened and before you turned your sceptical eye on it. The records I talked about were normal records for people living in the region to keep. Yet, you don't believe that such records exist. So, do you not believe that anyone lived there? Or do you believe that they were bizarre people who took no note whatsoever of unusual precipitation? Do you believe that the region is so backwards that they've never situated weather stations in this desert?

The simple fact is that there was recently a large snowfall in a normally very, very dry place. I never claimed that it signified anything important, but you've made bizarre claims that it's somehow unlikely or even impossible that we'd have any sort of records or evidence of what precipitation has been like in this region. As it happens, I don't have the evidence you demand right in front of me. I'd probably have to get in touch with some Chilean meteorologists, geologists and historians. Why would I go to all that trouble? There was snowfall this year that was extraordinarily strange for the region and no-one with extensive knowledge of the region seems to be disputing that. Do you have some sort of problem with that statement?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

Oh, I completely agree with you that there's tons of evidence of miniscule precipitation in the region and that it can be seen in all kinds of places, including mountain ice. I may have overstated things saying that there's no glaciers, but glaciation in the area is known to be very sparse precisely because it gets so little precipitation. This area is extremely dry and is known from many sources to have been very dry for a very long time. Only an idiot would come blustering along ridiculing the idea that it's a dry region in which heavy snowfall is an amazing event and demanding proof from everyone discussing it. And yet...

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[riverat1]

Now that's an informative comment.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

If you'd taken a minute and read my actual post, you'd have noticed that I mentioned that there are important mining interests there. Hence extensive soil analysis. Engineers, including mining engineers, find it very important to know what kind of rainfall and flooding to expect as well as how the rock and soil will react to such conditions. Not to mention that such considerations are important for the location and construction of towns, roads, etc. You specifically said that you would put such information into your museum of "least optimally spent money". That, from my perspective, is you mocking and dismissing an entire field of study. You can't really escape from that statement. Nor the one where you mocked another poster as a basement-dwelling non-taxpayer for rightfully calling you out on it.

I have to confess that I'm quite curious what discipline _you_ work in where you can look down on fields like geology and meteorology as wastes of money.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[firewood]

Read about the major mass extinctions, and then ponder the question whether humans would have been able to rise above the environmental pressures that destroyed more than 90% of species in the time of the dinosaurs. And even if we weren't to go extinct, consider what it would look like of 90% of us were to die. Not just 90% of those in some far away desert, but 90% of the people in your own country. Consider what such a world would look like.

That's pretty much what's theorized to have happened to the population in large regions of North American just after Europeans introduce their various "Old World" diseases. A lot of land became largely reforested, but the small population remainders still had plenty enough fight left in them to generate lots of cowboys vs. Indian folklore.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

[...] you've made bizarre claims that it's somehow unlikely or even impossible that we'd have any sort of records or evidence of what precipitation has been like in this region. As it happens, I don't have the evidence you demand right in front of me.

It's not bizarre. We are talking about weather reports records for the last 150 years in Peru. I'm not even sure it would be possible to find records for the last 50 years in that region. So I'm not surprised that you could not find evidence to support your claim.

There was snowfall this year that was extraordinarily strange for the region and no-one with extensive knowledge of the region seems to be disputing that. Do you have some sort of problem with that statement?

None. I do not dispute the fact that it was an unusual event. But saying that it did not happen since 150 years is a big stretch when there is no evidence of records or expensive soil analysis (or whatever expert thing) to confirm it

I am not blind to environmental issues. But what I find worrying is the tendency of some environmentalists (not all of them, but many) to come up with cosmetically enhanced statistics to draw more attention to their cause. If someone says: "there was a snowfall in that desert, it is unusual and did not occur since such or such university has been starting to keep records in 1982, and we suspect it did not happen for decades before", it would be accurate but not dramatic enough, so instead they come up with: "it is the first snowfall there in 150 years" but they have no evidence whatsoever to support that statement, just theories. In the end they just look like they are crying wolf and the people that have a vested interest in denying global warming have a field day, like they did with those guys who got their emails hacked in UK.

Stop the FUD and stick to the facts. In the big scheme of things, if it takes a few more years to get results because the mainstream was slower to move, it's still better than getting caught while astroturfing and giving greeners a bad reputation in the general population.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The real question is this: are the estimated figures (which the scientists initially used to base their predictions) wrong due to accelerated climate change - things like mean and maximum temperatures? Or were the scientists wrong simply because they didn't understand the model well enough, or had a bad model on which they based their predictions?

To me the real question is "why is mankind making this planet uninhabitable for mankind" and "why aren't we doing more to stop it?"

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

Looks like you got all the evidence you need that knowledge of historical rainfall patterns in the geographical area in question has in fact been attained, correlated, and checked.

Huh? Care to document that? So far all that came out of this was a theory of how it could be done, and a general opinion that "people keep records". This is not evidence. This is opinion.

So which is it, you expect answers to your questions, but when you find they exist, this is what you think of them? You can't have it both ways. You pretend the science isn't there, then when it is, you deny it wholesale.

No, I think the science is (probably) there. But the science does not create records or evidence by itself. Work must be done (and funded) to get that kind of results.

Guess which party here is the vapid reality-denying fucktard? (Hint: You)

Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?
(ok that was a quote from Fallout but it does apply)

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. And I for one welcome our all knowing overlords who will dictate what is reasonable and for whom. I mean the very definition of freedom is only doing what you are told you are allowed to do.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorant twit.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

If you'd taken a minute and read my actual post, you'd have noticed that I mentioned that there are important mining interests there. Hence extensive soil analysis. Engineers, including mining engineers, find it very important to know what kind of rainfall and flooding to expect as well as how the rock and soil will react to such conditions. Not to mention that such considerations are important for the location and construction of towns, roads, etc. You specifically said that you would put such information into your museum of "least optimally spent money".

If a mining company is interested to know whether it was snowing in that desert or not 150 years ago and they are willing to fund the soil analysis, then it is their business. If someone is using tax money to do that, then it is my right to challenge the project. I think it is important to spend money on research in many scientific fields, especially in the ones you mention when there evidence that climate is changing. But it's not open bar on my tax money either.

That, from my perspective, is you mocking and dismissing an entire field of study. You can't really escape from that statement. Nor the one where you mocked another poster as a basement-dwelling non-taxpayer for rightfully calling you out on it.

I have to confess that I'm quite curious what discipline _you_ work in where you can look down on fields like geology and meteorology as wastes of money.

You are overly sensitive about your area of expertise, clearly you are not frequently challenged about your stuff. And you underestimate the importance of being able to tell the difference between fact and opinion.

As for me, I work in IT. Day in, day out, I get clients that challenge my diagnostics or suggestions even if I have a much stronger expertise than them. Yet I don't call them idiots or stupid and I don't complain that they are mocking my entire field. I do my best to explain the options, I let them know what is a fact and what is an opinion, but in the end they are the one with the checkbook and sometimes pushing rope is just not worth the aggravation.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

You wrote: "I'm not even sure it would be possible to find records for the last 50 years in that region". See, this is evidence that you're not even living in the same reality as the rest of us. 50 years ago is the early 1960's, not the early Holocene. Your incredulity that records would exist for Chile and Peru in that time period is almost incomprehensible. You seem to be demonstrating the same sort of modern era exceptionalism that sometimes leads small children to wonder if the whole world was colored in black and white before the 1950s. As for "evidence to support [my] claim". It's not my claim. It's just a fairly heavily reported fact that there's very little reason to doubt.

Also, I don't think anyone made any statements with quite as much hyperbole as ""it is the first snowfall there in 150 years". They said it was the largest snowfall there in that time. There's very little reason to believe that there wouldn't be a record of a snowfall that heavy in, for example, one of the local newspapers in the last 150 years. People in Peru do know how to read and write, you know. Even 150 years ago.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[lucm]

You wrote: "I'm not even sure it would be possible to find records for the last 50 years in that region". See, this is evidence that you're not even living in the same reality as the rest of us. 50 years ago is the early 1960's, not the early Holocene. Your incredulity that records would exist for Chile and Peru in that time period is almost incomprehensible. You seem to be demonstrating the same sort of modern era exceptionalism that sometimes leads small children to wonder if the whole world was colored in black and white before the 1950s.

The early 60s in Peru is not the early 60s in London. This is no "modern era exceptionalism", this is common sense. The country was on the verge of civil war for a large part of the 20th century, yet you expect that they had programs to keep records of weather report since the 19th century. This is unrealistic and again I dare you to find evidence of such program.

There's very little reason to believe that there wouldn't be a record of a snowfall that heavy in, for example, one of the local newspapers in the last 150 years.

Just so you know, "very little reason to believe" still goes in the opinions column, not facts. You really are struggling with that subtle difference, no?

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ultranova]

My fear is we won't listen to scientists until it is too late

It is too late. Temperatures drag behind carbon dioxide levels because the Earth needs time to warm up, and positive feedback loops - such as methane release from melting tundra - are already kicking in. At this point it's impossible to stop climate change, so the focus should be shifted on adapting and maintaining civilization's cohesion until the new climate stabilizes in a few hundred years.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

You're hopelessly stuck in the present aren't you? You wrote: "If a mining company is interested to know whether it was snowing in that desert or not 150 years ago and they are willing to fund the soil analysis, then it is their business". You do understand that people have been mining there for a long time, right? Activity and scientific analysis have been going on in the area, and in areas of interest all over the world, probably for that entire 150 year period if not longer. As for it being your right to challenge the project if tax money is being used to fund environmental geology and meteorology... Well, aside from this being in Chile and Peru and a lot of the money coming from private sources you might have a point. Except of course, that it's still stupid. Meteorology and geology are absolutely things government should spend tax money on for the public good. At the very least for the whole protecting people from fire/flood/earthquakes/tsunamis/mudslides/volcanos/poisoned food and water/constructing buildings that fall down or sink into the ground/constructing cities in places that won't have water in a few decades/etc. Climate change is a long way from being the only reason to study this stuff. I mentioned 100 year flood levels, for example. Climate change can affect those, but other human activity, like all that well drained construction we're fond of, affects them even more. When those change, lots of people can die and billions of dollars of damage can occur. A little study beforehand then is wise, even if it spends a few of your precious tax dollars.

As for what you said about me being "overly sensitive about [my] area of expertise", it's not actually my area of expertise. I'm actually an IT guy myself. I've only taken a few classes in geology. I don't underestimate the value of other disciplines just because I'm not personally up to my elbows in them, however. I also don't underestimate the importance of being able to tell the difference between fact and opinion. For example, on this snowfall in the Atacama desert issue. I'm perfectly capable of believing that it's possible that there has been a heavier snowfall in the past 150 years but, without doing a very extensive study, all available evidence very strongly indicates that it's the case. You seem to doubt it only for the sake of contrariness.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[tragedy]

Just because it's Peru doesn't mean that it's the stone age. Even during times of civil war, they had priests, they had librarians, they had university researchers, they had newspapers, they had regular people writing things down in diaries and sending correspondence. Remember that we're not talking about a minute daily record of exact, hour by hour weather conditions, we're talking about an extraordinary event: a nearly three foot snowfall in a desert that gets virtually no precipitation ever. This is the sort of thing that people take note of. No program to keep records of weather reports necessary. The idea that no record would exist of that kind of event is preposterous.

Just so you know, virtually all knowledge, by the definition you give here, belongs in the opinions column rather than the facts column. You seem to be struggling with the basic foundations of all knowledge.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Tom]

What's being described is a greenhouse. More plants, more jungles, more life, more food.

Unfortunately, most of that life is hostile to us. Bacteria, viruses, etc. of all kinds just love warm and moist, and we have multi-trillion dollar industries dedicated to fighting them, they're called "medicine", "health care", etc.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[BlueStrat]

And yet, I'm the one modded "Troll" and "Flamebait" after presenting an on-topic and sincere opinion held by a large sector of the population, if not the majority.

I'm just wondering if the mods in question are paid or stupid, fanatical, and venal enough to abuse moderation for free.

"Moderated -1, Troll"

Well, I guess that pretty well proves my answer is the latter rather than the former.

Strat

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Black Parrot]

We have consistently discovered that the IPCC's reports on GW are too conservative. Everything is happening faster than the "alarmists" have been predicting.

FYI:

In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios.

None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.

- Kevin Trenberth, IPCC lead author 2001 and 2007

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/06/predictions_of_climate.html

OK, We have consistently discovered that the IPCC's projections on GW are too conservative. My bad.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[ShieldW0lf]

I know a better way to fight them. It's called fucking and breeding.

Re:"Earlier than expected"?

[Tom]

If you think that humans, with a breeding time of 9 months + 15 or so years until fertility can outbreed tiny little organisms that multiply on the order of minutes, you need to get back to math 102 and learn about exponential growth again.

first

[Anonymous Coward]

FIRST! ... holy shit, how long does it take to comment on this site? I was left with "working..." for 30s before I was prompted with a robot picture... wtf?

This story is a waste of time...

[RobinEggs]

Why even bother posting this? It will just dissolve into a global warming debate within seconds, and slashdotters are by far the stupidest people I've ever conversed with on the topic of climate change and global warming. Normally slashdot opinions are above average on a given topic, but with global warming they're well below average: it's all fuzzy, intuited 'science' from physicists and programmers with zero understanding of ecology, copious libertarian babble, and wanton libertarian bashing.

It's just going to be a giant flamewar, and the average reader will truly be stupider for having read it.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[Lemmy Caution]

In other words: invest in popcorn futures.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[webgovernor]

Your face is libertarian babble.

But yes, flame war in 3... 2... 1...

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[Osgeld]

way to concentrate stupidity into a political group, you sound so much more reasonable now

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[Urkki]

We could have a giant flameware over climate change debate, instead of climate change itself... Hmm, yes.... Dolt! You just don't get that debate is core of all human progress, and flame war is the ultimate form of debate, where only the strongest ideas survive to procreate! If you're not up for it, you should go home and start... knitting!

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[Black Parrot]

Normally slashdot opinions are above average on a given topic

That's a dubious claim. (In my opinion.)

and wanton libertarian bashing

Why should wanton libertarians be exempt from bashing?

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[phantomfive]

slashdotters are by far the stupidest people I've ever conversed with on the topic of climate change and global warming.

Really? I've never found any other place (other than, say, a climatologist convention) where a reasonable number of people have even read the IPCC report. Here there are a lot of people who actually do understand the science, at least large parts of it. Seriously, even on climatologist blogs it just breaks down into blogger-worshipers and angry people who came from another blog. Here you can post something that you've been reading about climatology and get some reasonable (if at times rude) responses, that give you things to think about.

it's all fuzzy, intuited 'science' from physicists and programmers with zero understanding of ecology

Maybe you just say this because people disagree with you? I've seen LOTS of people give sources for their statements, not everyone, but vastly more than on any other site. Especially if you ask them.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[roc97007]

"stupidity as a political group" Interesting... I think there might be something to that.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[bug1]

Dear RobinEggs;

I hear you have been told your wrong on slashdot, i want you to understand that its a part of the human story, it has to happen to everyone eventually. Its important in time like to this to remember that life does go on, that their is no point moping about, blaming others, its not really their fault.
Comes a time when people in your position just have to accept that its you that is different, you that is wrong, and that no amount of complaining is going to change that. Now come on RobinEggs, get with the program, accept your mistake and move on.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[Pecisk]

There's flame wars and there's truth - climate is changing, and unexpectedly fast. Much faster than we expected. And at this point I actually don't care anymore it is fault of capitalists, libertarians, commies, or what else. How we could expect to get our shit together if we even can't agree that change is happening? How we gonna *survive*?

This is fault of uneducated crowd making political decisions, t.i. electing populist leaders who won't say anything unpleasant to them. You can be pro-business and pro-capital and still capable to deliver harsh news *and* a plan how to deal with a problem. Unfortunately, there is serious shortage of such people (I don't even talk about politicians).

In nutshell, people don't like bad news and they do anything in their power to avoid them (also group thinking in our capitalist society pushing them to avoid take a blame) - that's human nature. Be that flame wars, denials, demolition of the messenger - whatever. Also your whining is part of the "I don't wanna listen because no one here is expert and I don't wanna hear that we have screwed up everything" crowd.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, stick around. You'll fall off your chair in any space thread.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[ErikZ]

Yes. It's far better to not discuss these things, and leave it up to our betters and leaders to take care of it.

Return to your tasks.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

From one of your previous comments:

Never gonna happen. There are too many politically conservative idiots, like my mom, who believe attempts at converting to metric represent a "socialist" conspiracy, and almost literally scream at any attempt to remove Imperial units in favor of metric.

Okay, yer mum IS an idiot, you're right.

Normally slashdot opinions are above average on a given topic, but with global warming they're well below average: it's all fuzzy, intuited 'science' from physicists and programmers with zero understanding of ecology

Maybe the old apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Re:This story is a waste of time...

[haruchai]

You took a wrong turn at one of the denier blogs. Back up and go away if being here upsets you. But having spent far too much time on several of the more prominent, supposed "skeptic" blogs, I can tell you that they have far more idiots, far more flamers and far more pseudoscience per poster / page view that Slashdot can hope for.

The New Chevy Silverado!

[Anonymous Coward]

gets 11 MPG City / 16 MPG Highway! WOOOT! Boy, am I ever glad we bailed GM out so they could keep making more of these gigantic trucks.

Record opening of Hwy 120 in California this year

[Anonymous Coward]

This year, highway 120 through Yosemite National Park has remained opened well past the time when it is normally closed. To date, the latest it has ever closed is 1st January (2001), but the current weather forecasts make it look like that will well and truely be broken.

After 2 years of very wet winters, California decided that the "drought" water conditions were no longer appropriate. Following hot on the heals of that is what could be one of the driest winters yet (snow resorts at Tahoe,etc, have relatively little snow.)

The big hot thing in the sky

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the sun, stupid.

Re:The big hot thing in the sky

[rust627]

userfriendly 8 Dec 2010

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20101208

criminal

[spirit_fingers]

Climate change denial is an act of treason against life on Earth.

Re:criminal

[Urkki]

Climate change denial is an act of treason against life on Earth.

Now let's not get hasty. Life on Earth will do just fine, it'll be just another mass extinction from which new life will spring forth, as it always has.

Now act of treason against humanity, that might fit...

Re:criminal

[taylorjonl]

I agree 100% with this comment. In the end some form of life will survive, I even think that humans will survive. We will just shrink our population and lose our advancements in technology, we will be cavemen again...

Re:criminal

[Dripdry]

I feel truly privileged to read a number of posts in a row which EACH had a chance to deviate from the apocalyptic vision of the others, but instead chose the easy path. So many different ways we'll all die, so little time!

For heaven's sake, sometimes I think that the reason we have so many problems around the world today is what appears to be an incredibly cynical, doomsday view of everything. I could blame it on pervasive media (negative headlines are the best headlines), but that feels cliche.

Let's be realistic. Man will not go back to being a caveman. Population may shrink, but unless something truly horrifying happens mankind will go on. We'll probably innovate in different ways but we'll go on.

Re:criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be realistic. Man will not go back to being a caveman. Population may shrink, but unless something truly horrifying happens mankind will go on. We'll probably innovate in different ways but we'll go on.

Of course humanity will survive, we're like cockroaches, but there's no reason (except profit) to make life harder for everyone. Otherwise, why not just nuke everything?

For heaven's sake, sometimes I think that the reason we have so many problems around the world today is what appears to be an incredibly cynical, doomsday view of everything. I could blame it on pervasive media (negative headlines are the best headlines), but that feels cliche.

Media sells entertainment, only a fool would take them seriously. Still, if you trust climatologists over uneducated opinions you know there's a very good chance that we're fucked.

Re:criminal

[phantomfive]

For heaven's sake, sometimes I think that the reason we have so many problems around the world today is what appears to be an incredibly cynical, doomsday view of everything.

And ironically life has never been better. We've conquered major diseases. Childhood death is rare: how many people in your family died young? In mine none, but in my great-grandma's, 14 out of 16 died as children. Go back farther, during the black death as much as 60% of the population of Europe died in two years. That is something no AGW scenario dreams of, and yet it happened.

In the worst case, we won't die out, we will go back to how things were before.

Re:criminal

[Black Parrot]

I agree 100% with this comment. In the end some form of life will survive, I even think that humans will survive. We will just shrink our population and lose our advancements in technology, we will be cavemen again...

Runaway GW could turn the planet into a desert, with no life but microbes (if any). I think some planetologists think that's how Mars got its wonderful climate.

Barring that, I don't think we'll be reduced to cavemen. We'll just have more wars and social disturbances, as the agricultural/hydraulic "haves" become "have-nots", and vice versa.

And of course, we'll have to start moving our coastal cities to higher ground in 50-100 years.

Re:criminal

[Uberbah]

That is something no AGW scenario dreams of, and yet it happened.

Actually, there's mass methane poisoning of our atmosphere if the gas melts out of glaciers faster than the biosphere can handle it:

The juiciest disaster-movie scenario would be a release of enough methane to significantly change the atmospheric concentration, on a time scale that is fast compared with the lifetime of methane. This would generate a spike in methane concentration. For a scale of how much would be a large methane release, the amount of methane that would be required to equal the radiative forcing of doubled CO2 would be about ten times the present methane concentration. That would be disaster movie.

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And, in mass quantities, could supplant other gases like oxygen and nitrogen in the Earth's atmosphere. That by itself would be a mass extension event.....

Re:criminal

[FirephoxRising]

For heaven's sake, sometimes I think that the reason we have so many problems around the world today is what appears to be an incredibly cynical, doomsday view of everything.

And ironically life has never been better. We've conquered major diseases. Immunisation is still effective (when used, lots of FUD about it), but our anti-microbials are seriously becoming less effective, and the "easy to find" antibiotics are mostly mined out. We'll have to work much harder on new ones and try 'phage technology and God knows what else to have effective drugs for bacteria quite soon. We may soon see untreatable ghonnarea, TB, phumonia etc, even in the first world. And yet we still allow "growth promoters" in animal feed and care which are anitbiotics with different names, leading to highly resistant bugs in out food animals. Yay! Childhood death is rare: how many people in your family died young? In mine none, but in my great-grandma's, 14 out of 16 died as children. Go back farther, during the black death as much as 60% of the population of Europe died in two years. That is something no AGW scenario dreams of, and yet it happened. In the worst case, we won't die out, we will go back to how things were before.

Except we've mined with very advanced techniques and farmed our soils intensively, we cannot go back to say the 19th century level sustainably as the old techniques and materials just can't cut it. We need to act now and not wait until it's too late, but we will. Until it happens in the EU/Canada/USA/Australia, the media and big multinats will not care or be forced to act.

Re:criminal

[phantomfive]

Maybe I should have said, no realistic AGW scenario, there hasn't been a single peer reviewed paper saying that there will be a mass extinction from the methane that is released in the arctic. Even the thing you linked to doesn't claim it, all it does is try to make you think about it.

The quote you have there is exciting, but even the article it came from doesn't support it.

Re:criminal

[phantomfive]

What makes you think 19th century farming techniques were sustainable? Crop rotation wasn't even commonly used in the US through most of the 1800s.

Re:criminal

[Splab]

Extremophiles will hang around even after extinction level events - those things are currently living in the most acid, heated places of our planet; granted, if earth got stripped down to its core by a local supernova or our own star decided to call it a day life would have a hard time, but the sky turning black and oceans turning red wont be enough.

Re:criminal

[Dripdry]

Creepy... in the bible, didn't the seas turn red for the apocalypse? Sorry, I know this is a science site, but it just sort of gave me a little shiver.

Re:criminal

[lorinc]

Climate change denial is an act of treason against life on Earth.

Now let's not get hasty. Life on Earth will do just fine, it'll be just another mass extinction from which new life will spring forth, as it always has.

Now act of treason against humanity, that might fit...

Well, not so much. As you stated, there might be another mass extinction. This, Sir, is an act of treason against the current life on Earth.

Does the fact that we estimate life will still grow strong after the disaster gives us the right to wipe out billions of species? I'm all fine with the human race disappearing. We do want we want with our kind. But for all the other living things that are going to be lost, isn't it like a kind of a genocide?

(Obviously, all this discussion is considering that GW hypothesis is true, which I tend to believe, otherwise there's no culpability or whatsoever)

Re:criminal

[Splab]

Makes you wonder if I was referering to that or it was totally random, eh?

Re:criminal

[Rockoon]

but there's no reason (except profit) to make life harder for everyone.

The thing is that not doing what we are doing is completely unacceptable. Cheap energy lifts populations out of poverty.

This idea that we would be better off if we didnt burn so much fossil fuels is complete and utter bullshit. It could be argued that the wealth generated by burning fossil fuels could be spread out better (especially into places like Africa and India) but it really cannot be argued that a Hot Earth scenario is better than a Poor Earth scenario.

Re:criminal

[Urkki]

Well, there's difference between "life on Earth" and "current life on Earth".

The worst genocidal crazies probably were the first oxygen generating (presumably) cyano-bacteria. They were responsible for perhaps the worst ever destruction of biosphere, first filling oceans and then atmosphere with highly toxic gas, wiping out most of the life as it was then. Yet I have hard time blaming those bacteria for what they did...

I'm actually more worried about humanity than anything else. Sun is getting hotter all the time as part of it's natural life cycle (or what we believe is the natural life cycle of a Sun-like star), and I think it's estimated that there's less than a billion years, possibly even just some hundreds of millions of years, before things get too hot and oceans start to evaporate, ending most life. Assuming appearance of intelligent life is not very common event, if we blow it, if we go extinct instead of spreading to our solar system and eventually to the stars, then that's end of story for Earth's life (and I'm defining that broadly, including for example any AI descendants of humanity).

Then again, I'm hopeful, because I'm pretty sure humans will be about the last vertebrates to go extinct at this point. We just know too much, and more importantly we have learned how to know more, and even after any civilizaton-wiping disaster, survivors will have a planet covered with artifacts from today, to spur them on the road of scientific progress.

Re:criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

You argue as if fossil fuels are an infinite resource that will last centuries. See, you cannot count the hydrocarbons of the outer solar system just yet since we cannot get them to Earth in a timely fashion just yet. If certain countries hadn't spent their resources building useless nuclear weapons instead of focusing on conquering the solar system,...

Re:criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, okay. Just another mass extinction event. That makes me feel SO much better!

Re:criminal

[locallyunscene]

Relatively, it was much more sustainable. Sure they would have to leave areas fallow, but they didn't need to use petroleum fertilizers and vast monocultures the scale of which we have today were completely unheard of..

Re:criminal

[AlterEager]

Climate change denial is an act of treason against life on Earth.

Now let's not get hasty. Life on Earth will do just fine, it'll be just another mass extinction from which new life will spring forth, as it always has.

Now act of treason against humanity, that might fit...

David Brin thinks denialists may end up getting sued.

Pah. They'll probably end up at the ICC at the Hague.

Re:criminal

[phantomfive]

petroleum fertilizers and vast monocultures

These things don't make farming unsustainable. Petroleum is a scary word but that doesn't make it somehow unsustainable.

Re:criminal

[locallyunscene]

Petroleum is a finite resource; we can and are using all of it up. That is the very definition of non-sustainable. Beyond that were we able to replace our petroleum-based fertilizer with another equally cheap fertilizer the result would still not be sustainable. Both the pesticides and nitrogen runoff that comes from maintaining these vast monocultures cause massive fish kills. Check out the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Re:criminal

[phantomfive]

There is far more petroleum than we need for fertilizer in the foreseeable future. The dead zones are something interesting to watch, but there is no indication they will keep us from growing crops (which would be unsustainable)

Re:criminal

[locallyunscene]

I think your definition of sustainability is flawed, but I don't think you're going to change your mind so I'm going to leave it at that.

Re:criminal

[geekpowa]

Childish threats like this, only too common, only reinforce the basis of my scepticism

When climate science community, and the IPCC and the activists and nutters in close orbit raise their game, and stop acting like cargo cult doomsday evangelists, and dramatically improve their professional conduct and the multitude of problems and limitations and conflicts of interest within their various institutions, only then can they expect broad support and respect.

Should your threat ever be realised, I'll stand by my convictions and the mental processes and methods by which I arrived at them. Should it turn out that my present, provisional rejection on the CAGW hypothesis and the recommended mitigation remedy turns out to be false, I'll stand by my convictions and the mental processes and methods by which I arrived at them.

The in-tribe is in mortal peril; an overarching moral duty supercedes all other considerations. Death to the infidel that works against the in-tribe. Echo's of history.

Re:criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

50-100? The much-feared "abrupt release" of methane from clathrate deposits under the Arctic ocean has already begun. People will keep bickering about what causes what until they drown. Give it 10-15 years.

Here in the US we're somewhat lucky that there's no longer a land bridge from Asia to Alaska, and we have more guns than they have boats.

Re:criminal

[terjeber]

Religious nut-case alert. They are all the same. Any word against the "truth" and they yell treason or worse. Go get some knowledge, and you'll drop your religious superstitions.

PS. Yes, I think it has been documented that the world is heating up. No, I don't think that is a significant threat to human kind, I don't even think it is on my top five list. Neither are nuclear weapons for that matter.

Re:criminal

[terjeber]

billions of species

Someone gotta get some serious speciation going here. I think the current guesstimate of the number of species on this planet is a few orders of magnitude lower than billions. Somewhere around 8 million last I heard.

Re:criminal

[riverat1]

And ironically life has never been better.

That reminds me of the joke where a guy jumps from the 100th floor of a building and someone asks him as he passes the 50th floor "How are things?" His reply "Couldn't be better!"

Re:criminal

[phantomfive]

hehe, clearly, even by extrapolating from past human experience, we have some bad times ahead.

Re:criminal

[phantomfive]

I think your definition of sustainability is flawed,

It's not.

but I don't think you're going to change your mind so I'm going to leave it at that.

ok, you win.

Re:criminal

[Urkki]

"Doomsday evangelists"? Just check the extinction rates. Even without climate change, we're in the middle of a very rapid mass extinction, and this is just by raw numbers. Climate change is only going to make it worse, no matter the cause.

How this mass extinction is going to affect humanity is another matter, since we have ability maintain many of the other species we depend on, but it won't be pretty even then.

Re:criminal

[lorinc]

Would it had been only 2 species, the point would still stand. Try to have a broader look at arguments.

Re:criminal

[terjeber]

The argument is silly. A little warming will not have the effect you seem to think. Quite contrary, a warmer earth is beneficial for most species. Higher temperatures have, historically, meant better life for plants and animals on this planet. If we prevent the next ice age (they are regular as clockwork) we will save billions of animals.

So many questions

[lightknight]

What was their original model / projection? Has anyone else verified it? And if so, what measures will they be taking to supplement their water supply?

Re:So many questions

[ralphdaugherty]

What was their original model / projection? Has anyone else verified it? And if so, what measures will they be taking to supplement their water supply?

They weren't projecting. Scientists were projecting glacier melt rate worldwide. They're all melting.

Verification so far is watching the glaciers melt faster.

What measures will a mountain dwelling people take to supplement their loss of glacial water supply? They will lose their way of life, same as anyone else in a permanent drought, say in an extreme example Texas continues it's drought pattern. All it will take is a few more years to destroy life there as they know it.

But they can always hope rains will return. People dependent on glaciers that vanished have no such hope. Their total ancestral way of life will also have vanished.

Re:So many questions

[phantomfive]

Scientists were projecting glacier melt rate worldwide. They're all melting.

Except the ones that are growing....

Re:So many questions

[Anonymous Coward]

"They're almost all melting."

"Except the small fraction that are growing."

There. Fixed that for you guys.

Re:So many questions

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize we had an almost blueprint drought in the 30's right? It was called the dust bowl, and it was worse.

in the forest

[Anonymous Coward]

As unkind as it sounds, I think you have a point worthy of discussion.

However, I think this line of reasoning is more pertinent to talking about genetic defects and the like.

If they are unlucky, but then they get help, are they still unlucky?

Ayn Rand was right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Atlas Shrugged is becoming more true every day. Be careful for the looters when they come for your water, and insist you load it in the car for them

Re:Ayn Rand was right.

[BenJCarter]

And post modded Troll. Sheesh. It's like some folks don't want to hear anything that challenges their religion...

Re:Ayn Rand was right.

[P-niiice]

its becoming true because its principals behind its message caused this mess. and its believers think the solution is to follow it harder

Bogus Science

[STRICQ]

The science was so bad in this report it's already been torn to pieces. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/20/this-is-glacial-tap/

Re:Bogus Science

[riverat1]

wattsupwiththat is not an authoritative source.

Re:Bogus Science

[STRICQ]

The IPCC is not an authoritative source either.

Re:Bogus Science

[NeutronCowboy]

Unfortunately, and as always, wattsupwiththat does nothing to deal with the basic claims, but instead has a lot of snark about whitewashing and how history shows that the projections are completely wrong. And as always, Watt's will not publish his own studies demonstrating his claims, or if he does, he will be laughed out of the science room.

Re:Bogus Science

[flaming error]

Why not? Who is more authoritative, and why?

Re:Bogus Science

[BenJCarter]

Why not? Who is more authoritative, and why?

wattsupwiththat is. They don't illegally hide their data or methods like the IPCC does.

Duh...

Re:Bogus Science

[riverat1]

The authoritative sources are the original research. The IPCC role is merely as a compiler and summarizer of the full breadth of climate study and it does no original data collection or research of its own so it has nothing to hide (to answer BenJCarter below).

Re:Bogus Science

[Anonymous Coward]

The IPCC is not merely a compiler and summarizer of the full breadth of climate study. It is a filter for a certain narrative, removing original research it finds unhelpful to this narrative, ignoring research that contradicts its narrative and acting as gate-keeper to prevent any scientist who might disagree with the narrative from contributing to its reports.

Re:Bogus Science

[sanzibar]

does nothing to deal with the basic claims.

Anyone who reads wuwt knows this is complete bullshit.

Also, He has published. If your so willing pass judgment on another Where the fuck is your published research countering such?

Seems to me your guilty or your own accusation.

Re:Bogus Science

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not really true. The ipcc directs funding, coordinates with NGO's, hires NGO's affiliates, evaluates and selects research and chooses review panels.

This is how researchers from WWF were able to insert claims with absolutely no scientific research to back them up. Try Amazon gate for starters. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7113582/Amazongate-new-evidence-of-the-IPCCs-failures.html

While you may view them as your Ministry of Truth - they are nothing more than a propaganda machine to those paying attention.

Re:Bogus Science

[AlterEager]

does nothing to deal with the basic claims.

Anyone who reads wuwt knows this is complete bullshit.

Also, He has published.
 

Yes he has published.

A paper that disproves the theory that poor instrument siteing was responsible for warming.

Guy must be some kind of warmist.

Re:Bogus Science

[AlterEager]

The IPCC is not merely a compiler and summarizer of the full breadth of climate study. It is a filter for a certain narrative, removing original research it finds unhelpful to this narrative, ignoring research that contradicts its narrative and acting as gate-keeper to prevent any scientist who might disagree with the narrative from contributing to its reports.

And how the fuck does it do that? With it's magical paper destruction ray?

Which papers do you argue should have been cited by the IPCC that haven't been?

Re:Bogus Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes he has published. A paper that disproves the theory that poor instrument siteing was responsible for warming.

Sorry for my jumping in but your statement is not true. I will not speculate your motives but it should not stand unchallenged. The paper does show that several of the land measurement instruments are not reliable due to a general failure to deploy and maintain them in accordance with standards, equipment failure etc..

This is well known, expected and anything contrary would defy logic. The question is how to account and adjust for the anomalies. There is still much debate in around this and some adjusted data clearly shows bias in one direction. Interestingly enough, some working in this area still refuse to release the algorithms and un adjusted data sets used in their hypothesis. Watts work is very beneficial in this as many are left (on both sides) to "reverse engineer" data sets and conclusions.

Clearly, you have not read his work so why you are attempting to critique without having qualified yourself is a mystery to me.

Re:Bogus Science

[NeutronCowboy]

Yes, I'm aware of Watt's "paper". And it was laughed at by every scientist and scientific blog. Why? Because after all that talk, the best he could show was that some stations show temperature aberrations that could skew the overall temperature readings - which is something that was known for a long time, and was accounted for in all previous papers.

Watts is moron who has zero scientific insight or mathematical knowledge. Sorry to go there, but that's the truth - and his own paper showed it.

Re:Bogus Science

[riverat1]

The IPCC directs no funding for research. The pay the expenses of scientists and others when they get together to discuss what to put in the reports.

The Amazon claims in the IPCC did have scientific research to back them up. To quote the author of the studies, Daniel Nepstad:

"In sum, the IPCC statement on the Amazon was correct. The report that is cited in support of the IPCC statement (Rowell and Moore 2000) omitted some citations in support of the 40% value statement."

Rowell and Moore 2000 was the non-peer reviewed paper that the IPCC cited for the Amazon claims.

Here are the citations of peer reviewed literature that should have been in there to back it up:

Nepstad 1994
Nepstad 1997
Nepstad 2004

And other studies since the IPCC report:

Nepstad 2007
Phillips 2009

So the IPCC's claims about the Amazon weren't wrong, just poorly referenced.

Re:Bogus Science

[sanzibar]

I see your lighting straw men on fire again. Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon recap:

".. there are several warning flags raised by this study. First, station siting is indeed important for the maximum and minimum temperature measurements. Second, the adjustments are only partly correcting the temperature record. Third, since the adjustments use data from all surrounding stations, there’s the danger that the mean trends are dominated by data from the poorer stations. (Less than ten percent of the USHCN stations are sited well enough to be considered appropriate for climate trend measurements.)"

and your published research is where again? Please enlighten us with your masterful "scientific insight and mathematical knowledge" that allows you to so harshly judge Watts et al without having read their work.

Re:Bogus Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing in the 'article' you linked to addresses any topic mentioned in the study.

Re:Bogus Science

[flaming error]

That site bills itself as "Commentary... by Anthony Watts." Wikipedia says he's a weatherman who started a weather graphics company

Accusing someone of breaking a law is sort of serious. Please support your claim. What is the text of the law IPCC broke, and what is the proof they broke it?

And how do you know Anthony Watts has not hidden any "data or methods"?

Re:Bogus Science

[budgenator]

Neither is wikipedia;

Hot Springs

There are twenty-two principal hot springs in the Callejon de Huaylas, of which the 2073m above sea level Monterrey stands out for its swimming pools and individual and family ponds. Bathing in its 49 C sodium chloride laced water is prescribed for such health conditions as rheumatism, Anxiety, and palsy.
Hot springs are also found at Chancos (30 km north of Huaraz), Chacas, Chavín, Mancos, Pomabamba, Andamarca, Jocos, Tablachaca, Pato, Olleros and Llaclla.
Cordillera Blanca

but that doesn't make them wrong either. Any village idiot know hot salt water and glaciers don't play together well.

Re:Bogus Science

[BenJCarter]

Where is the data and methods the IPCC relied upon published?

You know, the stuff we paid for...

Re:Bogus Science

[AlterEager]

Yes he has published. A paper that disproves the theory that poor instrument siteing was responsible for warming.

Sorry for my jumping in but your statement is not true. I will not speculate your motives but it should not stand unchallenged

Fall et al, 2011:

http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/r-367.pdf

Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical
Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends

Souleymane Fall, Anthony Watts, John NielsenGammon, Evan Jones, Dev Niyogi,
John R. Christy, and Roger A. Pielke Sr.

[...]

Temperature trend estimates vary according to site classification, with poor siting leading to an overestimate of minimum temperature trends and an underestimate of maximum temperature trends, resulting in particular in a substantial difference in estimates of the diurnal temperature range trends. The opposite-signed differences of maximum and minimum temperature trends are similar in magnitude, so that the overall mean temperature trends are nearly identical across site classifications. [my emphasis]

Re:Bogus Science

[flaming error]

Your ignorance proves you're too lazy to google "climate change raw data", but doesn't prove that the IPCC broke some as-yet-unspecified law.

Re:Bogus Science

[BenJCarter]

Your ignorance proves you're too lazy to google "climate change raw data", but doesn't prove that the IPCC broke some as-yet-unspecified law.

Lol. Why don't you Google it. Link the published data and methods, or stop wasting my time...

Put up or shut up.

If you can find them, you'll be famous...

Its a myth...

[Anonymous Coward]

a- "Did you hear about peru's water?"

b- "No."

a- "Its right on track with the earth temp going up like those wacky scientists have been saying."

b- "So some glaciers are melting."

a- "All over the place?"

b- "isn't bill o'rilley on?" / "SHUT UP!"

habitation

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you could make tons of money of that,.. Restoring a rural area into a habitable one.

Re:Record opening of Hwy 120 in California this ye

[Black Parrot]

A friend in Reno says the mountains (between Reno and Lake Tahoe) aren't even snowcapped this year; that it looks more like the first dusting they usually get in September or October.

Of course, lack of snow in winter may just mean *dry*, not warm. Lack of snow doesn't disprove GW any more than last year's storms prove it. Receding glaciers is a different matter, if it continues year after year. Already 5-10 years ago they were saying that Glacier National Park had lost half its glaciers. And this kind of thing has been happening all around the world.

Re:Record opening of Hwy 120 in California this ye

[Black Parrot]

Lack of snow doesn't disprove GW any more than last year's storms prove it.

Uhm... I got that backwards.

Install desalination plants on the ocean.

[Khyber]

It's not that difficult.

Re:Install desalination plants on the ocean.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah - just expensive to build and energy-hungry to run if you want daily consumption level water supplies. Otherwise its rationing and rich only pricing levels. And what about countries that don't have a coastline?

Re:Install desalination plants on the ocean.

[Khyber]

"expensive to build, energy-hungry"

Hi, OTEC would like to say a few things to you.

Why not cite Glenn Beck while you're at it?

[Uberbah]

Beck even has a chalkboard....I don't see Watts with a chalkboard.

Wonton libertarian bashing?

[Uberbah]

How many stories have started with "those fucking libertarians", exactly?

Glaciers melting since last ice age

[bradley13]

Of course, over a long-term average, the glaciers have been melting since the end of the last ice age. Melting glaciers are much better than the alternative. In other news, the earth continues in its previous orbit.

'Global Warming' is a myth

[Anonymous Coward]

www.climatedepot.com

Re:'Global Warming' is a myth

[Anonymous Coward]

... and I can post links to sites that "prove" that the Holocaust, the Moon landing etc. are all myths too.

4 FOOTBALL FIELDS ARE NOT ENOUGH?

[denzacar]

Sorry, but that much space is more than enough for each person to house, clothe and feed themselves at the level expected for a person living in the early 21st century, WITHOUT the use of any technology invented in the last 2000 years.
Not to mention the advancements made in the last half a century or so.

Relax. Watch and read this.
We have a whole planet for ourselves. We just need to be a bit more rational in the use of all the resources at our disposal.
Also, a bit less effort in killing each other and a bit more invested in education NOW might prove highly useful when the population of poorest nations outnumbers the population of the richest by four to one.
40 or so years down the road.

Re:4 FOOTBALL FIELDS ARE NOT ENOUGH?

[Bengie]

With our current population of 6bil, we are consuming about 1.4 Earths of water/food/energy. We are quickly depleting what we have. I don't think doubling the population is such a good idea.

Can != Should

Re:4 FOOTBALL FIELDS ARE NOT ENOUGH?

[Surt]

You think 4 football fields is enough. Yikes. That is cramped as hell.

Re:4 FOOTBALL FIELDS ARE NOT ENOUGH?

[denzacar]

With our current population of 6bil, we are consuming about 1.4 Earths of water/food/energy. We are quickly depleting what we have. I don't think doubling the population is such a good idea.

One - there are ~7 billion humans living on Earth at the moment. 7+ if you ask UN instead of USA.
Two - are you REALLY trying to say that we are spending 140% of available resources of the planet?

Here's a fun experiment. Get a bag of chips or some other easily obtainable prepackaged food item.
Now try eating 140% of the contents of that single packet of food.

Can != Should

If these past decades since the world has been introduced to the Internet has taught us anything it is that Can == You better bloody believe it will happen.

As for doubling the population...
We are the only creatures on this planet who work on solving the problems of our ENTIRE RACE.
Regardless if you believe in "two heads are better than one" or in "the spark of genius" - more people is the solution for both.
Every additional billion humans means we acquire 20 million more geniuses.
Not to mention everyone else in the "above average" 25% (~1.75 billion at the moment) or EVERYONE when the problem actually requires physical instead of mental labor.

Just imagine what we could do with all those brains and all those brains and all those bodies!
The problems we could solve and fix.

And the kicker is...

[arcite]

The vast majority of humanity live in coastal regions, the regions that will be inundated with floods, rising sea levels, and increase intensity of storms. Best to move to high land!

Re:And the kicker is...

[CrackedButter]

Glad I rent then.

Re:And the kicker is...

[TheRaven64]

I live in a costal region, but the thing about coasts is that they're often quite steep. I'm about a mile inland, but even if all of the ice in the world melted the sea level wouldn't be anywhere near my house. In contrast, there are places in south east England that are below sea level yet many miles inland that would be in trouble if the sea level rose enough to cause flooding.

Re:And the kicker is...

[riverat1]

If all of the ice in the world melted sea level would rise around 230 feet (70 meters). My house would be on an island in the middle of Willamette Sound (Oregon). Of course it would take several thousand years for all of the ice on Antarctica to melt so I won't be around to see it.

Throw money at it!!

[Blakwing]

We're all DOOOooOOooOoooooomed!! But for the low low low price of $9 trillion deposited to my account I can plant a tree every time you start your car and this will make it all better.. //filed under: The ridiculous proposition that the best course of action to deal with being stuck out in the rain is NOT to build a shelter but instead to stay there, getting wet, spending trillions, until you can figure out how to control nature and force it to stop raining on you.

Let me save all the trolls the trouble

[hyades1]

Gore. Fraud. Awwk. Scientific conspiracy. Fake data. Awwk. Awwwwwk. Hockey stick. Sunspots. There is no Global Warming. Gore. Gore. Awwwk. Gore. Conspiracy.

There. Now all the anti-Global Warming conspiracy nuts can consider the bases covered and go home to their bat caves.

Melting glaciers == LESS water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not getting this. If the glaciers are melting faster, that should mean more water to their arid regions, not less, so why is there even a problem?

Re:Melting glaciers == LESS water?

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS is the present. THAT is the future. See a difference?

Re:Melting glaciers == LESS water?

[drobety]

Look at the glaciers as a key reserve of water for the dry season. A glacier in equilibrium will replenish itself during wet season, and act as a source of water during dry season. A melting glacier means it doesn't replenish itself during wet season, and thus a diminishing source during dry season. At some point it means a lost source of water during dry season.

Ahem... sorry...

[denzacar]

The economist was arguing the exact opposite, that the global effort to change the lifestyle and energy sources of half the population of the world would be orders of magnitude more expensive than to simply adapt as a species and relocate or provide resources in some other means to people dispersed by global warming.

But I will have to go with "nonsense" on that diagnosis.

Haven't read the article, can't comment on the said economists motives but I am fairly sure that he/she IS making his/her arguments from an ignorant position and a with a highly specialized and limited outlook of the world.

First off, saying "half the population" indicates that he lives in some past age when the developed nations (ones who are responsible for the greater part of the human influence on the climate) were approximately one half of the world population.
Which is no longer the case. "Traditionally poor" continents of Asia and Africa amount to ~5 billion of the ~7 billion humans currently on this planet.

Second, rest assured that the poor nations would be the ones who would feel the effects of global warming the most.
Millions would likely die from hunger, wars caused by said hunger and health issues (disease and lack of medicine) caused by both.

Calculating the "cost" of change in developed nations energy policy merely in dollars, when it is clear to anyone who would take 5 minutes to meditate on the subject that the current policies would cost in lives, lost generations and even in those utterly immeasurable categories such as loss of culture and civilization indicates that the proponent of the "just send aid" has traded his/her moral compass for something more... quantifiable.

Then, there is the problem of "WTF?" in such a solution.
We can't adapt energy policy of developed nations with their (comparably) functioning economies and bureaucracies but at the same time it is a perfectly acceptable idea that we should be able "to simply adapt as a species"?
I'm guessing this will be accomplished through spontaneous mutation of chlorophyll cells in our bodies so that we can harvest the energy of the Sun, dispensing with that pesky habit of eating altogether?
Or perhaps by growing gills and webbed hands and feet so that we can live under water?

Then there is the utter lack of foresight. Which does not surprise me since the said economist is working with numbers from decades ago.
I.e. Is stuck in the past.

We don't need a solution for a world of 5, 6 or 7 billion people, with maybe half of them living in the developed nations.
We need an adaptable, scalable solution for at least 9 billion humans, with at least 7 billion of them living in the developing nations.
Which is where we will be 40 or so years down the road, just as the world's supply of oil nears the end of its economical use.

And saying to those 7 billion "Ah, just move somewhere else" basically means "Come, take my already strained resources - you're gonna take them by force anyway since you and yours outnumber me and mine by 4 to 1. And you've grown up in the society where human life is very cheap.".

So, unless we come up with cold fusion in the next decade or so we MUST start relying on renewable energy resources.
Cause "poor" of the world sure as hell will not. Can not.
At the same time they will be faced with increased population and dwindling resources - perfect conditions for declaring war.
On their cousins, on their neighbors, on the "wealthy", on those of a different color...

So, developed nations either come up with a solution for both energy and the climate crisis and give it to the developing nations OR be faced with the possibility of being on a losing side of a global war couple of decades down the road.
Not that there can be a winning side in a war whose goal is to manage couple of billion humans through reduction of their numbers.
It's just that some people have a lot less to lose.

Re:Ahem... sorry...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Economist is not any single economist - it's a (extremely well-known) weekly publication and economic analysis/research/consulting company (Economist Intelligence Unit).

Re:Ahem... sorry...

[thegarbz]

We can't adapt energy policy of developed nations with their (comparably) functioning economies and bureaucracies but at the same time it is a perfectly acceptable idea that we should be able "to simply adapt as a species"?
I'm guessing this will be accomplished through spontaneous mutation of chlorophyll cells in our bodies so that we can harvest the energy of the Sun, dispensing with that pesky habit of eating altogether?

While I agree with what you've said I should clarify what was meant by this. By adapt as a species we mean by engineering solutions. Build stores of water, desalinate, some kind of preservation project. At worst case he was talking about relocating entire populations to more habitable places. His idea was mainly focused on some pacific island which modelling suggests would get swept away with a global warming sized ocean rise.

Ultimately though I agree with the prognosis that any large scale relocation attempt can only really end in war. As it is refugee is a dirty enough word. I don't see our governments realistically opening up their borders to an entire small 3rd world nation.

Re:Ahem... sorry...

[firewood]

We don't need a solution for a world of 5, 6 or 7 billion people, with maybe half of them living in the developed nations.
We need an adaptable, scalable solution for at least 9 billion humans, with at least 7 billion of them living in the developing nations.

Or perhaps we need a way to reduce the human population to the longer term carrying capacity of the planet, which might just be far far below 5 billion... or nature will surely figure out a way to accomplish that for us.

Re:Ahem... sorry...

[denzacar]

By adapt as a species we mean by engineering solutions. Build stores of water, desalinate, some kind of preservation project. At worst case he was talking about relocating entire populations to more habitable places. His idea was mainly focused on some pacific island which modelling suggests would get swept away with a global warming sized ocean rise.

Well... that ain't really "as a species" anything. More like "them there brownie people should toughen up".
Is that economist per chance Australian?

Also, "mainly focused on some pacific island" just reads to me as more of "somebody else's problem" - a concept that does not exist when we are talking about global issues.
Which is something any economist who's been breathing the air on this planet for the last decade or so should be aware of.

Ultimately though I agree with the prognosis that any large scale relocation attempt can only really end in war. As it is refugee is a dirty enough word. I don't see our governments realistically opening up their borders to an entire small 3rd world nation.

Small third world nations are not really a problem.
Billions of people in Asia are. Future billion+ of people in Africa too. 70% of all humans live on those two continents.
Guess who has the best chance of feeling the effects of a global climate change, per capita.

Regardless what happens (global war, global famine, rampaging pandemics, global economic crises...) we are beyond the point where we can solve or even reduce the problems by sending aid packages.
We got actual global problems. You simply can't solve those one country or "world" at a time.

Remember couple of years back when we felt the tremors of a rising middle class in Asia through the global food prices?

It's one world.
Sticking our collective heads in the sand, pretending it is somebody else's problem... Sorry, but that really irks me.
Particularly from someone who is apparently enough of an authority in a (very) vaguely related field that they get to spew such nonsense in the media.
Authoritatively.

Re:Ahem... sorry...

[denzacar]

Or perhaps we need a way to reduce the human population to the longer term carrying capacity of the planet, which might just be far far below 5 billion... or nature will surely figure out a way to accomplish that for us.

Planet basically has no human capacity limit, that we could ever reach. Human civilization as we know it on the other hand...

And we are way beyond that 5 billion number you mention.
At this point the only way we can get back there is if we kill off 2 billion people, and then limit everyone in the world to a "one child per parent - no more, no less"-rule.
And then we can just lay back and relax as we slowly exterminate ourselves through such a breeding scheme as we need at least 2.1 children per couple - unless we start killing off boys and "uncoupled" humans.
Or unless we delegate breeding of those 0.1 babies to those "more suitable".

BTW, that also is an end to the human civilization as we know it.

As for nature... Well... it already has a solution for overpopulation. Death.
Now, humans being slightly allergic to death, I'm more of a fan of an idea where humans find solutions for their problems without the use of death.
And last time I checked, the only beings preoccupied with finding solutions to the problems of the humans are humans. Whodathunkit!

So basically what we actually need in order to solve our problem with the ACQUIREMENT AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES for an ever growing population of humans is - more problem solving humans.
And the only way we know so far for getting more of those is through getting more humans, and teaching them how to better solve problems.

You might say how that too is the nature's way of solving the problem for us, except this method actually requires that we get off our asses and... that kinda gets us into a whole other issue about what exactly is natural for us and all that.

Dam!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammed be all that unfreezing water!

Problem Solved

[Anonymous Coward]

If they use the Mayan Calendar it will last until the end of time.

Um, wrong.

[gottabeme]

There are some places in which the population currently exceeds its carrying capacity. It's foolish to extrapolate that to the entire planet.

The problem is not having enough food--there is more than enough food on Earth to feed every person on the planet. The problem is distribution--and economics, politics, etc. The problem is getting the food to the people who need it.

The real problem is corruption and greed and just plain evil in governments, and in some places, in the society and culture as well. The real problem is people who don't work together as a community or a nation but instead play "every man for himself", seeking not the common good but to gratify oneself.

We don't need less people--we need fewer evil people. We need more good people.

Your suggesting that we need a global population reduction is a dehumanizing proposition, devaluing the lives of billions of real human beings. It is people like you who are the problem, people wanting to selfishly "cut off the dead weight" for the sake of themselves--people who think they are more important than everyone else. Shame on you.

Re:Um, wrong.

[cusco]

The problem is getting the food to the people who need it.

That's only a temporary problem, there is currently enough food for everyone only because of the enormous energy subsidy supplied by the petrochemical industry in the form of fertilizers and pesticides. Say what you will about the 'Green Revolution', but one thing you can't claim that it's in any way sustainable without cheap oil.

You assume that people who admit that the population needs to be reduced in order to be sustainable only want to eliminate the poor, which is actually the exact opposite of what needs to happen. The poor use very few resources per person, it's the rich countries that are the problem. I have no illusion of being important enough that I need to survive at the expense of others, there are undoubtedly Andean peasants who are more likely to survive a societal collapse than I am.

Of course it's dehumanizing, we're talking about a species in the aggregate. We're living on the energy subsidy of several billion years of accumulated solar energy, when the cheap oil is gone we're going to have to reduce our numbers. Either we do it voluntarily, which is nasty, or Ma Nature does it for us, and she's a bitch. There really isn't a third option.

Back to the Drawing Board

[ks*nut]

Damn, there go my plans for a lawn care start-up in Peru.

Inferences are not facts

[gottabeme]

The problem is that all these conclusions are inferences. Without time machines, we can't verify that the inferences and models upon which they're based are truly accurate. In a few hundred years we can dig up some cores and compare the inferences with recorded data. Until then, one should not take such inferences as fact--to do so is not science but dishonest.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lookit me, ma! Ima skeptik cuz I don nuffin 'bout how science werks!"

Re:Inferences are not facts

[gottabeme]

Your logic has won me over!

Re:Inferences are not facts

[tragedy]

Aside from the geological evidence, I should point out that there's also all the written records of the thousands and thousands of people who have lived and worked there. We can already compare the inferences with recorded data, we don't have to wait a few hundred years. Why is it that people think the mid-1800's were the stone age? The science of meteorology existed 150 years ago. We had the telegraph and just a few years until the telephone. We had steam engines and locomotives. Internal combustion engine automobiles already existed. We had thermometers, graduated cylinders, barometers, devices for measuring wind speed, etc. The Renaissance and Enlightenment were already considered part of history. Most people weren't dragging around clubs, speaking in grunts and interpreting all weather events as signs from the sky gods (at least, not to a considerably greater degree than they still do today).

Re:Inferences are not facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that people think the mid-1800's were the stone age? The science of meteorology existed 150 years ago. We had the telegraph and just a few years until the telephone. We had steam engines and locomotives. Internal combustion engine automobiles already existed. We had thermometers, graduated cylinders, barometers, devices for measuring wind speed, etc.

We? I know you got a 5 digit ID but how fuckin old ARE YOU???

lol

-@|

Re:Inferences are not facts

[riverat1]

The fact is that similar studies have been done in areas where they do have good meteorologic records to validate the the inferences and models that they used. Once you have a good basis for trusting your methods then you can apply them elsewhere.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[Black Parrot]

I give an outline of a scientific argument. [...]

The problem is that all these conclusions are inferences. [...]

*All* of science is inferences.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[tragedy]

Feeling older and older all the time. Seriously though, when I used "we", I was referring to the human race as a whole. I'm currently a member, but I consider the we to apply both before my time and after it. So if I say "I think we'll have flying cars some day", I don't necessarily mean that I'll be alive to see it.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[gottabeme]

Hm, I thought "science" was about provable results from repeatable experiments, not making guesses about things that supposedly happened millions of years ago.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[gottabeme]

The scales are not equivalent. Using data from the 1800s doesn't mean that your models can accurately be extrapolated to thousands and millions of years ago. Not to mention that all the people from whom those records come are long since dead.

There's nothing wrong with making inferences and extrapolations. The problem arises when people claim it proves anything conclusively, that such inferences are facts. That's dishonest--it's neither scientific nor logical. It suggests either foolishness, ignorance, or an agenda other than truth.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[gottabeme]

As I just wrote in another response, a few hundred years extrapolated to thousands or millions of years doesn't conclusively prove anything. It's fine to consider it, but don't call the extrapolated results facts.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[tragedy]

I didn't say anything about extrapolating data from the 1800s to thousands and millions of years ago. I think you jumped a track somewhere there. This about looking at the last 150 years of records of the Atacama desert and seeing if there's been any waist deep snowfall in the region during that time period. And what does the fact that many of the people (not all of them since we're talking about a time period extending up to this year) those records came from are dead have to do with anything? Do they need to be alive so we can interrogate and torture them to see if they were lying?

As for inferences versus facts, they're not really absolutely different things. They're more a continuum. Ultimately, you have no way of truly knowing that you can trust the input of your senses. You don't know that any facts are really facts. You don't know that you can trust your sensory organs. You don't know that you even have sensory organs and that you're not just a brain in a jar. You don't even know if you have a brain or that there's such a thing as brains or jars for that matter. You don't even know that reading what I've written isn't an implanted memory. Sure you have a sense that it's happing as you read it, but, after you've read it, wait ten seconds, then try to prove to yourself that the entire universe wasn't just created at that moment with an implanted memory of having read this created along with it.

Some people would say that you have to take certain things on faith. I say faith isn't really necessary, but you do have to behave as if some things are real. At some point, you have to decide that you'll treat some things as facts until future evidence either disproves them or adds additional support to their validity, but you can never know anything 100%.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[tragedy]

As I responded to you in another response (more or less): huh? Where are you getting the extrapolation to thousands or millions of years? We were talking about 150 years of recorded history.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[Black Parrot]

Hm, I thought "science" was about provable results from repeatable experiments, not making guesses about things that supposedly happened millions of years ago.

Nope. Science is about making inferences about nature from whatever evidence we can find or afford to produce.

Re:Inferences are not facts

[tragedy]

But the results are always inferences. Every observation is, ultimately an inference. You cut them as finely as you can but millions of years ago (why are you fixated on that?) or picoseconds ago, you always have to infer what happened whether you're looking at the measurements your instruments have taken or you're interpreting the photons that have struck your retinas.

Suddenly this makes sense.

[koan]

"Some have speculated that he might be trying to wrestle control of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest underground water reserves, from the Paraguayans."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarani_Aquifer

POTUS has pretty good Intel on likely future scenarios, in a dry World what's more valuable than oil? Water.

IMO the answer to all the World's problems is human population reduction.

Re:Suddenly this makes sense.

[WillAdams]

koan wrote:
>POTUS has pretty good Intel on likely future scenarios, in a dry World what's more valuable than oil? Water.

Science fiction story on that:

http://www.amazon.com/Texas-Rocks-Daniel-Cruz/dp/0345316592

William

I remember when the deniers...

[forkfail]

... used to say, "Well, gee! Melting glaciers will give people more water, not less! So even if it's happening, climate change is a good thing!"

An absolute example of an argument in favor of roasting the golden goose to prevent hunger.

Cholera

[the eric conspiracy]

Maybe that will put an end to Peru's cholera epidemics (common because Greenpeace convinced them to stop chlorinating their water).

alarmist rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

all past events were entirely natural, and involved huge temperature changes. You're getting your knickers in a bind over a mere degree of change over a century with another possible one degree over the next century (and that is already looking very unlikely). get real.

GOLD

[Anonymous Coward]

Gold!

Obvious troll is obvious. Insightful? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you all fall for this? "Hey guys I'm even more wrong than you thought I was. LOLz don't you get tired of being wrong all the time?"

When did Peru

[Anonymous Coward]

get so thirsty anyway?

This kinda sounds familiar...ah yes, I remember...

[sponglish]

IPCC officials admit mistake over melting Himalayan glaciers

The UN's climate science body has admitted that a claim made in its 2007 report - that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 - was unfounded.

The admission today followed a New Scientist article last week that revealed the source of the claim made in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was not peer-reviewed scientific literature – but a media interview with a scientist conducted in 1999. Several senior scientists have now said the claim was unrealistic and that the large Himalayan glaciers could not melt in a few decades.

In a statement (pdf), the IPCC said the paragraph "refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly."

re: water is threatened

[CosineHamster]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the people are threatened? I don't think water itself feels much one way or another. : o P

For those that don't think a climate topic belongs

[slashkitty]

It does. Governments around the world are planning on spending trillions of dollars and rerouting much of the energy structure in response to these reports. The reports are based on a few computer models and a few more wild predictions. The programmers here know that computer programs can be wrong, and we all know the wild predictions can be wrong. We want to see the source code and check things ourselves. The IPCC has not done that, and in fact has hidden the source code.

Good points.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Reposting w/o permission:
Anybody got responses to these points? No one did last time it was posted.

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/12/02/161230/kyoto-protocol-renewal-efforts-struggling
Could it be (gasp!) Climategate? (Score:4, Insightful)
by rgbatduke (1231380) on Friday December 02, @02:05PM (#38241224) Homepage
Having just worked my way through many of the Climategate 2 emails (and yes, read a rather lot of the literature) it isn't all that surprising that Kyoto is about to be a major fail. The science is far from settled, the primary researchers are perfectly aware that it is far from settled and openly admit it in their internal discussions, but they are far more concerned with things like having a person's Ph.D. revoked (for the sin of disagreeing with their conclusions), having journal editors fired (for the sin of publishing a paper that weakened their "cause"), winning the "PR war" (what about figuring out the science?), verifying on their own that the infamous MBH hockey stick graph is crap (yes, in the internal climategate letters you discover that the primary hockey team members know perfectly well that trend-fit white noise put into Mann's algorithm produces nothing but hockey sticks at this point, but do they openly admit the mistake and remove the graph from all of the public policy presentations on the subject? Hell no! Both MBH and MJ are still there on the wikipedia pages for global warming, because admitting error and removing crap results that are known to be completely wrong weakens the message and undermines the PR war).

Throw in that the UAH temperature anomaly since 1981 -- evaluated with openly accessible methods from openly available datasets and not susceptible to e.g. UHI "corrections" liberally applied, unlike e.g. HadCRUT3 -- is a whopping 0.11C. That would be 30 years, call it a third of a century, and 0.11C net warming as of October. Over that time, CO_2 has gone from 335 ppm (Mauna Loa) to around 390 ppm. That is a 55/335 = 16% increase. Since the 1998 El Nino peak (and the end of the series of Grand Solar Maxima of the 20th century) global temperatures have gone down (or held nearly steady). The most pessimistic trending of post 1997 data is 0.2 C. During that interval CO_2 concentration went up around 8%. Even the IPCC is backing off from predictions of much warming "for a while" and of course everybody but Al Gore is sober enough to be able to see that there is no correlation between e.g. the frequency or energy in tropical storms and either the UAH (fairly reliable satellite derived) data or the God-knows-how derived HadCRUT data and especially not with raw CO_2 concentrations.

Now let's see. The earth's mean temperature is roughly 280 C give or take a bit. Let's assume that the thirty year anomaly is 0.28C, in rough agreement with UAH -- it won't matter for this argument. CO_2 up by 16%, T up by -- what would that be? Yes, that's right, by 0.1%! I won't even bother discussing climate sensitivity -- that's dead in the water right there! There are two things anybody can see from simple back of the envelope calculations, the sort one should do just to see if complex models (in the end) make sense. One is that 0.1% -- hell, 1% -- is surely within the bounds of natural variability for a tipped planet with warm, complex oceans, and the most cursory glance at temperatures over the entire Holocene stand is clear evidence that it is a lot larger than that, with or without human civilization. The other is that if 100% of that gain was pure response to CO_2 forcing without any confounding factors or fudge factors contributing, the noise from non-CO_2 fluctuations greatly exceeds this signal and we cannot explain the noise!. For the last decade, temperature trends haven't even had the same sign as a nearly 10% increase in atmospheric CO_2.

This leaves a CAGW enthusiast doubly damned. If solar state is irrelevant, decadal oscillations are irrelevant, oceanic heat reservoir forcing (with up to 1000 year timescales, so some fraction of the energy co

Delta Works are not cheap

[fritsd]

Well that's the thing. It's not places like New York City that need to be moved, but rather low-lying pacific islands.

No, I disagree:

Look at this NASA picture: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=55167.
Then, think: why is it that you can recognize the outline of the continents?
Almost all transcontinental container traffic goes by boat. Harbor cities is where the commerce is, so that's where the people move to for work.
When harbor cities such as Shanghai, New York, Rotterdam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Antwerp need rebuilding because of rising sealevel, watch what happens to the price of bananas. Or coffee. Or cars.
Doesn't matter if it takes 50 or 150 years; most of the large harbor cities are much older than that. It would still be an enormously painful and expensive investment.
And that's only talking about the economy; but giving up or relocating all the coastal churches, libraries, musea etc. because of 7 meter sea level rise also has a price tag.
To conclude: the picture in this (Dutch) Wikipedia article shows what half of the Netherlands looked like in Roman times: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdronken_Land_van_Saeftinghe. The real-estate brokers don't want those times to return :-) not after 57 years of paying taxes to raise the country's flood defenses to the current (inadequate) level: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works (N.B. note the cost calculation in that article :-) )

Not a waste of time... a look at reasons...

[terjeber]

There are two main reasons that glaciers are melting faster today than they have been historically (since the beginning of this latest ice age). One is that the temperature seems to be increasing. This is, for many glaciers, not the main culprit however. Deforestation is. A thorough study of the glacier of Mt. Kilimanjaro showed that a rather small amount of the melting could be attributed to increasing temperatures, the majority was caused by deforestation.

Why does deforestation impact the glacier thus? Sublimation. Forests adds moisture to the air. Remove the forest and air goes much drier. Drier air means a significant increase in ice/snow sublimation, and poof goes the glacier. This would happen even with zero increase in temperature.

melting glaciers and warming

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to point out that glacier melting is more a product of reduced precipitation than actual temperature increase.

It's not funny

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Not funny in the least. What we're talking about is runaway global warming with positive feedback loops from non-human sources of GHG. If those start to go at all, it can lead to an avalanche of GHG such that even if we cease all GHG production completely tomorrow, it won't stop runaway heating of the earth to 6 degrees above what we have now which, in case anyone is wondering what that number means to humans, represents the guaranteed extinction of civilization.

I assert that the mere presence of inaction on the part of democratically elected governments heavily implies that democracy itself, at least in it's present form, has failed.

Clearly the funding of elections by corporations is at the heart of this. Politicians cannot take positions unpopular to corporations and also stay in office. The small group of people at the heads of corporations who decide what campaign to support are far removed from both economic and physical reality. They are ideologues who are ignorant of science and what science is saying. Yet they and they alone decide what laws will be passed. The Chamber of Commerce is a case in point.

If democracy has failed and short term interests and the absolute ignorance and blind greed of the elite are driving us to extinction, then ti will be a repeat of what Jared Diamond has documented in his book about how once great civilizations collapse , titled "Collapse".

The elites are immune to the consequences of the disastrous decisions they generate until it's too late for everyone, including themselves.

I'm sorry, but this exactly describes our current situation.

I call on the President of the United States to take any and all action including suspending the Constitution and nationalizing all industries at the point of a gun if needed, detaining and imprisoning anyone who doesn't like it, and using whatever other powers he sees fit to impose whatever is needed to stop runaway global warming from happening.

It could happen within a decade that massive amounts of GHG are suddenly released from the permafrost thanks to the unprecedented level of 380 ppm carbon we have now.

For three decades now scientists have been certain of their facts and prevailed upon us to stop business as usual. For three decades our democracy ignored them. Our democracy as it is is a mortal threat to our nation and the world's peoples. It is lethally and irretrievably broken , by definition it has shown that it cannot cope with this situation. Time has run out and I enjoin slashdotters to accept and encourage the suspension of democracy for the purpose of saving life on this planet. I enjoin them to be prepared to do whatever the President says needs to be done in order to survive.

If it means turning the drought ridden Southwest into a gigantic concentration camp where deniers go to fend for themselves amongst themselves while the rational portion of this nation mobilizes and rations food, then do it.

We are right now in nothing less than a civil war, declared against the United States by the likes of the Koch brothers and the Cato institute and the Heritage Foundation and FoxNews and the Wall Street Journal and all the rest of the denier machine. These people are terrorists and it's time to start thinking about them as terrorists and treating them like terrorists.

This much is certain. We are heading towards civil war between those in this nation who want us to take a rational course of action in order to preserve the species and those with a unconscious death wish, those well known sociopaths who populate the right wing airwaves and print media and those who deny all science and seek to impose their otherworldly view of reality on all humanity.

It's civil war and it's happening now, being fought for now online and in the media and in Congress. But it won't stop there, just as it didn't in the first Civil War. Like then, this is a nation divided and it canot stand. It's divided between the rationalist children

Nice try

[RobinEggs]

This has nothing to do with me being told I'm wrong; I've never posted in one these threads before. I've never put forth any opinion, that I can recall, on this topic. I'm simply tired - as someone with university training and research experience in evolution and ecology - of seeing global warming, drug resistance, etc. completely and inexcusably mangled by slashdotters showing off their distant memories of high school biology.

Nice try, though, dismissing my entire multifaceted objection as pure, simple stubbornness. Way to oversimplify.

Completely disingenuous

[RobinEggs]

Also your whining is part of the "I don't wanna listen because no one here is expert and I don't wanna hear that we have screwed up everything" crowd.

Criticizing pseudo-scientific babble doesn't amount to saying "I don't wanna listen because no one here is expert". I'll talk to an educated layman or an inquisitive ignoramus all day long. What I don't like is politically motivated fools with no training in any type of science babbling on about global ecology.

I'm also rather tired, as an evolutionary biologist with some training in ecology and climate, of hearing slashdoters with CS and physics degrees spout off about climate change, drug resistance, ecosystems, etc. when a solid 8 of 10 responses on those topics are so fundamentally wrong that any competent AP Bio student could correct them.

There's nothing pretentious or avoidant about saying it's a waste of time to carry on discussions I know for a fact will promote politics and wrong-headed intuitions over science. When someone so firmly believes a wrong opinion as to bother posting it, and 4 other people mod up their ignorant drivel, and not a single person mods it down...and this happens over and over and over...why shouldn't I point out that it's clearly a waste of time?

As for your contention that I simply "don't wanna hear that we have screwed everything up" accusation, I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion but I believe quite firmly in the dangers of anthropogenic global warming, and I have no problem facing that or any other problem of our species head-on. My criticism of this topic and this posting refers to the virulent climate change deniers I see on slashdot, people who are especially dangerous because they often have enough training in some sort of science and enough practice in informal debate to make some serious bullshit sound reasonable. So your second criticism is in fact precisely opposite the truth.