Slashdot Mirror
2011 Was the 9th Hottest Year On Record
The Bad Astronomer writes "Last year was the 9th hottest year out of the past 130, according to NASA and the NOAA. That's no coincidence: nine out of the ten hottest years on record have been since the year 2000. It's long past time to face facts: the Earth is getting hotter, and to deny it is an exercise in fantasy."
But who the fuck cares?
Is it a bad thing? Or did we just dodge an ice age?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's getting hotter! Oh No! What ever will we do??!!!
to deny it is an exercise in fantasy.
Sure but in my experience exercising in fantasy beats exercising in reality every time.
Isn't this already debunked? Apparently temperatures haven't risen for 8 years?
... for very short values of record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
it's in my head
Ice ages, hot periods, floods, land scape changes, saltier oceans. The climate and Earth is always changing. Always has been and always will be. With or without us.
thank you
But is a 130 year history enough to forecast the doom of the planet on, or is this like predicting all life will end because it is hotter at noon that it was at 11:00am on an average summer day?
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
Not everyone denies that the earth is getting hotter (facts), but some related claims like that it's getting hotter because of human activity, greenhouse gases, etc.
That it's getting hotter is science: you can't disagree with measurement.
The rest is a mixture of pseudo-science and politics.
Fact is that nobody knows why the Earth is getting hotter.
A lot more than 8.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/01/uah-global-temperature-update-for-dec-2011-0-13-deg-c/
Isn't this already debunked? Apparently temperatures haven't risen for 8 years?
Citation needed.
Life thrives in a warm climate, bring it on.
Water World style,, all evolved people are considered out casts and hunted down.
IRL X-Files anyone
But who the fuck cares?
I'm an agricultural commodities trader, you insentitive clod!
It's long past time to face facts: the Earth experiences weather, and to deny it is an exercise in fantasy.
Lots of smoke blown by nay-sayers and conflicting claims on why, but it is becoming quite apparent something is happening and ... it's happening at an accelerating rate. Hard for be to believe we are not influencing this trend. All that carbon was up here once before and it was so warm and cozy you could grow ___ing great lizards. And lizards aren't known for their arctic preferences of climate.
I blame Buster Poindexter!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's long past time to face facts: the Earth is getting hotter, and to deny it is an exercise in fantasy.
I much prefer fantasy exercise over actual exercise!
Or it's an illusion caused by the power law after the sample size of weather stations was reduced by 1/5th during the late 80s and early 90s.
"It's long past time to face facts: the Earth is getting hotter, and to deny it is an exercise in fantasy."
Seriously not much ideological bias. I can't imagine a more anti science, more anti reason way to try and beat down people you disagree with than the above. The fact that it has managed to gain a foothold in political circles and the wider world is a great indictment of democracy, and the best argument imaginable for not giving government more power to try and solve our problems.
evolution is not real
the world is flat
i don't want to think
i have certain beliefs and i do not want them challenged
and i believe in a mythical past that never existed where everything was perfect and all progress has ruined the myth
and i will spend all of my breath standing against simple human thought, logic, reason, and progress
because i am inert and my mind is closed
and you should be the same way too
and i will raise my many many children to think this way too
baaaahhh baaaaahhh
rise of the human herbivores
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I mean, compare Kim Kardashian to Farrah Fawcett? Then there's Debra Harry, Michelle Yeoh, heck even Dolly Parton. There's just no way it's even the 9th hottest.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I love it when ignorant people like this imply that their local conditions are representative of not only the entire year but also the entire planet. The simple fact is this: you don't have all the information. You are not recording the temperature at many places around the world and therefore are not sufficiently informed to make the argument that the Earth is not on average warming up. See that word back there? "Average"? Please examine the definition of that word and how it might apply to your single anecdote. Then perhaps you can examine the 130 year temperature record for various points around the world and apply the appropriate functions to determine what the temperature of the entire Earth is doing over this time period.
I love it when amateurs try to second-guess experts.
"Mr. Einstein, are you sure it's not just an issue of measurement?"
"Billions of people in the world? You expect me to believe that? Have you actually met them all? I thought not!"
97% of scientists who are experts in this field are sufficiently convinced. They may end up being wrong, but they are in the best possible position to assess the evidence. You are not. Even if you *are* a climate scientist, you don't get to overrule the rest of your peers just because you think you're smarter than they are.
If you're not a climate scientist, please SFTFU with your denial. If you are a climate scientist, then do good research and talk to your peers.
It's long past time to face facts: the Earth is getting hotter, and to deny it is an exercise in fantasy.
Nobody is denying that it got like 0.2 degrees hotter in the past 10 years, it's the fact that some people seem to be making the leap between it getting hotter and humans not trading enough carbon credits, now that is an exercise in fantasy.
Bow before me, for I am root.
to me the facts say that the earth is actually cooling if the majority of the past decade has been warmer.
Yeah and it was like, what, +5 there a couple days ago. Did it ever get to +5 in January in Minnesota 20 years ago? It sure as hell didn't in northern ontario.
The question is not if the climate is changing. The question is whether CO2 controls the climate in any meaningful way.
As of now that's enough to be eventually pressurized to make you feel guilty and suck some dollars in the process. Thank you!
Yet no AWG proponent can tell me why they are regulating CO2 instead of Methane, which they tell me is 15x the greenhouse effect of CO2.
Thats right, you can't tax everyone on Methane, but you can on CO2. Global warming isn't about saving the environment, its about justifying more taxes.
I just love how humans go about their lives thinking that we're the only thing holding this planet together, and that if we go extinct, time itself will go all taco-shaped and the universe will cease to exist. If we were truly a species worth saving, we'd be fixing this problem*, instead of bickering about whether or not it even exists, and who's to blame, and who's paying for it, and at what interest rate, and.... *assuming the rising temperatures are not natural, or a statistical blip.
I live in Minnesota. We're presently at -12C with a forecast low of -21C tonight. If this is what you call a warmer Earth you could have fooled me. However, I for one would very much welcome a warmer Minnesota--during the winter at any rate.
Global *averages* are rising. And by the models I've heard it means that winters don't necessarily get warmer (yet), but they get shorter. I live in Ontario, and I can remember having snowball fights before Hallowe'en when I was young. This year, we didn't start getting lasting snow until mid-December, and we have had winters in the past few years where we didn't get lasting snow until mid-January. It still gets down to low temperatures (it was -35 here this morning, with the wind chill factor... -21 without), but it does it less often, and it doesn't stay cold for as many months. It's "good" for northern latitudes (for varying definitions of "good"... the reduction in permafrost is wreaking havoc on the transportation network in northern Canada, as we discover that some of the landing strips on fly-in communities are in swamps), but it's really bad for those in equatorial latitudes.
...couldn't care less. Warmer? Colder? It's all good.
That and some volcanoes.
Without those, we're talking an ice free passage in the Arctic from Greenland to Alaska, the melting of enough of Antarctica to raise sea level 4-5 meters (that's 20 feet GW deniers), and hurricanes with enough energy input to make Florida look like a 24/7 disaster zone.
That said, I will bet Mittens' $10,000 that GW deniers will try to mod this entire topic down, using some of the $50,000 I have invested in energy stocks to pay for the posters.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How can the 10 hottest years on record have possibly been since 2000 when there was no warming between 1998 and 2008? Global Warming experts say this 10 year period is too brief to prove anything, they recommend a minimum of 17 years to show a distinct trend. I smell a troll.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I think the global warming shills have quit denying the obvious (that "the Earth is getting hotter"), and have moved on to point #2: that the cause is man-made. The point #3 is "the human race can do something about it". As I understand it, it's this #3, which would (in their minds) invariable mean taxes, or an upset to the business/government status quo, that they largely want to avoid.
If this is the 9th hottest year, and 8 of the past 12 have been hotter, then wouldn't that technically also make 2011 one of the four coldest years out of the past 12? Doesn't change the fact that the past decade has been hotter than the others, but the phrasing is considerably more alarmist than "2011 4th coldest year out of past 12!!"
Commenter is on topic and factually correct. Just because the commenter is in open disagreement with slashdot paullowers doesn't mean his comments don't deserve to be read.
Climate is always dynamic on life bearing planets. Ergo if it wasn't getting warmer it would be getting colder and then you'd be griping about that.
Are you really a counter-agent, trying to make those who oppose Ron Paul look like idiots?
I think he does
Indeed.
And quite beside the point. Who the hell cares if we're causing it or not; we should be concerned only with keeping it habitable for our future needs. Finding the root cause could help with finding a solution, but to do nothing is oblivion.
Yawn.
Farmers, maybe? Their profession is only...you know...the foundation of modern civilization and intimately tied to climate conditions.
Porquoi?
Always eager to fight. Always quick to rush to the wrong conclusion. I was rather enjoying the 5 to 10C we had a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately we're back to business as usual and that pleasant weather is a faded memory. Oh, before I forget... *woosh*
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Yeah and it was like, what, +5 there a couple days ago. Did it ever get to +5 in January in Minnesota 20 years ago? It sure as hell didn't in northern ontario.
Hell in Minneapolis, it hit 50+ twice in January, 4 days over 40, and half the month so far has had a high above freezing. December was about the same. It has been quite the warm winter here. This change to more seasonable weather has been welcomed by me, especially finally getting some more snow.
"Help I got called out on being a dumbshit! Quick try to make people think I meant something else!!!"
From your own post, lest you forget:
"If this is what you call a warmer Earth you could have fooled me."
doesn't make it pseudo-science.
First the Republicans denied that the earth was warming
Now they're denying it's man-made
Next they'll say it's too late to do anything
Why have Republicans become the party of ignorance?
- denying man-made climate change
Probably 95% of all climatologists support it
- denying evolution
Probably 99% of all biologists agree it is central to Biology
- denying stimulus economics
Probably 95% of all economists (like me) agree it got us out of the Great Depression
Do they honestly believe Faith trumps Facts? Whose Faith? Only evangelical Christains? What about other Christians (I heard the Vatican doesn't have a problem with evolution), Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or (gasp!) Atheists?
Or, on the other hand, why does anyone who claims to stand against ignorance and (to be honest) superstition remain a Republican?
I shudder to think what would happen if these views gained (even) greater credence in the U.S. Would we start segregating women like ultra-orthodox Jews want in Israel? Or deny them an education (and many rights) like in Islamic countries? Why can't all these religious people keep their Faith to themselves? And for issues that affect us all, stay with Facts not Fiction.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but Methane CH4 is 25x as much so and FAR more prevalent, despite man made exhaust. Wanna solve two problems at once? Switch all transportation , power generation, and heating to LNG or CNG.
Here's a couple of links for slashdot to peruse:
Atmospheric Methane sub heading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116532&org=NSF&from=news
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html
OBTW The major greenhouse gas is water vapor, which causes about 36–70% of the greenhouse effect.
Tech JJ
Well then you must have enjoyed last week when we set a record high of 52 degrees in January! Not that a single day or even a single winter proves anything w.r.t. global warming.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMSP/2012/1/10/DailyHistory.html
Seriously, what's this supposed to imply? I don't think people are "denying" that the world is getting warmer, I think people are denying that it's man (or woman) thats causing it. There's a bunch of charts and data to indicate that this might be the earth's natural cycling. Personally, I love this graph Global Warming Loons Gone Wild which correlates nicely with your 130 years of warming with the suns natural solar activity. There's a few more out there that show how the various warming periods in history match up exactly with the sun.
So please enlighten me. Who are these people that are supposedly denying that the earth is getting warmer? I personally have never heard or seen people say this. But I've seen a lot of people say that it's not all man's doing.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Anecdotal evidence counts now?
I live in Iowa and we broke records for high temperatures. It was 60 F in January.
This was the first "non-white" Christmas my grandma has seen.
The Earth heats up and cools down all the time. The stable weather we have had for most of civilization is actually unusual.
i'm pretty sure i'd have better karma here than that if i was. as it is, slashdot readers who are also members of the cult of ron paul have managed to push my karma down so low that not only do my comments start at minus 1, i am only allowed to comment twice per day.
hence i have to send you this reply as ac. in other words, slashdot values the ac more than it values what i have to say.
It is times like these it is nice that our neighbors to the north don't believe in nukes. Think of the vast expanses of arable land at our grimy little finger tips :-) Oil and wheat for everyone!
"All those moments, will be lost in time...like tears in rain..."
There has been no statistically significant warming in the last 15 years. The Earth is not getting hotter, it got hotter and then, a decade and a half ago, it stopped. This may well be a blip; noted climatoligist Professor Phil Jones, Director of Research for the University of East Angliaâ(TM)s Climatic Research Unit certainly thinks so. But claims the Earth hasn't been getting warmer for the last 15 years are not fantasies; they are the actual consensus of real, respected climate scientists, based on the best data available.
And without knowing how individual regions are affected...there's really reason to think you'll be affected. Sure... some people think Greenland will melt and shut down the Gulf stream and cause Europe to ice over. Which is a nice theory with no way to know if it will pan out or not.
Shills? Stop being an ass.
There is no other explanation for what is happening.
http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/why-is-it-called-denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But who the fuck cares?
I do. But only because it's where I keep all my stuff. ;-)
There have been many significant climate changes over the billions of years since the Earth was formed. And you know what? They have usually been *really* bad for the dominant species at the time.
You've never heared of the 'little ice age' ?
New things are always on the horizon
Another useless discussion that goes nowhere.
In reality, farmers care a great deal. Even a few days' change in the growing season, or an increase in the temperatures during the hottest part of it, will change what crops are able to grow and the taste that'll come from them. Wineries in particularly are heavily affected by even one or two days' difference in warm or cold temperatures at the right or wrong time for the grapes.
Civil traffic engineers should care, since temperature changes impact what planned maintenance needs to be done on roads. A colder or snowier winter (one doesn't necessarily mean the other, oftentimes a severe cold snap removes enough moisture from the air to limit snowfall while a milder winter can mean more snowfall) means a need to stock up on road salt and gravel. A hotter summer means a need to resurface roads more often and a need to plan against using looser surfacing that can fall apart in high heat (ever noticed a freshly pave asphalt road in midsummer a bit too far south?).
Tourism? Shifting weather conditions can reduce the skiing season in many regions. Even one lost week can mean going out of business if it happens 2-3 years in a row for the smaller operations such as restaurants or private home renters, and the employees suffer too since they don't just lose tips; most of them lose working hours. Too-hot summer weather makes people avoid some destinations in the middle of summer as well.
Don't forget your power bills. Use a lot of air conditioning?
Yeah, the earth is what 4+billion years old? We have a data from the last 130 years and in the last 10 it is getting warmer so that's global warming?
Ok, maybe so.
But isn't the real issue/controversy/argument that it is a caused by humanity?
Maybe we're on a 100K year cycle, 1 million year cycle, etc in this regard? How can we conclusively prove anything with 130 years of data points from 4000000000+ years of earth's existence?
But what was the excuse for 130 years ago? If climate is changing to be hotter, how come there are records of similar temperatures from many years ago?
I live in Minnesota. We're presently at -12C with a forecast low of -21C tonight. If this is what you call a warmer Earth you could have fooled me. However, I for one would very much welcome a warmer Minnesota--during the winter at any rate.
YOU might think that's funny. I've got the windows open. I should be wrapping the pipes for the coldest week of the year. My neighbors are probably running their A/C, since I don't consider it "hot" until the temperature breaks over 85. I almost switched on the A/C myself last February.
Right now, I'm happy. But last July wasn't quite as funny.
This stupid temperature debate sucks up all the oxygen in the room while all of the really important environmental issues are summarily ignored.
Everyone will have to walk 100ft to higher ground over the next century so they don't drown, well the people that live on the Maldives are screwed, their tallest hill is 7ft above sea level. They need boats or more dirt.
Boo hoo to the farmers. They had their day.. in the middle ages.
Food comes from the supermarket these days, smartass.
Global warming is a hoax, just like the science of modern field crops.
Bah to science, let all stories about global warming get 150+ comments bitching about nothing!
You clearly were not educated in Minnesota, or you would know that what you just said is idiotic. First and foremost, talking about the climate in one region tells you nothing about global warming. Some areas got warmer, some got colder, and some stayed about the same; but the mean global temp is up.
Though on top of that, your observation of MN is total crap. I lived there for over two decades and I can tell you that when I was there the winters were longer, colder, and snowier than the past several years there. You happen to be in a cold snap right now but that doesn't mean shit. Hell a low of -21C is only -5F (which is how they actually measure temperatures in MN), which barely counts as cold there. I remember days when the high temp would barely make 0F, and we'd still have school. The last day I had cancelled school due to weather had a high temp of -21F.
What you are seeing is genuinely warm for a MN January. Go move some place warmer if its too cold for you, as you clearly didn't start out there.
anyone using the last 50-100 years of data to show OMGWTFBBQ earth is not looking at the bigger picture. This is what you call an insignificant data set when real weather patterns are on cycles that last in the 1000s of years. The more carbon dioxide there is in the air, the more plant life there is on earth. In addition, our carbon dioxide levels pale in comparison with prehistoric levels. ~500% higher back then.
I hope that by suggesting that we can't be totally sure, that you are not somehow suggesting that we shouldn't respond to the most likely theories out there. When people ask if I believe in climate change I always say yes, but do I know for 100% sure? Nope. But rarely does life produce certainty like that. And science even less. I'll trust experts in that field in the same way that I trust my mechanic, or my doctor, and they trust me in what I do best. Society doesn't rely on knowing everything- because we can't. That's why we all look to experts in their respective fields, and rightly so. I have heard absolutely no credible person who isn't backed by a religious or oil group who doesn't agree on the general framework. But hey, show me the light.
You've never heared of the 'little ice age' ?
They are little ice age deniers.
For arable land than climate change. Peak phosphorus for example, or soil erosion. Current farming methods are a long way from sustainable. Increasing energy consumption has allowed the process to continue unabated.
Deleted
The real deniers are the ones who think the earth can be saved and that humans can and should inhabit it indefinitely.
So, short term changes are weather, not climate, except when they "prove" something you agree with.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Bigots like you will keep me voting conservative for a long time in coming because you refuse to see that just because someone is of a particular political ideology it doesn't make them all the same. So go fuck yourself.
Anyone but Obama 2012!!! Woohoo!!!!
I've given up arguing over the questionable scientific methods used to support man made global warming. It's my belief that the current warming trends have more to do with variations in the Earth's orbit and/or solar activity than any gasses we produce in the burning of fossil fuels. Instead of arguing over that the debate is not over I will instead point out the problems with many so called solutions to the so called global warming problem.
There are many "solutions" to the problems that involve government taxation for the "polluters" (carbon dioxide is necessary for life on this planet and yet it's a "pollutant"?) and government credits for those that are somehow "harmed" or wronged by this pollution and/or those that choose a means of obtaining energy that is deemed to have a lower carbon footprint. This is wealth redistribution. This is government welfare. This is communism.
If one were to place the sources of electricity in order of their carbon footprint, from least to greatest, the first one would be hydroelectric. Since just about every river worth a dam on this planet has already been dammed up there is little growth left to produce more power. After that comes nuclear power, there's plenty of room for growth here. Then comes, not necessarily in order, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and wave/tidal power sources. I believe that pretty much covers all the non-fossil fuel sources, which leaves us, in order, natural gas, fuel oil, and coal.
The problem with wind and solar is that they are intermittent. The sun does not always shine, and the wind does not always blow. These energy sources are also very expensive. To address their intermittent nature requires energy storage, load shedding, and/or a backup power source. Implementing any of these things to address the intermittent nature of wind and solar only adds to the cost. As my dad pointed out, if you are going to need all of those natural gas backup generators to make up for the lost load when the wind does not turn the windmills then why not just run the natural gas generators and don't even bother with the windmills?
Using biomass for fuel means turning over arable land, lots of it, to produce fuel instead of food. That means food and energy prices go up. It also means removing biomass "waste" from the fields instead of plowing it back into the soil. That lost carbon and nitrogen would have to be replaced chemically, this typically involves fertilizers derived from fossil fuels (most commonly natural gas). So again, instead of burning the corn, switch grass, sugar beets or whatever and using natural gas derived fertilizers why don't we just burn the natural gas and leave the biomass in the fields as fertilizer?
Geothermal shows promise but, like hydroelectric, it relies on favorable geologic formations. These favorable geothermal locations do not typically coincide with favorable living conditions.
All these so called "solutions" to our carbon output involve increased reliance on fossil fuels (in backup power, materials, idled power plants) or involve seriously increased costs of energy (due to wealth redistribution, expensive alternatives, or redundancies to account for unreliability). The only exception to that is nuclear power. Despite the low carbon footprint, relatively low cost, and it's ability to be placed just about anywhere, very few people will consider it as a viable solution.
I believe we should still experiment with technologies like wind and solar. These have uses beyond just electric grid power, such as producing power where fossil fuels and nuclear power are not practical. These can also provide competition to keep prices low. Geothermal and hydroelectric also make sense when geologic formations make them viable. They are also favorable because of their affordable power.
IMHO, biomass as fuel is a terrible idea. Civilizations have died off because they were burning their food.
To me the only real solution to lowering our carbon output into the atmosphere is n
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Mod parent up. I farm, I also trade commodities. I'm outdoors a lot and have been monitoring all this since '80 or so. It's getting warmer for certain. I like it warm, but some of the things I grow don't. And pests that used to stay south of here have moved north to here and we are getting new problems from that. They can migrate quick, but trees cannot...I'm not going to die from the change we have, but another 30 years on this same track - what was productive farmland will be a desert. So, someone will have to tear down that city you live in to grow crops in, because some of the best land on the planet - right here, won't be anymore, and that food's gotta come from somewhere. At our human density, everything that isn't city is farm...more or less. It's not going to be pretty. Gonna vote NIMBY against tearing your city down while you starve? GoodLuckWithThat. Who cares what caused it - we better look into how to change it back!
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
It would indeed be wonderful if the ancient Saharan monsoons returned. But from the last page of your link:
Max Planck's Claussen said North Africa is the area of greatest disagreement among climate change modelers.
Forecasting how global warming will affect the region is complicated by its vast size and the unpredictable influence of high-altitude winds that disperse monsoon rains, Claussen added.
"Half the models follow a wetter trend, and half a drier trend."
That sound rattling around in your brain is your sarcasm and humor detector. It's apparently broken loose from it's moorings.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
0) Has the Earth been getting warmer? (It's pretty clear that this one has been answered: yes.)
1) What is driving the warming? Do we actually understand it? Do we have computer models that, ten years ago, correctly predicted the temperatures we actually experienced in the past decade? Which matters more: CO2, sunspots, clouds? Is the data open and independently corroborated?
2) Will the warming continue, level off, or reverse to a cooling trend (or even an ice age)?
3) If the warming will continue, in what ways will it be bad and in what ways will it be good?
4) If the bad outweighs the good, and we deem global warming to be a major problem, then what is the most effective way to address the problem? Can we solve it with any sort of geoengineering? (Making clouds, locking up carbon in fast-growing plants or algae or something, space-based mirrors, etc.) If the geoengineering is feasible, would it cost less than other proposed plans for carbon regulation?
5) If global warming is happening, we understand it, it is bad, and we can't solve it with geoengineering, what steps should we take now?
6) Is there universal agreement as to the steps we should take now? Will China and India join in the effort?
The AGW proponents claim we understand everything completely now, and no geoengineering efforts will even be considered; we must go straight to carbon credits and such. And if you don't agree with the official AGW position from all steps 0 through 6, you are a "denier" to be ridiculed.
The AGW proponents seriously propose measures that will cause literally trillions of dollars of harm to the economy. That's literal trillions of dollars of increased costs, jobs destroyed, and other harm. This is not theoretical harm, it is harm to actual human beings.
Any effective scheme to reduce carbon emissions must necessarily drive up the cost of driving things around on trucks, because trucks run on carbon-based fuels. Anything that drives up the cost of trucking drives up the cost of everything: food, clothing, all the necessities. And keeping your home warm in the winter requires burning carbon-based fuels, unless you have electric heat and live near a hydro plant or a nuclear power plant. So there will be more people out of a job, and the cost of food will go up, and the cost of heating a home will go up. This is a serious thing to propose, and I expect a high level of proof and a high level of agreement before I will personally be in favor of this. The AGW proponents have not met this high standard yet.
(And before you get snippy with me: even Draconian carbon-control schemes won't hurt me personally, very much. I live in an area where a major chunk of our power is from hydroelectric, I work in an industry that doesn't depend on the cost of energy, and I'm upper-middle class and can afford to pay more for food, heat and everything else. So my own ox isn't being Gored as much as I expect others will be.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
...in a space where there are multiple valleys, is a Really Bad Idea. At first, you can stop pushing, and the rock will roll back to where it was. But at some point, you reach the top of a hill, and the rock rolls away from you into a new, quite different, stable point. Now, if you want the old one back, it's not so easy.
Many of the earth's stable climate points are not so comfortable for humans. The *earth* will survive, *life* in general will survive. But humanity may well take quite a knock -- especially given how fragile modern 'civilization' is.
I live here too, and you are a dishonest fuck. This has been one of the warmest years in decades. Today is cold, and below average. But the last few months- HOT HOT for a typical MN winter. The fact that you pick one random day like this to prove a point you KNOW is bullshit says suggests you are a Bachmann voter and irrational. You are an embarrassment to my great state- a bastion of science and rationality in this country. But hey you have a 1st Amendment right to be ignorant and to spread it far and wide.
You mean the oceanic conveyor? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
It's entirely possible that -- due to the current configurations of the continents -- that this is responsible for the ice age cycles. As more ice is frozen the sea becomes more saline and the conveyor starts up and warms the polar regions. As the ice melts the sea becomes less saline and the conveyor stops and the poles accumulate more ice. Cycle repeats. I just made this bit up, but that's how I roll.
I think it would be even more foolish to try to "change it back" than it would be to just learn to adapt. What happens if you change it back and end up going slightly too far? What about all those areas that are going to become better farming land due to a warmer climate?
which is totally what she said
Are you serious? You'd better learn some things about your car, so that you can take what he's telling you with an appropriately sized grain of salt. If your mechanic is at a deanship, it is practically guaranteed he is trying to sell you maintenance your car doesn't really need.
This is nonsense. You have no ability to property vet information presented to you unless you have a well rounded scientific background. But you know what? That's not as difficult to get as it sounds. And it beats the shit out of blindly trusting "experts". You should always look into claims being made, and come to your own understanding of evidence presented. Nothing short of that is effective. Taking things on faith, no matter how much you trust the source, makes you a tool.
Civilization itself is unusual. Could it be related to stable weather?
Actually, by the comments on american newspapers such as USAtoday, there are still plenty of people that think the earth is flat... armm, there's no such thing as global warming.
My answer is always the same: http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/
so many uneducated fools going on like there ignorance should hold the same value as an experts.
For those people saying 'there will be a benefit because of more [whatever]. You might want to wonder why you think after there is more arable land, or warmer Canada, the temperature wont continue to rise?
What the cap are gone, are only buffer will be gone. Right not, they are acting as a heat sink. SO all the new land continue to with :
a) get get hotter and then drier, or
b) so much cloud cover appears plant find it difficult to grow.
Oh, and there is less sunshine hitting the ground, and it has started to impact plant growth. granted a tine amount, so far.
read up on why you are wrong:
http://ncse.com/climate
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Changing it back might be foolish, but it'd be nice if we could at least try to stop the change that is still occuring.
Dilbert RSS feed
You better hope those younger fucks won't "convince" you to do so.
Dilbert RSS feed
Instead of climate scientist over estimating climate change they've actually UNDER estimated it and things are going to be MUCH worse than they thought?! Why does no one ever consider they might be wrong by being too conservative in their estimates?
Changing it back might be foolish, but it'd be nice if we could at least try to stop the change that is still occuring.
Who is 'we' and how would you propose that our entire species get together and agree not to burn anything? Most third world countries will just laugh and with the possible exception of North Korea, no one will be able to enforce a ban on burning. You'd need a genuine world government and literally millions of patrolling death squads to enforce such a ban. It's pure fantasy.Well there is one practical way: destroy all human life on the planet. Possibly with those intensely radioactive bombs the Russians were working on. Even if you could destroy 90% of the human infestation you'd slow down global warming quite a bit.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Ah but you see, the argument is that this time it's the dominant species' fault. So let the climate alarmists be consistent, take the blame like the higher human beings they claim to be and at long last shut the fuck up. Meanwhile the rest of us can adapt to the change like nature expects us to do or die trying. The earth doesn't need saving from us... It can shrug us off. In fact, we barely register on its lifespan just like the current warming period doesn't stray much from its long term average. Sure if you want to narrow it down to 130 years, it's a terrible upward slope. Zoom out 100 000 years and have a little perspective, will you?
Mind the frickin' laser...
Idiot.
While an astronomer is not someone to go to for climate change science, not his specialty, but consensus among people who ARE climatologist is the AGW is real.
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/climate-change-is-good-science
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Take, for instance, the massive effect humanity could cause if it decided to detonate all currently existing nuclear warheads at once. Would you also argue that such an event would not have an effect simply because the time scale is insignificant when compared to natural geology?
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
96% of surgeons agreed lobotomy was a good cure for psychiatric issues.
And how exactly do you decide who is credible? I have an idea. If you really think this is so important, if you are honestly so concerned for your descendants thousands of years from now, make the effort to understand the evidence and decide for yourself. And then decide what, if anything, can be done about the problem with current technology.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
130 years, is what? Like 2 seconds, in the HISTORY of the world? You can't claim "man made" global warming by researching data from only 130 years. In the history of the world, climate data suggests that the earth has gone up and down in temperature, WAY BEFORE man set foot on this planet. The "man made" global warming alarmist, never take into account the OUTPUT FROM THE SUN, causing the earth to warm. I remember in the 70's as a school age kid, how cold the winters and cool the summers were, and the "experts" were worried that we were entering a new ice age.
I'm no climate-change denier, nor am I a human-induced climate-change denier, but this is a little too sensationalist for my liking. Saying that the earth is getting hotter and implying that this itself implies that humans are to blame just gives deniers room to say, "A-ha! Well, if that's your evidence for human-induced climate change, you're wrong!" It may be tempting to trot out these soundbites, but I think it's an unwise rhetorical strategy in the long run.
Umm from analysis of rocks and fossils we can actually understand climate for millions of years in the past. Nice try though.
Seals are actually doing a better job at completely destroying their food supply and driving themselves to extinction than humans hunters could ever hope do, at least in this area. Thing is, they're putting incredible pressure on other species in the process. Don't blame humans for killing seals, blame humans for driving out whatever used to kill the seals before we came around with clubs.
Mind the frickin' laser...
If you understand what is happening to global weather patterns then you understand the problems it will cause. Next you need to realize that almost nothing will be done to prevent these problems directly. Instead, people and companies will innovate themselves out of the problems created by changing weather patterns. If you want to make some money, then really research this issue and understand where the problems are already beginning, then find the companies that are most likely to provide the best solutions. Invest in those companies and you will not only support the people solving the problems, but you'll profit from it. The world is constantly changing, it has been mankind's ability to adapt and overcome that has made us the top of the food chain.
There seems to be about 20 years of missing data; how about a more updated analysis.
And we're NOT overdue for an Ice Age, but, at most, somewhere past the midpoint of an interglacial period.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
There's more snow because there's more water due to melting glacial ice. You don't need a Phd to figure this out, bro.
Actually, the third world countries tend to care the most... This (I'm an American) First World country is usually the one holding everything up.
Go look at the handy map on Wikipedia about which countries wouldn't get behind the Kyoto protocols...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
Yeah. And they all managed that without a world government or death squads. No destruction of all human life. So.. bascially, you're an idiot.
That's the way coral atolls work, they are always just barely above sea-level, sea goes up, they build up a little more coral sand, sea goes down and some coral sand blows a way. If the Maldives are having a problem it's because they are either over fishing, over harvesting coral or polluting the local ocean.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Should I spend the same effort staring at the stars and trying to find the next Earth killer asteroid? What about studying geology for the next quake or tsunami? No you say? Because life is finite and you can't know everything eh? Indeed. As my post said, even the smartest most rational person- which I am not- simply cannot know every relevant detail of the world. To suggest in a round-about way otherwise is foolish and unrealistic.
Ron Paul supporters don't need any help looking stupid.
Climate before humanity has very little relevance to climate after humanity. Or are you claiming that humanity is unable to affect massive climate change?
You can argue that CO2 might not have a significant effect on global temperatures, but you cannot argue that humanity is unable to massively disrupt the Earth's "natural" (I only use quote because we, as a product of evolution, are natural) cycles.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I've had some really cold fucking winter days. I wish global warming meant beach year round. (yea yea someone is probably going to reply saying how if that actually happened we would go extinct.)
I remember a year or two ago, it was a colder-than-normal year, and of course there was a global-warming Slashdot story about it.
Many were quick to laugh at those using this colder year as evidence against global warming, shouting "Weather isn't climate, stupid!".
Oh wait, this year supports the popular side, I'm supposed to be quiet. Nevermind -- plow on, hivemind!
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
Come ON! The complete solar/galactic cycle for the Earth is 110,000 years giver or take a few years and it has done that for at least the last 2.5 million years again and again.
That cycle from ice age to hotter has not been documented enough to claim that 130 years can statistically be significant to claim that 130 years out of 110,000 represents CERTAINTY.
Sorry, but I do NOT buy the argument.
Go look at the handy map on Wikipedia about which countries wouldn't get behind the Kyoto protocols...
You mean the ones who had actual industries to protect?
I'm a Republican, one who does stand against ignorance and superstition, so I think I can explain why I remain one as opposed to switching parties. First, I became a Republican as a result of Reagan. I'm a so-called California/New England Republican. My core beliefs are pro-industry, pro-personal responsibility, pro-military. I believe in reducing barriers that prevent people from starting businesses. I believe military tech research has done good things for the country and the economy. I don't mind prayer in schools except when it's forced. I'm a moderate leaning social progressive, but a military and political conservative. I've said it before, I believe we ought to lead the world. Of course, in order to do so, we actually have to lead the world, so I am very pro-education. I am reasoned enough to realize that the war on Christmas is being fought by two or three annoying atheists who don't speak for most people. I believe strongly in a unified Republic. Ergo, as far as states rights goes, I believe states have the right to shut the fuck up or secede at their peril. We're a country, and the President is the man in charge, not the prime minister in a parliament. If I were a character in Sid Meier's Civilization, I'd be Industrious/Commercial/Expansionist/Scientific.
So, this puts me way at odds with the mainstream Party as it exists today because what you're seeing in today's GOP is a party that was hijacked by southern "Dixiecrats" in the '70s after Watergate and then attracted the "moral majority" conservative/evangelical base away from the Democratic Party during the '80s. The Party today is a shambles because of the different factions trying to take over the party. The traditional mainstream like myself have mostly left to become Democrats or have upgraded in a manner of speaking to become "neo cons". Since neo-cons have fallen out of fashion, they're being silence too. The traditional social conservative evangelical base who very much believes in taking care of the poor and sick as a matter of Christian principle have lost their power mostly to the new counter-right and post-Reagan era small government types who tend to be very "states rights". The new counter-right is the new Libertarian movement that has tried to hijack the party. Tea Partiers belong in the Libertarian party, and yet because they often have social conservative views -- and more importantly, they want to win; they've flocked to the GOP.
Right, so why not be a Democrat since it seems I have more in common with the Dems now, and especially become my GOP pretty much wants my head on a stick? The Dems have always been pro-censorship and pro-nanny state. I'm not talking about safety belts, I'm talking about things like the PMRC or the regular saber rattling Dems do to the video game industry. The Democratic party is hypocritical. Perhaps it means little over all, but at least the GOP doesn't pretend to care about groups it doesn't care about. On women's rights, the Democratic party is certainly better. But, I'm not sure the Democratic party is any better on education or law enforcement. The Dems constantly boast of being pro-art and pro-gay. I'm a musician amongst other things. I have gay friends. I care about both. The Democratic party's pro-art position is too often a pro-Hollywood -- and by that, pro industry cabal, position. And the Democratic party voted near unanimously for DOMA, and it was a Democratic president who said Don't Ask/Don't Tell followed by another Democratic president (Obama) who hesitated too much and backtracked before actually dealing with the issue of gay rights. You talked about religious people and linked it to your criticism of Republicans. What about all those overzealous religious Democrats? When President Obama tried to pass his healthcare reform, he spent as much time fighting off idiotic Democratic leaders who kept whining about federal funding for abortions, this despite the Hyde Amendment. I guess, at the end of the day, the Democrats are just stupid. It comes from the old saying that Democrats fall in l
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period
Seems its been getting warmer for a while. ~20,000 years?
Ah but you see, the argument is that this time it's the dominant species' fault. So let the climate alarmists be consistent, take the blame like the higher human beings they claim to be and at long last shut the fuck up. Meanwhile the rest of us can adapt to the change like nature expects us to do or die trying.
Do you think evolution works like an X-Men comic? Are you expecting to grow gills, or absorb infrared radiation in the next couple of decades?
Most climate "alarmists" (aka scientists) are not worried about "harming Gaia" or somesuch bullshit (though *you* were the one to anthropomorphize "nature", which doesn't "expect" anything, so I'm not sure what that's all about). They are pointing out that yes, many of the changes ARE the dominant species fault, and are collectively blaming that species of which they are members. And they are hoping that the data they provide will help this species - through technology, and not fantasy - better understand just *how* to adapt (both by reducing the change and compensating for it) to what's happening.
Of course the world won't end. But if you don't think it's a good idea to plan ahead and try to reduce potential disaster to the human race long term, you might as well just restate your position as "fuck everyone else". But then don't be surprised when everyone else tells you to go fuck yourself...
Common Shitdot reply. Act like you know something that no one else knows and get all melodramatic about it.
I say let those bitches bring it on. They ain't going to do shit. There's too much TV to watch and too many games/songs/movies to be pirated. They'll never lift a fucking finger and neither will you.
This planet is mine to shit on and I plan on doing it. There's no reason for us to get heady about ourselves and think that the universe needs people. It'll do just fine without us and we'll be dead when it all goes down either way.
All this talk about whether global warming is natural or is caused by burning things doesn't really matter. Why are we looking for a scapegoat? All that matters is whether or not the earth is getting warmer. If it is, whether it's natural or not, we had better start preparing. I have yet to hear a single credible plan about how anyone is going to stop the billions of humans on the planet from burning stuff to survive. Let's face it. It's just not going to happen.
Maybe SUVs will get outlawed in the US. Hooray! I hate the things. Maybe a 70 mpg minimum will be required for any non-commerical vehicle sold in the US (if you tried that for commercial vehicles you'd have mass starvation which could be another 'solution' I suppose). Maybe we'll build a few more nuclear power plants although I think NIMBY will prevent most of that.
Maybe England and Canada and Australia will follow along as they so often seem to do with whatever silly idea the US comes up with. Or maybe not. In any case the rest of the planet representing the majority of land area and population will just laugh and continue to burn things until they run out of things to burn. And yes this includes trees and coal. And those laughable drop-in-the-bucket schemes that the US will come up with wouldn't have delayed the end by much anyway. People are going to do what they must to survive and that usually involves burning things.
So if AGW is true then our species is doomed and there is no way around it. I propose a possible solution. The end will take at least a millenium. That gives us (especially the US) the chance to start putting all the money that would have been spent catching, imprisoning, and executing millions of climate criminals and building hundreds of thousands of nuclear power plants everywhere and cleaning up the inevitable accidents into a new era for the space program.
See how I did that? The greens have their agenda (although they are pretty vague about what exactly that is), and I have mine. Let's start devoting every dollar we now spend on the defense budget into building an interstellar generation ship big enough for a few thousand people to live on. That will be a start. Maybe by the time the end comes in 1000 - 100,000 years we will be fully prepared to live off world and will have colonized other star systems. It is funny that the very thing that allowed us to flourish as a technological species, heat engines which create electricity and do the work that we used to require things like horses or rivers to do, will have become our doom.
While the US and maybe a few close allies could Francify their electricity production by going nearly 100% nuclear and introduce bumper car like transportation systems with electric cars that are powered by nuclear powered overhead wires once they reach the major highways, is the rest of the world going to be able to do that? Maybe eventually but not right now. I think much of AGW is based on the idea that we will essentially never run out of fossil fuels, but nuclear fuel will eventually run out. There is only a finite supply of uranium etc on this planet. So then it's either burn or face massive die offs of just leave the planet. So we should start preparing for that. We have no idea whether intelligent life in the galaxy is rare, but it may be. We should do everything we can to preserve our species regardless of what may happen to this particular planet.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Yeah, and plants love cold so they'd hate global warming!
You know what, nobody believes this any more.
it's like soviet tractor statistics. For the 100th year in a row tractor production increased!
You know what? 25 years ago we were being told that the earth would be becoming uninhabitable, and rising seas would drown everyone.
Guess what? None of that has happened.
I fully expect that in another 10 years I'll be sitting here being told the same, and it still being no different from it is now. Oh, except taxes and freedom will be taken away because of it. And in 20 years from now to be told the same, again with no obvious difference.
Sorry doom-mongers. You had your chance, and you blew it. Nobody believed you any more.
Yes, earth is getting hotter, there is plenty of evidence for that. Sea levels are also going to rise. Some islands are going to flood, some disease are going to move around, and some species are going to die out. So what?
You haven't been paying attention to the Republican primary, have you? Except for Paul, every single one of the idiots representing you conservatives is some degree of religious nut who denies science. And Paul's a whole other kind of nut.
Good luck finding someone to contend with Obama. You're doomed to be disappointed.
Why bother living at all, then? You'd probably do both yourself and the rest of us a favor by ending it now...
Can someone tell me exactly what AGW is predicting in terms of temperature increases? How many degrees celsius per year/decade/millenium are we talking about? Unfortunately the only way to confirm any scientific theory is to wait and see if the predictions pan out. Anything else is not science.
It doesn't seem any hotter now than it did 30 years ago. Presumably 30 years is just too small of a time scale though. Probably 1000 is more realistic. It will be difficult for anyone now alive to confirm or deny that sort of prediction. You're going to have trouble getting people all worked up about something which is undetectable by anyone with less funding than, say, NASA.
And your evidence is never presented in an understandable way. Even the evidence for special theory of relativity can be presented in a way that most people can understand, but apparently climate science has trouble with that. Climate scientists can go on and on with "just trust us" and lots of people will, but not everyone. Some completely rational, logical people will want to judge the evidence for themselves.
I know I do, and what I have seen so far, including this, I don't find particularly convincing. AGW does have some plausibility to it because higher CO2 does tend to lead to higher temperatures in simplified laboratory experiments but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I want to see some of that. So far I haven't.
How about a 10 year prediction? How much warmer (in degrees celcius) will the average land or water temperature be in 10 years? How about temperatures at particular locations. How much warmer will it be in Indonesia in 10 years? Can AGW make such a prediction?
If I am still alive in 10 years and the predictions come true to within a reasonable margin of error then I will be willing to agree that the earth is in fact getting warmer at the moment. It still doesn't prove that humans are causing it of course. That is not provable by science. But it doesn't matter because we should start planning for Armageddon within a time period determined by the decade temperature rise.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
So the year is hotter. Wat does this prove about the cause? Nothing really, because as mentioned, there have been many such climate changes prior to mankind having the ability to cause it. Wat is apparent that certain parties r using theories of a correlation to force change upon the masses which amounts to control. There r some who r aligned in such a way to profit greatly from forcing these changes upon us. We have absolutely no idea whether we r causing this and absolutely no idea whether there is anything we can do to stop it. I do believe we need to be aware of wat we r doing on mass and limit or stop things which ARE causing real harm. However, I think the most real and significant issue for our future is simply the limited supply of worldwide oil. And the more drastic steps in direct destruction of the earth we will need to take to supply our demand for it. Because there is no question that this is REAL... and we r the cause of it. So I support any rational or irrational behaviour that leads to alternate energy research. I just mean to say that simply because we can show the earth was warmer last year does not prove that we r the cause of it. And I feel those who focus on global warming r the real one with their head in the sand when it comes to the present and real short term realities of limited energy supply.
Man has a nasty habbit of thinking the things he does result in unrelated outcomes. Native Americans (Indians) used to do a special dance because the last time they did that dance, it rained. They believed that it rained because they did a little dance. Surely, we've advanced beyond such superstitions, right? Pay attention to football fans. How many do stupid things like never washing a lucky jersey or sitting in a lucky chair during the game. I have friends, really smart friends, who do things like refuse to watch their favorite team play live because the last time they watched a game, their team lost and the last time they didn't watch, they won. Against all logic, they honestly believe that the team's performance changes depending on if he is watching the game on TV.
Just like the current global warming debate, climatologists noticed and extremely slight rise in average temperature (less than 1 degree C), and immediately started asking what WE were doing to cause it. Just like this recent warm winter is more likely associated with La Nina rather than a Jeep Laredo, man will immediately consider his own actions as the cause before looking at more mundane causes like a repeating weather cycle.
By the way, last year's warm weather average was caused by an unusually warm summer mixed with a La Nina event that delayed winter in this year. Any year without a winter is going to be warmer on average than any year with a winter, just as a class's grade average is better when the stupid kid is absent.
I'm not saying that global warming is or is not happening. I am saying that it has been warmer and it has been much colder, all before the first ape stood upright and starting carving porn out of a stump. Maybe we should consider more natural reasons for the extremely recent rise in temperature and stop wondering which dance moves caused the rain.
(if their are misspelled words in this, it's because I suck at spelling and Firefox's spell check is not working all of a sudden.)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What? Oh I see. Let Darwin decide who lives and dies because that's "natural" and we shouldn't interfere with whatever is going to happen naturally?
But Sir, deniers don't believe in Darwin either !
doesn't make it pseudo-science.
First the Republicans denied that the earth was warming
Now they're denying it's man-made
Next they'll say it's too late to do anything
Why have Republicans become the party of ignorance?
- denying man-made climate change
Probably 95% of all climatologists support it
- denying evolution
Probably 99% of all biologists agree it is central to Biology
- denying stimulus economics
Probably 95% of all economists (like me) agree it got us out of the Great Depression
Do they honestly believe Faith trumps Facts?
Ahhh.. you're an economist!
There's your ultimate pseudo-science right there, with catastrophic ramifications for those who truly believe in the Keynesian lies that have gotten us into the current economic mess. Natural market corrections need to happen, artificial fixation on price or supply or demand simply slow these corrections down and prolong the pain. Regarding the great depression, economic manipulation by the Federal Reserve turned a minor recession into the great depression. You don't have to take my word for it, here's a quote from Ben Bernanke:
"Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve System. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."
--Remarks by Ben S. Bernanke at the Conference to Honor Milton Friedman, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois,
Many of these posts list farmers... as if there are a ton of real farmers anymore. The vast majority of farming has little to do with people or farmers at all, but are automated masterpieces of a few select companies. Farming isn't even listed as an occupation on the US Census anymore.
Global warming has gone too far to change back in the lifetime of anyone alive today. The best we can do is stop making it worse in 40 or 50 years if we work hard at it. It's a pretty glib assumption that warmer temperatures further north will make the farming better. Temperature is only one factor among many in farming.
You sound like the stereotypical /.er with no kids to care about.
The question is; will evolution weed out Republicans faster than abortion weeds out liberals?
What? You act like there aren't any humans living in arid climates or tundra regions.. the temperature would have to get a hell of a lot higher to kill us all off. Why does the whole world have to orient itself around the US's preferred climate?
which is totally what she said
That's the crux of a very important debate. If a plane low on fuel encounters some turbulence, does it vector around or take some licks? It could go pear shaped either way.
The worst possible outcome of squelching our petroleum dependence is a global pandemic of mushroom cloud chicken pox. The usual suspects: hubris, hatred, entrenched money, scheming underlings, and mercenary psychopaths. It's not out of the running against some of the worst foreseeable scenarios of global warming.
So I get a bit concerned when scientists with all the intellectual subtlety of Pascal's wager run around telling us the sky is falling. And no, it doesn't improve their subtlety to point out that the most vocal opposition comes from contemptible, self-serving dunderheads. Yeah, we knew that already.
They all hate Bj(slashcode fuckup)rn Lomborg in much the same way the string theorists hate Peter Woit. My perspective is that scientists have essentially no training on the side of the debate where we determine the best course of action. Economists, as dismal as this sounds, have better foundations.
The game of science is to describe reality, not formulate policy. I can tolerate some cheerleading for urgency. It's normal to have some wise men around muttering "this could end badly" and even raising a clenched fist or two. I don't mind them speaking up as concerned citizens of spaceship earth. But I do mind them hammering on the risk analysis side of Lomborg's position because he sucks at science, and even if he does suck at science, that's no reason to exclude him from the risk side of the debate. Many excellent scientists suck at risk and I welcome their participation in sharing what they know and confronting what they don't.
Scientists tend to start with the elitist view that correct science is the starting point for entering the debate. Nothing else of importance in this world seems to work that way. And that's often a good thing, because science is most reliable after the consensus matures for 50 to 100 years. Premature consensus is the mother of all knee-jerk overreactions.
And before someone pipes up with the precautionary claptrap, the precautionary principle applied to geopolitical stability suggests we don't tamper with the world's tenuous social order with the right-thinking alacrity of Armageddon.
Yeah, I know, when there's a possibility that life as we know it is hanging in the balance, we're right back to Pascal's wager. That's a cheesy way out. One way or another we're going to have to accept some stretch marks on "life as we know it".
1... 2... Oh. Nemmind. Too late.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
That's an insightful comment.
We are near solar max right now. By 2019 they will be saying "never mind about what we said about the hot weather, just get your mittens and coats ready when solar magnetic decline and solar minimum freeze (y)our (r)ears off in 2020".
I'm not worried about misspellings as much as the fact your entire post is a giant straw-man. Special native American dance? Really?
The drastically oversimplified correlation was that the 1C "slight rise" in temperature was perfectly aligned with the modern industrial era: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png Causation? Not by itself. But there are plenty of other research in that area as well.
And if you think "minor" changes like that can't have drastic effects on ecosystems you obviously have not read enough research on the topic to make your opinion count for anything. Same with your opinion on whether the THOUSANDS OF CLIMATE RESEARCHERS may have actually thought to consider natural causes before doing YEARS OF RESEARCH and coming to the firm conclusion that it's due to man-made causes.
r?
Because manufacturing goods is more important than feeding the world population?
But if the information they posess is based on BS, should they not be called out. Last year was the coldest in the last 30, which is recorded by the local news, and the local wweather stations. The sky did not fall. I wouldn't mind if they said asteroids falling on our head are bad for us, that isn't BS. But I know its to warn us of impending danger, that we have to husbund resources before the next glacier comes our way. But their solution for the problem is to "TAX" us. That dosent solve a problem. just transfers resources from my pocket to theirs. Not a user friendly solution.
You trust your mechanic? Thats rare.
I highly doubt suddenly the midwest will be a desert with a 1-2C change in the next 100 years.
I still am a skeptic until I see unmodified date along with a detailed report of what equipment was used to collect the data and how that data was collected.
I'm not so worried about a lack of food. The cities are full of walking talking sources of protiene. A little green food coloring and we are good to go.
Most climate "denialists" (aka psychopaths) are worried about earning even more profits. Profit is driven by politics, politics are driven by public opinion and lobbyists, public opinion is used to driven by mass media. Mass media and lobbyists are owned by and controlled by a handful of psychopaths. A handful of billionaire psychopaths get beaucoup money/power on keeping the existing consumption and pollution with out limit business model. Irony: Energy conglomerates (oil) have very deeply vested interest in keeping the old consumption and pollution with out limit business model.
There you go fixed it for you ;D.
Earth is getting hotter, and to deny it is an exercise in psychopathic GREED." Fixed the heading too. Basically the core of global warming denial are psychopathic billionaires who don't give a crap about the world beyond their own personal existence, their self aggrandisement, their insatiable greed and their truly bloated egos. As far as they are concerned it can all burn as long as they are on the top.
So let's do the comparison scientists who can generate income working in a whole range of areas currently work in climate change (which provides zero opportunity for huge patent bonuses) versus billionaires who derive billions in profits by maintaining the existing insane model of consumption and pollution without limit. Now who has the greater motivation and which in reality is the most likely.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The real question should be "Do you want to live in a garbage coated toxin filled snowglobe?" Regardless of if climate change is happening, getting rid of dirty technology (fossil fuels) should be a priority. It's non-renewable which means sooner or later we'll need to switch away from it. It's dirty, smells bad, and destroys huge swaths of land that could be used for farming, or living in. It makes it hard to breathe in the immediate time frame and fills your body with stuff that can't possibly be good for you, look at smog/drive through NJ/blow your nose after working for a few hours at a refinery.
I can't fathom how people can deny it's happening, but in the end, it doesn't matter. All of the talk about how it's lining the pockets of people like Al Gore and how it's just a cash grab means nothing. It's either going to be the people trying to make things a bit cleaner that are making money, or the people that are stoked to keep filling the sky with stinky gasses. I for one would rather not smell diesel and burning coal everywhere I go, regardless of if one is saving and the other is damning the planet.
It just really, truly, doesn't matter if it's humans fault, or not. It doesn't even matter if we can prevent it. We can make the world a nicer place to live in by reducing pollution.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
I think it would be even more foolish to try to "change it back" than it would be to just learn to adapt.
You guys can't even learn to accept what is going on, and you want to tell others to "just learn to adapt"? What if that involves tripling your taxes to pay for the adaption?
Fandroids hate facts.
Enjoy it before the EARTH DECIDES to reverse itself and get cold again. Who the F likes cold anyway. Warm is better. Dont listen to Al Gore and his alarmist cronies. They're all getting paid very well to fudge data those arrogant pricks.
I don't know anything that no one else knows. I have no idea where did you get that idea.
As for they not doing anything, of course they can. They'll raise the taxes on the stuff you burn until you can't afford to pollute. Here we have a new tax on the electricity to pay for subsidies for renewables.
What do you think I was talking about? Using force? Ha. Who needs that when you control the taxman.
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Don't ask me what I want it for
If you don't want to pay some more
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me.
Dilbert RSS feed
But if the information they posess is based on BS, should they not be called out. Last year was the coldest in the last 30, which is recorded by the local news, and the local wweather stations.
Are you talking about your town? Who cares!
2011 was the 11th warmest *globally* since records were kept in 1880, and is the 35th year on a row where temps are above the 100 year average. And that's with La Nina helping to cool things. Your information is just plain incorrect.
Please tell me what the "correct" average temperature is for the Earth? Even if you could, based on 130 years of temperature data why would you pick the temperature today as the point at which you would stop the change as "correct", when the Earth has been around for 1000s (throwing the biblical types a bone here) to billions of years and based on THAT scale the "correct" temperature might be some thing far different (much hotter, in fact, even if you only include the last 65 million years?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png (ok, not billions of years, but the geologists are working on improving that, I am sure, and it won't look any better for warmists)
I am all for reducing for man made emissions as it is economically feasible to do, I am all phasing out the use of petroleum products for transportation and other purposes as we find ways to do it that don't require making Peter destitute to subsidize Paul to do it. But I just don't have the hubris to say today (or any in the last 30 years) is the "correct" average temperature for the earth and not 2 or 3 degrees warmer or 2 or 3 degrees colder based on a starting date for data that makes today look bad when other examinations of data based on different starting dates make it look like today is really cold compared to where the Earth more commonly has been. I also can't ignore the fact that ice ages come and go and they tend to do so with great rapidity. The only constant is change. If scientists and engineers actually could create a stable environment at a particular temperature set point, chances are we would find out the results of that would be far worse for people than any predictions of anything short of a runaway greenhouse effect.
I guess that means that Global Warming is subsiding. Now, if 2011 was the hottest year ever, and 2012 turns out to be the hottest year ever, then I'll start to worry.
You mean... like Canada and Russia?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/16/russia-canada-kyoto-protocol
3rd world countries didn't get behind Kyoto because they cared about the environment as Kyoto. 3rd world countries foresaw no negative impact on their GDPs as a result of Kyoto and thus signing Kyoto couldn't hurt them, only help them. 3rd world countries got behind Kyoto because it was a massive transfer of wealth from developed countries to lesser developed countries, justified or not. They wanted to laugh all the way to the bank, not the thermostat.
The drastically oversimplified correlation was that the 1C "slight rise" in temperature was perfectly aligned with the modern industrial era: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png [wikimedia.org]
It's also perfectly aligned with the building of the Panama Canal and population decline of the bald eagle.
And if you think "minor" changes like that can't have drastic effects on ecosystems you obviously have not read enough research on the topic to make your opinion count for anything.
Don't have to. I can look outside. See, this last summer in my little neck f the woods was one of the hottest, driest and longest in recorded history. It was SEVERAL degrees hotter, on average, than just about any other time since records have been taken. The year before that was pretty brutal too. You know what happened? Nothing. Sure, our lawns turned brown and there were some big-ass forest fires (see Bastrop TX), but for the most part, everything is still here. No "drastic effects on ecosystems". We still have birds, bugs and stray cats. So, I really don't care "THOUSANDS OF CLIMATE RESEARCHERS" say when the real world tells me otherwise.
Granted, I'm well aware that thousands of years of this weather can start to change things. Take the Sahara as an example. It used to be a green, lush paradise. Now, it's a friggin' big, hot, unforgiving desert. But it took thousands and thousands of years to become a big friggin' desert and it happened all on its own, before fire was ever invented and the first smoke stack was ever built. And if climatologist were around back then, I'm sure they would proudly point out the climate change was perfectly aligned with the modern cave painting era, and if we don't stop using mastodon blood as the color red, the world is going to end.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
you foolish peak oil, global warming ID10Ts - get real!
There is no difference between the repubs, and the dems. Blaming one party over the other is just a distraction that keeps us from getting anything done.
What has Obama really done to change the environment? How about Clinton? Gore didn't do anything either, he just took credit.
BTW: did you know that the EPA, and the marine mammal protection act, were brought about by Nixon?
Carbon credits are merely a capitalist proposal on how to deal with carbon reduction - nothing more, nothing less. And the "trillions of dollars of harm to the economy" is of course a pack of nonsense. Saving energy is saving money in the age of peak oil. We can keep our current lifestyle while drastically reducing our carbon footprint using technologies that have been around for decades.
But then, it's hard to get deinialists to understand something when their ideology is dependent on their not understanding it.
It's also perfectly aligned with the building of the Panama Canal and population decline of the bald eagle.
Awesome analogy, considering bald eagles are one of the most famous modern examples of how biologists clearly identified a human-caused problem (most notably DDT in their food source leading to reproductive issues), spoke loudly against it resulting in massive legislative and environmentalist reaction, and due to that effort bald eagles have gone from near extinction in the US in the 70's to off of the endangered list entirely in 2005.
I was posting about the idea of doing something for real. Something that would actually stop CO2 production by fundamentally altering our entire way of life and you post something about the joke known as the Kyoto protocol. This is typical. Why don't you actually respond to the real question. What would you do to actually solve the problem of greenhouse gas production? In all your rhetoric you haven't bothered to mention that.
Let me give you a concrete example. If you want to stop me from burning whatever I want anytime I want whether it be wood or coal or petrol you are going to have to actually come to my house with weapons and arrest me. That is the only way. And you may as well execute me because whenever you release me from prison I will just do it again. Now, if I am the only one on the planet who thinks that way then you have no problem, but if there are millions or billions of people who think that way then you have a very, very big problem. One that the Kyoto protocol doesn't give you any idea how to even begin to solve without world government death squads or whatever. Even with world government death squads it wouldn't be easy. You are talking about people who are burning fossil fuels for survival. That's pretty fundamental. It's going to be hard to stamp out every homemade generator and wood stove and steam engine etc. Can't you see how incredibly difficult it is to get so many people all over this planet to stop producing C02? Or maybe you are the idiot.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Good question. Who cares?
Probably that 25% of humanity whose drinking water comes from glacial runoff, and they neighbours who will be the ones that get invaded as billions of people start to head to where there is still water to drink. Then add in all the people already living in marginal areas prone to drought, or flooding, or both. Then these are the people who's insurance premiums will cost more than their houses did as storms get stronger and hit more often, and as sea levels rise. Just to name a few. Indeed not caring at all is symptomatic of a genuine moral failure.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
Not only that, but there's the little oddity that the biggest proponents of stopping global warming have this image of being full of ideas that other people ought to do to prevent this apocalypse, while they still each drive their individual SUV's to Earth Day rallies and fly jets around the world to hold Climate Change summits.
Been getting warmer for the past 20,000 plus years. Consciences has it that New York City Area was under 5 miles of ice at one time...ahhhhh, the good old days.
So, do something, get rid of your remote controls, get rid of you laptops, get a horse.
Yeah, because Europe isn't industrialized at all. No way.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I'm sure your kids will be long dead, too, by the time this reaches the nightmarish proportions everyone's soiling their shorts over, so don't let that keep you up at night.
Hell, even if they do pull a rabbit out of a hat and "reverse" global warming without fucking things up even MORE (I doubt it), we're just a good, solid meteor strike away from being wiped out of existence with nothing to mark our passing save for a few bits of space junk puttering around the edge of the solar system, and there's no Frenchman with a peculiarly British accent in a big space ship to save our asses.
So if it's your kids' kids' kids'... kids you're worried about, just give it up. They're gonna die anyway.
>the Earth is getting hotter, ...except when it's not.
Then, you have to "hide the decline."
Most people unable to do even simple calculations or totally unfamiliar with basic biology simply have no idea of just how significant a seemingly small increase in the global mean temperature will be or that fact that all indications are that it will increase 3-6 C within one hundred years. They tend to think in terms of extremes and given the large differences between daytime and night time temperature, or between winter and summer temperatures and think this small change is insignificant. However, as all models show the effects over time will be staggering, completely ignoring sea level rises of more than 1 m within 100 years. Presently Kansas City, roughly near the center of the conterminous US, experiences several days on average above 100 F per year. With a 3-6 C global mean rise, Kansas City will experience temperatures over 100 F, 50-100 days out of the year. If you are a farmer, or if you only appreciate eating, that is a very big deal.
Next time you hear a climate change denier, recognize them for what they are extremists advocating for dramatically higher food prices.
no one will be able to enforce a ban on burning. You'd need a genuine world government and literally millions of patrolling death squads to enforce such a ban.
Yes. That's what the ones who claim mankind is the cause of the warming want.
"What about all those areas that are going to become better farming land due to a warmer climate?"
The reality is that there will be very few such places, because historically they have been very poor for growing things and consequently have very poor soils. Just because the Greenland ice sheet is soon to melt does not mean the ground underneath is going to be great for farming. There is also the problem that most plants are extremely sensitive to the duration of day and night, particularly for flowering. Higher latitudes may have very long days during the summer, but have very long nights in the winter. Consequently, many plants will not grow under such conditions without massive amounts of additional energy for artificial lighting. Replicating the disastrous Biosphere II experiment on a planetary scale is not going to turn out well.
Ending carbon dioxide pollution is the only realistic thing that humans can do to assure their survival. The sooner we get started the better our chances of success.
1) CO2 and methane absorb infra-red radiation=fact
2)Human activity pumps an unprecedented amount of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere=fact.
1+2=???
You do the math.
It would be interesting to see the responses on Slashdot if the title of the submission were "Global Climate Continues Its Self-Correcting Trend"
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
No they are having a problem because of storm surges are getting incrementally higher producing more erosion and because as sea levels rise it influences the water table, making it impossible for things (humans included) to grow.
Another problem is that corals themselves can not tolerate extremely high temperatures, so their growth rate decreases.
Global Warming is just Earth's way of getting rid of the Infestation of Parasites on it's surface
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
Electrolytes, it's what plants crave!
A day is weather, a week is a weather pattern, a year is somewhere between weather and climate.
A decade, however, is definitely "climate" by most definitions.
Wat
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
And yet temperatures are not escaping to infinity like we were told they would - even though CO2 emissions have not diminished at all.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Making the petri dish more comfortable doesn't seem like a good method of sterilization.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Then where did 10,000 years of glacial growth come from?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
>Tourism? Shifting weather conditions can reduce the skiing season in many regions. Even one lost week can mean going out of business if it happens 2-3 years in a row
in that case, just hire a medicine man to perform a "snow dance" for the mountain spirit.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577167042382438200.html?KEYWORDS=snow+dance
It has nothing to do with people's skin melting off, or even being comfortable outdoors. It has to do with polar ice levels, seasonal weather stability and farmland stability. The world population may inflect at 9billion in a few decades, but that doesn't give us unlimited carrying capacity.
American (and global) policy today may direct decide the life or death of billions of people 100 years from now. It's really interesting to consider. If there is a 1% chance that your decision will kill 500 million people over the next 200 years, what is the economic value of that choice?
Since according to US actuarial tables, a human life is worth about $13 million, 500 million people is worth about $6,500 trillion. Given a 1% chance of this happening, this is an opportunity cost of $65 trillion. Given the time value of money over 100 years (the average between now and 200 years from now), it's worth about $3.3 trillion today to prevent those deaths.
Obviously, I'm just making these numbers up, but it illustrates the point. This is a rough calculation that a rational liberal economist might put on the value of trying to reduce the impact of anthropomorphic climate change.
Probably 95% of people on the planet don't give a fuck about American domestic politics
Probably 99% of both mine and your percentages are bullshit we made up on the spot to support our confirmation biases
Probably 95% of slashdotters are AGW zealots in a freakish militant religious fundamentalist style who take great offence to mere differences of opinion
Thanks for proving GPs point about politics interfering in science. Praise Gaia.
We will overflow the petri dish regardless of environmental conditions. We are life, and we breed to the limits of available resources like all life does. Intelligence does not seem to supercede this primitive nature of life to consume all available resources and then die for lack of resources. The only hope seems to be to escape the dish.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The poorest people are hit hardest. It's altogether different to live in a nation which produces industrial foodstuffs than to try to cope with the change with what you have by yourself. The international treaties are there to prevent mass migrations and the crash of social order.
It's this why the third world countries are so eager to support global action. They experience the effects first.
But the ice fishermen are loving it.
The statement:
is NOT contradicted by EITHER *OR* BOTH of the following statements:
gb2logic and retry before considering yourself qualified to say "your information is just plain incorrect" again, kthx.
Ron Paul is an idiot. Nothing will be instantly repealed with Ron Paul as President, just like nothing was repealed with Ron Paul as congressman for the decades he has served. In order for Paul to accomplish any of the big things he's promised, he'll have to take Presidential power far beyond what his philosophy permits in order to get Republicans to vote the way he wants.
Changing it back might be foolish, but it'd be nice if we could at least try to stop the change that is still occuring.
No worry. I can fix this; just let me get logged in.
Login: root
Password: ****
Ok, here we go.
[root@earch init.d]# service CO2 restart Redirecting to /bin/systemctl restart CO2.service
Failed to issue method call: Unit CO2.service failed to load: No such file or directory. See system logs and 'systemctl status CO2.service' for details.
Oh, yeah. It's systemd. Nevermind
[root@earch init.d]# systemctl restart CO2.service
Failed to issue method call: Unit CO2.service failed to load: No such file or directory. See system logs and 'systemctl status CO2.service' for details.
Hey, what gives? Nevermind.
[root@earch init.d]# reboot
Climate and weather are two different things. You are on the net so you can look it up, please take a bit of time before you read on so I can be sure we are speaking the same language.
Now as for climate, some of it is understood so well that it is over a century since the southern oscillation index was worked out and predictions could be made based on El Nino and La Nina as to whether the next year would be wet or dry.
Now if you actually care one way or another I suggest you use the next two minutes to search the net and vastly improve your understanding so you at least have a faint clue about what you are writing about instead of just adding misleading noise.
If someone wanted a plan to completely destroy the US economy, they could save time by simply adopting the Kyoto protocols. Not only would it have crippled us, it gave the number one polluter in the world, China, a complete pass. No wonder the senate voted almost unaminously against it.
We have some of the strictest environmental laws in the world. China, on the other hand, seems to be in a contest to see how quickly they can destroy the planet.
-- Will program for bandwidth
But the reality is, it will be a *very* long time before the current generation(s) get into a position to directly control the taxman. The old people are living longer, the rich old people are exceeding even that, and they retain a very tight control over our government. That's quite aside from the very true observation that kids today really don't care anyway -- they already let the government stomp all over pretty much every right they used to have without doing so much as getting out and throwing down a vote. Too busy posting to Facebook, no doubt.
The US government serves the corporations, because the corporations control the flow of the vast majority of the monies that reach congress. Until the corporations can be made to care about an issue, there will be no significant change in the stance of the US government. So if you want something done, you'd better figure out how to make it matter to the people that control the lobbyists in Washington, or all you're doing is expelling (more) heated air.
You just had a big hint -- that Internet blackout actually put a monkey wrench in SOPA/PIPA. Corporations don't like threats to their bottom line, and they told the politicians it was a no-go... and in ONE day, those bills were no longer supported. The question is, will the public do anything worthwhile with the answer that is staring them in the face?
Somehow, I doubt it. While the IT community is smart enough to recognize that extra-judicial, arbitrary power applied to their livelihood is a very bad deal, we already know that extra-judicial force in the form of the EPA, the FCC, the IRS and many more arms of our TLA-ridden government has been casually accepted by the general public -- I don't see any Internet blackouts happening in response to the public abuse exemplified by the very existence of those equally odious institutions.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Who cares what caused it - we better look into how to change it back!
I think it would be even more foolish to try to "change it back" than it would be to just learn to adapt.
This is why it matters what caused it. We don't need to change anything "back" except our own behavior. If we are truly an adaptive species, we'd be wise to adapt to the system of life we depend on rather than adapt to the ways we're changing it.
What about all those areas that are going to become better farming land due to a warmer climate?
Yeah, and we can quit wearing sweaters in the wintertime! What a ridiculously opportunistic perspective for someone who isn't going to see the place they live under water or in permanent drought or any other number of changes that destroy life as most of us know it.
Please refer me to a peer reviewed paper that shows the Earth has been warmer "many times" over the holocene period.
In Australia NSW December was one of the coldest Decembers on record
The colder it is the dryer the air is and the less snowfall you get. How much snowfall do you see when the temperature's below 0F?
Judging from the rates at which republicans are disappearing in California there is reason to hope.
our climate is controlled by things well outside man's control and to posit the fantasy that man is wholly responsible for the recent warming trend is madness... Look at the graphs in the linked article and you will see that there are LONG TERM CYCLES at work here... and the overall temperature is directly as a result of them adding and subtracting...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The earth will be fine no matter what the temperature is, but humanity and civilization flourished under current conditions.
Can somebody explain why error estimates did not change since 1880 on Figure 2?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2011/
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
This is all our last year anyway (2012), so unless Global Warming is going to be chasing me down the street It just doesn't mean anything important.
I am still going with the LHC blackhole theory as to how we end.
You mean the US and Canada are the only ones with industries worth protecting?
...who's to blame. I say it's the Sun.
Besides, 2010 and 2011 had some of the coldest winters on record here in Europe. I cal bullshit on that hottest claim for 2011 because the summer was mediocre as well (few nice warm days).
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Very few of the scientists who get derided by politicians, oil barons, and denialists, have advocated fixing the problem. They only ask that we stop making it worse. The planet will fix itself if we give it time. Indeed, it may fix itself too far in which case we'll have to advocate people burn stuff left right & centre. Most of us don't have any truck with any mother earth knows best naturalist bullshit. We want earth to be a good human habitat. Earth is just a big old spaceship with nobody at the helm. We may never fix that particular problem, but we'll make damned sure the engineers get cracking on the problems we think they can fix.
Obviously, I'm just making these numbers up
Just like your average rational liberal economist then.
Well actually, where I live it's going to go from being a fairly mild climate to being similar to Canada and Norway when the gulf stream is disrupd. I'm just trying to see it from a wider perspective instead of going "oh no, my part of the world is changing, and I'm so selfish that all I think is important are the ways that this could be bad for me, screw everyone else!".
which is totally what she said
It's a bit strange to compare insurance payouts to the worth of a life. The less people there are, the less likely we are to end up in global wars over resources. We already seem to be at a stage in developed nations where there aren't enough jobs to go around, so each new life that doesn't contribute to society is really worth a negative amount.
which is totally what she said
lol. I've never denied that the climate is changing, but we're the ones who fucked it up, and I'm just imagining people pumping the sky full of chemicals, and making a mistake which leaves us even worse off. I'm not saying that would definitely happen, but it's obviously not a decision to be made lightly. It's like when people import in new species to try to deal with a pest problem, and just end up with a new problem to deal with.
which is totally what she said
Of course the earth has gotten hotter; of course human activity is the major cause; of course we must fix it.
BUT, I cannot abide people who write statistical summaries (even non-false ones) for shock value. Sure, 2011 was "the 9th hottest year out of the past 130", but it's also true that 2011 was cooler than 9 of the past 14 years.
Tired as I am of trying to enlighten fools, I still say we should stick to the heart of the statistics and eschew convenient sophistry. We'll leave that for our opponents.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
>Do you think evolution works like an X-Men comic?
Ahem, there wouldn't happen to be a group of humans who have adapted to being accustomed to higher levels of sun and heat, would there?
Moderately bad scenario: Nordic peoples have to apply some sunscreen.
Worst case scenario: Nordic populations die off, to be replaced by Africans, of whom there are plenty.
Life goes on...
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
how come when ice melts in the north pole is BIG NEWS, but when it refreeze, hardly a word is mentioned or how about this study......http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alahttp://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2631488&op=reply&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=rmism-192334971.html
It keeps on surprising me how much any discussion about global warming focusses on (1) Is the Earth warming up or not, and (2) are humans to blame for it or not. This implicitly assumes that the reason why we as a society should be having this debate is to decide who is to blame for it and what we could / should do to prevent or reverse the ongoing trend. This is an interesting debate, and while I personally believe the answer to both questions is yes, I don't think the question of blame is the most relevant one at this point. It would be quite interesting if, just as a thought excercise, we could throw the skeptics a bone and just settle on "yes the planet is warming, but no, humans are not to blame for it, it's the sun that is getting hotter".
Once we've settled on that we move to the harder question: how do we deal with this? What if we know that by 2050 the average temperature will be 2 degrees hotter then today. What do we do as a group, what do we do as individuals? I wish politicians would focus more on defining mitigating actions for how to deal with the problem, rather then focussing on yes / no debates about blame or trying to invent corrective actions like carbon trading which are far from guaranteed to have any corrective influence at all.
Can somebody explain why error estimates did not change since 1880 on Figure 2?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2011/
Please see an opthamologist.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
The US isn't particularly dense, and even the crowded Northeast has large amounts of arable land which have been left fallow for generations. Google Earth is your friend. Even New Jersey is still the Garden State (just not the paved parts next to NYC and Philly).
Tearing down cities won't be necessary, that's absurd. Small farms and backyard plots were once the norm (old towns with very large rectangular back yards reflect this) and during WWII Victory Gardens were healthy and productive.
Remember that the figures below reflect a much stronger dollar and much smaller population:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden
"Pack conceived the idea that the supply of food could be greatly increased without the use of land and manpower already engaged in agriculture, and without the significant use of transportation facilities needed for the war effort. The campaign promoted the cultivation of available private and public lands, resulting in over five million gardens[2] and foodstuff production exceeding $1.2 billion by the end of the war.[3]"
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
my comment was twice moderated up, then immediately twice moderated down. ron paul cultists on slashdot are willing to invest their mod points to ensure that my comments are not read.
libertarians? in name only. a true libertarian would respect an opposing position and either leave it alone or reply to it. instead these cowardly fuckwits moderate it down to oppress the different view as much as possible.
Your error is assuming that anyone wants to completely stop CO2 production, when no one advocated that. You're arguing against a strawman.
Also, nobody needs to arrest you, just cut off your supply of dirty energy. Preferably providing cleaner energy instead.
Dilbert RSS feed
Perhaps you should get your climate info from actual climatologists.
They would happily tell you that you need at least 17 years of data for the climate change signal to emerge from the 'noise' that is short-term climate variation (e.g. El Nino, etc).
They'd also tell you that while the last 15 years hasn't been "statistically significant" to the 95% mark, it *is* significant to something like 94%.
So instead of there being a 1-in-20 chance that there's no real warming trend, there's a massive 1-in-17 chance that there's no real warming trend.
And you're also forgetting the fact that any time-frame *longer* than 15 years *does* show statistically significant warming.
What changed to make you think that the previous well-established long-term warming trend has suddenly stopped and/or reversed?
Please, be specific. Hand-waving just doesn't cut it when science is involved.
And without knowing how individual regions are affected...there's really reason to think you'll be affected. Sure... some people think Greenland will melt and shut down the Gulf stream and cause Europe to ice over. Which is a nice theory with no way to know if it will pan out or not.
people already experience the effects, there is no need to guess.
I am German and I can tell you with some authority that German wine used to be glorified vinegar. Today German wine is very competitive quality-wise and people start to experiment with grapes that would only grow in southern France 30 years ago.
Meanwhile the vineyards in Italy run into increasing problems because the summers are too long and dry.
K, everybody give up electricity, home heating and cars. You go first!
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Yeah, the problem is that if we stop making it worse after we've passed a tipping point, we may find the planet fixing itself into a different metastable state that is far less favorable to our survival.
In other words, if we take some time to think about the problem... it might go away.
...and we can expect change to lead to conflict. Even if the changes all balance or even prove beneficial on average, there will still be mass migration of the losers. If the winners succeed in keeping the losers out of their territory there will be war.
Maybe I'm mistaken but I get the impression most of the climate deniers are also rabidly opposed to immigration or any sharing of their privileged share of the planet with foreigners. Such a pity their denial will trigger exactly what they hate.
Wait, you're quoting a fifteen-year-old article saying that ''some'' of the warming observed twenty years ago ''may'' be due to the 11-year solar cycle? The relevance of this to today's climate is?
Seriously: solar intensity is very well monitored by satellites. We have a good measurement of the solar input, and changes in total solar intensity do not account for the observed warming.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Do you realize how many logical fallacies you just committed?
You hurt your argument more than you helped it.
Blanket statements about all Republicans (by the way what party are the Chinese and Indians that wouldn't sign the Kyoto agreement?) are insane. Republicans aren't the problem here, there are many bad actors in global warming. This finger pointing is useless.
Accusing all Republicans of being therefore Creationist if they doubt climate change doesn't follow at all.
Assuming science by consensus by stating a ridiculous "Probably 99% of climatologists/biologists/economists..." isn't a good argument and isn't true in any case.
Bringing up a ridiculous religious argument. "Faith trumps Facts?" What!
Assuming all Republicans are evangelical Christians and stating that surely they must desire to segregate women like Jews (wrong) and Muslims (all of them?) How do you think you are proving a point.
Republicans aren't all evangelical Christians! Ever heard of Ron Paul?
Your "argument" proves nothing and is extremely bigoted and insulting.
More than a fair critique for sure, but since Republicans are directly against all the things you listed and believe in, how is your aligning yourself with them going to change the Democrats behaviour?
Are you punishing them by joining their enemies?
A more effective approach would be to align yourself with the party who most closely represents your beliefs then try to force them to be more like they claim.
The nation at long last is turning back towards labor, towards an equitable society, towards a non-superstition based interpretation of reality generally. If you join in that, you will be (just) one of the people turning the Dems further and further in that direction. It's not that rewarding, but nature and rate of political change is not set up to mesh well with the reward systems we have to reinforce effort. That's just how it is; you fight and fight and after a long time, one stinking pellet drops from the Skinner Box. Maybe. But this is how it is if you want change. You have to be able to endure this. This is the only way change ever happens. Like I say, it sucks.
Republicans are literally insane. They will literally destroy the earth, the nation, science, the arts (remember the Soviet-style objections to "objectionable art" i.e. Piss Christ and the resulting defunding of the NEA during the 80s and 90s?) because they are united by a few unfortunate personal traits- stupidity, ideological fanaticism, personal greed, disregard for others, lacking in empathy, shortsightedness.. you know the list.
Back when Lincoln was President, the Republicans were the Good Guys. Things change (the Dixiecrat's exodus to the Republican Party in the 60s b/c of Johnson's Civil Rights Act etc.
Its not about party names, about saying I'm an X!, it's about what those parties stand for.
Peace.
Since according to US actuarial tables, a human life is worth about $13 million, 500 million people is worth about $6,500 trillion. Given a 1% chance of this happening, this is an opportunity cost of $65 trillion. Given the time value of money over 100 years (the average between now and 200 years from now), it's worth about $3.3 trillion today to prevent those deaths.
Obviously, I'm just making these numbers up, but it illustrates the point. This is a rough calculation that a rational liberal economist might put on the value of trying to reduce the impact of anthropomorphic climate change.
The idea that a life is worth $13 million dollars is complete nonsense. The average american (who is vastly wealthier than the average human) will earn, on average, something less than $2 million dollars over his or her entire working life. This does not take into account the food and shelter that was required to keep that human productive over the course of those 40 something years. As far as I am concerned, I'm worth about $900 trillion dollars, but the reality is that I value the life of other (non-family) people at something substantially less than $13 million dollars.
I would estimate that Americans value the lives of other Americans at a maximum of something around $50,000 to $100,000. In other words, if a measure would cost $1 billion dollars and would save about 10,000 people, it would pass, but if the billion dollars would only save 1000 people, then the measure would not pass. When I say saving people I mean "saving random people who would not know that they were saved by that measure". In other words, if it costs a billion dollars to save 1000 people statistically, it will not be done.
Note that politicians are willing to spend a lot of money to save specific people. A law that provides health care to people injured due to being victims of the production of child pornography could easily be worth $20 million per life saved.
"The period of warming has hit a plateau over the last 11 years, and in the past couple years globe has been cooling, and the agenda-driven propaganda organ known as the CRU needs new sound bites"
I love how the Global Warming faction rebukes anybody who doesn't agree by calling them crazy.
The earth goes through hot and cold periods. The human race has not done anything in 200 year of industrializaton that could change temperature to this degree.
Whether or not it's our fault is almost irrelevant. The important questions don't bear much on fault:
1. Is it going to adversely affect us if it continues? (The answer is yes.)
2. Is there anything we can do to stop or reverse the trend? (We better hope the answer is yes.)
Ahh.. Republicans are the problem. Is this your unbiased scientific opinion?
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
Think what you want, just don't take money from me to satisfy your hysteria.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
When so many of the changes can be utterly devastating, and ultimately can affect survival, I think calling concern over that (and dismissal of marginal improvements) "selfish"... is too stupid to warrant a serious response. Especially when considering that those who stand to be harmed the most (assuming only regional devastation and not a widespread crisis of survival) tend to be those who have contributed least to the change, it's like telling someone who lost their pension in 2008 to stop being selfish and celebrate the windfall for a few execs and fraudsters.
That's because of La Niña, which results in cooler temperatures. Despite being the 9th hottest year overall, 2011 was the hottest La Niña year on record.
I think everyone should know at least a little about other professions they need to deal with. Unfortunately, the more you know about a subject, the more you see your doctor, your mechanic, your building contractors fucking things up...etc.
You can watch ads on TV EVERY DAY of the week on how company X is devoted to quality and service, but in the end, you'll get a prescription for Voxx, car parts that cost 4 times what they are worth, and a new house with a 50% markup from industry standards.
Sadly the difference between a 'professional' and amateur, usually isn't much. There's too many trained monkeys, who can't actually think, are are just spewing the same words they were taught to memorize.
If you're so flipping worried about the environment, unplug every entertainment device in your house, buy yourself a bicycle, or use mass transit, stop driving that 30 minute commute, and install a wind/solar energy device in your home and stop utilizing fossil fuels. Otherwise you're just another whinny hippocrate, telling others how to live their lives.
Hi, can anyone point out what the trend of weather fronts would be in a warmer world - would we have many traditional warm front-cold front formations? I expect there would be more weather similar to that experienced at the equator (they claim flood-creating, soil-eroding). By the way, how does the rain precipitate with respect to presence/absence of cold air?
The reason why we assume is that our actions are what causing the warming is because we have a reasonable explanation for why the warming should happen when we flood the atmosphere with greenhouse gases like CO2. Indeed, if the warming didn't happen, we'd have to start looking for an explanation for why it doesn't, since it would be at odds with our physics.
*cough*
The earth has been cooling since it's creation. Unless you prefer a ball of molten rock to be your ideal habitat. I have a "feeling" that the formation of the planet has little to do with the current arguments :) A lot has changed since then such as life appearing.
This is the great new ploy by the Koch-suckers. Keep shrinking the number of available data points from the analysis so that the statistical variability will make the signal "disappear". The problem of course is that there are far many data points for which the data are valid and no reason to ignore. As pointed out in the article, another more serious problem with this approach is that the natural combined oscillations of both the solar cycle and ENSO fully account for this slight "statistical pause" and this will no longer be a tenable position as 2 or 3 more years of data are accumulated.
If this proves true as it undoubtedly will, this can only lead to the realization that the deniers fall into one of two groups. They are intentionally denying reality for their own personal benefit, which in this case amounts to crimes against humanity or they are completely delusional and need to be placed in a psychiatric hospital for care, hopefully on an outpatient basis. In either case, as the severity of the consequences of carbon dioxide pollution unfold, society as a whole will recognize that those who either advocate more carbon dioxide pollution intentionally or out of psychiatric problems will probably require incarceration as a necessary, yet perhaps most cost effective way of addressing the problems that result from carbon dioxide pollution.
As much as many of us abhor the thought of having to build more prisons and hope that education will alter the nature of their misperceptions, this may ultimately prove necessary and perhaps may prove ultimately, the most cost effective way of addressing the overall problem in a timely enough fashion to save the vast majority of humanity.
In other news it was reported that today was the seventh warmest day this year. Ten of the warmest days this year have occured in the last two months, June and July. Scientists advise that there is no reason for the trend to stop any time soon, and that August will probably see a new crop of warming records. The world is warming, it is impossible to deny it any more. The time to implement strong cooling measures through the agency of the UN is now. We must restore the historic stability of temperature across the seasons before it is too late. The scientific consensus is that the way to do that is to erect more giant metal structures in windy areas, but some people are in denial about the merits of doing that. That is probably because they have been paid off by the ski or tobacco industries.
How does "coldest in the last 30 years" AND "11th warmest in the last 120" make sense? It would have to be at least "30th warmest in the last 120" for any chance to be true. Duh.
I think you are the one who needs to go sit in a corner and think a bit.
Besides, if you'd actually look it up rather than make pointless snarky comments, you'd see that the data doesn't remotely match the "coldest in 30 years" assertion, anyway.
Geee, all that partisan howling and you wonder why people don't listen to you.
Grow up.
Or if you look at it another way it was the 2nd coldest year in the last decade. So why not argue that the trend is towards cooling again? I would agree that 10 years, is looking at too short an interval. But I would argue that 130 years is also too short an interval. If we're dealing with a cycle of about 50,000 years between ice ages.
There's a difference between "changing it back" and "not fucking it up further".
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
... and you're the reason the world has gotten to how it is.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
What the shit are you talking about?
Of course you're going to be a consumer, nearly everyone who lives in society is.
It's HOW you consume that matters.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
With that mindset, you're just a trigger pull away from the same.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Exactly. So why worry about what's going to happen generations down the line when none of it will likely be any good anyway?
Just like the current global warming debate, climatologists noticed and extremely slight rise in average temperature (less than 1 degree C), and immediately started asking what WE were doing to cause it.
You are quite mistaken on cause and effect.
Actually, the theory of greenhouse gases was understood over 100 years ago, and scientists like Arrhenius made some early predictions that increased CO2 could increase the climate. This was long before we were able to measure a significant increase in global temperature.
If you have an explanation for why increased CO2 would not have a greenhouse effect, please submit your results to a reputable, peer-reviewed journal.
So what they're saying is that they have essentially studied 0.0000000325% or 1/30,769,230 th of the earth's time and concluded that of that fraction, since the last 9 years of 11 have been hotter than those 130 years, that we are in global warming...are you kidding??? I mean you have to provide a better study...no drug is even released with only a study of a handful of people...so you're saying that this is good science? Here's to hoping for some nice summer weather...and hey, isn't this good for generating electicity :)
Don't ask people what their life is worth. Watch their behavior.
For example: If someone will take 1/1000 chance of dying to save $1, he has just valued his life at $1000.
So:
A person with a DUI's life: (Price of Cab ride)/(probability of dying on drunk drive home).
A Jaywalkers life: (His hourly income)*(time saved by jaywalking)/(probability of dying while jaywalking)
(Arguably, assuming time in prison has no value) A financial criminals life: (His financial gain)(% of his life spent in prison if convicted)/(probability of getting convicted)
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Or put sparkles on their nails:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZjvXxwvg8mc
Because CO2 is a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and current models _have to_ include a positive feedback coefficient for CO2 levels increasing H20 levels for them to predict any significant increase.
This coefficient is pulled from climate scientists backsides to produce the results they are looking for.
Nobody needs to write this up in a scholarly article. Everybody involved already knows it, but pretends it's not a factor.
The regular press does it's usual thing: 'That's complicated, involves numbers and casts doubt on the story they are using to scare people...Denier, denier. The sky is falling...'
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That is a much better way of evaluating the value that people ascribe to their own life. If you use your metric, the value of a life would probably plummet far below $50,000 that I rather arbitrarily used in my previous post.
Either way, nothing close to the $13 million nonsense, which was used for the $3.3 trillion price tag. Using a value of $130 000 per life (still pretty high in my opinion) and using the logic of that post, that would put the value of stopping global warming at something around $33 billion dollars today, which may seem like a quite a bit, but pales in comparison to the cost of actually fighting this global warming.
Which is not to say that my numbers are right either, I have no idea where that $3.3 trillion estimate from the GGP post came from, but he was a warmist, so I think it would be rather safe to use his numbers in my calculations.
"Maybe we should consider more natural reasons for the extremely recent rise in temperature and stop wondering which dance moves caused the rain."
Well go on then, if you've got a theory that you think can be demonstrated to be a much more likely reason then I'm sure the global scientific community would love to hear it.
You really think people haven't been looking for another cause? Of course they have, the problem is the only possible cause with any sizeable amount of evidence backing it is that of man made climate change.
You're making a terrible assumption, you're assuming you're smarter than the global scientific community, you're assuming they haven't thought of this, and that they're focussing on man being the cause because it was the first thing they came up with and they're too dumb to consider any alternative. The problem is your assumption is deeply flawed, science has long been searching for another reason, there just hasn't been one that can stand up to the same level of evidence as is available to suggest man made climate change is the most likely cause.
I don't really understand what the point of your first paragraph was? I don't really see how it's an argument for anything, because man also has a pretty awful track record of doing the environmentally responsible thing either, plenty of species have been whiped out and environmental disasters occured for no reason other than greed or laziness. Right now, given the mounting evidence, believing that man isn't responsible and that there is instead some impossibly hard to discover massive and constantly increasing heat source causing the effect we're seeing is far, far more about superstition than believing man is, at least, for a large part, responsible for climate change by simply making the easily demonstrable greenhouse effect worse as we release ever more CO2 in the atmosphere whilst simultaneously destroying nature's carbon sinks like rainforests on the scale of millions of acres per year.
You're exhibiting the exact traits you're chastising much of the rest of the human race for - an inability to reach a best guess conclusion based on the weight of evidence whilst instead opting for something far more unlikely, for which there is no evidence. You're taking the easy way out, you're picking the option that's most satisifying, you're saying there's something else out there for which there is no proof of the existence of- you're making the god argument, you're doing exactly the same thing as the rain dancing native Americans.
Look you may be right, it may be one of those cases where it just happens there was some effect that millions of scientists globally have missed, but we've got to make decisions based on the weight of the evidence, and you're giving the 5% chance option as much weight as the 95% chance option. This is clearly absurd, you wouldn't take the 5% option if you were gambling even a small amount of money, so why the future of the human race other than the fact that the 5% option gives you an excuse to ignore the problem until it's already too late? Is this like the baby boomers pension pots thing? You're hoping you'll have cashed out, enjoyed life and died by the time the problem of unsustainability hits, so if you can just put off having to change your lifestyle long enough in the meantime so that at least you can live your life as you want to, even if everyone else after you will get fucked over.
It's a shit attitude and it's precisely the sort of attitude that's caused everything from climate change to the global banking crisis - pure selfishness and a refusal to accept any kind of responsibility for actions with negative consequences for a greater number of people.
Earth's "correct" temperature is the one it would be at if we weren't pushing it up by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. To fix it, we need to stop the activities that are affecting it. We don't need to know what the actual number is, we just need to stop those activities.
Now, obviously, we're not going to stop the activities completely, nor should we. We live here, therefore we will have an impact. The point is to minimize that impact. We've been around for quite a while, but we've never before impacted the planet the way we currently are. We simply need to scale that impact back to the point where we no longer see such drastic changes in such a short period of time, because our current level of impact is simply not sustainable.
And, to be clear, it's not for the planet that we need to do this. It's for us. Earth will survive what we do to it. The question is, can we survive what we do to it?
As I understand it, there are a few trends that go into that:
(1) A warmer climate does indeed make some northern areas more habitable to farming (eg, canada), but this is a relatively small factor
(2) The biggie: A warmer climate means you get a longer growing season in the northern areas that are already the most productive. This is good for places like the US.
(3) Near the equator in areas where it's already too hot for most cereal crops, additional CO2 will make tree farming much more profitable - trees grow better due to additional CO2 fertilization.
I play Nerd-Folk!
No.
If you want to stop me from burning whatever I want anytime I want whether it be wood or coal or petrol you are going to have to actually come to my house with weapons and arrest me.
No need. When prices will have sufficiently risen, you will have no more money to buy these products.
Can't you see how incredibly difficult it is to get so many people all over this planet to stop producing C02?
It is very easy. CO2 is mainly a by-product of our energy consumption. When there are no more cheap energy sources (oil), people will be forced to use less energy by the ever increasing prices. Between 1990-2000 1 barrel of crude oil on average costed less than $20. Between 2000-2004 it went up to $30. Now it is at $100: why do you think that is? Kyoto? Off course not. Did your income go up 3x since 2004? No? So the same amount of energy is taking up a greater portion of your available budget. This will continue until one of two things will happen:
1) People will start using less energy: either by using more power efficient technologies or by abandoning comfort because it will be too expensive
2) We find a new cheap sustainable alternative energy source (nuclear fission is definitely not viable before 2020)
If prices triple again in the next 10 years, will you continue to burn whatever you can afford or will you then start reducing your energy usage (insulating, smaller car, ...)?
I will roshambo you for it. Please assume the position.
according to US actuarial tables, a human life is worth about $13 million ... is a rough calculation that a rational liberal economist ...
First mistake: These values are for a US/Western life. The values for "foreigners", especially third-world countries where most of the casualties will be, is MUCH lower. Also when there will be a famine, the first casualties will be the "weak": elderly, handicapped, children, women ...
Economically speaking, some of them will be net profits.
Second mistake: The economic loss as you calculate will be in the countries of origin. This will reduce the world economy, but will have less impact on the western world. This has the pervert effect that western economy will have a greater percentage of the world wealth and as a consequence a greater influence, so why would anyone want to invest in a worse future?
Third mistake: You assume the US cares about the financial well-being of others. Investors will lay off hundreds of thousands of people to gain 3% more return on their investment. The cost of keeping a pet is greater than the cost of medication and nutrition of a few African/Asian children.
Forth mistake: You assume (the majority of) people will plan ahead and/or see the consequence of their actions. Look at all the debt we rack up. Look at how we "bury" our waste (including nuclear) like putting it in the ground will make it magically disappear. Look at how people (ab)use antibiotics.
Fifth mistake: You assume the loss of money will be evenly spread amongst all people. This is untrue as we can see in the economic crisis. The wealthy/powerful, who decide policies, will see little impact while the poor/weak will take the biggest hit.
That's almost no change, literal dimwit.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
So the world is getting hotter. Very hard to deny that!
Co2 emissions are rising. Very hard to deny that too!
So how are they linked? And how does the greenhouse effect tie into known historical evidence? Is it supported by what we already know has happened in history, but not published or made common knowledge because those things don't seem to fit?
http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/ten-myths-of-global-warming/
I just don't have the hubris to say today (or any in the last 30 years) is the "correct" average temperature for the earth
Not for the Earth perhaps, but certainly for us. Civilization arose in the last 10,000 years. Global Temperatures varied by +- 0.5C during that time. Those who appreciate the comforts that this stability has afforded are interested in preserving the status quo.
Here is a reconstruction of the temperature during the Holocene: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
This is a La Nina year. We would expect global temperatures to be low. As it turns out, this is the hottest La Nina year on record. Expect a new record high the next time an El Nino rolls in.
Wat does this prove about the cause? Nothing really
Wrong. This proves that whatever is causing global warming is still here.
many such climate changes prior to mankind having the ability to cause it
Yes, and each time it lead to massive disruption in the way life was organised on earth. You suggest we do like the dinos and go 'meh' so in 100 million years our bones are dug up by giant intelligent insects who will be thinking what "natural disaster" caused us to disappear (warning: dramatised).
Wat is apparent that certain parties r using theories of a correlation to force change upon the masses which amounts to control
I feel like a repeat of history. Remember back in the days when it was just "mad/fearmongering scientists" who claimed tobacco and asbestos were cancerous while the nice, honourable and moral industry said everything was hanky dory and we should continue to use their products. Now when people/economies are hooked on fossil fuels, ONLY the oil industry is trying to convince us that everything is hanky dory and we should continue to use their products.
Unfortunately we do not have hundreds of thousands of planets to test/prove the theory statistically like was done with lung cancer.
There r some who r aligned in such a way to profit greatly from forcing these changes upon us
Like whom? Independent scientists all over the world are in agreement. Who gains from NOT buying/burning oil and reducing our fossil energy consumption? Perhaps you should turn around the question. Who is losing when we change our ways. At which side of the argument are they and how many (truly) independent supporters do they have?
We have absolutely no idea whether we r causing this and absolutely no idea whether there is anything we can do to stop it
When we burn oil/coal/... it is a fact that heat and CO2 is released in the atmosphere. Although I doubt the amount of energy dissipated by heat will make such a great impact, the issue with CO2 is that it traps energy in the atmosphere which would otherwise be dissipated into space. The real problem with CO2 is that its effect is compounded and amplified. When more CO2 is released in the atmosphere, temperature will rise, when temperature rises, there will be more moisture in the air which is also a greenhouse gas. On top due to the higher temperature, the polar caps are melting releasing CO2 trapped in the soil. Adding more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Additionally, since snow/ice is white, it reflects most of the light/energy. Reducing the amount of ice covered surface will increase the amount of energy the water/soil will absorb. More energy means more heat, more heat means ... it is a vicious circle.
Whether you think we caused it or not, we are DEFINITELY contributing to the problem.
Analogy: When there is a famine coming and some scientist say, there will be famine because we are eating our sowing crop and we should stop wasting food and grow alternatives. You say: there were famines before, rations and less food means economical harm for restaurant holders.
stop things which ARE causing real harm
Like floods are not causing harm or hurricanes or blizzards? Droughts? Lack of fresh water? Dying bees (no pollination)?
real and significant issue for our future is simply the limited supply of worldwide oil
So how can we make sure we can go longer with our current supply? Maybe by reducing our usage of oil? Oh, wait, that is EXACTLY what everyone else is saying. No matter how you look at it, we should reduce our CO2 emissions (less burning of fossil fuels). It makes economical sense, it makes ecological sense and it makes strategic sense.
So I support any rational or irrational behaviour that leads to alternate energy research
So you e
Thanks. I had a good laugh.
Don't quote me on this.
Both of which were also caused by industrialization.
Now make the conceptual leap from your withered lawn to withered wheat fields and think of the consequences.
No, it only takes a few years of drought to start causing huge problems for agriculture, even in modern times. Also, warmer climate means more extreme weather (because there's more energy to drive storms and such), which in turns drives up the maintenance/repair costs for infrastructure (which is already slowly disintegrating as is), not to mention kills people.
It took thousands of years for the dry zone to expand to its current size (and it's still expanding). It didn't take thousands of years for any particular patch of land to dry out once the rains stopped.
Also, the "lush paradise" period of Sahara was from 8000 to 6000 years ago, while human control of fire dates to at last 125 000 years back, and actually predates the modern human species.
That world did end. Or do you see any mastodons or neanderthals around?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Man has a nasty habbit of thinking the things he does result in unrelated outcomes ... do a special dance ...
And I suppose this too is all based on hard science? You probably agree, as nobody disagrees (including oil lobby), that global climate change is a fact. The only discussion is about who/what is causing it.
In your rain dance example. What scientists are saying is that we should STOP our dancing ritual because it is raining too often. Science shows the rain is not caused by the dance, but by the small ash particles coming out of the fire which go into the clouds and start forming droplets. So because YOU do not understand the science and cannot see the relation between the "dancing" and the rain does not mean you should ridicule those who actually did the research.
Any year without a winter is going to be warmer on average than any year with a winter
Yes, that is why we had the hottest decade on record with most of the extremes in the last 12 years. But yeah, you can ignore the facts and go with whatever works best in your head.
I am saying that it has been warmer and it has been much colder
Did the warming happen as quickly as it does now? What was the impact on life on earth? Are you 100% sure we are NOT causing or amplifying it? I am quite sure we are AT LEAST contributing to it without having done any hard research.
Maybe we should consider more natural reasons for the extremely recent rise in temperature and stop wondering which dance moves caused the rain
Then why bother? Why spend time/money/resources to find a cause which we can't change anyway? Or maybe you should take a closer look at the real science/big picture (fire) and not get distracted by the music and the waving feathers.
Why is it so hard for you to even consider we MIGHT be causing or contributing to it? Remember the hole in the ozone layer? Remember the acid rain? They were all natural phenomena? How many species are extinct due to human intervention? If you believe we have zero impact on our environment, I know which way the grade average of your class went when you stayed home.
I suck at spelling and Firefox's spell check is not working all of a sudden
Maybe you should not try to find what you did to break it, but find someone/something else to blame ;)
Almost no change for very large values of almost no change.
The error bar at the start is clearly twice as large as the last one.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Hansen is the lead author on almost all that data. None of his "science" can be trusted. Not only is he a fraud as a scientist but he is paid literally millions of dollars every year by cap and trade financial organizations, political PACs and a who's who of "green" groups. The sooner you true believers realize you are being fed propaganda to make a few people rich the sooner real science can be applied to the issue.
"I didn't spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called 'Mr.Evil,' thank you very much!"
[citation needed]
Because some the reports that I've seen say agriculture production had already fallen due to negative climate change effects. For instance, this report says that many of California's tree crops may die off because the "winter chill" which protects the trees from some pests will no longer consistently occur. As I understand it, the reason that actual output hasn't fallen is because technological advancements are (so far) outpacing the negative climate related effects.
A warmer climate means you get a longer growing season in the northern areas that are already the most productive. This is good for places like the US.
I can't find it right now, but there was an article that said over 50% of the U.S. mainland was afflicted by either flooding or droughts this year. As the average temperature increases, the average amount of area covered by those conditions will increase. Neither condition is good for growing crops. It doesn't take much land area consumed by drought to negate all changes from a "longer growing season".
Near the equator in areas where it's already too hot for most cereal crops, additional CO2 will make tree farming much more profitable - trees grow better due to additional CO2 fertilization.
As far as I'm aware, additional CO2 has a negligible effect on plant growth, few plants are struggling to get more carbon, they tend to be limited by competition, pests, water, and sunlight first. Even in perfect greenhouse conditions, additional carbon dioxide seems to only boost growth by a few percent (~3%).
Further Reading.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It's us. It's not just correlation, it's multiple lines of evidence that all point to human caused climate change. Coincidentally, you argument that it's not necessarily us is falling out of favour even with people in denial, it used to be one of the top 10 arguments, now it's not even in the top 50 most frequently used arguments.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.txt
Perhaps you should check your data first...
Let me ask this question. The attached paper sites data for the past 130 yrs. Is there anything that can provide data from a greater time period. I'll go small and say the last 100,000 yrs. The earth has been around for about 4.5 billion yrs. 130 yr data sample seems relatively small. I'm not asking for data from 4.5 Billion yrs ago, but hell at least find some data from say when modern man showed up about 50,000 - 100,000 yrs ago. Lets see what the temp fluctuation has been since then. Then if the last 10 yrs seems statistically unique we should get worried. Till then I'll reserve judgement. Hell isn't climatologist the bigger picture meteorologist. An lets face it those guys aren't right very often either.
If there is or has been such studies point them out and i can educate myself.
Keep up your global warming wet dream. It makes a nice hobby for moonbats who can't contribute to society.
Because we can't evolve any faster than over tens of thousands of years at very least, nor can most of the large and/or useful to us and/or ecologically important species on the planet.
If you believe in evolution, you must have some inkling that we as individuals, and as a society have adapted extensively to things as they have been for the past few thousand years.
and if you don't believe in evolution, you must have some hunch that God did a pretty good job setting the thermostat and told the kids not to mess with it.
gonna stick with the theory that rising temp doesn't cause more water to evaporate, are you? ok dr, science.
Just like the current global warming debate, climatologists noticed and extremely slight rise in average temperature (less than 1 degree C), and immediately started asking what WE were doing to cause it.
Well, you're starting off with a falsehood, and one that's not exactly subject to interpretation like the cause of climate change. As well documented all over the place, the hypothesis started off with the observation that
1) we are digging up large amounts of carbon and burning it
2) burning carbon creates CO2
3) the CO2 produced escapes into the atmosphere
4) the CO2 in the atmosphere rises
5) CO2 absorbs IR at the frequencies the earth radiates
therefore, the temp was predicted to rise.
And of course, it did. "Your side" doesn't have any coherent explanation to why this would not happen, any more than you have any coherent explanation as to why it's getting warmer if it's not the CO2.
So; why are you posting falsehoods about easily verifiable (and well known) facts here? Did you hear what you wanted to hear somewhere and memorize it because it makes AGW seem less scientific in your mind, or do you just make stuff up to support your position and convince yourself it must be true? I'm just asking because I'm kind of curious as to what portion of the nonsense rightwing shibboleths floating around are handed down by writ and what portion is homegrown. Either way, you have disqualified yourself as worthy of further attention.
But I can't let this go:
By the way, last year's warm weather average was caused by an unusually warm summer mixed with a La Nina event that delayed winter in this year. Any year without a winter is going to be warmer on average than any year with a winter, just as a class's grade average is better when the stupid kid is absent.
Ah, the old "it's not getting hotter, it's just that summer was warmer " argument. Well played.
And to think those AGW fools disregard such convincing debunking. Gee.
The only constant is change.
I think what alarms some scientists and policy / planning analysts isn't the change itself, but the rate of change. Which, as far as they can tell, is far faster than what has occurred in the past.
I just wish we (analysts, media, politicians, slashdot:)) could move past the "Is it happening?" question and instead start a discussion based on the average predication of the most well regarded models.
If the average prediction is a 5 degree increase in 100 years, then lets talk about what that will cost us. If it is cheaper to more aggressively drop carbon output to zero in ~20 years than do nothing and deal with the consequence in 100 years, then lets figure out how to do it. In order to really debate it though, it is going to take a lot more global, comprehensive studies.
There are a very small number of people looking into it now (see http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_on_winning_the_oil_endgame.html) and I sure wish there were more.
If if all the predictions very widely, I think it would be useful for the public to see what the best guesses are, and more importantly, the consequences.
Something like, if we do nothing:
0.05%+/-0.02 chance of run away event turning Earth into Venus
30%+/-12% of US Bread Basket no longer being able to grow
etc...
And then the economists can take those predictions and work out the costs.
Go hump a tree and get over it!