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Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change?
Hugh Pickens writes "David Leonhardt writes in the NY Times that even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998), the country seems to be moving further away from doing something about climate change, with the issue having all but fallen out of the national debate. But behind the scenes, a different story is emerging that offers reason for optimism: the world's largest economies may be in the process of creating a climate-change response that does not depend on the politically painful process of raising the price of dirty energy. Despite some high-profile flops, like ethanol and Solyndra, clean-energy investments seem to be succeeding more than they are failing. 'The price of solar and wind power have both fallen sharply in the last few years. This country's largest wind farm, sprawling across eastern Oregon, is scheduled to open next month. Already, the world uses vastly more alternative energy than experts predicted only a decade ago,' writes Leonhardt. Natural gas, the use of which has jumped 25 percent since 2008 while prices have fallen more than 80 percent, now generates as much electricity as coal in the United States, which would have been unthinkable not long ago. Thanks in part to earlier government investments, energy companies have been able to extract much more natural gas than once seemed possible which, while far from perfectly clean, is less carbon-intensive than coal use. The clean-energy push has been successful enough to leave many climate advocates believing it is the single best hope for preventing even hotter summers, concludes Leonhardt, adding that while a cap-and-trade program faces an uphill political battle, an investment program that aims to make alternative energy less expensive is more politically feasible. 'Our best hope,' says Benjamin H. Strauss, 'is some kind of disruptive technology that takes off on its own, the way the Internet and the fax took off.'"
Clearly you missed the words "on record".
even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998)
Now see, statements like this are what make me so wary of trusting anything out of the mouths of the more fanatical members of the environmental movement. Really? So it's hotter today that it was during the Mesozoic era,
What part of "warmest year on record" is unclear to you?
What part of the temperature during earlier eras where we weren't on top of the food chain is relevant?
The sad thing is that most reporters don't even question this patently obvious bullshit anymore
The sad thing is that many slashdotters wouldn't question your patently obviously boring rhetoric.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998)
Didn't you know that ~160 years of climate observations determines the entire history of the planet? Unless you are a creationist who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old, that 130 years is a statistically insignificant amount of time.
sudo make me a sandwich
Even on /. this kind of hyperbole gets credit? I'm disappointed in the scientific standards. Now this site has stooped to the level of mass media. As an actual scientist (partially involved in research concerning atmospheric processes, by the way) I find this very sad...
"But I've grown more than a little sick of Chicken Little, crazy-eyed alarmists preaching apocalyptic sermons with utterly ridiculous language that makes it sound like the fucking end is nigh if mankind doesn't abolish all industry NOW NOW NOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!"
Can you name a single person who has advocating abolishing all industry?
Neither is ethanol. As many of the simple minded radical greens, the author can't tell the difference between clean (as in less pollution/harmful environmental effects), renewable and low greenhouse gas emitting.
But I've grown more than a little sick of Chicken Little, crazy-eyed alarmists preaching apocalyptic sermons with utterly ridiculous language that makes it sound like the fucking end is nigh if mankind doesn't abolish all industry NOW NOW NOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
The sad thing is that most reporters don't even question this patently obvious bullshit anymore, lest someone label them a GW denier.
What is even more sad is that there is currently no realistic plan for how to deal with the fact that we are currently spending resources like coal, oil, and natural gas significantly faster than they regenerate. (Since these resources generate on geological timescales, not human timescales.) Even if we don't care about the environment, once these resources are depleted, say goodbye to a high-tech human civilization unless we have developed alternative energy sources.
(Note that we will probably not be able to develop alternative energy sources once we have reached that point, since the development of alternative energy sources will require a high-tech human civilization.)
Personally, I'm a lot sicker of people talking about "crazy-eyed alarmists" preaching that "the fucking end is nigh." Who, specifically, are these "crazy-eyed alarmists" and where are they making such predictions? I know who it isn't. It isn't climate scientists. It isn't the IPCC. It isn't even prominent non-scientists like Al Gore who have popularized the concerns of climate scientists. So who are they? Where are they preaching that I've never heard them?
And while we are at it, who is insisting that we need to "abolish all industry NOW NOW NOW RIGHT NOW!"? Again, I know who it isn't. It isn't climate scientists. It isn't the IPCC. It isn't even prominent non-scientists like Al Gore who have popularized the concerns of climate scientists. So who are they?
We'va also had 5 majour extinxion events during those millions of years. And all of them had something to do with major shifts in climate, caused by external factors: the big meteorite did not kill the dinosaurs. The nuclear winter which followed did.
Large, fast changes in climate don't matter much to life. It'll recover. We may not. Or we may, but our civilisation is a goner. Or maybe, if we are extra-lucky, we get to only have a major economic crisis. Something like the industrial revolution in reverse.
Global warming is a serious threat. And we will --those of us below fifty -- have to face its consequences directly. We can only hope that it won't be as bad as the scientists think it'll be, and that it much, much worse than what you see in news.
Is it really the warmest on record? On what record? The mercury thermometer record? Tree ring record? Ice core record? It was certainly warmer a little over 1000 years ago and one could consider them "on record".
We are currently at around seven billion people, starvation we see currently is from political, not technical issues. We do not have too many people, we have some people that suffer needlessly - an entirely different problem.
The upper growth is around 10 billion people, after that the population will remain fairly stable. There's no reason to think that with technological improvements in obtaining food we could not support that population indefinitely, assuming some vast plague does not take us down a lot...
Ironically, current warming trends would help us with more arable land, if scared fools would allow climate change to proceed normally.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Natural Gas == Fracking == Destruction Of Dwindling Clean Drinking Water.
Not much of an improvement
The sentence says this year is the warmest on record for the US. It says the past 13 are the warmest period for the whole planet, no mention of recorded or time at all.
Actually, you're just showing off a poor understanding of the English language. The actual text in question is:
... even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998), ...
Anyone with minimal competence in (written) English will understand that the parenthesized part is an addendum to what came before, and what came before included "on record". So that "on record" would normally be understood to apply to the parenthesized extension of the sentence.
Of course, such a misreading could be due to ignorance or malice. But it's fairly common to make "mistakes" like this for propaganda purposes. I suspect that this was the case here. In particular, I suspect that the parent comment was written by someone (Baloroth 3270816) understood the statement quite well, but decided to ignore the normal reading of the typical English speaker, and claim that it said something other than what it actually said. This was done for the usual propaganda reasons.
(It can be useful to study propaganda techniques; it gives you the ability to both see through them and also use them for your own purposes. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
No, "for the entire planet" means in contrast to specific parts of the planet which have not necessarily had their warmest years since 1998, as in global average temperature. Repeating "on record" every single time once the context has already been established would be bad writing.
Just because it is possible for you to deliberately smash the language centers of your brain that normally work just fine so as to manage to misunderstand perfectly clear English does not make it the writer's problem.
The enemies of Democracy are
It's far cleaner (and greener) than coal, which is what we call "compromise" and taking "baby steps". These are things that the climate alarmists don't understand
Unlike many issues, it's meaningless whether we find a compromise that meets everyone's political preferences. We need a solution that meets the hard requirements of nature. Climate change won't negotiate with us.
Why do so many critics of climate change mainstream resort to name calling? I think it's a rhetorical tactic, to appear uncompromising and intimidating. But at the same time, it undermines credibility -- it seems like you have nothing to say and are falling back on tactics.
Every time I read one of these climate change stories and the comments shouting "hoax!", I think back to a story. A professor was asked to study the atomic bomb yields and say whether or not it would ignite all the oxygen in the atmosphere and destroy the Earth. He came back a short time later and said, "No, of course not!"
After the test, his colleagues asked him how he arrived at his answer so quickly. He said, "Well, if I was wrong, who would've known?"
Ahem. Global warming and the self-destruction of mankind is a hoax!
Also, if a scientist came along with conclusive evidence that there was no such thing as global warming, he'd get a *LOT* more money. Think about it. How much would the oil companies pay for such information? There's no selfish reason to lie about this.
Technically it would have to be read as only the hottest in the hundred or so years we have records for. But it was written such that most people will read it with the meaning of 'hottest evar'
The context of "on record" was clearly established. The only part of the context that changed -- from hottest year in the U.S. to hottest years for the whole planet -- was also clearly established. Most people do not have goldfish brains and can keep track of this context for six whole words.
So, only people who wanted to invent a reason to complain would read it that way. Everyone else knows that the author did not suddenly, mid-sentence, despite already qualifying their claims with "on record", expand the context to the entire history of our rock ball which was at one point molten.
The enemies of Democracy are
But I've grown more than a little sick of Chicken Little, crazy-eyed alarmists preaching apocalyptic sermons with utterly ridiculous language that makes it sound like the fucking end is nigh...
You are, of course, talking about the people who spout the bullshit about how if we dare to be a little more conservative with our fossil fuel use, the economy will collapse and we'll all live in caves, right?
"Records" include ice cores, pollen samples, a lot of contemporary data going back a long way. I found the phrase ambiguous too, although not to the rage level of the OP.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
if you make loony predictions (such as "the end of civilization as we know it") and loony proposals (such as forcing twenty years of zero economic growth in "rich countries"), then nobody will listen to you.
No serious party is making those predictions or proposals. Only the deniers characterize the argument that way. Read the actual science and proposals, instead of the characterizations by their political opponents; for example read the IPCC reports (or just the summaries, which are relatively short); they are what you are looking for.
Your assurance doesn't help in the face of the facts. Also, the free market would work better if those emitting carbon had to pay for it, instead of dumping the cost on everyone else: It creates a false incentive to the emitters (carbon emission is free!) and runs up my taxes and bills.