Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
"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?
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.
Perhaps the part where the year is not yet finished
Yes, and it's still summer. Guess you missed that part. It's only going to get hotter. Also, that's totally fucking irrelevant, because it's about how hot it's gotten, not just about the average temperature for the year.
every single Warmist Chicken-Little alarmist such as yourself proclaiming weather is the same as climate
Show me where I said that. Come on, show me. Oh, you can't? That's because I didn't say that. You're a liar.
(but not when winters are colder! No sir, then it means nothing)
Record winter lows are a predicted sign of global warming. I'm not surprised you don't know that, because you are clearly willfully ignorant.
all attempts to claim runaway behavior from existing climate change have been proved to be bunk
We're not talking about runaway behavior right now, we're talking about AGW. Although, now that you mention it, ice on land is melting faster than it's being replenished, faster than projections, and faster than in recorded history.
your high priests
Your attempts to demonize science? They fail.
along with your high priests inability to predict anything about climate changes that actually happen going forward
And you fail again. In fact, record highs and lows are predicted. Ice melting is predicted, and it happening faster than predicted is not a cause for you to celebrate. All it means is that even scientists are optimists.
why should we treat you and your disciples
I have disciples now? Awesome. I hope I don't get nailed up. You are hereby cordially invited to eat my body before my death. Pucker up.
It all started when you claimed AGW was based on "science", a curious science that silenced detractors and ignored requests to review raw data
And you lie again. The raw data has been available to anyone in a position to understand it all along. That doesn't include you. Detractors have not been silenced; Big Oil has spent vast amounts of money on studies trying to find some support for their assertions, the same assertions you share. Only, now even Big Oil is admitting that AGW is a real thing. Now, they're only arguing that it is not as serious as it is made out to be. As a predictable next step, they will announce that no, we're actually all screwed. Then they'll announce that they have some kind of solution. I don't need to be prescient, I only need to remember what you have forgotten: the lessons of history.
and you wonder why more reasonable heads fail to support you now.
Well, no, in fact, more reasonable people (who are more than just a head, this ain't Futurama — today, "head" more commonly means drug user, but I already knew you were hopelessly out of touch before you said that) actually do support "me" (or in fact, the science of AGW) and you don't. I already know you're not reasonable from your history here, but I decided to respond to you anyway because I had time and I didn't want someone to think that a failure to respond to your inanity was due to believing it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
current warming trends would help us with more arable land
Only if we are willing to engage in deforestation that would exacerbate the problem. Did you get these ideas out of a Big Oil coloring book, or what? Meanwhile, our existing arable land is showing massive crop failures for this year, and food is already 20-33% more expensive than it was last year. As it turns out, when you have record highs and lows in the same place in the same year, there's no crops that want to grow under those conditions. There is no plant whatsoever that likes temperatures over 100 degrees (though many plants have adaptations to permit them to avoid damage in those conditions) and no plant that can handle those temperatures likes to be frozen. In addition, there has been inadequate rainfall in our existing farmland.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Consider looking at population through the prism of a world without fossil fuels and other natural resources. These fossil fuels pretty much make modern agriculture what it is today. It is hard for us to picture a world in which human beings become less capable and have less technology because it is not something we have observed in our lifetimes. However, it can happen, and currently we have no mitigating plan to deal with the dwindling availability of fossil fuels. Once fossil fuels become too expensive for agriculture, we could all be in big trouble.
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.
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
"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.