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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.'"
Do you have reading comprehension problems? The quoted text says "on record". Go look back how far we've been keeping temperature records. Nobody was sitting around with thermometers in the Paleozoic era.
FWIW, Antarctica is still a desert.
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.'"
Bear in mind, those years where during a period where normal cycles should have been flat of slight cooler.
That's why they are more proof of Man Made Climate change.
It's also important to remind people like that because some conservatives make the bald face lie that the last decade or so was cooler. When presented with the actual facts, they refuse to reconsider their opinion. So we need to counter the people spreading that lie as well.
Could it be more precise? probably. OTOH if you want that level or precision there are plenty of excellent scientific papers on the subject
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
by "on record" I assume they are referring to direct temperature measurements. In other words, since people started recording temperatures.
Natural gas is not clean energy. I seem to remember that the greenhouse gasses emitted during extraction and processing of shale gas, which is the source of most of our current boom IIRC, offsets any benefits. Does anyone know?
Not to mention that the U.S. also wasn't around in the Mesozoic. It's not even 250 years old.
I musta missed the last few years then, when was it a middle Carboniferous era after 1998?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
That's an easy one:
"No."
Next question please.
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
So it's hotter today that it was during the Mesozoic era
Detailed temperature information exists since 1850 so that must be the time range referred to.
"they" are telling us not to look at the weather ("boy it's 'whatever' today"), and to look at the climate data ("ooh look at that trend line" )
If you think "they" are saying anything else you are listening to the wrong "they".
It seems to me ... and I cannot provide references ... that it's been "too late to do anything" for ten years or more. This always seemed to be a counter-productive way to evangelize. If it really is too late, we need to put resources more toward mitigation (which I suspect will be the case anyway).
Dark Reflection
Doing anything would be HARD and EXPENSIVE and what if it turns out we didnt need to do anything...
We just cleaned up our air for NOTHING!
Maybe some future generation will look back and think 'wtf was wrong with them they didnt fix this problem when it was easy to fix'.
Either way.. I won't live long enough to see it get real bad. So fuckit. Why spend my now money for the future generations... Fuck those people.
It's a very corporate trendy thing to say...... Why? because fuck you thats why! I got mine!
Note to future generations: HAHA!
Hold on so what this article is saying is that once again the free market is taking care of us where the government has failed miserably? But thats not what the democrats tell me. The liberals keep telling me how bad the free market is at responding to, well, anything.
I've always thought an excellent common ground, regardless of opinion on AGW, is that the carbon based stuff in the ground is not inexhaustible. You can even disagree on how long it's going to last, but why not plan for the inevitable and really invest in alternatives? It addresses long term supply concerns, reduces pollution, and, if you're of a certain mindset, helps keep the planet from melting. Win, win, win.
It is unwise to ascribe motive
They just gonna use this as an excuse to push some new law which will be (again, same as last ... well, just look at last 15 years that's enough) in their interest(*) and for which you gonna pay up. By they I mean these centralized governments we have today. The others just follow that, even when they are not a part of it.
If not, the centralized governments public relationship office, namely, mainstream media, wouldn't bombard people with these sort of thing all the time. They aren't doing it because they like you, certainly not. If you think this is some sort of conspiracy theory, then you retarded.
You'll see in few years. If you not think so, then like I said above.. look at the trend from last 15 years. Imagine how world will look like in 50.
(*) Money, power, duration of exploitation of planet/resources, something else.
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?
You say climate change, I say beach front property. No problem here.
A ray of hope? Quick! Trap it in the greenhouse before it radiates away!
Everything is better with chainsaws.
I kind of like the changes predicted for us here in Colorado. Is there a group out there in favor of global warming I could join?
There is a very straightforward solution: Sensible policies.
I know what you are thinking: 'That's politically impossible'. That's what obstructionists want you to think, that nothing can get done. Don't be so easily intimidated and demoralized. If you want it done, it will happen. Every other advanced economy manages it; we can too.
The obstructionists are out of steam; their tactics are obvious and they have little left to say. I think Churchill said, 'America always does the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities'. I think we're just about at that point.
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.)
solution to fix all things ( and maybe even improve climate variability ) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222114546.htm to change 'local' climate - there is need for much less area. I think that mass produced aluminum foil on some substrate could be used as well ( will be easy to scale back reflection if needed )
Greenland has a massive ice melt off every 150 years or so. Nothing new to see here, move along.
With highish first derivatives of temperature over time being on the order of a couple of degrees C per millennium, and second derivatives operating on the order of .1 degree per millennium per millennium. To treat 1800-2015 as the same as -10000 BC to 1 AD is crazy.
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?
Thanks in part to earlier government investments, energy companies have been able to extract much more natural gas than once seemed possible ...
... The Wall Street Journal will attribute this solely to corporate innovation -- probably Xerox :-) -- like it did for the Internet.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
to save mankind.
I like microcars
The price of oil has been going up because of increased demand from Asia, especially China, and from other developing nations. Production hasn't increased that much because oil is getting harder to get and subsequently more expensive to get.
As this trend continues - and I don't see what it wouldn't - solar, wind, and other "green" energy (Natural Gas is not a green energy source) will become more and more economical for two reasons.
1. technology and manufacturing improvements lowering the costs of these energy sources.
2. As oil continues its price increase, green energy will become more competitive and one day become more cost effective that oil and maybe even coal.
But it won't be a panacea. Every manufactured good has an environmental impact.
...and I've stated the obvious. Time to become Capt. Obvious' side kick named - D'Uh or You think?
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.
So it's a natural record. No one said human record. If dinosaurs kept records, would you not count those either?
I can just see it now ... New York Times bestseller: The Dinosaur Diaries - all the dirt, all the scandal, everything you wanted to know about those Diplodoci next door!
It's fun debates like this which undermine both sides.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Our best hope is a radical alteration using chemical means?
Are you kidding me?
We still use HALF the energy in the US and Canada heating and cooling mostly empty buildings. We could easily just change zoning and tax laws to encourage buildings to have green roofs, provide their own power, use half the energy to heat and cool, and build them for barely more than we pay for buildings nowadays. Practically the entire campus here is built using such buildings now.
We still have massive untapped energy sources of hydro, mini-hydro, micro-hydro, geothermal, wind, urban wind, tidal and other energy sources that would dramatically impact GHG impacts. In America.
We still use cars that only get - and this is from an ad last nite - only 36 mpg when we can easily crank out 60 mpg cars today. Or replace 15 mpg vehicles with 30 mpg versions that function THE SAME using technology we HAVE TODAY. Heck, we could replace them in areas where electricity is mostly green (e.g. populated coastal areas) with plug-in electric cars. Or people could bike or walk more.
There are a lot of very simple things we could do today.
But ... we're lazy whiners. Period.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I seriously doubt if humanity can survive an ice age today. I certainly wouldn't.
Stop being greedy self-centered asshole that main purpose in life is consumation. And it is main purpose in life for many of people. All those that, like George Carlin say, buy things they "DON'T NEED" with money they don't have.
I don't own a freaking iPod or iPad or 50 pairs of shoes and pants and big screen TV, and don't have a need to "get one" as soon as it starts hitting the media... if there's a practical need for me to get one, I'll get one. I'm not gonna go blindly buy everything. You may think this isn't related, but it is. 90 % of stuff you can buy/posses is BS. More worse, stupid BS. But as long as it's fancy and flashy ... it's alright eh ?
When you stop simply consuming without thinking, all those factories will gonna close down. Lost jobs ? Oh well, you can't sit with one ass on two chairs.
Stop bloody complaining, and do something about it.
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.
Use something else. As fossil fuel products increase in price, alternatives will become attractive. The gasoline car might be scrapped for an electric car or it might run on biofuels. Just going up in price will make a number of alternatives realistic which aren't realistic now.
Government and private investment in renewable and clean(er) energy sources is having a larger than expected (though really quite small) impact on carbon emissions (within the US).
Better?
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, when Antarctica was a desert (or even during the Paleozoic era, when it was a swamp)?
While I agree with the premise that the Earth has been a lot warmer in the past, your examples fail to account for continental drift.
Antarctica wasn't was not at the South Pole during the Mesozoic. Even when it did drift South, it didn't actually freeze over until it separated from South America and was surrounded by the circumpolar currents.
In the Paleozoic, Antarctica did not yet exist as a continent. I don't know where all the parts were or what pre-Pangea land masses they were attached to.
Yes, it's perfectly clear that the "on record" qualifier still applies to the immediately appended parenthetical about the 13 warmest years, goldfish brain.
The enemies of Democracy are
AC, if you've got a comment, you didn't make that comment. Someone else made that happen.
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
The 13 years are those for which we have records. When the Earth was covered with lava, I don't think anyone had a thermometer, smarty pants.
The vast majority of scientists in the applicable field believe the Earth is warming. If you don't believe it, that's your problem.
The vast majority of those scientists believe that the warming is being significantly accelerated by human processes, and that the trend line is far sharper than standard climatic cycles would ordinary produce. If you don't believe it, that's your problem.
Most outcome predictions based on the rate of change we're seeing include massive effects on humanity. If you don't believe it, that's your problem.
But sadly, you are our problem. People who, despite growing evidence, fail to grasp the urgency of the matter will be our collective downfall. Even though I tend to get very frustrated at the ignorance, I've pretty much just come to accept it. The thing that really ticks me off is that my children will suffer because of people like you, spreading the "it's not that bad" schtick.
And by the way, industry can mean a lot of things. A clean energy industry would be awesome.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
You're either so focused on one part of the summary I didn't read or you so dead set on some political belief that you're willing to cast any discussion of climate change as hyperbole. Please clarify your concern.
That's nice, but while natural gas is "cleaner burning" than some other fossil fuels in ways that are very significant to a number of other environmental concerns (particulates, sulfur emissions, etc.), its only very slightly better in terms of greenhouse gas emissions for the energy produced, and even completely replacing all coal power generation overnight wouldn't do much for climate change. In the context of climate change, natural gas is red herring, not an alternative.
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".
thank you, at least someone gets it. We have only been keeping detailed weather records for around 100 years and now were supposed to believe that this is the hottest its ever been, thats crazy.
No, he doesn't "get it". Have you never heard of paleoclimatology? Scientists down in Antarctica have sampled cores of ice that have been trapped for millennia, and have been able to correlate the temperatures of the ice as well as trapped atmospheric particles with the time they were trapped. From them, they have determined an approximation of the average global temperature back through time, as well as estimates of things like the percentage of Earth's surface covered by wetlands based on methane levels indicating decomposed bacteria.
The Antarctic ice sheet has a pretty good record going all the way back to the previous ice age and a bit earlier. It's not like an almanac, where they can ask "what was the temperature on July 4th, 4004 BC", but they can see slow moving trends. For example, they can see a small dip that correlates to the Little Ice Age, and a more dramatic dip from an earlier ice age.
And the ice sheets aren't the only evidence. Geological records also contain clues about the earlier weather, in the forms of rock scratchings where they were pushed by glaciers, glacial moraines, ancient dried lake beds, etc. And the distribution of fossils can show where climates went from "hospitable" to "inhospitable" to certain forms of ancient life.
It's just the kind of data you need to have if you are trying to figure out if this decade is warmer than all previous decades in the last 40,000 years.
There is nothing crazy about it. It's just science.
John
They got everything, and they destroyed the future out of greed and selfishness.
In their defense, that didn't happen. It's just a fad to blame them for everything. Looking over garbage like this, I'm tempted to write a parody book where the Boomers get blamed for everything wrong that has ever or could ever happen, real, imagined, or fantasized about.
The universe turned out imperfect? God was a lazy ass boomer watching TV when he created the universe. All pain and suffering in this universe flow from the Howdy Doody Show.
Is it really the warmest on record? On what record?
Good question. In parts of Canada, that record is only 30 years. In other parts, it's 10 years. Yet it's being included in "climate data" as a pure baseline sample. Heck, where I live they don't even have a weather station for reporting the data. The temperature is now recorded and reported from 48KM away. My sister's place out in Alberta? 16KM away, in a gully, next to a stream, full of cold mountain water. Oh and it's shady until about 2pm.
Om, nomnomnom...
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
Of course, that means his point is still valid, even if sentence isn't. You on the other hand either have no point (was making a joke/just commenting about his gram error) or don't understand rather simple, obviously true concepts, such as IT'S HOTTER than any other time since human beings have recorded the temperature.
Since you can't argue with that basic fact, you can instead point out irrelevant, minute flaws in how people state the argument.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Why wouldn't they be able to? Adaption is second nature to humans.
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.
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.
Sure there is. We use the resources we have for the next few hundred years, but over time technologies like solar and hydrogen and nuclear power become more and more reliable and competitive with extracting natural resources from the ground.
It is inevitable this will happen, what is sad is that some people cannot accept this must happen at it's own pace and there is just so much you can do to hasten the arrival of alternative energy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Really? So it's hotter today that it was during the Mesozoic era, when Antarctica was a desert (or even during the Paleozoic era, when it was a swamp)? Hotter than when earth's surface was made of *molten lava*? Really?"
No you fucking moron, its the warmest since they started keeping records not since the planet coalesced.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I recommend reading "2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years" (http://www.amazon.com/2052-Global-Forecast-Forty-Years/dp/1603584218).
It is written by the same guy who co-wrote the 1972 report "The Limits Of Growth" and deals with what humanity will likely do (globally) in the next 40 years (not what we SHOULD do, but what we will most likely do).
It is very interesting (and actually quite easy) to read and deals among other things with the expected results of climate change.
"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) [...]"
Actually, the parenthetical claim is clearly saying that the absolute warmest years for the entire planet have been since 1998. The claim is an example of poor writing. Just because the meaning can be inferred does not mean that it should be necessary to do so. The possibility of inferring the meaning does not excuse the writer from the onus of clear and precise communication.
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
No it is a case were a particular generation, due to demographic factors, always got its way, and upset the intergenerational transfers, where education must be balanced with retirements and unemployment. The baby boom passing through the system tilted it always towards them. They got their education cheap, they got inflation as wage earner which allowed them to buy property for cheap, and now that they retire, they force deflation and cuts to education to pay for their retirement.
Their parents, on the contrary constructed a society for their children rather than for themselves. Are they responsible for all the ills in the world? No. Are they responsible for being selfish arseholes (collectively) who caused a situation were education and research get sacrificed on the altar of retirement funds? you bet.
And that is stealing the future.
I remember twenty years ago or so when Al Gore was stumping for more public transportation. Even then I thought what a ridiculous, old-school, political-suicide-inducing idea that was. Why the hell are we commuting in the first place, when so many of us could do what we do perfectly well from home (or some other location)? Instead of forcing people to ride buses like a bunch of proles, the government could create telecommuting initiatives. At least it would be a lot cheaper and bound to be more popular.
Proverbs 21:19
RTFA before you get so angry. The idiot is the one posting the slashdot story, not the original author. Your assaults on reporters is ill-founded in this case, bucko.
From the article: "The United States is now enduring its warmest year on record, and the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998, according to data that stretches back to 1880."
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
No it is a lie. If it is conciseness is it science? It is a hoax. Governments ALWAYS want more control. So they never let a crisis got waist. But global warming is very special to the power hungry. 1. It never ends & can never be fixed. 2. it requires control of every one and everything to fix. Tyrants ALWAYS have a problem to fix or an enemy to stop. So the result is never ending total control of everyone.
Yes, it's perfectly clear that the "on record" qualifier still applies to the immediately appended parenthetical
...unless, of course, one is being completely disingenuous or is in total denier-al.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No it is a case were a particular generation, due to demographic factors, always got its way, and upset the intergenerational transfers, where education must be balanced with retirements and unemployment.
What makes you think intergenerational transfers work at all? Here, you're just saying that a slightly larger generation upset the balance (and would have occurred with any other generation that happens to be above average in size). Such fluctuations probably will happen again and again. So what makes this the boomers fault rather than bad system design?
Global warming is a serious threat. And we will --those of us below fifty -- have to face its consequences directly.
What threat in particular is it that scares you so much? The 3mm per year rise in ocean level?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There is not alternate energy source capable of replacing fossil fuels - none. Until some magical new fuel is discovered that will replace oil and other fossil fuels you have but one option if you want to reduce green house gassess and that is to change modern society, since our entire economy and way of life is built upon the assumption (and consumption) of cheap fossil fuel. I still don't think people realize how deeply entrenched our reliance on these fuels is. They just can't magically be "replaced" by solar power, wind power, corn or whatever. Most alternative enegry simply haven't proven themselves to be practical which is why they haven't caught on. Sure you can supplement fossil fuels with some of these alternatives but oil is still king.
Unfortunately, no current energy source is as cheap, flexible or powerful enough to replace oil so you aren't going to fundamental change the way people live. Your stuck, sorry. Get over it.
Totally agree. The Warming advocates have done outstanding work on how to select headlines that will glare like the sun, but never state the basis of the assertion nor adequately reference sources. They are great at this! I just wish they were as good at real science than at writing headlines and fudging data. If you looked at each of the warming headlines recently you woud find them over blown, e.g. the Greenland melting. I could list these for you, but if you are a warming advocate you stopped reading a long time ago, if you are someone interested in checking facts you don't need me to.
Come on, "the entire planet" is a location, "on record" is a period of time. The statement is correct and it's part of a summary. If you want to know the details you need to read the details. Which are linked.
I think that's the NOAA record, which has been adjusted so the old records are colder than what was measured.
There is currently no technology in place to mitigate for the eventual rarity of fossil fuels and there does not appear to be anything on the horizon that can meet the demand in the time scale needed.
even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998)
on record: since 1850 (thermometers), or for the last 2000 years (tree rings, ice cores), or for the last 800.000 years (ice cores), according to Wikipedia. Doesn't really say which, but the Mesozoic era ended 65 million years ago, so it's not covered.
warmest years for the entire planet: if one considers global temperature averages. Note that local climate is not a good indicator.
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!!!!!!!!
Straw man. Actually, the total opposite of what the article is about.
And spouting off laughably ridiculous "facts" like "the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998" only makes them sound even more like a bunch of religious zealots than they already do.
Pot, meet kettle.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
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', especially since hottest in a century wouldn't scare many people and the whole thing was written as one big frightfest.
Reality says it has been both much warmer and much cooler than present. And probably will be again.
As for the rest.. Meh. Show me a 'green' energy source that can exist without government subsidies and I'll show you an energy source that the greens have either already turned on or soon will, Because the last thing they want is clean energy, what they want is for industrial civilization to go, depriving it of energy is just one of the ways to bring that about.
And in the end they are even sorta right, there ain't no such thing as energy without side effects. TANSTAAFL. Any energy source widely deployed will reveal that it ain't free, limitless and clean.
Democrat delenda est
Serious guys? Pretending shock and amazement at the lack of editors on slashdot?
I don't really give a fuck whether it's warmer or not then a 1000 years ago. If it did matter to me at that time, I'd be dead already. I care more about what the impact on me is the next 50 years. And those of you with children might even care beyond that.
As a matter of fact they believe it was warmer than current temps just a short time ago. As it shows in this article http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/warm_period_little_ice_age_global/
Look, you are libertarian and you don't believe in societies. I like living in one and so does most of my species.
I believe believe in public education, healthcare, unemployment and retirement. All these are fundamentally intergenerational transfers. The problem is not that they work or not, the problem is that they are necessary and have to be made to work. The alternative is living in Somalia.
No. More like actual risks of famine and drought. In fucking developed countries.
Also, I don't like heat very much, but that is pretty minor ;)
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.
How is natural gas less carbon-intensive than coal? IIRC, it takes 1 cal of energy to heat 1g of H2O 1 degree. Since the energy comes from oxidizing the molecular bonds in the fuel, it would seem that both are going to consume approximately the same about of carbon to generate the same BTUs. Wouldn't it still require the same amount of energy to run a steam turbine? NG may burn cleaner than coal, but it has lower BTUs and requires more of it than coal. Besides, the by-product of burning natural gas is still CO CO2 and H2O.
Read Isaiah 30:26 and Revelation 16:18-19 in your Bible. Scripture, so far has always been right. There is no reason to believe these prophecies will not be fulfilled. Perhaps the process of global warming has already started. Feeble humans however have nothing whatsoever to do with this REAL coming global warming!
What do you estimate the risk of famine would be in fucking developed countries? (The risk of drought, of course, is 100%, but that even if we manage to get some global cooling).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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
the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998
I could have SWORN I heard in the media a few years ago (like within the last 3) that the US experienced the COLDEST winter ever. I'm not trying to flame, just seems to me that I remember such comments. Am I losing it or what?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Even if your (or the previous similar comment's, or the original poster's) interpretation made sense - which it doesn't - what amazes me is how perfect an example these posts are of the usual bullshit arguments against climate change.
You can't question the facts, so you question the grammar of the person stating the facts. I believe that's called an "ad hominem"...
Okay, atmospheric gas math, third grade style! First, what gasses is the atmosphere composed of?
...and so on... Anyway. Quick quiz! Which one of the above gasses from that 1% is actually a greenhouse gas? If you said "Carbon Dioxide", you win! That means only 0.0004% of the atmosphere is actually C02, and that's the highest concentration greenhouse gas we have! Yay!
Nitrogen - about 78%, followed by Oxygen - about 21%, and then other gasses - under 1%
Quick quiz - are Nitrogen or Oxygen greenhouse gasses? If you answered "NO", you're right! Okay, that leaves us with less than 1% of the atmosphere that is partly composed of greenhouse gasses. Let's ignore the nitrogen and oxygen for now, and focus only on that remaining 1% of atmosphere that contains actual greenhouse gasses. So, what's that 1% composed of? Well...
Argon - about 94%, followed by Carbon Dioxide - roughly 4%, then Neon - 0.2%, Helium - 0.05%
And, finally... bonus question! How much has the industrial revolution increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? If you said 37%, you win again! If you really think increasing the primary greenhouse gas by 37% in only a hundred-or-so years isn't going screw with temperatures, you probably have your head shoved pretty far up... somewhere. Was this too hard to follow? Should I try and dumb it down a little more next time?
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Known proven oil/gas resources/reserves global are a lleast FIVE times greater than the amount needed to raise the temperature 2degs C, a rise generally viewed as borderline disasterous. This means that we shouldnt come anywhere near "running out", if we know whats good for us. This fact has serious implications for the current valuation of our oil companies.
I don't know. I lack the data. The current bad crop in the US is going to have some significant effect on prices. How much, I do not know. How much margin do we have? I do not know.
I do know that the trend is not good, and that it had been a very long time since crop yields in America have been news. You should be worried: if large parts of the Midwest become unfit for growing crops, you will get Dust Bowl 2.0, and no big improvement in agriculture productivity forthcoming to compensate.
Of course not, they don't exist outside the real of media fantasy. A carefully edited soundbite here, a quote taken out of context there...
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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?
While humans do effect it, mother earth always manages her ..erm...cycles... Let's call it "those times of the millenia..."
> Most people do not have goldfish brains and can keep track of this context for six whole words.
Ahem. Two words: Jersey Shore. How about two more: Daily Show. As in how many people think it is a news program instead of half unfunny satire/comedy half DNC propaganda.
Yes, most people now have the brains of a goldfish, thank TV and the government schools. That was what so diabolicaly clever about the way it was written. Those people (otherwise known as the base of the Democratic Party) get the intended "weesa gonna die! Everybody panic now!" message while the author can disclaim all responsibility because he clearly did not say anything that wasn't totally correct by any literate reading of the text.
Democrat delenda est
Given enough clean energy, we can always build a plant that will take CO2 from the air, combine it with hydrogen from water, and make hydrocarbons. We can then gasify the hydrocarbons to produce carbon. And pure carbon (as opposed to CO2) we can sequester easily.
Don't believe me? Look out your window. See that plant? No, the living one. That's such a plant. Then the gasification produces charcoal. Or, if you can't get enough of those plants, for this function, they can be replaced.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Are you seriously that fucking stupid? It's statements like these that make me dismiss the fuck out of anything else that EVER comes out of your stupid mouth, k?
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Never mind the trolls. And forget about our nominal leaders. They follow us, not the other way around. So, what are we going to do about climate change?
My house is a 70's era of about 2200 sq. ft., with a gas furnace, gas water heater (tank), and a 12 SEER A/C. The location is suburbia, and there's nothing I can do about that. It's be nice to be within walking distance of necessities, but that's just not happening. I've got us down to about $1500/year on energy costs. I understand that's very good. But I'd like to do more. I've already done most of the easy stuff. Most of the lights are CFLs. I set the thermostat at 82 in the summer and 70 in the winter. (I'd push that further, but the rest of the family whines too much when I do.) The house is well shaded by mature trees on the south side. But according to my calculations, half of our energy still goes towards heating and cooling. I have fuel efficient cars, and a plug in electric mower that I use as little as possible. I was very happy to bid farewell to the CRT.
I'm looking for paybacks of no more than 5 years, but that depends on price. I'll accept longer paybacks for cheap stuff. Ideas like putting in double pane windows filled with argon gas, roof vents, solar cells, solar water heaters, water recapture, and other expensive home remodeling notions simply aren't worth the cost. I heard that leaky ductwork can be a big waste of energy, but in this house, the ductwork is inside. The hallways have lower ceilings than the rooms. Anyway, it's a poor quality cookie cutter home. Hate to spend money on a piece of crap house. But if a bit of remodeling isn't worth doing, then knocking it down and starting over sure isn't worth doing. There are other things. I have a few 80%+ efficient computer power supplies, and some of those green power strips that automatically cut the power to peripherals when the main computer is off. For convenience I leave a computer running all the time, however it takes only 20 watts. It'd be better if I could get power management working in Linux. Even at only 20 watts, automatic suspend to disk could be a big saver if only it worked. Replaced a 40 watt fluorescent light fixture with the new 32 watt kind when the ballast went bad.
In any case, I have the feeling that's all "small ball". As a whole, our houses are poor and our cities are oblivious to all forms of transportation other than the almighty car. It's exasperating how much low hanging fruit we are ignoring. Automobile aerodynamics is a big one. Why isn't the underside of every car nice and smooth? Because no one looks at that part of the car. Why don't we have skirts on the wheels? Because they look "ugly"! A huge saver would be the electric car. I'm impatiently waiting for decent batteries. Would like to see at least 500 km capacity on a 15 minute charge, and able to last several thousand cycles.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
There is currently no technology in place to mitigate for the eventual rarity of fossil fuels and there does not appear to be anything on the horizon that can meet the demand in the time scale needed.
One doesn't need to mitigate rarity of fossil fuels, but merely find a replacement as they become scarce (which incidentally will happen for coal over millennia). Biofuels and electric vehicles are current replacements for petroleum or petroleum-powered vehicles, for example.
I don't know. I lack the data.
I'm glad to see that your fears rest on such a solid foundation.
You should be worried: if large parts of the Midwest become unfit for growing crops,
Yes, and if we have an Ebola epidemic, I'll likely die quickly; but generally we like to back up our ideas with data, not make wild assertions. Stop that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
So what makes this the boomers fault rather than bad system design?
One can make many assumptions here:
- boomers helped design the system.
- boomers knew the system was broken and could have fixed it, but didn't.
- boomers should have know the system was broken and fixed it, but were clueless.
- system was designed by some god, and we have no free will and can't change it, and boomers broke the system.
- boomers want to blame broken system on someone else.
Pick one or two of the above. Then we can discuss.
Look, you are libertarian and you don't believe in societies.
Who said I or libertarians don't believe in societies? Instead, it's pretty obvious that societies would carry the load from a reduction in government power and responsibilities.
I like living in one and so does most of my species.
Most libertarians do as well.
I believe believe in public education, healthcare, unemployment and retirement.
So what? Reality trumps belief every time. And once again, I'm left to ponder the internal confusion you must experience when you say that Boomers are wrecking everything because a) they're somewhat larger than other "generations", and b) they're doing the wrecking with intergenerational transfers such as what you "believe" in.
That's it. The politically powerful take from those who aren't. Big dog eats first.
So we can attempt to "make it work" even though it fundamentally doesn't work. Or we can find an approach that does work. The libertarians have some ideas here, should you ever be interested in things that work rather than merely things you believe in.
Many people still deny climate change is human made
Including some of the smartest people alive on the planet, such as Freeman Dyson
despite its blatant obviousness
What's blatantly obvious to a true believer isn't necessarily so to the skeptic.
The above poster employs the logical fallacies of 'Red Herring', and 'Straw Man' to set up a baseless 'Ad Hominum' attack against those urging action against human-caused climate change, and he diverts attention from the facts in the article.
By focusing on an unlikely parsing of the first sentence the poster is employing a Red Herring. In this way we waste energy arguing syntax rather than addressing the simple fact - that the planet's 13 warmest years in recorded history have all occurred since 1998.
The poster employs the Straw Man fallacy by suggesting that a significant percentage of those concerned about human caused global warming want us the think "abolish all industry" is the only way do address it. But even the most alarmist of those concerned about global warming do not suggest that.
He uses mocking and gross exagerations and language like 'fanatical', 'chicken little' and 'crazy-eyed alarmists' in his ad-hominum attack on those suggesting action.
I'm not certian if he is himself a AGW denier. But in the above post he uses at least one of the typical denier tactics:
Here are five tactics of denial.
Conspiracy theories â" Dismissing the data or observation by suggesting opponents are involved in "a conspiracy to suppress the truth".
Cherry picking â" Selecting an anomalous critical paper supporting their idea, or using outdated, flawed, and discredited papers in order to make their opponents look as though they base their ideas on weak research.
False experts â" Paying an expert in the field, or another field, to lend supporting evidence or credibility.
Moving the goalpost â" Dismissing evidence presented in response to a specific claim by continually demanding some other (often unfulfillable) piece of evidence.
Other logical fallacies â" Usually one or more of false analogy, appeal to consequences, straw man, or red herring.
Can't be arsed to spend the time or energy arguing any more.
I've done the research, I'm still watching the blogs and journals, but I'm done with the discussions. It's become too polarised, it seems there's no longer a sane middle ground that says 'I don't think we know this as well as we think we do'. And I'm as guilty as most of taking a side and arguing it, instead of admitting my ignorance and being objective.
So, from now on I'm just going to vote for and donate to the people who seem to be making sense, and wait for the thermometers and tide gauges to tell us who was right and who was wrong.
I'm pretty sure, however, that we're not going to drown or burn, and neither are we going to be herded into green work camps by a new UN World Government. The truth, as always, will be somewhere in between.
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
In experiments in petri dishes, and sometimes unintended experiments with islands & ecosystems, life has always followed a common trend. Every living thing reproduces until it runs out of resources, and then has a population crash. This has happened over & over & over again. Do you think humans are too smart, and immune to this? It has happened repeatedly in human history.
We have enough resources currently to feed the planet. However, we have reached a position where we know for a fact, that we are causing changes to our environment. These changes are, thus far, causing reduced food production.
"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.
I think your example of petri dishes, while it may indicate a problem, is not related to global warming. Try again.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
No, an ebola epidemic is a small risk: very virulent, short incubation period. It does not pose the kind of risk global warming does. Not even comparable.
You asked me for a probability estimate, and I told you I cannot give you one. I am honest enough to say that. The risk does exist, however, and it is not negligible: this year's crop situation would have been unthinkable only ten years ago.
The risk of global warming is that: weather extremes disrupting the economy and making us lose the guaranteed access to food we have. Not nice. This is a risk aka "can happen". It has a probability > 0. It is easy enough to find academic papers which predict a complete collapse of crop yields by the end of the century from current trends. It is hard to find papers which predict improved or stable yields.
So yeah, you should worry too, based on data and actual models.
While Japan did keep records much longer than we have, and France has some that go back a bit, most of the world doesn't have recorded temperatures, just inferred temperatures.
China kept a lot of records, but I don't recall that temperature was one of them. They have a few thousand years of history too.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No, an ebola epidemic is a small risk: very virulent, short incubation period. It does not pose the kind of risk global warming does. Not even comparable.
How can you be so certain of the dangers of global warming with your admitted lack of data?
this year's crop situation would have been unthinkable only ten years ago.
You only think that because you lack data. Those who remember the droughts of the 80s would never call it 'unthinkable.' Seriously, go look at data before you make assertions. You'll double your intelligence level immediately.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And what would the point of making assumptions be? For example, boomers couldn't have helped design the system, because that was designed by a few thousand lawmakers, aides, and lobbyists. Boomers have some sort of vague distributed blame because they voted for the people who made the final decisions. It's also worth noting that the libertarian movement started as a resistance to this sort of thing and had and still has a bunch of boomers in it. So you can't say every boomer was equally blame worthy.
A lot of people should have known better. But as we see with the original poster that I responded to, blame gets attached to a vague generation rather than the system. How should we expect the boomers to know better when a lot of people don't now, even with decades of history to guide them?
My view is simply that this is a bad system, but one which wasn't obviously bad over the time it was implemented. It's only now with the intergenerational conflicts that we can clearly see something went wrong.
It is one thing to believe the majority of scientists IN THE RELEVANT sciences and quite another thing to be a "skeptic" too lazy to educate yourself. As far as their "prove it to me" attitude, I think it merely indicates the pointlessness of talking to them and possibly a lack of a fundamental understanding of science.
Maybe education and expertise means nothing and going to college was a big scam that only made people believe you know more than a novice?? I do not think so.
Most these "skeptics" are just using skepticism as a cover for their own personal beliefs. This is why study after study shows that introducing more facts and truth is ineffective and can even strengthen their resolve. The reason is because it is off topic, it is about beliefs and emotions NOT facts and reason. Therefore, addressing the "skepticism" facade is a complete waste of time; a distraction to keep you from going after the real reasons for their opposition. Could be it is a defensive tactic because the real reasons are too sensitive...
I know that in Australia they had great success undermining support by marketing the global scientist conspiracy as part of their conservative identity. So part of believing you are a conservative is drinking this cool aid; and since it may be a life-long identity nearly impossible to give up, piggybacking an issue onto the definition engineers their unwitting submission.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I don't recall the kids in high school (boomers) thinking about any of the above things at all.
All they cared about was how hot their car was and how loud the engine was.
Or did you know someone who claimed that Boomers were different?
Cause I can tell you they were obsessed with speed and noise. ... which leads directly to today's problems, if you think about it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Some of problems arise due to the complexity of the molecules.
Not all gasoline in your engine is burned. Not all diesel is burned.
A fuel cell has a high burn rate, because it's pretty much H and O without a lot of C added.
I could point you to rafts of scientific articles on different fuel cell technologies, and the chemical methods used to store the energy, if you wish.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The original "Nearly all of Greenland’s massive ice sheet suddenly started melting a bit this month, a freak event that surprised scientists."
Then the media conflated "massive ice sheet" and "started melting" to give us the headline "NASA: Sudden Massive Melt in Greenland".
Reality check, live webcam: http://www.summitcamp.org/status/webcam/
there are fossil records of higher temperatures.
And the error in measurement of the early 20th century could very well mean the hottest year was in the 1930s.
So thanks to Government natural gas production is up? In what world? The Government has been caught off guard and is rushing around trying to impose regulations to stop exploration based on no science at all. The private sector exploited the resources so quickly it has changed the peoples views of energy.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
Shame on you. The forced abortions, forced sterilizations and other extremely authoritarian methods used by the Chinese government are crimes against humanity.
Plus, there is no global overpopulation. Some places (such as Japan) are already experiencing population aging and decline, which is bad in many ways. Other places (such as the USA and specially Europe) already have sub-replacement fertility rates, and their population only grows because of demographic lag and immigration. It is predicted the the European Union population (now at 503M) will reach zero natural population increase by 2015 and zero total population increase in 2035 (at 520M), then start declining.
The USA will grow from 310M in 2010 to 403M in 2050. [1]
Asia will increase from 4.2B in 2010 to 5.1B in 2050, then start declining. [2]
The only region that is really growing is Africa. It will increase from 1B in 2010 to 2.2B in 2050. [2] Then its population density will be 73/km2. [3] Compare that to the current population density in Portugal (115/km2), in South Korea (487/km2) and in Taiwan (641/km2). [4]
Global population is predicted to grow from 7B in 2011 to 9B in 2050 and 10B in 2100 [5] and start falling soon after [6].
And according to [7], 40-50% of America-produced food is thrown away. According to [8], 1/3 of the world food is thrown away.
And this does not take into account that people eat, just for pleasure, excessive quantities of resource-intensive food (such as meat). If Americans/Europeans want to help the poor, an easy way would be to decrease (say, by 30%) their diet of meat. This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity. And much arable land is wasted on subsidized inefficient corn-based ethanol. You can lobby your government to stop that.
Plus, there does not seem to be a negative correlation between population density and GDP per capita. [9]
African hunger is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by corrupt and authoritarian governments, and by guerrillas/terrorists motivated by Marxism, Islamism, ethnic hate or simply greed.
Overpopulation fear-mongering is very old - at least as old as Malthus. One of its more recent incarnations was the 1968 book "The Population Bomb", which predicted mass starvation to occur in the 1970s.
Anyway, for better or for worse, there is already strong action taken by individuals, foundations, and Western governments, to restrict fertility in Africa.
1 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_11.htm
2 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_2.htm
3 : According to [2], Africa will have 2.2B people in 2050, and according to Google[10] and Wikipedia [11], the area of Africa is 30,221,532 km2
4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density
5 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_1.htm
6 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_6.htm
7 : http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=56376-us-wastes-half
8 : http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/
9 : http://sanamagan.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/population-population-density-gdp-per-capita-ppp/
10 :
Yeah, how dare I focus on how global warming effects the country where I live? That is so unreasonable.
Before my fellow grammar nazis descend and rip me apart, I know the difference between affecting something and effecting something... I simply failed here. Next time, I may use preview.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That last quote is fake. It's a misrepresentation by the Daily Fail. Educate yourself.
Clever signature text goes here.
If you think the USA is bad... Visit China. Every day has nasty smog and the visibility is only about 1-2miles. Every time I've visited, it's gotten worse.
The one with actual measurements. I'm guessing you knew that, though and are just faking ignorance because it helps you undermine the science.
Clever signature text goes here.
First, it is dehumanizing to speak of human beings like that.
Second, the world fertility rate is at only 2.47 children per woman, and falling. [1] Our population will only increase to 9 billion by 2050, then crawl to 10 billion by 2100, then start falling.
There is absolutely _no reason_ to worry about alleged "overpopulation".
1. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html
I said this from the very start. Remain calm, and carry on inventing. Try not to fuck up the economy with panic measures so there's money for research both private and public. Sadly, the alpha sociopaths fucked up the economy, but still human ingenuity ticks away.
There are many lunatic environmentalists that claim "civilization as we know it will be no more" because of global warming, unless we reduce global population by 90%, or mandate 20 years of zero economic growth for "rich countries", or something equally absurd. Some borderline sociopaths have even calculated the carbon footprint of African babies. Oh, and waging a campaign of hate against "deniers" does not help (see that infamous 10/10 video).
See
1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/8165769/Cancun-climate-change-summit-scientists-call-for-rationing-in-developed-world.html
2. http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm (lots of examples of ridiculous alarmism)
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
Now, let me make myself clear: AGW is probably real and it makes sense to work against it. Still, the end is NOT nigh, and there is no reason for authoritarian measures such as reducing human population or severely crippling the economy.
The market is already moving in the right direction. If we want to accelerate it, then some slight subsidy for renewable coupled with some slight overtaxing of oil/coal is enough.
Given that the economy is becoming knowledge based, and computer based, I think we can peacefully grow for at least many centuries to come.
By the time we reach the limits of Earth (if that day ever comes), we will long have colonized other planets.
Smartness does not help. You need to be a climate expert. This is not something that is simple to understand without a decade or two as an active researcher in climatology. Freeman Dyson is not an expert in this field and obviously is not smart enough to recognize his own limitations. Or maybe he is going senile.
Just keep kidding yourself.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Well said. Conservatives would have to acknowledge a whole set of facts that do not fit their limited world-view if they recognized science as what it is, namely our best path to the truth. I have to say the recent research showing that conservatives are shallow thinkers is eminently consistent with the observable facts.
Now, if they were destroying only their own planet with their stupidity, but unfortunately we are sitting on the same one...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The very *civilization* is at risk? Please. See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3004663&cid=40771921
See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3004663&cid=40771921.
Also, see:
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-101/
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-104/
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-105/
So even though AGW is probably real, rest assured that free market is moving in the right direction. Also, public opinion is becoming ever more willing to have the government interfere and accelerate the process.
In short: the end is not nigh.
Hold on so what this article is saying is that once again the free market is taking care of us where the government has failed miserably?
Yes, but there are some tricks in order to achieve that goal, as it is not that easy to curb reality that far. For instance, it is reported that we use more alternative energy than expected. That is fine, but as we consume more energy overall, does this reduce the greenhouse gas emissions?
But 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.
On the other hand, if you make sound predictions and moderate proposals, then people can actually believe you.
Also, don't worry; see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3004663&cid=40771921.
Also, see:
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-101/
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-104/
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/11-3-11-105/
So even though AGW is probably real, rest assured that free market is moving in the right direction. Also, public opinion is becoming ever more willing to have the government interfere and accelerate the process.
In short: the end is not nigh.
Moderators moderate, it's up to other people to refute. Sometimes you get a bad moderator, or maybe a good one makes a mistake, but complaining about it doesn't do anything positive. Go meta-moderate if you don't like it.
Let me be clear, the idiots who think growth/progress should be stopped are more than idiots, they are advocating genocide. I loath and despise them.
This is completely orthogonal to the civilisational risk from global warming. If there is a solution to it, it is through progress, research and growth (and nuclear plants ;) ). But to deny the risk? Or to think that magically because solar is cheap coal plants will close? Or that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere cannot reach dangerous values because THE FREE MARKET, or because GOD WILL SAVE US? This is silly. Perhaps as silly and misguided as the rubbish from the fools who would have us go back to the 17th century.
Stringent environmental standards and much money poured into research/improve the energy infrastructure are a good idea no matter what. Global warming is an urgent reason for that to happen sooner than later. If we don't, bad things may happen.
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
This is a good thing.
Having it be a matter for public debate means that it can become political. Which it has. And that means that every moron will be spoon fed an opinion and the debate can rage. People will use any stupid thing to play pundit with. This needs to be not one of them. It's too important.
So I'm happy people aren't talking about it anymore. We're not talking about the hole in the ozone layer anymore, right? And you know what? The guys with the lab coats were able to not have to waste time with public debate and trying to educate a nation chock full of idiots. And instead they were able to get to work, work the problem, and get on the road to fixing things.
I'm pleased this is starting to happen with global warming. Ten years from now people won't be talking about it, except the ones that you'd want to. It'll be the guys fixing things.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Natural gas power plants are frequently combined-cycle, where the combustion of the gas occurs in a turbine engine driving a generator, and the waste heat then boils water to drive a second steam turbine. "Because of this efficient use of the heat energy released from the natural gas, combined-cycle plants are much more efficient than steam units or gas turbines alone. In fact, combined-cycle plants can achieve thermal efficiencies of up to 50 to 60 percent." from: http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/uses_eletrical.asp (their misspelling)
I have no doubt about climate change... shoot, just wait about 6 months.. it will much cooler (you'll see).
Meaningless! Meaningless!â
says the Teacher.
âoeUtterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.â
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
âoeLook! This is something newâ?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
I love cut and paste :)
Many people in Alaska are getting substantial *heating* bills this year. It's cooler in other parts of the world. Just bunch of whiners in the Lower 48 egged, on by the climate partisans and trade exchange fraudsters, near the current solar peak.
Humanity will survive. A few billion might not, but little threat is posed to humanity as a whole. If most of the world's cities flood, humanity will survive just fine, and eventually recover.
You might find people more receptive to your arguments if you didn't "hand wave" away the death of billions and the New Dark Age that would inevitably follow. I understand your point, and I've heard more than one historian credit the Black Death for clearing the way for the Renaissance, but anyone who can posit the death of billions so cavalierly scares me to death.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
"the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998"
False. It is a shame that people who write lies like the above failed science and history. Our planet has had much warmer periods and life thrived then with more biodiversity than we have now. Today is a relatively cool period. There have also been much colder times. The problem is some people are afraid of change. The reality is, life is filled with change. The Earth has been both warmer and cooler in the past. The current temperature and sea levels are just what modern people are used to living at.
Methane, CH4, is as close to a "hydrogen economy" as you can get right now.
There is no sinister, vast Big Oil conspiracy
[citation needed]
Also, you need to show where I said that there is one. The quoted text does not serve this purpose.
We are not screwed.
That remains to be seen, but I didn't say that, either.
Further, I reserve the right to be rude to people who are rude. You can say that it's not constructive, and you may be right. I don't care.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Accurate thermometers are far older than that. In 1724 Daniel Fahrenheit produced the first mercury thermometers. There were accurate thermometers before 1800. There are two kinds of accuracy to consider with thermometers, repeatable and absolute. Repeatable accuracy is how well a thermometer repeats the same reading for the same temperature, absolute is how well it shows the true temperature as defined by our temperature scales. For climate change it's the repeatable accuracy that's most important because you're interested how temperature changes over time rather than what the specific temperature is. Given the statistical nature of climate science it is not necessary to measure to tenths of a degree, one degree is good enough.
Cherry picking that line out of the whole sentence is rather disingenuous too.
"The end" may not be nigh, but trillions of dollars in climate-related costs are.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
They have only been keeping records for 150+ years, and there is no telling how accurate the early records really are. Take into account that most cities were still rural (like) and not as advanced as cities today with being primarily asphalt and concrete, which adds another 10+ degrees to the actual temp. There were not as many cities recording and reporting temps like there have been prior to the 90's. I could go on and on.. I am not denying global warming, but if you are going to be fair and scientific you need to look at all the factors, the idiot media takes scientific reports out of context to make a buck.. People should stop worrying if it is true or not and ask themselves what if? I am not sure if people are just arrogant with there belief systems thinking it is god will, or the figure they will not be alive by the time anything major happens so f**k it. Take a quote from Master Shake's Self Help book When a problem arises, and there appears to be no solution!!! "lets all take a nap and hope it goes away"
I'm not the mod but obviously your comment was marked overrated for a number of reasons. Ascribing it to an agent of BP or DuPont is a delightful display of your paranoid personality disorder. As though the people that run this world give a crap about your high and mighty opinions. A glance at the prolific number of comments you make on Slashdot each and everyday reveals you have very little to do with your life but try to prove others dumber than you. Well done. But, back to your comment. It was modded overrated because it is dismissive without much substance. You make assertions without backing them up. Some of those assertions are just plain wrong. For example, the original poster makes a valid point about the role of fossil fuels in the development of agricultural revolution. Your assertion that things can be grown just as efficiently organically is baseless, incorrect, deluded hippie-speak. On to your completely incorrect, yet ironically entertaining, understanding of economics. If something is "cost-effective" that means it is profitable to use it instead of alternatives. Do you see how stupid it sounds when I say "BP and DuPont could make a larger profit by switching from oil to algae, but instead they are financing a conspiracy to make smaller profits -- just so they can destroy the Earth" ? Its ridiculous and reveals a person who, behind those words, sees the world in an illogical way. The only consistency I see to your words is that you feel everyone (except you) is evil and everyone is out to get you. I would go on, but since you don't generally give people the consideration of thoughtful discourse, I see no point. But, if you get a chance, define narcissist.
I'd give it to the GP that there is no Big Oil conspiracy. After all, a conspiracy by definition includes a clandestine element. Big Oil's ties into the denial-sphere are out in the open, for all to see. No need to call simple propaganda a conspiracy - which you didn't, anyway.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The hope is that this stupid debate ends, we can move on with our lives, and in a decade or two, most of the world will have converted to solar and nuclear because it's the economically efficient thing to do.
If you want to speed up that process, stop subsidizing carbon based fuels, directly or indirectly. As long as US and European governments shove vast amounts of subsidies and bailouts in the direction of oil, gas, coal, auto, agriculture, and other fossil-fuel-related industries, one has to assume that their support for renewable energy and their rhetoric about climate change is just a thinly veiled attempt to engage in even more crony capitalism.
So, I'm all for strong action on climate change, starting with the massive amounts of government spending that are currently promoting climate change.
Pretty much. It looks to me to be just a vicious cycle of incompetence.
I'm not the mod but obviously your comment was marked overrated for a number of reasons.
You're also a spanking new account which has never said anything about anything except climate change and nukes.
Ascribing it to an agent of BP or DuPont is a delightful display of your paranoid personality disorder
There is plenty of astroturfing going on here on slashdot, and it has been identified in numerous cases.
As though the people that run this world give a crap about your high and mighty opinions.
Of course they do, if it conflicts with their party line, and they can suppress them cheaply.
A glance at the prolific number of comments you make on Slashdot each and everyday reveals you have very little to do with your life but try to prove others dumber than you.
I don't have to do that. They do that themselves. I don't think I'm the smartest guy here, of course. That doesn't stop there from being a lot of people dumber.
Your assertion that things can be grown just as efficiently organically is baseless, incorrect, deluded hippie-speak.
That is not my assertion, but I can see how a troll or shill (or just an idiot) might say that.
If something is "cost-effective" that means it is profitable to use it instead of alternatives. Do you see how stupid it sounds when I say "BP and DuPont could make a larger profit by switching from oil to algae, but instead they are financing a conspiracy to make smaller profits -- just so they can destroy the Earth" ?
Luckily, I didn't say that. What I said is that they are preventing others from using the technology. They want to sell as much oil as they can before they're forced to do something else because they already have infrastructure in place, much of which will be useless for making other fuels. You can make biofuels in a petro reactor column, but it takes a lot more energy than making butanol and biodiesel the old-fashioned way, and there's very little benefit. It might be useful for making bio-based diesel that is less likely to gel when used in cold climates.
Its ridiculous and reveals a person who, behind those words, sees the world in an illogical way
Yes, you are an asshole who has twisted my words to make me seem illogical, but I didn't say any of those things which is why you are a liar. Of course, you are almost certainly someone's third or tenth or twentieth account, as well.
The only consistency I see to your words is that you feel everyone (except you) is evil and everyone is out to get you
No, those are your words. I didn't say any of those things.
But, if you get a chance, define narcissist.
Well, I do also assume I'm better-looking than you are. As within, so without, and you are ugly on the inside. Maybe you're young and your attitudes haven't twisted your face yet, but the hilarious truth is that if you make an ugly face enough times, your face really will freeze that way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Somebody watches Fox News.....
People like you are the reason we can't have reasonable discourse in this country anymore.
"Democrat delenda est" Really? I'd tell you to go fuck yourself dickhead, but clearly your head is so far up your ass it would be redundant. Try cutting the inflammatory rhetoric bullshit and actually LISTENING for once. Maybe actually think about viewpoints that disagree with your own. Open your fucking mind.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
If you don't believe it, that's your problem.
Well, no. If they don't believe it, it's everyone's problem. The corporations have got us fighting each other over whether they're even fucking us over when we should be fighting the corporations to stop them from fucking us over. The people running them don't care because they'll be dead by the time it gets really bad. The people working for them don't care because they need a job and that's where the jobs are and morality is always harder to maintain when you're hungry.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We have actual measurements of temperature going back thousands and even millions of years. The accuracy of the methods of those measurements are a question. However, they are good at predicting the relative temperature changes over time. We are VERY certain that the Medieval warm period was warmer than today. Not only because of "the record" with "actual measurements", but because of the factual history of Greenland and the Vikings.
Where am I undermining science? Only the ones say that the last 10 years are the "warmest on record" are undermining science. If they said the last 10 years are the "warmest on the record of recording temperature using thermometer readings at multiple locations around the globe for the last 150 years", then it isn't undermining science.
I have a complaint with the nature of the record. Consider the statement about the US, which is probably only true after the USHCN adjustments are applied, just like when they said the same thing about 1998. Said adjustments have a larger trend than the raw data. Even ignoring that, since the summer isn't over with it's too soon to claim it's the warmest year on record. It may or may not beat 1934.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
You can't demand a citation for his statement, as he's disagreeing with your original claim. The onus is on you to provide some documentation that provides some truth to your statement. You made the original claim of "big oil" spending vast amounts of money. Therefore, you would be the one required to provide citations that back it up. And by requesting a citation on his statement, you are implying that there is a sinister, vast Big Oil conspiracy, for which you should be providing a citation.
He's come out with some pretty apocalyptic predictions, such as his 1988 chart showing 3 different scenarios, all of which are looking to be way off the mark. And Al Gore had some pretty wild assertions about sea level rise in his movie too. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, also had some wild claims of Himalayan glaciers all being gone by 2035. Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University predicted an ice free arctic by 2015. And here's another prediction for some catastrophic sea level rise. There has definitely been lots of alarmist predictions, and unfortunately the mainstream media like to give the alarmist predictions lots of coverage.
The 13 warmest years in over 4billion? I won't even read past that incorrect statement. It's possibly the 13 warmest in recorded history which is amusingly brief.
13 warmest year in a few thousand compared to not nearly as warm as its been on many occasions in 4 billion is quite different. Your anthropocentric "on record" comment is amusing at best.
You can dramatically reduce your energy costs & carbon footprint using proven technologies. You don't have to wait for Buck Rogers improvements in battery technology and the like.
At $1500/yr you are doing pretty well relative to the American average. It sounds like you have already done the easy stuff like changing out your lights, computers, etc. But if temperature control is still the lion's share of your costs, then you can win by switching your HVAC to a ground source heat pump (GSHP) + radiant floor setup.
GSHP's take advantage of the earth's constant temp. of 50F to heat or cool depending upon the season. In the summer, bring out solution at 50F and blow air across that into your existing ductwork to cool the house. In the winter, bring out that 50F solution and boost it a little and deliver it via hydronic radiant floor heating. If you've ever encountered heated floors, you know how incredibly awesome that is; plus, it's absolutely the most efficient way to heat a room.
Sealing the envelope of the house via improved insulation and airtightness measures (basically, eliminating drafts) is the first step to take. It's not sexy, but it's the most important and cost-effective measure to take.
Replacing your windows can help, but double- and triple-paned windows are unfortunately still quite expensive per unit. It is not unusual to have the job of replacing every window in your house to price out at $10K for the dubious savings of a $100/yr.
Implementing solar and micro-wind can help you a lot, if you're using an EV or plug-in hybrid especially. Keep in mind that the highest spot prices for grid electricity are during the afternoon, the height of the day. That's also when solar panels perform their best. So if you have a decent solar array producing electricity then you're chopping the top of your personal electricity price curve. If you live in a place with at least 2mph average wind speed then there are solutions for you that reach break-even in less that 10 years, esp. when incentives are factored in.
When you consider that most Americans commute less than 30 miles/day, which puts them well within range for most existing EVs and plug-in hybrids to run on pure electricity, you save that money, too. If you live in a state with net-metering laws, when you generate more electricity than you use (a safe bet if you work outside the house during the day, when your house's solar array is going like gangbusters) the power company has to send you a check at the end of the month.
Those are the direct savings. There are other, indirect, savings. Consider that when you spend $15K remodeling your kitchen that your home price appreciates whether or not the prospective buyers like what you did or not; IOW it's a matter of taste. But when you upgrade the house's energy efficiency, those are direct, quantifiable savings that are reflected in the value of that house. The national association of realtors and contractors agree that the present value of 30 years of energy bill savings are justifiably reflected in a home's market value. That can mean 20% or more added to the value of your home. That is, it's a much better way to boost the value of your home that remodeling anything or putting in a swimming pool. Then there are the discounts you get on your homeowner's insurance, your mortgage, your property taxes, and even carbon credits you can take and sell.
In short, upgrading your home's energy efficiency saves the earth, yada yada, but more than that it means real dollars in your pocket, right now.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
The fact that we don't live in caves anymore?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
"Record" is referring to something very specific, and you probably know that. So it's puzzling why you are still arguing about it after several people have told you what "record" means.
Clever signature text goes here.
You know the greatest generation, who went through depression and war?
You mean the generation that spawned the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hirohito? That was the greatest generation?
Their kids, The Baby Boomers will be known to history as the Shittiest Generation.
The generation that the "greatest generation" drafted to be cannon fodder in the Greatest generation's Vietnam war? The generation that went through the stagflation the "greatest" generation caused? The generation that ended Jim Crow? The generation that got Nixon to resign? The generation that got the EPA started and cleaned up an incredibly dirty environment? The generation that invented PCs, cell phones, MRIs, the internet?
Yeah, my generation is shitty, all right.
Fuck you, kid. Get off the internet, the shittiest generation built it and you aren't welcome to use it.
Free Martian Whores!
Hitler, Mussolin, Stalin and Hirohito were their parents. The EPA came under Nixon, and he was from the Greatest generation (born in 1914-1924). Baby boomers were born in the 1946–1964 period (a bit later in Europe).
And all those inventions came from the public research infrastructure put in place by said greatest generation. The same infrastructure that is being dismantled to pay for the coming retirees. No, really, I have little love for the baby boomers as a group . Your attitude, refusing to own up to the state of the World as it is is pretty characteristic: it wasn't me, it was the other guy. "Vietnam was bad", but Iraq and Afghanistan are fine I guess...
see that bump in 1980-1990? That's them. The slump after? Their kids.
Typical.
I've observed that people who regard themselves as climate science "skeptics" generally insist that one should disregard information provided by web sites run by experienced scientists who have studied the primary literature in depth and have concluded that the scientific consensus on the nature and hazards of global warming is broadly correct. Apparently, in "skeptic speak," having studied the evidence enough to have formed an opinion constitutes being "biased" (presumably, only ignorant people can be "objective"). So sites such as RealClimate, Skeptical Science, Open Mind, the IPCC web site, and the the NASA GISS web site are all out of bounds. Of course the distinguishing feature of climate science "skeptics" is that (unlike the skepticism of successful scientists) their skepticism is quite one-sided, and they become quite credulous when it comes to anything that seems to cast doubt on climate science--so they will happily cite sites like "WUWT."
But I cite SkepticalScience not as a source of opinion (I've already stated my opinion) but because that it is a site that provides good links to published reports that contain the evidence supporting my opinion. Nevertheless, it happens that I've personally reviewed many of the summaries provided on SkepticalScience and have compared them to the primary literature, and I find that SkepticalScience tends to be reliable and accurate, and a fair reflection of the consensus opinion of working climate scientists. This is in dramatic contrast to my experience at WUWT and other "skeptic" sites, where I often find that descriptions of the published literature are highly misleading, sometimes in ways that appear to me to be intentional.
And here we see an example of why a site like SkepticalScience is useful, particularly compared to a Google search, which often turns up frequently-repeated misinformation. If you doubt that SkepticalScience is accurately reporting the models, all you have to do is click on the link, and it will take you to the original paper by Hansen. And if you doubt that the GISS data is accurate, you can click on the link, and it will take you to actual GISS data. Moreover, it is quite obvious just from looking at the short term variation of the models that Scenarios B and C diverge only slightly up to the present day, so it is impossible that we could have temperature data that would differentiate between them. However, the question of whether there is any evidence of the warming trend "leveling off" as described in Scenario C (which was calculated for an unrealistically optimistic scenario of CO2 mitigation that does not at all correspond to reality) can be addressed statistically by mathematically subtracting known sources of short term variation, and the answer is "No."
By the way, one way in which real scientific skepticism differs from climate science "skepticism" is that real scientists are skeptical of even their own work, and often acknowledge errors and revise their conclusions in the light of new evidence and better analysis. So, for example, based on subsequent work, it is now generally thought that
Since the energy comes from oxidizing the molecular bonds in the fuel, it would seem that both are going to consume approximately the same about of carbon to generate the same BTUs
It takes less energy to get the natural gas out of the ground, and if it was going to escape anyway then burning it reduces its ability to contribute to thermal forcing. This holds nicely only until you involve fracking, though, and any increase in natural gas use is going to require fracking to increase production.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your anthropocentric "on record" comment is amusing at best.
If anthropocentricism doesn't make sense to you, I wonder, what species are you, anyway? It's natural to be concerned about things that will impact the species to which you belong.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, there have always been occasional extreme weather events. But modern statistical analysis supports the general impression that weather extremes are becoming more frequent, consistent with the predictions of climate science.
30 million years is a long time. Speciation is a slow process, based on what we know about evolution, but that is plenty of time for species to recover. It is clear that there have been mass extinctions in the distant past, and species have diverged subsequently. So I imagine that 30 million years from now, species diversity will have recovered from the impact of CO2 induced global warming.
I suppose the fact that the earth is now "the coldest in 30 million years" would be of comfort to us if our species were 30 million years old. But in fact, it is not. So from our admittedly limited human perspective, we tend to be more concerned about divergence of temperatures from the range that is consistent with our modern life style, with huge numbers of people living on the coast, and with much of the globe dependent upon food produced by a few highly productive regions that up until now have enjoyed a climate consistent with highly productive agriculture.
I always find it amusing that people who consider themselves to be "skeptics" of global warming become utterly credulous when it comes to anything that might seem to challenge global warming. Estimates of temperatures prior to temperature measurements are very difficult, and are based upon indirect measures of things like tree ring width and density, which are subject to a number of sources of error that are not fully understood, and which provide rather poor coverage of global temperatures. So a genuine skeptic would tell you that we really don't know whether temperatures in the medieval period were as high as today (much less as high as they are projected to become if CO2 release continues unabated), and whether the warming was global or regional to northern europe. But a climate science "skeptic" will happily acclaim third party accounts of agricultural practices in northern Europe as an indisputably accurate measure of global temperature, accurate down to a single degree.
Of course, if there really were a global medieval warming period that was not due to CO2 or to any of the other known causes of climate change, such as orbital shifts or changes in level of volcanic activity, a genuine skeptic would be even more worried. The evidence that the modern warming is due to CO2 is incontrovertible, and the degree of warming is pretty much what is expected from CO2 alone. What if there actually were some other, unknown, mechanism that could produce comparable warming? Then we have to worry that that other unknown mechanism might kick in suddenly to add to (or worse, amplify) the warming predicted from CO2. Modern projections of the consequences of global warming are very disturbing, but not what most people would regard as apocalyptic. But if there is some other unknown mechanism that could add substantially warming to that, then all bets are off, and the apocalyptic scenarios are back on the table. Of course, real climate scientists don't believe that. The "skeptics" apparently do believe it--but they don't understand what it would mean.
I was fully against both Iraq wars. My dad was the Korea war generation, his brothers were in WWII. It isn't a generational thing, it's a rich man thing. The "greatest generation" rich were no different than the rich in my generation and the rich in yours. Don't blame the working man for what the lazy rich fatass who runs the world does to ruin it.
Free Martian Whores!
'12 Summer brings 2 stretches of 100+ degree temperatures Alarmists: "See! CO2 emissions cause global warming!"
The fact that we don't live in caves anymore?
While that's a pretty good answer, it ignores that we're speaking of public transfer of wealth not transfers of knowledge between self-interested groups. One gains little from hiding knowledge from subsequent generations, especially of your own progeny or tribe. Everyone can gain from reducing transfers of wealth such as were described originally.
No transfer of knowledge has resulted in the conflicts of interest that are manifest in public funding today. No one gains at the expense of another.
Oh no another mod down.... the only problem is, what I am saying is perfectly true. Conservatives exclusively have denied and forestalled the change needed to address global warming in time. That is a fact. But for conservatives, we would have already effectively be limiting carbon emissions to keep us under the 2 degrees centigrade we need to be under. If not for conservatives we would right now be at a WWII level of national mobilization to reduce our carbon footprint.
Mod me down, have fun. Meanwhile, at a place called "reality" , which is different than slashdot, the inevitable is barreling down on you in full rage form. Don't like what I'm saying? Read a little history have you? Don't like the inevitable place this leading to and what it means for you? Never mind modding me down on slashdot. Make it not true.
One that think humans are effing up the planet and the universe would prolly do best to wipe them out. I mean we exhale co2, that evil greenhouse gas that traps heat after all