Siberia's Methane Release Larger Than Previously Thought

An anonymous reader writes "New research suggests that the amount of methane being released from Siberian permafrost is much larger than previously thought. From the article: 'Thawing permafrost gets a lot of attention as a positive feedback that could amplify global warming by releasing carbon dioxide and methane, both of which are greenhouse gases. Because of this, a lot of effort goes into studying Arctic permafrost. An international group of researchers led by Natalia Shakhova at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has been plying the remote waters of the Siberian Shelf for about a decade to find out how much methane was coming up from the thawing permafrost. They didn't expect to find it bubbling.'"

Comments

methane ice underwater

[Gothmolly]

Methane ice under the ocean also does this. Interesting?

Re:methane ice underwater

[hey!]

Sure. That Methane Clathrate is at the bottom of the sea, so it can't possibly do any harm.

Those scientists should stop messing about with things like the bottom of the ocean. If God wanted us to know about stuff on the bottom of the ocean he'd have put that bit on top.

Re:methane ice underwater

[slick7]

Methane ice under the ocean also does this. Interesting?

So does cabbage.

Re:methane ice underwater

[kelemvor4]

Methane ice under the ocean also does this. Interesting?

So does cabbage.

... and the fat kid from middle school.

Re:methane ice underwater

[giorgist]

Those two put out what they swallow. The undersea stuff ... not so

Re:methane ice underwater

[dpilot]

I've often heard the "methane is 17 times stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gase", and that's repeated (without the specific number) in the referenced Wikipedia article. It's equally "well known" that CH4 has a much shorter lifetime than CO2 as a greenouse gas.

That begs the question, what happens to methane to limit its greenhouse lifetime? The carbon is still there, as is the hydrogen, so it must be either precipitated out of the atmosphere or chemically recombined. My bets would be on the latter, and that the methane ends up turming into CO2 and either water or plain old H2, with the reaction influenced by ultraviolet light. So it turns from a very potent greenhouse gas into a merely potent one?

I realize I'm asking a serious question on a funny thread, but this seems to be the most appropriate point.

Re:methane ice underwater

[khallow]

That begs the question, what happens to methane to limit its greenhouse lifetime?

It reacts with oxygen, and perhaps ozone and atmospheric oxides. The resulting CO2 doesn't plug up long wavelength infrared as well as methane does.

So it turns from a very potent greenhouse gas into a merely potent one?

Right.

And "begging the question" is a fallacy of assuming what you want to show.

Re:methane ice underwater

[sackvillian]

That begs the question, what happens to methane to limit its greenhouse lifetime?

It's not pretty. Essentially, the C-H bonds in methane are vulnerable to radical reactions. This allows for a variety of removal processes, many leading to the formation of water vapour and/or CO2 itself.

While that may not sound so bad, don't forget that water vapour is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases when it's found in the atmosphere, which is why, for example, the effective carbon emissions of intercontinental flights are so significant. So the end result is methane, an awful greenhouse gas, lives a relatively short life but ends up as either a worse or slightly less awful different greenhouse gas. In other words, methane stinks!

Re:methane ice underwater

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I have to confess. I smuggled 3,752 burritos from Taco Bell into Siberia during my last trip. Borsch gives me horrible gas, I thought the burritos would help. Good intentions. Bad idea. Sorry for the false alarm.

Re:methane ice underwater

[Anonymous Coward]

From a girl who puts out and swallows I'm willing to overlook a few methane emissions.

Re:methane ice underwater

[cavebison]

If God wanted us to know about stuff on the bottom of the ocean he'd have put that bit on top.

God is a seagull manager; he'll pop back in sometime to fix that and bugger off again.

Re:methane ice underwater

[slick7]

Those two put out what they swallow. The undersea stuff ... not so

Everything thrown away eventually gets swallowed by the ocean, one way or another.

The only solution is workers revolution

[For a Free Internet]

We need a world Soviet planned economy. Capitalism will kill us all!

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Pussy Riot!

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Please quit giving socially minded individuals a bad name with your trolling. I have offered links and the names of organizations to you in the past that provide great materials to people spreading the idea that capitalism isn't the answer only to be countered with some outdated stereotypes.

Why am I even wasting my time... :/

If you are actually interested in helping to change America then start here: http://www.answercoalition.org/

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[starworks5]

Actually, a central planned economy is not a bad thing, people who argue about the "economic calculation problem", fallaciously think that a distributed network of calculators, are more efficient than a centralized clearing house.

Furthermore our version of capitalism is riddled with market failures, one for instance not recognizing that non humans are also producers and consumers, because they are unable to "vote with their dollars" in our economy.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me at Free Pussy.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

This had to be the funniest, and yet possibly sincerest, post on Slashdot. The person probably really thinks this. It's very sad, but I couldn't stop laughing.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[blue trane]

The universe is the ultimate free lunch.

Quantum mechanics showed that certain events, such as atomic transitions and nuclear decays, happen spontaneously. Accidents happen (including accidental violations of the first law). Everything that occurs in the Universe is not pre-determined by natural law. In fact, our so-called laws just apply to ensembles of systems, only guaranteeing the statistical behaviour of the ensemble while leaving the behaviour of an individual system to the vagaries of chance.

So, free lunches are statistically likely.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Charliemopps]

God damn it. Capitalism is not a style of managing an economy. Capitalism is how money works when left alone. Any government regulation that does anything other than inform the public is NOT capitalism. The only pro-capitalistic regulation would be something like weights and measures, it informs by governing a system of common measurement preventing deception.

As such there is no truly capitalistic society in the world. If anything the economics of rural Africa are more capitalistic than any western society. The majority of the problems we have in the west with regard to our economies are our poorly thought out, half implemented attempts at socialism. If we'd just go all in, it would probably not be so bad. But as things are, we institute weak regulation which interested parties with large capital then manipulate to their advantage usually to the detriment of those the regulation was intended to help. Look to our financial markets to see some real regulatory abuse.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[tragedy]

Capitalism is how money works when left alone.

Does money work when left alone? Pretty much every form of "money" ever, including gold and other precious metals, has worked by government or public consensus controlling its value. By that definition, capitalism only applies to barter.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[femtobyte]

By "money is left to its own," one of course means "the rich are left to their own" (being the ones with the most money, which controls how money is used to produce more money for the rich, etc.). "Capitalism" left to its own is an inevitable slide into oligarchy, with an oppressive tiny elite at the top. The "invisible hand of the free market" is not a beneficent God working for the good of all if only entrusted with our full hearts; it is the manipulating iron fist of whoever has the most money, squeezing the labor and life out of those with less.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

This. There are no historical examples of a society that went "all in" with socialism. Such a society would be akin to a true Scotsman, because no society that failed at socialism really went all in, right?

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ideas intrigue me and I'd like to subscribe to your news letter

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[blue trane]

The Constitution is not capitalistic then, because it mandates the government to provide for the General Welfare. Money doesn't care about the suffering of people. It's perfectly willing to allow human sacrifice.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Artifakt]

Adam Smith himself defined his perfect "Free Market" as including everyone knowing how much the productive process cost, and broke this down into such costs as labor, raw materials, and financial charges in his examples. Even by a very strict pro-capitalist model, that sounds like the government would be legitimately supporting capitalism by providing a lot more information than just weights and measures. Consumer safety information for one example, or average salaries for a given area, or an acurately derived inflationary index for others. (Of course, modern capital theory claims there would be no inflation in a pure capitalism, but even so, the government would need to accurately index inflation in a mixed economy trying to move towards that pure state - not reporting it would be retarding the motion). I'd point out too, that all of these could also fit your clause about preventing deception to a greater or lesser extent. But, that still means a medium-large role for governments, although yes, it's theoretically much less in some areas than what we see currently.
          Such things as a business holding trade secrets while continuing to seek the protection of patents or copyrights are not really part of theoretical Capitalism, by Smith's original work. Most modern business and all publicly traded corporations would not want anything like this level of "money being left alone" This is another reason why we aren't moving towards what you call "truely capitalisitic society" - the people crying out the loudest for more capitalism actually oppose many of the most basic elements of it, and fear the very possibility.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[starworks5]

Did you even bother to read the definition of capitalism:

a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government

You don't even address the main point, that capitalism inherently produces market failures, for instance what we call externalities. If you think that the failures of socialism is bad, nearly every ecological indicator that we see seems to indicate failure, most of which are borne from a market failure of capitalism.

Furthermore what people refer to as "the third way" or otherwise known as a hybrid of socialism / capitalism IS actually the most stable, as it provides checks and balances to prevent excessive corruption from either the public or private sectors, they are two halves of the same coin the introverted and extroverted locus of economic growth.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

General Welfare being taking money from the middle class by the trillions to "fight the war on poverty" where poverty levels are the same or higher than before it started? So your definition of "General Welfare" is just taking money from the middle class with no results to show.

How is that by any sane person's definition "General Welfare"?

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to be rich. Is it so horrible to want to have enough money to fund my dreams? I'm willing to accept being poor for a while in order to have a chance to get what I want. Having money doesn't make people oppressive. I've known dozens of people who I'd call rich who are great, honest and kind people.

Basically I believe that most people want to be good to other people. I want most people to be rich. What I don't like is a few people who want power and are willing to manipulate other people to be the ones who get it. That's the problem with both pure democracy and socialism, the people who get power aren't the ones that should get it. The nice thing about pure capitalism is that the people who gain power are the ones who work for it, so even if many of them suck, many don't.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[femtobyte]

I want to be rich. Is it so horrible to want to have enough money to fund my dreams?

If your dream is to mercilessly grind millions into poverty, then yes, you are horrible for wanting to fund them. I actually have no problems with people who build up money to satisfy "dreams" of the "travel around the world by sailboat" or "establish a youth symphony orchestra for inner city kids" type. However, this represents a minuscule proportion of the apparent "dreams" of the ultra-rich, which generally seem to revolve around becoming ever richer and richer with no regard for human life and suffering.

I'm willing to accept being poor for a while in order to have a chance to get what I want.

How generous of you. However, a shitload of people aren't given a chance to accept being poor, but are thrust into it from birth, with infinitesimal chances of ever reaching beyond grinding poverty. I wouldn't object to a world where a person living a decent, comfortable life could choose to lower their standard of living on a gamble for greater gains. But, that's not the case today --- the rich start with much and get more, stripped from the poor who start with little and end with less.

The nice thing about pure capitalism is that the people who gain power are the ones who work for it

Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Oh, my sides! I'm sure the Walton (Wal*Mart) heirs who were *born* into immense fortunes have personally put in so much more work than the approximately *half of all US families* who together own the same amount of wealth. Not to say that the ultra-rich don't sometimes have to put in some work; but it's not the work that distinguishes them from people who put in immense lifetimes of work and never come anywhere near being rich.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Third Position]

By "money is left to its own," one of course means "the rich are left to their own" (being the ones with the most money, which controls how money is used to produce more money for the rich, etc.).

Why shouldn't the rich be left to their own?

"Capitalism" left to its own is an inevitable slide into oligarchy, with an oppressive tiny elite at the top.

Ok, name me a system that isn't an oligarchy with an oppressive tiny elite at the top. Government is always small group with power over a large group without power. Capitalism, at least, is something of a meritocracy, even if not perfect.

The "invisible hand of the free market" is not a beneficent God working for the good of all if only entrusted with our full hearts; it is the manipulating iron fist of whoever has the most money, squeezing the labor and life out of those with less.

I call bullshit. Show me anywhere in the capitalist western world where anyone is forced to labor. If you've taken a job, I suspect it's because you're better off taking it than not taking it. If you have a valuable skill to sell, then you have options. If you have a lack of options, that indicates you have a lack of valuable skills. Your failure to better your skills isn't the fault of the market economy.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[blue trane]

The Constitution, of course, gave Congress unlimited powers of taxation. So it's not "stealing", because it's an explicit Constitutional power. But there are other solutions: simply create money, or have the Fed expand its balance sheet to buy govt bonds. By law the Fed returns all interest on govt bonds to the Treasury, so the cost of borrowing is zero.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

Actually, a central planned economy is not a bad thing, people who argue about the "economic calculation problem", fallaciously think that a distributed network of calculators, are more efficient than a centralized clearing house.

Name the fallacy that supposedly applies here.

The thing about economics is that for the most part economies are very local and distributes well, especially when combined with markets to propagate more large scale economic information. For example, the basic input and output computations that central planning theory tends to do, can be done just as well by local parties with near optimal results, just by considering their local situation and the market price of inputs and outputs.

Another big problem with central planning, with which I'll go into detail, is what I call the "fighting general" problem.

I think here of the historical problem of the US during the 1860s US Civil War. For the first few years, the US military (unlike its enemy, the Confederate States of America) had leadership problems particularly in the eastern front (which ran generally between Washington, DC and Richmond, VA.

The US president of the time, Abraham Lincoln went through several generals before finally settling on Ulysses S. Grant (in 1864). He wasn't the best selection in terms of logistics or strategy. But Grant was willing to engage the enemy, take risks, and lead a large army with reasonable competency. That plus the larger force of the US army on that front, carried the day.

Lincoln put the problem as one of finding a general who would "fight", hence the term, "fighting general". And nowadays, the term is still used informally to indicate a military leader (usually of high rank) who is willing to take risks and competently carry them out.

Centrally planned economies lead to the same sort of leadership problems that one often sees in militaries. The problem fundamentally is that one can develop a risk adverse culture where lower ranks just slavishly follow the orders of higher ranks. That removes any incentive to show initiative.

Further, leaders then show the same risk adverseness and lack of initiative. If your pool of potential leaders are all passive followers, they won't get the training and experience needed to be good leaders, nor will there be a track record to indicate who would make good leaders either.

OTOH, a distributed economy creates many opportunities and incentives to take risks and demonstrate competence. A strict hierarchical organization doesn't create fighting generals. A distributed organization OTOH generates a lot of potential fighting generals.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Dasher42]

The parent is right. The people who work their way to the top are the rare exceptions, and nobody born into wealth is going to understand what that took. Inter-generational wealth doesn't mean inter-generational lessons, and it rapidly turns into entitlement to use wealth as social clout to secure more wealth.

Most of all - it's used to trample the ability of others to negotiate what they earn from their work. Come on, if you're not a CEO or major shareholder - how likely is it that capitalism is working to create profits? Most people are being reduced to a minimum or less in this system, and Adam Smith didn't write with ultra-wealthy and ultra-poor people in mind. That would just be feudalism by any other name. Students of history know how dark that gets.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Johann Lau]

Idiosingularicracy will not take 500 years to arrive, that's for sure.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

This has actually happened many times in the known history, and most likely multiple times before that. I know the invisible hand is usually not imagined as a mob of fists that will eventually dethrone the elite. But according to history that happens. There is nothing the elite can do to prevent it. They won't even see it coming, being too busy playing their own elite games with eachothers. When it's 1 to 99, the 99 eventually realize there is nothing the 1 percent can do if they just walk in and take every bit of their possessions and kill the suckers while doing so. Then the circle starts again.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you get punched in the face often? You should. You really should.

That's another of those dreams you'd be horrible for wanting to fund.

Re: The only solution is workers revolution

[xelah]

If the highly rich we're left to their own they'd starve to death, whilst trying to manage each other and stab each other in the back. Their money would have little value if they couldn't use it to obtain huge quantities of other people's output, at vast multiples of those people's hours of work compared to what's required of their own. Money and economic exchange is a fundamentally social bargain, not private property. It's not illegitimate to democratically adjust it (it's just much more often a bad idea than people might like).

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

The 99% often don't realize they're just swapping for a different and often worse 1%. Go check out the various revolutions in history.

The American Revolution was more of a secession than a revolution. Many of the people at the top in America remained at the top, it's just they stopped being under the British.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[gtall]

Pure capitalism generates monopolies. Monopolies are bad, just look at the railroads in past years and the oil companies in the early part of the 20th century...or MS today. Pure capitalism generates banks that are too big to allow to fail lest they take the entire economy with them, car companies that are too big fail lest they take unemployment to ridiculously high levels, insurance companies (AIG) that couldn't be allowed to fail without taking down the credit markets, etc. Pure capitalism generates unacceptable levels of pollution, i.e., smog in L.A. before the EPA cracked the whip, Love Canal, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, etc. Pure capitalism will put fake medicine on your pharmacy shelf without a whimper of remorse. Yes, it will get taken down again after enough people die, but not until.

Pure capitalism gave us the cigarette industry and their special form of scientific reasoning about how cigarettes don't cause cancer. It helps to generate tainted food (see China and the melamine in baby formula, or the fresh produce in the U.S. which kills a few yearly before U.S. health agencies get on the case and figure out how to stop it).

Pure capitalism means no social security for grandma, no medicare for grandma, no disability for workers broken in serving capital producing industries. It means shyster lawyers with no training, shyster doctors with no degree, oil companies drilling in your back yard and fouling your water supply with no recourse by you. It means coal companies dumping their waste anywhere they see fit, even upstream of your property, it means cars with no emission controls so you get to breathe their raw exhaust (mmmm, good).

And I'm a conservative Republican although I cannot stand the ignoramuses currently running the Republican party.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[paiute]

So, free lunches are statistically likely.

The number of free lunches is exactly equal to the number of other lunches that were paid for but never delivered.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[ixuzus]

I call bullshit. Show me anywhere in the capitalist western world where anyone is forced to labor. If you've taken a job, I suspect it's because you're better off taking it than not taking it. If you have a valuable skill to sell, then you have options. If you have a lack of options, that indicates you have a lack of valuable skills. Your failure to better your skills isn't the fault of the market economy.

So let's say, for the sake of argument, that everybody went and got these magical skills which gave us all 'options'. I doubt that very much would change. The guy working in aged care might be a skilled structural engineer, the guy picking fruit in the scorching heat might be a diesel mechanic and the poor girl who has to serve coffee to self-righteous fools probably has a better grasp of computer science than most of us will ever dream of. Why? Because there are only so many jobs available and a significant proportion of them are crappy, low-paying jobs - and that is the fault of how the market economy is set up.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[dkleinsc]

Ok, name me a system that isn't an oligarchy with an oppressive tiny elite at the top.

Athenian democracy. There was class stratification, no question, but there were thousands of relatively ordinary men with real political power, and any elites who got too oppressive would be promptly voted out of office and not infrequently ostracized (kicked out of the city for a decade). A couple of factors that probably helped create this environment was that much of it was run by direct democracy, and a lot of the rest of it was run by picking names out of a jar. Think of the election day coverage being more like watching the lottery ("Mark D Smith of West Waynesboro, KY is the new Congressman for Kentucky's Fourth District") than the current Silly Party-Slightly Silly Party battles.

That's not to say Athens was perfect: If you were a slave, a woman, a child, or a foreigner all those political rights didn't exist.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

Come on, if you're not a CEO or major shareholder - how likely is it that capitalism is working to create profits?

As it turns out, it is. Putting money into a large, low cost index fund is still a good deal, for example.

Most people are being reduced to a minimum or less in this system, and Adam Smith didn't write with ultra-wealthy and ultra-poor people in mind. That would just be feudalism by any other name.

Last I checked, people get paid decent money and can move to new jobs and places. You don't have that under feudalism.

Instead of whining about capitalism, how about you adapt to capitalism? For example, the global labor pool today of people who could be working for multinational corporations is probably something like three or four billion people. This is totally scientific WAG. In 2050, it'll probably be more like six or seven billion and mostly tapped out - there won't be more, unless we start growing more people again.

So no matter what, you're looking at a period of relatively stagnant or declining wages in the developed world that probably will last a few decades more. We can whine powerlessly about being "less than minimum" or we can adapt.

The painfully obvious adaptation here is that if wages are declining due to continuing growth of the supply of labor and capital does the opposite, then get a bunch of capital. In other words, aggressively save your money and invest it. It need not be in a stock market.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

You don't even address the main point, that capitalism inherently produces market failures, for instance what we call externalities. If you think that the failures of socialism is bad, nearly every ecological indicator that we see seems to indicate failure, most of which are borne from a market failure of capitalism.

No. For example, a lot of the pollution in China comes from state-owned industry. And throughout the developed world, governments are notorious for excluding themselves from externality reducing regulation.

As to the third way of a hybrid system, it can be better or worse. If regulation successfully keeps government and business separate, then you have a good division of power. If it doesn't, then you can have a corrupt mixing of the two (say in some form of fascism or "corporate republic").

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Chris Mattern]

Actually, a central planned economy is not a bad thing, people who argue about the "economic calculation problem", fallaciously think that a distributed network of calculators, are more efficient than a centralized clearing house.

Well, of course it is. Any computer scientist can tell you that centralizing decision making in one process doesn't scale.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a lot of people get the problem.

But can you suggest a solution? How do you prevent people who amass wealth from using it to create a runaway effect to their wealth? How do you stop a rich parent giving their children an unwarranted legs up?

Note that inheritance taxes etc cannot remove the effects of networking, indirect wealth transfer, disparate educational opportunity and so forth.

Short of forcibly removing children from their families and anonymising them into the care of the state of course, which might raise a few objections.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

How do you prevent people who amass wealth from using it to create a runaway effect to their wealth?

Can you actually show me a rich person who is experiencing "runaway wealth"? My view is that extreme wealth is actually very costly. There are more threats to it (everyone wants a piece of it) and less high profit opportunities.

How do you stop a rich parent giving their children an unwarranted legs up?

Answer: don't waste your time with a non-problem. Do nothing.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

BS

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

Why? Because there are only so many jobs available and a significant proportion of them are crappy, low-paying jobs - and that is the fault of how the market economy is set up.

Or they can start their own businesses. That's a huge option you completely missed. It's not the market economy which punishes people for creating new businesses and hiring people. It's the zero sum people who think that there's only a fixed amount of work to go around and then set political policies based on that assumption.

Let's give an example. Say society creates or raises a minimum wage. By zero sum thinking, this means that there's more money being paid in wages - because the number of jobs hasn't changed. In reality, people whose labor was worth less than minimum wage become unemployed and the quantity of jobs shrinks.

Protective tariffs and other forms of protectionism are more classic examples. The jobs are being taken by foreigners. So barriers are raised. By zero sum thinking, that should keep jobs from running away. In reality, it weakens the global economy making less jobs for everyone. And because one economy which already was operating at a disadvantage is hamstringing itself with protectionist barriers, new economic growth goes to the rest of the world.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a central planned economy is not a bad thing, people who argue about the "economic calculation problem", fallaciously think that a distributed network of calculators, are more efficient than a centralized clearing house.

If there was ever a call for it: [citation needed]

The economy of the former Soviet Union pretty much convincingly demonstrated that a centrally-planned economy is far more inefficient than an economy driven by decisions at the consumer level.

Please read up on "demand-flow manufacturing" for some idea of why a centrally-planned economy will probably never be more efficient than a distributed-decision economy.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

As to the third way of a hybrid system, it can be better or worse. If regulation successfully keeps government and business separate, then you have a good division of power. If it doesn't, then you can have a corrupt mixing of the two (say in some form of fascism or "corporate republic").

I think the phrase you want is "corporate oligarchy", not "corporate republic".

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[jd.schmidt]

Capitalism is how money works when society sets up a certain set of legal rules. Say, for example, the government arresting you or fining you because you failed to follow some kind of copy write law, or sold a medical drug the government thinks another company owns. Indeed the idea of property itself requires a certain social norm and agreement. Genghis Khan is how money works when it is left alone.

FYI, if Capitalism worked perfectly, there would never be economic bubbles or monopolies.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[V for Vendetta]

Last I checked, people get paid decent money and can move to new jobs and places. You don't have that under feudalism.

You should check your facts again. The fast majority of people in this world don't get paid decent money. Hwll, most of them don't even have enough to eat. And that's mainly because a few people like you and me get paid decent. We're basically living off of their lives in our "glory capitalism world".

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Capitalism is a law of nature like gravity. So if we want to do anything useful with it to produce public good, we need to harness it and control it. If I left gravity to itself I couldn't get out of bed let alone fly in a plane. Water flows down hill to the ocean but we can damn it for our own purposes. So ditto with capitalism. We have anti-trust laws, fair dealing laws, laws against fraud, etc. All of these things require a strong and LEGITIMATE state. Without a strong and legitimate state I have to do business in the company of my own armed guards and I have a huge transaction cost to every deal to confirm quality, safety and standards.

So a strong and legitimate state is NECESSARY for capitalism and free markets to produce public good. ...Oh wait I forgot this is the internet so I need to add..."And anyone who disagrees is an uneducated knuckle dragging idiot."

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

In Athens around the 4th century BC, there were about 80,000-150,000 slaves to 30,000 adult male citizens, the only ones able to vote. Hardly a model of anything.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[retchdog]

If by 'scale,' you mean compute power, then it obviously depends on whether the processing power reaches some kind of saturation level. By analogy with graphics, we may well reach a point where centralized is 'good enough' to simulate decentralized, but may be preferable for some other reason. Or, once financial trading is 99%+ algorithmic, how much does it really matter who is running the algorithm?

The usual free market argument is that the actual information involved in a free market cannot be elicited in any centralized way, and I think this is what parent poster was referring to. The government can run a central mandatory trading house and, as long as it keeps itself from causing distortions for its own ends(*), this would broker most, if not all, of the information that a decentralized market would, with the concomitant benefits of centralization.

*: This is where it usually all falls down, of course.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

By "money is left to its own," one of course means "the rich are left to their own" (being the ones with the most money, which controls how money is used to produce more money for the rich, etc.). "Capitalism" left to its own is an inevitable slide into oligarchy, with an oppressive tiny elite at the top. The "invisible hand of the free market" is not a beneficent God working for the good of all if only entrusted with our full hearts; it is the manipulating iron fist of whoever has the most money, squeezing the labor and life out of those with less.

Ah... the "rich".

Capitalism left to its own does not reward monopolies, oligarchies or cronyism. What you are thinking of is Centralized Planning. Which is what we have more and more of everyday.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Chris Mattern]

This is where it usually all falls down, of course.

That's one place it all falls down. There's plenty of others.

1) The government can try to force centralization of all the information, but it won't be able to effectively process it. As I said, centralization doesn't scale. The government will drown in data and will not be able to formulate sensible policies even if it wants to.

2) The government can *try* to force centralization, but it won't succeed. People will want what they want, not what the government wants. Communist nations invariably had a thriving black market, because that's where actual work could get done. Closer to home, one only has to look at Prohibition and the drug war to see how successful the government is in enforcing its will wholesale on large slices of the economy.

the concomitant benefits of centralization.

Like most sincerely convinced communists/socialists, you have this vision that if only the *smart people* could control everything, they could make everything run great. That belief is a mirage.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember that the price of a free lunch always increases.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

>where anyone is forced to labor

Oh, please: unless you're born rich, capitalism forces you to sell SOMETHING to survive, and for most of us that is our labor, whether we're prostitutes or industrial wage slaves.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Muad'Dave]

The Constitution gave the power of the federal government to tax STATES w/ apportionment based on the census, NOT the power to tax individuals directly or on non-direct income. That was changed with the 16th Amendment.

Constitution:
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers...

Amendment:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anti-Social Network]

Last I checked, people get paid decent money and can move to new jobs and places.

You might want to check again. In the US we're getting to the point where this "jobless recovery" is cementing what's left of the middle class into the rough equivalent of a company town. The transformation is not yet complete, but between non-compete/non-poach clauses, wages not keeping pace with inflation, outsourcing, lack of single-payer health insurance, and overbearing legal environments for start-up businesses, the opportunity just isn't there anymore.

aggressively save your money

Don't make me laugh. Most of the people I know make low-5-figure wages. Sure, this is a low TCoL area, so we're not hurting too badly, but my resources are insignificant in the grand scheme. Capitalism is not about giving advantage to those lucky enough to be born to big money, it's about giving a chance to anybody with a good process/business model and the drive to make it work. Since there aren't enough big-company C*O positions to go around, this means that at middle-class level, there needs to be ample opportunity to get ahead, which has been subverted by the disproportionate lobbying power of big business.

In short, it's not that there's a problem with capitalism - it's that there's a problem because there isn't capitalism in effect here. There is, essentially, oligarchy/plutocracy.

Hell, you think people living in Africa like the conditions there, compared to here? By modern standards, that isn't living, it's merely existing. Why do you think they aren't just moving over here for the better opportunity? Some lucky few do, but the rest simply cannot. In that sense, we in the 99% are all in the same boat, figuratively speaking. Big companies have externalized their costs globally, and our governments have failed to protect the people from being swept away with the other detritus left in the wake.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

You should check your facts again.

Ok, I did.

Hwll, most of them don't even have enough to eat.

From this link:

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012.

and

As of 2008 (2005 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 1,345 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less.

So we have the first facts. Somewhere around 1 in 8 do not have enough to eat and there's a lot of people - but nowhere near a majority - living in deep poverty who would be near that starvation level. So most people have enough to eat to the extent of somewhere around 4 to 7 parts to 1, depending where you draw that line.

The fast majority of people in this world don't get paid decent money.

Well, let's take a gander at the situation. Look at the chart on page 12. This is a chart of a change in global real income between 1988 and 2008. The X axis is by global percentile. The Y axis is the measured change in income increase (adjusted for inflation) for the percentile of humanity. This would represent, for example, the percentage difference between everyone who was near the 23% percentile of global income in 2008 over whoever was near the 23% percentile of global income in 1988.

Four things stand out. The expected increase of income of the wealthiest sliver of the world and a vast increase in income of about 60% (eyeballing it) of the world's population from about the 5% to 75% percentiles. The losers are the poorest 5% and a group from about the 75% to 98% percentiles with about 12-15% of the percentiles experiencing a small decline in income.

In other words, there was a huge movement of industry and commerce from the developed world to the developing world over that twenty year period, which helped most of humanity (as in a true majority) and probably by which the wealthiest of the world particularly benefited.

We're basically living off of their lives in our "glory capitalism world".

I mentioned elsewhere the primitive zero sum thinking which seems to pervade so much of this subject. That last chart shows a huge net increase in income for most of the world (as in a majority) aside from perhaps a fifth to sixth of it.

That's an obvious positive sum outcome. But you think of it in "us and them" terms. I'm "taking" from others even though they're doing better than ever before. Perhaps, I need to "take" even more so that they'll do even better?

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

In the US we're getting to the point where this "jobless recovery" is cementing what's left of the middle class into the rough equivalent of a company town. The transformation is not yet complete, but between non-compete/non-poach clauses, wages not keeping pace with inflation, outsourcing, lack of single-payer health insurance, and overbearing legal environments for start-up businesses, the opportunity just isn't there anymore.

The "transformation" hasn't even started. Man up and learn to compete some time. And absence of single payer health care is a criteria for living in a "company town"? You're trolling me, right?

Hell, you think people living in Africa like the conditions there, compared to here? By modern standards, that isn't living, it's merely existing. Why do you think they aren't just moving over here for the better opportunity? Some lucky few do, but the rest simply cannot.

Oh, the rest can have a great society - they just choose not to. It's not that hard to learn from history, to see what worked and what didn't. And then to implement those successes in your own way.

In that sense, we in the 99% are all in the same boat, figuratively speaking. Big companies have externalized their costs globally, and our governments have failed to protect the people from being swept away with the other detritus left in the wake.

Don't worry, I'm not in your boat. It's not the job of the governments of the world to protect you from having to justify your existence.

I'll just say this. I live in a real company town. I make 30% more than the poverty level for the US. And I save about half my before tax income which also happens to be about half what I was saving when I worked in Silicon Valley for a couple of years while earning five times as much. Your stereotypes are outdated and useless in today's world.

Learn how to be valuable to an employer or how to run your own business. Learn how to save and invest money. Learn how to adapt. These lessons will serve you (and anyone who lives anywhere in the world) far better than your whiny rant will.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[ixuzus]

Or they can start their own businesses. That's a huge option you completely missed. It's not the market economy which punishes people for creating new businesses and hiring people. It's the zero sum people who think that there's only a fixed amount of work to go around and then set political policies based on that assumption.

Nope, didn't miss it. In theory they could - but for any given skillset there is only a finite amount of demand in the job market. So in this world where everyone has gone and started their own business are we just going to abandon the aged to their fate and not have anyone wait tables?

Let's give an example. Say society creates or raises a minimum wage. By zero sum thinking, this means that there's more money being paid in wages - because the number of jobs hasn't changed. In reality, people whose labor was worth less than minimum wage become unemployed and the quantity of jobs shrinks.

I do see where you are coming from but let me give you a counter-example.

Let's say company X employs 100 people at the absolute minimum they can get away with. Management is well rewarded for keeping costs down and a profit is made. Come Friday night the owner and management can afford to go out for dinner and a movie and do so. The owners of the local cinema and restaurant look around, see about six bums on seats, decide they can't afford this crap and let staff go and doesn't provide much business.

Alternately, company X is forced to pay a livable wage and come Friday night everyone can afford to go out. The local restaurant owner sees a full house and a queue any says, 'hell, I'm going to need another cook and a couple more waitstaff.' Come Monday morning, he's on the phone to company X to place a good sized order.

My point is, concentrating wealth tends to limit consumption in many ways. Even if that money is reinvested it's likely going elsewhere and still bleeding the local economy dry.

Protective tariffs and other forms of protectionism are more classic examples. The jobs are being taken by foreigners. So barriers are raised. By zero sum thinking, that should keep jobs from running away. In reality, it weakens the global economy making less jobs for everyone. And because one economy which already was operating at a disadvantage is hamstringing itself with protectionist barriers, new economic growth goes to the rest of the world.

And so begins a race to the bottom. We can make more profit employing people at cents per hour fourteen hours a day, seven days a week so if you want to work that's what we're offering... and back to my point about wealth concentration. I'm happy for trade to be flowing in all directions but I would be delighted if my government would say that if you're not meeting minimum work standards with regard to work hours, pay against the cost of living, safety, etc then you're not selling that crap in my country directly or indirectly. That aside I'm not a fan of protectionism. I've seen first-hand the effects of US farm subsidies on markets and how that affects other people.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[blue trane]

Article 1, Section 8:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Also, the amendments are part of the Constitution. The Constitution was designed to be amended.

Hence, the Constitution gives the government unlimited powers of taxation.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[blue trane]

Also, lol. The part of the Constitution that you cited, that was amended, and that you didn't quote fully, contains the infamous "three-fifths" phrase, referring to slaves. The Constitution was written with the intent that such mistakes would be fixed through amendments.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Muad'Dave]

Uh.... whoosh? Where did I state otherwise? I was simply pointing out that the original idea was to tax per capita, and not on income.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anti-Social Network]

your whiny rant

I call it as I see it. I'm sorry if I've stepped on your toes with my frank assessment of how lopsided economic opportunity currently is, I don't have any need to be overbearing or put anyone down, so I apologize if I came across a bit harsh. Maybe you're happy with your 30%-over-poverty lifestyle; for me, the American Dream is dead.

Oh, the rest can have a great society - they just choose not to

There is a tragedy of the commons in effect here. There are those who would build better towns, businesses, and society. Unfortunately, there needs to be greater agreement in the general populace to maintain order where such things can thrive. When you have warlords and religious nuts tearing down every wall you build, it's very difficult to make any progress. Education is a huge problem. As many problems as the US system has, we can hardly fathom the difficulty of trying to build anything resembling a modern society without the historical references and baseline literacy we already take for granted. We've build our society on the backs of giants. Were global education on equal footing, I would completely agree with you.

Learn how to adapt

Spoken like a true Republican. I did adapt - I discovered that money isn't everything and, in fact, I pity those rich people who think of nothing else and don't know how to be happy.

On the other hand, I recognize that I am lucky. I started with a number of advantages which have allowed me to gain benefit from relatively scarce resources. Not everyone can be above average, though. A healthy economy depends on widespread opportunities for most people, not just a lucky few. When the 0.001% hoard a grossly disproportionate portion of the capital for themselves, this sets the stage for social instability, and that hurts everyone. I think there are always going to be better opportunities for the talented few, and that's as it should be; men are not all created exactly equal. The problem is the disparity between the top and bottom.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[khallow]

I call it as I see it.

I'm sure you do. This thread just boils down to a perception problem.

Maybe you're happy with your 30%-over-poverty lifestyle; for me, the American Dream is dead.

I am. I guess it looks different when you don't know how to adapt to the world, or just have a bad attitude and are unwilling to change.

Oh, the rest can have a great society - they just choose not to There is a tragedy of the commons in effect here. There are those who would build better towns, businesses, and society. Unfortunately, there needs to be greater agreement in the general populace to maintain order where such things can thrive.

That's what law and its enforcement is about. Again this has been amply demonstrated throughout the developed world.

Spoken like a true Republican. I did adapt - I discovered that money isn't everything and, in fact, I pity those rich people who think of nothing else and don't know how to be happy.

Then what is there to complain about? My view is that your posts to this point indicate otherwise. It's great that you realize that money isn't everything. But your materialism isn't much of an improvement. Recall you wrote:

non-compete/non-poach clauses, wages not keeping pace with inflation, outsourcing, lack of single-payer health insurance, and overbearing legal environments for start-up businesses

Non-compete/non-poach clauses aren't that prevalent and there are ways around even those that are legally binding. It's not a significant problem. Wages aren't keeping pace with inflation due to global increase in the supply of labor. There's no economic reason to expect the price of something to not go down when the supply of it greatly increases.

I already noted the bizarre inclusion of health care as some sort of indication of being in a "company town". Why should you get health care, if you're not going to pay for it yourself?

You want the ability to hop seamlessly from job to job, have your wages increase no matter how low value your labor becomes, and get cheap health care paid by someone else. How are you going to get all that without breaking society?

And "overbearing legal environments for start-up businesses"? Maybe you should have thought about this before writing all the previous crap. It got sacrificed in order to get what you thought you wanted.

The problem is the disparity between the top and bottom.

Why does the disparity exist? Because politicians and bureaucrats pass law and regulations which favor the wealthy. Why do politicians and bureaucrats get away with it? Because they aren't held accountable by the electorate. Why does that happen? Because the electorate is both ignorant and easily bribed with such things as cheap health care paid by others and wage supports.

As I see it, you claim you want opportunity. But in reality, when you actually describe the concrete things you want, they close off opportunities rather than create them.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anti-Social Network]

Then what is there to complain about?

Basically, it amounts to society being dragged down by stupid crap that is pushed through by Big Money interests who are blind to opportunity cost. I want better economic opportunity for the people whose lives impact me in society, and I calculate that as being a lot of people.

By way of example, I'm friends with a married couple that spent TEN YEARS living paycheck-to-paycheck in apartments and struggling to pay off medical bills and recover their credit. Today, one of them is on permanent medical disability and the other is fighting cancer and working 60-hour weeks just to get by. They're only going to be rich if their family's land sells some major mining rights off which is, once again, luck (at least insofar as valuable minerals even being there is concerned). The difference I'm concerned with is in their social opportunities. If he wasn't having to work 60-hour weeks due to poor health coverage and atrocious labor support, I could spend more time with them, and they would be better able to appreciate the time as well.

You want the ability to hop seamlessly from job to job, have your wages increase no matter how low value your labor becomes, and get cheap health care paid by someone else.

Somewhat incorrect. I don't like job hopping; while the option needs to be there I prefer to exercise it rarely, because it can never be seamless.

And "overbearing legal environments for start-up businesses"? Maybe you should have thought about this before writing all the previous crap. It got sacrificed in order to get what you thought you wanted.

I'm referring specifically to patent warchests and cross-licensing agreements where big businesses can basically lawyer-nuke a start-up from orbit. Barrier to entry is increasingly prohibitive and does not result in a healthy competitive market. If they're not worried about extravagant legal costs, maybe small business can pay people what they're worth and new ideas could live up to their potential.

I would also prefer to pay my health care through direct insurance. Why should my employer be involved? Just pay enough to cover such things and let me handle that. One of the driving forces behind ridiculous health costs is that people are frequently isolated from the high cost of unnecessary procedures (or procedures where a much cheaper alternative is available). Let the costs be more visible and you will get a reduction in demand which will drive prices down. Unfortunately, employers get better deals and so it's not feasible to get decent insurance on your own where co-pays can reflect real costs to keep premiums down, so nobody does it if they have benefits available through employment, and the cycle perpetuates itself.

I also want some sanity to return to wage spectrums. I cannot fathom how a CEO, no matter how big the company is, deserves salary several HUNDRED times that of the hourly workers in the same company. Is his knowledge worth more? Ideally, yes (arguable in many specific cases, but I digress). Is it ever worth that much more? Maybe Elon Musk is, but not in most cases I'd say. I also think that if you want to pay a CEO more, it needs to be solely in company stock that has to hold long-term value before it can be sold so that you remove the incentive for slash-and-burn management. That way, the average person that wants to invest in a company doesn't get shafted by this quarterly-profit mentality that is destroying our pensions and investment opportunities for people without fiber-optic trading connections and algorithms written by math majors (to say nothing of the workers laid off and forced to find new jobs for these frivolous restructuring games). Want to talk about labor pools affecting wages? Why hasn't that brought CEO pay down? Because like I said, it's turning more plutocratic than capitalist.

TL;DR: I want the middle class, and upward-mobility of the low end, to return.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

The Waltons.

> Answer: don't waste your time with a non-problem. Do nothing.
Social mobility is at an all-time low. Children of equal ability do not have equal access to education and opportunities.

Re:The only solution is workers revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

The Duke of Westminster.

Siberian traps all over again?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There must be something in Siberia that makes people and nature go genocidal. First the Permian extinctions, then the gulags, now the methane. Go figure!

Re:Siberian traps all over again?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the curse of the philosopher's stone buried there. But if we could just get our hands on it without going insane, then we could fix everything. Also this.

Re:Siberian traps all over again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Siberian Traps in the Permian was a MASSIVE volcanic eruption. The flood basalt event covered an area the size of Europe. This is not that.

Re:Siberian traps all over again?

[ColdWetDog]

Kilometers and Kilometer of stunted trees, frozen nights, stunted trees, gulags, stunted trees, vodka, stunted trees, blowing and drifting snow, stunted trees ....

Well, you get the idea.

Re:Siberian traps all over again?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Kilometers and Kilometer of stunted trees, frozen nights, stunted trees, gulags, stunted trees, vodka, stunted trees, blowing and drifting snow, stunted trees ....

Says ColdWetDog. Very fitting.

Re:Siberian traps all over again?

[tgd]

The Siberian Traps in the Permian was a MASSIVE volcanic eruption. The flood basalt event covered an area the size of Europe. This is not that.

So you think ... didn't you see that 2012 movie? This is how it starts!

A common problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Binging on Vodka always gives me the toots, too.

Re:A common problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really? I don't know anybody that gets the farts because they drink alcohol. Sounds more like your guts are weak and broken.

It's supposed to thaw

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what happens when ice ages end.

Re:It's supposed to thaw

[Jeremy Erwin]

Really? The Ice Age is ending? Wow. I for one, will be glad to see an ice free Antarctica.

Drats!

[Tablizer]

Okay, who farted?

Re:Drats!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well maybe he who smellt it... dealt it!

Re:Drats!

[Deadstick]

Remarkable how many people think methane is smelly...

Re:Drats!

[Anonymous Coward]

The smeller is the feller.

Hmpffff

[no-body]

Studying doesn't reduce it. Looks like a runaway process to me. Mars-like surface to come at the end - thanx a lot. Probably not the only idiotic failure in the universe.

Re:Hmpffff

[stox]

Not Mars-like, but more Venus-like. Our magnetic field isn't going anyway, so we'll retain the atmosphere. Nothing a few hundred nukes can't fix.

Re:Hmpffff

[ColdWetDog]

Fossil Fuel summer.
Nuclear Winter.
The world goes round in circles,
Yin / Yang.

Burma Shave.

Re:Hmpffff

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, the earth has never been hotter than now. It's got to be a runaway process, no way back. O wait ... LOL @ slashdot.

Re:Hmpffff

[c0lo]

Studying doesn't reduce it. Looks like a runaway process to me. Mars-like surface to come at the end - thanx a lot. Probably not the only idiotic failure in the universe.

However, studies show an interesting fact: it is not (yet) a runaway process. TFA (at the end):

Finally, this is not the first time this region has experienced warmer temperatures. During some of the warm periods between past ice ages, it has been as warm as, or warmer than, it is today. No sudden spike in atmospheric methane shows up in climate records from those times, however. That tells us that, fortunately, it takes a pretty strong kick to awaken a methane giant.

(mind you, I'm not saying that we are out of Siberian marshes yet: the previous ace ages didn't have an industrious population of hominides willing and capable to burn fossile fuel at a massive scale. We are still in the race for that "idiotic failure" prize that you mention).

Re:Hmpffff

[Dasher42]

It is teetering close to a run-away process, and most of the world still has its foot all the way down on the gas.

I am in despair of the industrialized world being any different from the many civilizations that destroyed their land base and then imploded - the Nile, Babylon, Greece, Easter Island, the Maya, the list goes on. The destructive acidification of the soils where tobacco was grown was a major factor in the American Civil War - with that and the Dust Bowl and ongoing topsoil loss, the USA is well on its way to doing the same.

We managed to fix the soil with applications of lime and crushed shells, but we're going to have to learn deeply about the ecology of soil, not just its chemistry, if we're ever to make this. Following this broken system all the way down threatens the planet with a mass extinction like it's never seen.

It's possible to feed humanity and keep the ecosystem thriving in a win-win scenario. That's what the Pre-Columbian Amazon jungle was: agriculture totally unlike that which turned the Middle East into a desert. That's our best hope of getting carbon back into the ground where it belongs in a way that naturally increases fertility. http://www.underwoodgardens.com/soil-building/terra-preta-magic-soil-of-the-lost-amazon/

Re:Hmpffff

[khallow]

It is teetering close to a run-away process, and most of the world still has its foot all the way down on the gas.

So what? Not everyone shares your unjustified certainty.

I am in despair of the industrialized world being any different from the many civilizations that destroyed their land base and then imploded - the Nile, Babylon, Greece, Easter Island, the Maya, the list goes on.

Civilizations have changed. We're no longer in the era of not having a clue how agriculture works.

We managed to fix the soil with applications of lime and crushed shells, but we're going to have to learn deeply about the ecology of soil, not just its chemistry

Ok, we'll probably have that inside of 50 years. It's worth noting that we probably already know enough about soil to completely address your current concerns.

Re:Hmpffff

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU TELL 'EM INTERNET TOUGHGUY!
Makes you feel like a big boy with your big boy pants on doesn't it? You like your big boy pants? Yes, you do!

ANSWER = Stalinoid liberals

[For a Free Internet]

You have swallowed the bourgeoisie's "death of communism" propaganda. You are a pathetic prop for decaying capitalism. What's "outdated" is ANSWER's popular-frontist liberal pacifism.

Re:ANSWER = Stalinoid liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Poe's

Cue fart jokes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. We need more fart jokes to spur the economy.

Excuse them

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a touch of gas...

Large methane release?

[DJCouchyCouch]

Sorry guys, that was me.

#extra_large_burrito

Aha, Tunguska!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, that explains the Tunguska event.

burn baby burn

[AndyKron]

Well I guess we can ignore about any puny effects we're having on the environment, let's keep burning! /s

Socialism is Corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

False. By socialism/capitolism you get failed ideas funded by tax payers and continue to be funded well past failure with no results. See Obama's solar agenda like Solyndra. Because of that other compaines that MIGHT have been sucessful are forced into failure by unfair competition with goverment funding that they are taxed and forced to pay for. In that situation you are funding a failure by robbing a potential sucess and forcing unfair competition.

Forced socialism/capitolism is just socialists taking the advantages of capitolism (actual profits) and stealing it for themselves and their supporters. There is a long history of such, like Obamacare just being a MASSIVE tax increase on the middle class with all kinds of written in exemptions for unions, his supporters. It is unethical and immoral.

You would have to be a complete tool to think that is more stable, or you have to believe you are on the receiving end of the corruption.

Re:Socialism is Corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "capitalism" and you are incorrect.

Capitalism is a great system for managing and understanding social energy. It is, however, horrible at regulating itself because anarchistic systems always will tend towards consolidation. There are no built-in checks and balances to any form of capitalist system yet devised. The alternative is a hybrid economy as employed by the scandinavian countries with a strong state tweaks an otherwise free market as needed to keep the market free and incentivize competition.

Numbers do not lie. Your religion does.

Re:Socialism is Corruption

[khallow]

There are no built-in checks and balances to any form

Sure there are. For example, new competitors can be created, if a market overconsolidates. And if one becomes too wealthy, they run out of things to invest in.

The alternative is a hybrid economy as employed by the scandinavian countries with a strong state tweaks an otherwise free market as needed to keep the market free and incentivize competition.

Or Fascist Italy of the 1930s.

Numbers do not lie.

Ok, give us a number then.

Re:Socialism is Corruption

[xevioso]

Graham's Number. That's a good one.

Maybe, just maybe ...

[Anonymous Coward]

.... you don't know about it because you are too drunk to even remember.

Guess why nobody wants to be around you when you are drinking.

Cowtan & Way 2013 trend is inside HadCRUT4 err

[khayman80]

Cowtan and Way 2013 compensated for missing HadCRUT4 surface temperature measurements in places like the Arctic and Africa by using the spatial pattern of satellite data to produce a hybrid satellite/surface dataset. Jane and Lonny ponder the differences between Cowtan and Way's hybrid dataset and HadCRUT4:

I keep asking: what's wrong with my basic premise: that if your measurements are shown to be off by 100%, there's something wrong with your science? That was my point. [Jane Q. Public]

... They are saying that it is not the 0.05 degrees C per decade that the AR5 report gives for the last 15 years, but that it is, instead, 0.12 degrees C. Which is actually a difference of not 100% but 140%, for the most recent 15 years. [Jane Q. Public]

@ScienceChannel @jimmygle PLEASE tell the Anthropogenic Global Warmists! Yet another report surfaced saying their "science" was off by 140% [Lonny Eachus]

Jane and Lonny's basic premise wrongly ignores the large error bars on these noisy, short-term trends. The SkS trend calculator can calculate the trends and error bars from 1997 through (including) 2012 for both HadCrut4 and Cowtan and Way's hybrid dataset:

1997-2013 HadCRUT4 Trend: 0.049 0.126 C/decade
1997-2013 HadCRUT4 hybrid Trend: 0.119 0.150 C/decade

The hybrid dataset's central estimate is inside the error bars of the original HadCRUT4 estimate.

... they haven't been right yet... They admit that they have no explanation why their models, which projected continued if not increased warming, do not explain why it has dropped by more than half (0.12 to 0.05 deg. C / decade) over the last 15 years. Or, for that matter, why their margin of error (-0.05 to +0.15 deg. C) for the last decade and a half is 4 times the size of their actual estimated warming. Nope... it's pretty damned clear. Something is wrong with their science. [Jane Q. Public]

I calculated error bars on UAH trends. The black line on the second page shows the UAH trend ending in 2012, for different starting years. The error bars are shown in red; they're 95% confidence uncertainty bounds. Note that error bars on longer trends are smaller than the large error bars on shorter trends.

Anyone can reproduce my results by downloading the free "R" programming language used by professional statisticians. Then save this code as "significance.r":

# run using R CMD BATCH significance.r
# outputs to Rplots.pdf and significance.r.Rout
# load custom functions

# for generalised least squares
library(nlme)

# options
xunits="year"
textsize=1.4
titlesize=1.8
colfit="red"
pch1=20#points

# read basin data
indata = read.table("greenland2013/GIS_climate.nasa.txt",header=T)
title="Greenland mass"
yunits="gigatons"
tlims=c(-350,-190)
alims=c(-60,0)
#indata = indata[which(indata$x>2002.0),]

# remove mean
indata$y = indata$y - mean(indata$y)

n = length(indata$x)
n

midpoint=(indata$x[n]-indata$x[1])/2.0+indata$x[1]

# fit model
fit=gls(y~x,data=indata,corr=corARMA(p=1,q=1))
#fit=gls(y~x+sin(2*pi*x)+cos(2*pi*x),data=indata,corr=corARMA(p=1,q=1))
#fit=gls

Onion style satire?

[nitehawk214]

Here is a list of articles on this site:

What Ancient Secrets Lie Within the Flower of Life?
Church Group Kicked Out Of Public Park For Handing Out Thanksgiving Dinners To Homeless
SSDI Death Index: Sandy Hook ‘Shooter’ Adam Lanza Died One Day Before School Massacre?
15 Citizens Petition to Secede from the United States
Will U.S. Troops Fire On American Citizens?
Ceceliafox: Before his Death, Father of ADHD Admitted it Was a Fictitious Disease
Debbie: Mexican Government Releases Proof of E.T.’s and Ancient Space Travel

Re:Onion style satire?

[GrumpySteen]

Were you trying to reply to someone else's comment rather than the main story? The summary only has one link which goes to a story on Ars Technica. None of the headlines you've given are on their site. The article there links back to the study on Nature.com, which also does not have any of the headlines you've given.

Re:Onion style satire?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then perhaps the link here on /. should have been to the ArsTechnica story instead of to that website!

Re:Onion style satire?

[nitehawk214]

Nope, my reply ended up on the wrong article. Tabbed browsing FTL.

Re:Onion style satire?

[nitehawk214]

This was the article I was replying to. The summary link is to a whackjob website.

Re:Onion style satire?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you still got modded up....

Re:Onion style satire?

[GrumpySteen]

That explains it... and yeah, that website is thick with whackjobs.

Indeed, capitalism leads to fudalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the wealthy get to inherit more wealth and pass it on to their kids and have the freedoms to do as they wish, whereas the lesser people who do work (because they don't have enough money to just live off money rather than work for it) have no choice but Hobson's.

It ended 20,000 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bit late for it to be claimed that it's ending now, in the last 100-150 years.

With the chance it might not.

[Anonymous Coward]

However, when all you have in charge at the moment is a shower of shit, then you've two choices:

1) Enjoy the shit sandwich
2) Change it, which may end up with you eating shit again, but may end up with no shit being eaten.

Which is different from the USA how?

[Anonymous Coward]

That your gulag is in Cuba rather than Siberia?

Big Whoop.

How is this my problem?

[Neuroelectronic]

Surely our bankster overlords know the right solutions and will soon implement a comprehensive Siberian development plan where methane becomes the rights of large corporations and runoff and byproducts become the responsibility of Siberian natives.

Re:Cowtan & Way 2013 trend is inside HadCRUT4

[Anonymous Coward]

You've thrown too much good science into this post calling out Jane Q for being an asshat. Expect no reply. They cannot refute you.