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Swedish Farmers Have Doubts About Climatologists and Climate Change

cold fjord (826450) writes with this excerpt from ScienceNordic: Researchers the world over almost unanimously agree that our climate is changing ... But many farmers – at least Swedish ones – have experienced mild winters and shifting weather before and are hesitant about trusting the scientists. The researcher who discovered the degree of scepticism among farmers was surprised by her findings. Therese Asplund ... was initially looking into how agricultural magazines covered climate change. Asplund found after studying ten years of issues of the two agricultural sector periodicals ATL and Land Lantbruk that they present climate change as scientifically confirmed, a real problem. But her research took an unexpected direction when she started interviewing farmers in focus groups about climate issues. Asplund had prepared a long list of questions about how the farmers live with the threat of climate change and what they plan to do to cope with the subsequent climate challenges. The conversations took a different course: "They explained that they didn't quite believe in climate changes," she says. "Or at least that these are not triggered by human activities." (Original paper here.)

567 comments

  1. People living in the polar regions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...don't believe in Global Warming

    Film at 11.

    1. Re:People living in the polar regions by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Funny

      "...don't believe in Global Warming"

      A little polar bear goes up to his mum and asks her, “Am I real polar bear?”

      “Of course you are” his mum replies. “I’m a polar bear, your dad’s a polar bear, so you’re a polar bear”.

      “But are you sure I don’t have any brown bear or grizzly bear in me?” he asks.

      “Listen, if you don’t believe me go ask your grand-dad”

      So he goes and asks his grand-dad

      “Grand-dad, are you sure I’m a polar bear. I don’t have brown bear or grizzly bear in me?”

      His grand–dad looks down on him and smiles.

      “Listen, my boy, I’m a polar bear, my mum and dad were polar bears, and your granny, she was a polar bear, so your dad is a polar bear and so is your mum and her mum and her dad and her grand parents. We’re all polar bears so you are a pure, 100% polar bear”

      The little polar bear doesn’t look convinced so his grand-dad asks him’

      “What’s worrying you?”

      “Well” he replies, “If both mum and dad are polar bears and all my grannies and grand-dads are polar bears, and even their mums and dads were all polar bears, and there’s no trace of grizzly or brown bear in methen why am I so fucking cold?”

    2. Re:People living in the polar regions by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Some people.

      My friend from Norway is paranoid about Global Warming slowing the gulf stream and leading to a localised ice age.

    3. Re:People living in the polar regions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Racist

      "Although it is the sister species of the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals which make up most of its diet."
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

      So no, not racist, the question only involved adaptation for cold climates. Scientific facts are not racist. Racism is about *false* claims or about discrimination because of a difference.

    4. Re:People living in the polar regions by guises · · Score: 1

      I don't... I don't get it. Woosh?

    5. Re:People living in the polar regions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's Norway, how would they even know a "localized ice age" kicked in?!?

    6. Re: People living in the polar regions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unexpected vulgarity humor. You see it a lot with little kids asking their teacher things.

    7. Re:People living in the polar regions by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      What a bizarre claim. Glaciers in Alaska are melting like they want to quit the party early. There are glacier overlooks constructed where you can no longer see the glacier in question. Fairbanks has had a 50% increase in frost-free days over a century, and overall the rate of warming in the Arctic is roughly double the rest of the world. Temperatures have risen about 4 degrees F overall, and winter temps are up 6 degrees. Arctic sea ice has been shrinking steadily. Snowfall is up a little due to increased evaporation but not enough to counter the glacial melting. Sea ice that has protected settlements for centuries or milennia has vanished and forced the relocation of several villages.

      The glacial melting is dramatic. Some of the melting has been attributed to other factors than climate change, specifically that of the Columbia Glacier. The majority of glaciers in the world are in retreat, but the warming effects are most visible in the Arctic.

      The landscape is visibly changing. By the time I am old it will be unrecognizable. Cassandra, you have my sympathies.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    8. Re:People living in the polar regions by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Funny

      You go on a viking to a place that you used to raid for wine, and find out that they don't have any because grapes don't grow there anymore?

    9. Re: People living in the polar regions by Albinoman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Having actually been there and visited a few of the glaciers, some of them have signposts that say how far they've receded. There's posts along the path with years on them. Thing is the posts go clear back to the late 1800's. Heading back in a couple weeks, I'll take pictures this time.

    10. Re:People living in the polar regions by JasonGoatcher · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Here's the thing...

      Scientists claim the world is billions of years old. They also claim that weather patterns can emerge over the course of thousands of years. All well and good.

      But then they take 150 years of reliable data, add in some stuff involving tree rings and God knows what else, and expect us to simply trust them.

      I believe in global warming, I really do. But assuming people who don't are simply morons is a major mistake. Some really are morons or willfully ignorant, but it's nowhere near 100%.

    11. Re:People living in the polar regions by grcumb · · Score: 1

      ...don't believe in Global Warming

      Film at 11.

      Well, to be fair, climatologists have always been a little dubious about Swedish farmers, too....

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
    12. Re: People living in the polar regions by smaddox · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So are you suggesting they should publish their methods and data? Good thing that's part of the scientific process. Pick a reference: http://climate.nasa.gov/eviden...

      People often deny fact and logic based on nothing more than conviction. If that doesn't make them stupid, it makes them something much worse.

    13. Re: People living in the polar regions by Kokuyo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The problem is not their method or whether they publish it. I believe their methods are quite sound.

      The real problem is two-fold: First, weather is an extremely complex process. I doubt that we understand enough of it to reliably predict what's going to happen if one or more factors change.
      Second, as was said before, the data they have to work with is very young. And what they use to 'create' older data might or might not be very accurate.

      I don't quite believe that we are able to say without a doubt whether this change we are seeing now is unnatural.

      That said, prudence suggests that we limit our consumption and production of waste of any kind to a tolerable minimum. Even if climate change were not caused by us, that doesn't mean that we're not running out of resources.

    14. Re:People living in the polar regions by dkf · · Score: 1

      It's Norway, how would they even know a "localized ice age" kicked in?!?

      When their glaciers start growing. Duh!

      --
      "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
    15. Re: People living in the polar regions by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 3, Informative

      I would be amazed if any sign there were older than 1897. However, yes, you are correct that that is when the warming trend started -- somewhat earlier than the rest of the globe. You're implying that this stands in opposition to AGW. Let's review:

      The foundation of AGW is based on the physical properties of CO2, specifically its absorption spectrum. This is measurable both under laboratory conditions and via satellite. Theoretically you could measure it yourself. Sunlight shines on Earth, and Earth re-radiates this same energy at a lower wavelength. This is described by the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. You can trivially calculate that, based on the incident solar irradiation and Earth's albedo, the planet should be about -18 degrees C. The effect of the atmosphere is to slow radiation leaving the Earth (the atmosphere is mostly transparent to incoming solar radiation). Outgoing radiation is absorbed and re-emitted often before it reaches space.

      The lower atmosphere is already pretty much opaque to outgoing radiation; increased CO2 does not block more radiation than would otherwise be blocked. There was a point where it was theorized that no warming could occur because of this. However, it was determined that the effect of an increased partial pressure of CO2 was to extend the CO2-rich region further into space. That this increases the heat energy on the planet's surface should be obvious. The direct effect of a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere is extremely easy to calculate, again using Stefan-Boltzmann, and it comes out to 3.7 W/m^2, which is usually considered to be equivalent to 1 degree C.

      Unless you can find a new way to radiate energy to space, or unless everything we know about radiation is wrong, then the Earth must experience at least that degree of warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Anything further than that is a matter for study and scientific debate, and of course the effects in different places. However, given that warming must be happening, the ability of scientists to say whether specific incidents are or are not related is more plausible.

      I am glad you visited Alaska. I lived there for about 25 years, in the middle of the Chugach Mountains. There was some degree of glaciation on all of the surrounding peaks. Being in an isolated town meant that going anywhere else meant traveling across a great deal of the land. The glaciers have been melting my entire life, but the warming accelerated in the late 1990s; retreat measured in meters or tens of meters per year is very noticeable. This is very easily explained as an effect of AGW. Some other plausible explanation would be quite welcome; anything that would give me the hope of some day having the Alaska of my memory back. Unfortunately there is a great deal of science that speaks against the possibility.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    16. Re:People living in the polar regions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are no polar bears anywhere in Scandinavia.
      Get your shit right.

    17. Re: People living in the polar regions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here is a funny trick. Take the temperature and sea level projected changes in the executive summary of the latest IPCC report. Note the ranges and the confidence level. Run some numbers in your head utilizing what anyone can trivially know about temperature and sea level 12k years ago and look at the expectable average changes simply on that basis. You do not have to even look at the unimpressive confidence level. I find the IPCC numbers are unfalsifable. This does not mean there is not a lot of good science going on or that we are not all going to boil in Venus hell but you really do not want to bother arguing about that unless you can bring something useful to the table. Koch and Soros and Watt bring something but it is not a fix to PHBs.

    18. Re: People living in the polar regions by Albinoman · · Score: 1

      I believe 1880 or 1890 was the first, but I could be wrong. I was trying to say the glaciers were receding without our help. I'm not saying they haven't accelerated, but it's implied that they wouldn't be receding without out us. To say it's re emitted often is an exaggeration. If that were the case it would impossible to make detailed IR images of Earth's surface from space, it would just be a blur. It would look like what blue light does in daytime, which is scattered a lot (I know, not exactly the same).

      I'm fond of the Kenai Peninsula. Plan to move there in a couple years.

    19. Re: People living in the polar regions by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      I believe it's commonly accepted that we are still on the upward side of the current interglacial period. To say that IR is re-emitted often is not an exaggeration, the mean free path of an IR photon varies with the exact partial pressure but is generally in the low tens of meters as far as I know; I haven't bothered to calculate it myself. I found an anti-AGW site which claimed 65 meters for the atmosphere as a whole. The sky is blue because scattering is strongly dependent on wavelength, with blue light being scattered much more than red or IR. A cursory search didn't provide me with any high resolution IR images of Earth from space; I would appreciate if you could find me some.

      At this level of explanation, any inconsistency is most likely due to one's own lack of understanding.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    20. Re:People living in the polar regions by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Clearly you've spent enough time in Norway in winter and in Siberia in winter to be able to compare the two and find them indistinguishable.

      That's peculiar - because in the winters that I've worked in Norway, it has been very different to the winters when I was courting in Siberia. I sure as hell can tell the difference, even if you can't.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    21. Re:People living in the polar regions by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Mainland Scandanavia ; you're correct. However the Svalbard archipelago (disputed claims by both Russia and norway) is a major breeding centre for polar bears.

      There's also some evidence (skull morphology from cave deposits) that the polar bear evolved due to isolation of a population of brown bears on the European Atlantic seaboard during the most recent ice age.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    22. Re: People living in the polar regions by Albinoman · · Score: 1

      When a photon is absorbed and then re emitted, the direction it's emitted is random. The effect would have little difference from being scattered. So yes, if it was done often then it would blur out anything you'd try to see from orbit. You're claiming a lack of understanding. Is there anything else I could clarify for you?

    23. Re: People living in the polar regions by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      Yes, images taken in the IR spectrum in Earth's atmosphere are fairly blurry. For the same subject, at the same resolution, the IR image will have far less detail. The atmosphere is opaque to IR, or "optically thick" if you prefer. There is a narrow band called the Infrared window which is less absorbed, it is marked in blue in this image.

      Previously, yes, I had been claiming that you were ignorant. Now I'm claiming you're devoted to upholding a single mistaken datapoint against freshman-level physics. Claiming that outgoing radiation is not absorbed by the atmosphere certainly takes care of that pesky greenhouse effect. It's entirely contradicted by reality, but you two don't seem to be well acquainted anyway. Sarcasm aside, if you'd like to continue this, you have my email.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    24. Re: People living in the polar regions by smaddox · · Score: 1

      Weather is extremely complex, but global average climate is relatively simple. It's simply a matter of accounting for the amount of energy going in, which is fairly constant with some changes due to variance in solar flux, and the amount of energy going out, which depends primarily on surface reflectivity and the greenhouse effect. Spectroscopy and atomspheric lifetime measurements tell us which gases have a significant greenhouse effect, and carbon dioxide is up there (#3, if I'm not mistaken, after methane and water). Several forms of data, ice-core drilling being one of the best, tells us what historic CO2 levels were. These measurements are calibrated and corroborated by several other forms of evidience, such as radioactive dating, tree-ring analysis, and correlation with fossil beds. These measurements indicate that CO2 levels are the highest they have been in ~5 million years, and rising very rapidly. It is uncontested by all but the most ignorant opponents that this increase in CO2 is caused by the burning of fossile fuels. Basic physics dictates that a rise in CO2 will result in a reduction in the rate of energy escaping from Earth, which will result in higher global average temperatures.

  2. "Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's alot of ppl. who don't believe in climate change (or its cause). I doubt Swedish farmers are the only group so I wonder why they are newsworthy while the groups are not?

    I'd be more concerned about politicians and corporations that deny climate change.

    Strange study.

    1. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Sweden is a liberal hellhole. They are attempting to shame the people into compliance like they did with their insane immigration policy.

      Posting anonymously because Slashdot is also a liberal hellhole.

    2. Re:"Surprising"??? by durrr · · Score: 0, Troll

      Might as well be more concerned about politicians and corporations that deny the lord and saviour Jesus Christ.
      He have about as much evidence as mmgw does.

    3. Re:"Surprising"??? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "There's alot of ppl. who don't believe in climate change (or its cause). I doubt Swedish farmers are the only group so I wonder why they are newsworthy while the groups are not?"

      It's because when they were still called Vikings, they followed a guy named Eric the Red, a famous Global Warming believer, to Greenland where they perished almost all.
      Now they are cautious.

    4. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Try those who still believe in science rather than going with the band wagon. I've been told climate is long term, is it not? The changes thus far observed are short term, making them weather patterns; also, you must account for the fact that the models used to support climate change are broken, they cannot back-cast nor fore-cast with known data corresponding to historical data, meaning they are worthless. The sea level change statistics are so wrong it's funny, as they never bothered to account for the lower density of ice versus sea water, nor the change in ocean area as sea levels rise, nor the geography on rock below ice masses.

    5. Re:"Surprising"??? by Richy_T · · Score: 4, Funny

      "We're gonna need a bigger re-education camp"

    6. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They all died.

      Guess what, Greenland is about the same today as it was when the colonies were first established.

      The problem is that farmers memories don't go back far enough. The memory of how cold farming was in the 800s has been lost.

    7. Re:"Surprising"??? by mooingyak · · Score: 1, Troll

      Because they're not in the US? Just supposed to be US right wing doubting climate change.

      --
      William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
    8. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a funny twist on sea level rise. One source has looked at the amount of sea level rise in the last few decades and compared it to the amount of displacement created by adding more supertankers and super sized cargo ships added to the ocean in the same time. Just about an exact match.

      Can't remember the exact study but if anyone wants to look seriously and not just knee jerk a reaction they can look it up.

    9. Re: "Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've always thought this whole situation to be rather ignorant of humans to think that we can single-handedly destroy a planet that has been here billions of years in our relatively minor existence.

      If the history of the world was a full day, it would be like humans showing up in the last 5 seconds and saying "holy cow we are destroying the planet."

      Don't get me wrong, I think we should do everything we can to lessen our environmental impact, but thinking that the Earth won't be able to correct itself in many ways to compensate is ignorant.

    10. Re:"Surprising"??? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

      someone mod this AC up

      It all sounded good to me until the last sentence, which does not follow from all the others.

      People have pursued their erotic and political passions no matter whether religion played a large part in their lives. In fact, religious leaders throughout history are rather notorious for doing so.

    11. Re:"Surprising"??? by Luckyo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Swedish farmers, like most people of Fennoscandia do indeed see less effect from global warming that vast majority of planet's population.

      First of all, our ground is rising several times faster than global warming is rising sea levels. This is because of depression caused by recent ice age, and after ice mass retreated, the ground started to rise to the state in which it was before vast amounts of ice were sitting on top of it. This is an ongoing process that completely eliminates the problems from rising sea levels around here.

      Then there's the fact that our winters are more dependent on Gulf Stream than on any other global trend, and Stream is still going strong enough to keep us warm. That amortises the effect of global warming to a significant degree.

    12. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They all died.

      Except the ones that returned and said its not working. Only the ones who stayed died.

    13. Re:"Surprising"??? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      d be more concerned about politicians and corporations that deny climate change.

      Why? There's an easy solution for that problem. Just put them in prison. The German people went from being racist murders to being accepted back as part of the world community just because they put deniers in prison. We need to do the same.

      Quoting just for the bat-shit insanity of it.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    14. Re: "Surprising"??? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      I've always thought this whole situation to be rather ignorant of humans to think that we can single-handedly destroy a planet that has been here billions of years in our relatively minor existence.

      Of course we are not going to destroy the planet. The Earth will go on with or without us. What we may be destroying or at least altering drastically are the geophysical systems that we have built our complex technological civilization on and that allow us to support 7+ billion humans. We may not be able to adapt fast enough to the changes that are occurring to maintain it all.

    15. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cogito ergo troll.

    16. Re:"Surprising"??? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      It was hundred of years ago. They all died wherever they were.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    17. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a lot of space in Siberia, even after all those British school kids with tempers. As a bonus, the releasing methane can be observed much easier in situ.

    18. Re:"Surprising"??? by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Informative

      You know, Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries are really a lot like the US. It looks really liberal if you're in the big cities but it starts to get distinctly redneck if you head out of town. The farmers there are like the farmers in the US, a conservative bent that things should stay they way they always were and that the distant remote government really doesn't understand them (same with loggers, another big industry in Scandinavia). Doesn't help that Scandinavian TV likes to portray rural people as ignorant hicks (same as US TV actually!).

      So I can really understand that Swedish academics get confused if they spend their lives in the middle of Stockholm and think that the rest of the country is equally liberal. Then all these European countries feign shock and surprise when suddenly there's a surge at the elections for center and right-of-center parties. The real difference in US is that there a broader balance of political power between the urban, suburban, and rural areas.

      But then again, I'm in California, and I'm always surprised by how many people assume CA is solidly liberal through and through, when we're more like a 55/45 split (all those red/blue states look purple if you look at it county by county).

    19. Re: "Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In particular, we might not be able to adapt if we trash our existing infrastructure in the mistaken notion that it will matter, and that the changes can be reversed.

    20. Re: "Surprising"??? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      A lot of the changes that are occurring won't be reversible, at least on any human time scale. But we can keep things from getting worse than they are already bound to get if we do something. The problem isn't really that climate change is occurring but how fast it is occurring (which still seems slow relative to the time scales that most humans are used to dealing with). If you could take the changes that are occurring in two centuries and spread them out over two millenia it wouldn't be that hard to adapt to them. But I think we will be hard pressed to adapt at the speed at which they are and will be happening.

    21. Re:"Surprising"??? by Kharny · · Score: 1

      http://what-if.xkcd.com/33/

      you are so wrong, it almost hurts

      --
      Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
    22. Re:"Surprising"??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you are talking about US liberals, not European liberals. The UK conservatives are called a "welcomed liberal bias in the EU" by a recent editorial of our largest daily news paper, which has traditionally been had social democrat attachments.

  3. Weather is NOT climate by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Repeat that after me, Mr. Fjord.

    It is expected that there will be areas of happy, mild weather in any scenario you care to imagine. It is to be expected that a bunch of locals in regions suffering from happy, mild weather might not be as concerned about the issue as someone who had their house wiped out by a tornado.

    But it the concerns and insights of either set of persons would be irrelevant to the discussion of GLOBAL climate change (hint, the word that is BOLDED is important).

    Climate in not weather. Weather is not climate.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    1. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 4, Funny

      Meh, I live in Canada, future home of 250,000 km of tropical coastline.

      What's your retirement plan? I've invested all my RRSPs (like a 401k) into scuba gear and sunblock.

      Dive Nanasvik!

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    2. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      climate
      noun: climate; plural noun: climates

              the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

      So, climate *is* weather.

    3. Re:Weather is NOT climate by tmosley · · Score: 0

      So where's the warming? Both poles have more ice than usual.

      If you want to claim its the oceans, then you are going to have to explain where your heat pump is, or why the oceans just now started warming instead of a hundred years ago. Yes I have had this conversation before.

      We do have AGW, but it is caused by humanity shifting the water vapor equilibrium (through irrigation, paving, combustion, and cooling towers). It is a tight equilibrium, so there is very little chance of runaway global warming. Ocean acidification, however, is an extreme problem that is far more likely to do grievous harm to humanity. But no-one wants to actually think for themselves and do the calculations themselves. They just want to fit in.

    4. Re:Weather is NOT climate by nospam007 · · Score: 1, Funny

      "Repeat that after me, Mr. Fjord."

      You're talking to a Norwegian, the Swede is over there, the one with the H&M Jacket, on the IKEA stool, drinking Absolut Vodka, listening to ABBA, all dead giveaways.

    5. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This.
      All the people worrying about the coast disapearing need to realize that the rest of us wouldn't mind some coastal property in the future.

    6. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Jaysyn · · Score: 0

      But apparently you assholes don't care about what you are going to eat while your permafrost thaws.

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    7. Re:Weather is NOT climate by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      But apparently you assholes don't care about what you are going to eat while your permafrost thaws.

      Don't worry, they will just slash and burn the [remaining] forests to provide arable land. What could possibly go wrong?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hint, the word that is BOLDED is important

      lol. No words are bolded.

    9. Re:Weather is NOT climate by itzly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If climate *is* weather, then you and I have 1.7 children.

    10. Re:Weather is NOT climate by bunratty · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, ice at both poles has been melting: Antarctic ice is melting and Arctic ice is melting. Sea level is rising mostly because of thermal expansion and also the previously mentioned melting. You can also just look at the instrumental temperature record. You can see the warming and its effects, right?

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    11. Re: Weather is NOT climate by C0R1D4N · · Score: 1

      Or y'know, high density gardens

    12. Re:Weather is NOT climate by itzly · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, the poles have less ice than usual. You may be confused by the Antarctic sea ice which is getting bigger in the winter. The Antarctic land ice is shrinking. The arctic ice is shrinking both in volume and area.

    13. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So where's the warming? Both poles have more ice than usual.

      Oh, really?

    14. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      You can look up weather by different time periods. By the hour, the day, so why not the week, the month, the year, or even the century? As per the definition, there is no time period where weather ceases to be weather. Therefore climate is just weather over a longer period then we normally use, but that doesn't mean it is no longer weather.

      Which is why climate is weather but weather isn't (always) climate.

    15. Re:Weather is NOT climate by itzly · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's probably a reference to the submitter: cold fjord (826450) writes with this excerpt from ScienceNordic...

    16. Re:Weather is NOT climate by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Ah, a typography Nazi.

      Slashdot never fails to impress.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    17. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then you're really agreeing with the farmers.

      You see, farmers are affected by regional weather; and weather depends on more than planetary climate. In tandem with climate, things like ocean currents, winds, and the geography have huge impacts on the local weather.

      So given that every climate scientists explain away the lack of model's regional prediction power by saying what you said--climate is not weather--then just how do you expect farmers to make climate change predictions, when even the scientists cannot make sensible predictions?

    18. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is, how do you expect farmers to adjust or prepare based on climate change predictions when there's complete uncertainty?

    19. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You did not address anything in the OPs post. Also, his/her idea of a "tight equilibrium" makes sense due to the Venus comparison. If temperatures are compared at the same atmospheric pressure rather than surface to surface Venus is warmer by nearly exactly as much as expected due to being closer to the sun (1.176x Earth). The only ways to explain this are coincidence or some negative feedbacks that maintain average equilibrium temperature in the face of increased CO2.

    20. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Thing is, we are very sheltered from global effects, because none of the major symptoms of global warming are visible in Fennoscandian region due to persistent environmental factors, such as rising land that is rising much faster than sea levels, or the fact that Gulf Stream effectively amortises us from most of the extreme weather effects.

      The main things that they see are things like price fluctuations, many of which are in fact beneficial to farmers who produce the good that is going to be increasingly scarce.

    21. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't be a dumbass.
      There is a lot of ocean around Antarctica and the sea surface temperatures in the Southern Annular Area – 60 South to 70 South are running “cool” and have been since an apparent step change circa 2006

      Reynolds monthly SSTa – 2000 through May 2014

      http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?ctlfile=monoiv2.ctl&ptype=ts&var=ssta&level=1&op1=none&op2=none&month=jan&year=2000&fmonth=may&fyear=2014&lat0=-70&lat1=-60&lon0=-180&lon1=180&plotsize=800×600&title=&dir=

      Also SSTa’s from yesterday – Earth Wind map:-

      http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-89.39,-87.18,819

    22. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Tropical" means that it is located in the tropics (i.e. of Cancer and Capricorn).

      Canadian coastline will never be "tropical".

    23. Re:Weather is NOT climate by argStyopa · · Score: 1

      That's funny, because every time there's some freak weather (or even normal weather that's mildly unpleasant) I could easily post 10+ articles from major public media sources that assert "this is an effect/indicator of climate change".

      Strangely, I don't see all the 'weather isn't climate' folks posting then....

      --
      -Styopa
    24. Re:Weather is NOT climate by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The number one rule of science is "Question Everything(*)"

      (*)except Global Warming.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    25. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you look at the temperature over the last millionish years...
      http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/...

      you can see it's been this hot many times before without human intervention.
      you can see the temperature made a major move upwards a looooong time before the 1800's. from 26c to 29c. Humans almost certainly had nothing to do with that or other massive temperature shifts between 26 and 30c that have occurred repeatedly over the last millionish years.

      This particular move may be enhanced by humans. 7 billion human beings are having widespread effects on the planet. And it looks like we may be on target for 11 billion humans instead of 9 billion humans.

      That's a lot of Co2, methane from cows, asphalt paved and building covered ground that used to be forest in most places.

      But we are not even at a record temperature yet, similar temperature moves have happened many times (dozens, scores?) over the last million years without humans being the cause.

      Based on the evidence of the historical record the temperature could fall 3 degrees shortly after it peaks. Well after we are dead of course.

      Right now, I think the most likely course is temperatures will continue to rise slowly- we'll see the oceans rise by 20" by 2100.

      And we'll have *too many* people. Way over the carrying capacity of the earth. We've overbred and it really doesn't matter what we do if we don't get the population down. We are just moving deck chairs on a sinking Titantic.

      Here's the last 10 million years
      http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6ftZ...

      It shows a pretty strong correlation between co2 and temperature. It also shows the co2 level has fluctuated a lot without humans around and that the temperature has been as high and lower many times in the last 10 million years.

      Here's the last 65 million years
      http://mpe.dimacs.rutgers.edu/...

      We are at the bottom of a 65 million year long cooling period.

      Here's the last 2.4 billion years
      http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

      We could just be exiting a near ice age. It looks like much of the time, the average temperature of the earth has been about 72F. About 10 degrees warmer than it is now. Humans could be the cause- but even without human interaction, the temperature seems likely to return to the mean at some point in the future. On a billion year scale, the current temperatures are uncommonly low.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    26. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But apparently you assholes don't care about what you are going to eat while your permafrost thaws.

      When it thaws it becomes farm land.

    27. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      climate - n. the customary pattern of the WEATHER for any specific locality

    28. Re:Weather is NOT climate by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Repeat that after me, Mr. Fjord. ....

      Climate in not weather. Weather is not climate.

      Repeat after me, Mr. ColdWetDog: "Cold Fjord is not a Swedish famer from the story, just another person that posts on Slashdot."

      Apparently you are one of those people that has to personalize everything. But I only point to the stories, I don't write them, nor am I a subject of them. However, in case you are wondering ....

      I am not the math genius Ramanujan that worked with Hardy.
      I am not a Doom or Wolfenstin developer.
      I am not involved with plans to mine the moon.
      I am not involved with either taking or ferreting out bribes in the EU..

      Should I ask you to repeat those too?

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    29. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. I didn't realize that you two even knew each other, let alone had made a baby together!

      Congratulations on your current pregnancy! Due date is around the end of September, huh?

    30. Re:Weather is NOT climate by itzly · · Score: 1

      So, looking at your first graph, and seeing that the temperature went from that one blue line to the next in just 100 years, doesn't really leave the impression that there's nothing special going on. If it continues like this for another 100 years, it'll be the highest point in this graph.

    31. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone has not been keeping up with the news.

      Google for stories in the past week or so about the retreat of the West Antarctic ice sheet have reached the point of irreversibility. And a recent report that the same appears to be true for one of the large Greenland glaciers. There will be significant sea rise in the next hundred years.

    32. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is, how do you expect farmers to adjust or prepare based on climate change predictions when there's complete uncertainty?

      Heck, they can't even adapt to the current weather - it's ALWAYS too cold/hot/dry/wet...

    33. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Climate is measured over thousands of years, right now there is a sudden warming phenomenon that lasted a few decades and ended in 1998. That is weather, not climate. The claims that CO2 levels exceed those in the ice cores of 450,000 years is similarly irrelevant because this measurement needs to be evaluated over many millions of years.

    34. Re:Weather is NOT climate by amiga3D · · Score: 2

      I wouldn't sweat it too much. Given the insanity of world governments (and their citizens) and the continued proliferation of nuclear arms I forsee an intense cooling period coming. A nuclear winter preceded by a drastic population reduction. That should solve the problem of global warming nicely. So quit worrying so much.

    35. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, they will just slash and burn the [remaining] forests to provide arable land. What could possibly go wrong?

      We have more forest in Canada today then there was 150 years ago. With that though we've got a wonderful plague of insects and diseases because of the US and piss poor import management which are destroying forests. Then again, with the amount of arable farmland we have here, we wouldn't have to do squat.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    36. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Climate in not weather. Weather is not climate.

      It is an error made on both sides, often in order to present visible "proof" of their claims. Which is problematic since joe sixpack now thinks that it is a valid way to judge climate change. (Oh how I wanted to strangulate all those environmentalists that proclaimed "the hottest summer in Germany in the last 50 years" as a clear sign of global warming - next to being weather vs. climate there was at least one obvious logic error).

      For all those who want to stop global warming deniers: do not use the same non scientific arguments, you only help them appear valid.

    37. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Tropical" means that it is located in the tropics (i.e. of Cancer and Capricorn).

      Canadian coastline will never be "tropical".

      Maybe he's expecting to live a REALLY long time and is waiting for continental drift :)

    38. Re:Weather is NOT climate by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Canada will not be located in the tropics, but the adjective "tropical" doesn't necessarily imply geographic location.

    39. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Montezumaa · · Score: 1

      Why would someone be "concerned" about a "tomado"(I take it that you mean "tornado"?), when "weather is not("NOT", for, I guess, "dramatic effect"?) climate"? I guess "weather" is only "climate" when the data is favorable to your views. If I am incorrect, then please correct my view of your statement.

    40. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If both poles have more ice why can't the polar bears find it in the Arctic?

    41. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I can see the rise. And I still don't care because (1) it's slow and it looks like it's not a big deal, and (2) nobody has come up with a feasible and reliable way of changing it anyway.

      (1) Its a big deal for the low lands .
      (2) Yes they have. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    42. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Somebody+Is+Using+My · · Score: 4, Informative

      But apparently you assholes don't care about what you are going to eat while your permafrost thaws.

      Oh, they needn't worry about that. When the permafrost thaws, all the sequestered CO2 and methane frozen in the ice and soil is going to release in giant poisonous bubbles and asphyxiate them all. You don't need to eat when aren't even breathing.

      (I can't find a link to the article I read that melting permafrost could release its CO2 explosively, poisoning large areas, but here's a link about how much gas is stuck in the ground up north. So even if you don't accept the theory that melting permafrost could result in asphyxiation, it is still something we'd want to avoid)

    43. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The claims that CO2 levels exceed those in the ice cores of 450,000 years is similarly irrelevant because this measurement needs to be evaluated over many millions of years.

      Not relevant for what? If we want to keep the planet as habitable as it is then it is relevant.

    44. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's not complete uncertainty, but neither is there complete certainty either.

    45. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Somebody+Is+Using+My · · Score: 1

      The thing is, our civilization has grown based on the climate and ecology we currently have (maybe a little cooler). It is likely the Earth has been warmer before, but if it starts reaching those heights again it is going to cause significant problems for our technological society, especially in the transitional period when weather patterns are disrupted by changing energy levels in the atmosphere. If it gets warmer, large areas may be flooded and ecologies and farming may be affected as well. Empires have collapsed for less, and the loss in human life would be huge.

      It is in our interest to minimize our impact on the environment. Even if the overall trend to a warmer climate is natural, our actions - redirecting rivers, chopping down entire forests, pumping megatons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere - are having a definitive effect on the climate. Even if humanity alone isn't responsible, it may be our actions are "the straw that breaks the camel's back", tilting the balance irrevocably towards a less hospitable climate. We might not be able to halt the warming process, but we have the ability to minimize our impact on the climate and hopefully the climate's impact on us.

      We have the ability and technology. We just lack the will.

    46. Re:Weather is NOT climate by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Climate is not weather but the statistical analysis of weather. There is a difference. The analysis shows the boundaries and variability of weather. It's possible to do climate analysis on just about any time scale but the standard used in climatology is 30 years.

    47. Re:Weather is NOT climate by camg188 · · Score: 1

      Climate in not weather. Weather is not climate.

      You want to talk about climate? Long term climate and survival of life on Earth?
      How about 60 million years worth of climate?
      For a great majority of the past 60 million years (since mammals emerged on earth),

      THERE HAVE BEEN NO POLAR ICE CAPS

      The earth is in a cooler than average phase now. There has even been rapid warming in the past (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum for example). The geologic processes that shape the earth today are the same processes that shaped it in the past, varying only in intensity and duration.
      The climate will change regardless of human activity and life will go on.

    48. Re:Weather is NOT climate by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      So where's the warming? Both poles have more ice than usual.

      Sea ice at both poles is up a bit compared to previous years but the land based ice in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets continues to melt. The question is is this just a short term blip or a long term trend. It'll take at least another 5 or 10 years to determine that.

    49. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      No. Weather is an instantaneous set of measurements taken at a specific place and point in time. Climate is many locations and times averaged.

      Saying climate is weather is like saying a square is a point. It's not. A square has points within it, bit it's not a point.

      Climate is not weather. Anyone who doesn't know that doesn't have anything worthwhile to contribute to the discussion.

    50. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      As per the definition, there is no time period where weather ceases to be weather.

      I'm afraid that's the continuum fallacy.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

    51. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Why would someone be "concerned" about a "tomado"(I take it that you mean "tornado"?), when "weather is not("NOT", for, I guess, "dramatic effect"?) climate"?

      According to the post you are responding to, because they are simple farmers. It wasn't the poster's position that tornados are climate.

    52. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      really, "cold fjord writes..." is as far as you have to go with this FS.

      the rest is a foregone conclusion of bullshit & waste of your time.

    53. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      The earth is in a cooler than average phase now.

      Nope.

      http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/...

    54. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      climate - n. the customary pattern of the WEATHER for any specific locality

      Customary pattern rather than an actual pattern. The weather is the actuality.

    55. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    56. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BlindRobin · · Score: 1

      Exactly - and who gives a fuck what a gaggle of farmers have to say? It's like listening to bunch of dogs analysing dog food.

    57. Re:Weather is NOT climate by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      I'm still waiting for my Antarctica tropical coastline to return. I haven't enjoyed the beach in eons.

      Oh, and, ... Get off my continental lawn!!

      Damn kids now-a-eons.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    58. Re:Weather is NOT climate by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      Well, it was a silly mistake to make. I saw it too, but ignored it.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    59. Re:Weather is NOT climate by pubwvj · · Score: 2

      "ice at both poles has been melting"

      This has happened before. The northern pass used to be open.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

      We're coming out of a cool period. It's a cycle. I would rather have warming than cooling. Cooling is deadly. Warming is merely an inconvenience, for you.

    60. Re:Weather is NOT climate by buybuydandavis · · Score: 1

      Oh, they needn't worry about that. When the permafrost thaws, all the sequestered CO2 and methane frozen in the ice and soil is going to release in giant poisonous bubbles and asphyxiate them all.

      Lovers of Gaia, haters of humans. Always full of glee when Gaia smites the evil human infestation.

    61. Re:Weather is NOT climate by buybuydandavis · · Score: 1

      **the science is SETTLED!

    62. Re:Weather is NOT climate by pubwvj · · Score: 1

      "might not be as concerned about the issue as someone who had their house wiped out by a tornado."

      People should build their houses to be able to withstand all the possible extremes of weather they might get in their local. Climate Change is not making that much difference. Places where tornadoes are now have also historically had tornadoes. Same goes for hurricanes, snow storms, ice storms, etc. Maybe they'll get more. Maybe they'll get less.

      If people fail to build to handle the climate and weather then they will suffer the consequences. That is reality. Build better. We have the technology. In fact, it is old tech.

    63. Re:Weather is NOT climate by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      Are you arguing for or against the fact we are still coming out of an ice age?

      I get confused because the media seems to lambaste any scientists that dare to say the end of the last ice age would be happening with or without humans.

    64. Re:Weather is NOT climate by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      Your reference goes back 1.35 MY.

      OP was going back 60 MY.

      Note that your period is 2.25% of the OP's period....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    65. Re:Weather is NOT climate by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      RE point (2)

      Why the F#@# would you want to trigger another ice age you crazy b#57@4D?

      Damn man, those things are nasty.

    66. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Climate Change has been debunked by farmers and drought farmers...

    67. Re:Weather is NOT climate by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      For a great majority of the past 60 million years (since mammals emerged on earth),

      THERE HAVE BEEN NO POLAR ICE CAPS

      Big thanks
      I'd mod point you up but I already posted.

      He's the wikipedia link
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

    68. Re:Weather is NOT climate by jrumney · · Score: 1

      I imagine a Canadian could post the same sort of story about farmers in the bible belt as a way of taking a dig at their southern neighbors too eh.

    69. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      So you're calling out Oxford Dictionaries... Huh... *shrugs*

    70. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is to be expected that a bunch of locals in regions suffering from happy, mild weather might not be as concerned about the issue as someone who had their house wiped out by a tornado.

      One would think that, but considering that the average Swede emits 5.3 tonnes CO2/year while the average U.S. American emits 17.2 tonnes CO2/year it appears as if it is the other way around.

    71. Re:Weather is NOT climate by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      Humans are doing a good job of smiting themselves. BTW: Gaia is the original name for the biosphere, it was coined by the father of Earth sciences, the original meaning subsequently distorted beyond recognition by "spiritualists" and right-wing nuts alike. So much so that the strawman arguments between these groups is about something that even Lovelock himself does not recognise.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    72. Re:Weather is NOT climate by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      Sort of, but no. Climate is technically the statistics of weather. Weather is mathematically chaotic (ie: turbulent), Climate is remarkably stable on the scales from decades to millennia (ie: not chaotic), the exception being El-Nino which is an example of large scale climatic turbulence, as is Jupiter "Red Spot".

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    73. Re:Weather is NOT climate by dave420 · · Score: 1

      The climate scientists have taken that into account, and there is still worrying amounts of warming. Read the IPCC's reports and you'd know, and you'd think twice about making posts which make you look so ignorant.

    74. Re:Weather is NOT climate by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      As per the definition, there is no time period where weather ceases to be weather. Therefore climate is just weather over a longer period then we normally use, but that doesn't mean it is no longer weather.

      If you enquire a bit deeper I think you will find there is a mathematical distinction between the two, discovered by Lorenz. The distinction is that weather is mathematically chaotic, the long term statistics of weather (ie: climate) is not, "long term" is generally accepted to be at least 30yrs. This mathematical fact means that (all else held equal) a 100yr climate prediction is inherently more certain than a 10 day weather prediction, even if the exact same modeling software is used to make both predictions. This is because you are actually measuring different things, the temperature next Tuesday is weather, a global climate prediction can never make an accurate prediction as to what it will be for pretty much the same reason Tuesday's weather prediction for New York says nothing about today's global average temperature. - The maths won't allow it.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    75. Re:Weather is NOT climate by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Weather - The state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time as regards heat, cloudiness, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc. ( http://www.oxforddictionaries.... )

      Climate - The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period ( http://www.oxforddictionaries.... )

      In exactly what way? I gather that shrug has to do with your general state of confusion.

      Lets be blunt the Swedish farmer argument is the "I'm Alright Jack" argument http://www.urbandictionary.com...! with just a bit of dressing up.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    76. Re:Weather is NOT climate by khallow · · Score: 1

      it is going to cause significant problems for our technological society, especially in the transitional period when weather patterns are disrupted by changing energy levels in the atmosphere

      So what? Our technological society is adept at solving significant problems. And what makes you think the climate is changing to something less hospitable?

    77. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does that blogspot get its CO2 numbers? Googling It I find we are around ~400ppm and on an accelerating trend. That graph does not even show us near 300ppm when we have been above that since before 1980....

    78. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, is the same as creationists say. They also do not understand the subject but think they are being boycotted by official science.

    79. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize, average human lifespan is around 70-80 years, right? Spacial timeframes of a billion years really have no relevance in this conversation.

    80. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BTW: Gaia is the original name for the biosphere, it was coined by the father of Earth sciences, the original meaning subsequently distorted beyond recognition by "spiritualists" and right-wing nuts alike.

      He invented this Gaia?

    81. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I wouldn't sweat it too much" - Intentional pun? :-)

    82. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I'm pretty sure he's calling out you for failing to comprehend the Oxford English Dictionary. Your complete failure to grasp this only reinforces his point.

    83. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So I toook a look at the chart in your first link. Then I read the page it was from. Some comments by the author on that page:

      Regarding the chart itself: "The current temperature matches the "Holocene maximum", a warm period about 12,000 years ago, right before the last ice age. If the temperature goes up another 1C, it'll be the hottest it's been in the last 1.35 million years!"

      "Of course, 1 Celsius ain't much compared to the 15-20 Celsius cooling throughout the Cenozoic - but it's happening fast, and and it's not over yet! With all the changes the Earth has experienced over its history, one might think one more change is no big deal. In the long run, yes. But the future of humanity depends crucially on what happens in the "short run": the next millennium or two. If we didn't mess around with the climate, our Earth's climate might remain stable for another thousand years or more. As it is, we're bringing on more sudden changes. "

    84. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely question everything... within the boundaries of intelligent discussion. There is enough consensus on Climate Change at the moment that debating its merits on the face is simply unintelligent. There is still wiggle room on the anthropogenic nature of climate change, if just, but that the climate is changing is, frankly, as another poster put it, settled. It's no more worth humoring questions about that than it is investigating the extraterrestrial cause of mutilated cows.

      To be clear, you're still perfectly welcome to "question everything" (read: regurgitate tired and debunked talking points fed to you by one side of a political-industrial machine bent on using you any way it can), just not within the framework of serious scientific debate.

    85. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      It seems you have some trouble with nuances English, so let me enlighten you. Weather is a non-countable noun, like paper or water. So many instances of weather is still weather, and so, climate being many instances of weather, means that, in fact, climate is weather.

    86. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Climate is averaged-out weather, so they are related. They are just not identical.

    87. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      I didn't see BasilBrush mentioning the Oxford Dictionary in any of his posts, so I think it is you that are failing to comprehend (*snicker*) a comment thread.

    88. Re:Weather is NOT climate by dave420 · · Score: 1

      No. "Climate" refers to trends in weather.

    89. Re:Weather is NOT climate by pubwvj · · Score: 1

      Or you could think twice about making posts that make you look arrogant. We both agree warming is happening. We disagree on whether it is a good thing or not.

    90. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      The Oxford Dictionary would disagree with you (too)

    91. Re:Weather is NOT climate by dave420 · · Score: 1

      The vast majority of research points to it being less hospitable, and there is a lot of good evidence that with rising temperatures come more heating feedbacks which will accelerate the process. This is not some esoteric fact. You can keep sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la I can't hear you la la la la" if you want, but future generations will look back on lazy attitudes such as yours with disgust, and quite rightly so. You are eschewing science because of intellectual laziness or straight-up deceit. Your stance is that of the anti-vaxxer, the young-Earth creationist, or the Mayan end-of-the-world lot. It's pathetic.

    92. Re:Weather is NOT climate by dave420 · · Score: 1

      And those changes in climate happened much slower than the current climate change. It's strange you accept those findings, but turn your nose up in disgust at the current explanation for climate change which was discovered using the exact same methodology. It's almost as if you use science when it suits you, and ignore it when it doesn't. That can't possibly be, though, as that would make you a terrible human being.

    93. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Repeat that after me, Mr. Fjord.

      It is expected that there will be areas of happy, mild weather in any scenario you care to imagine. It is to be expected that a bunch of locals in regions suffering from happy, mild weather might not be as concerned about the issue as someone who had their house wiped out by a tornado.

      But it the concerns and insights of either set of persons would be irrelevant to the discussion of GLOBAL climate change (hint, the word that is BOLDED is important).

      Climate in not weather. Weather is not climate.

      Time to expand to the empire, right?

    94. Re:Weather is NOT climate by whipnet · · Score: 1

      HAHAHA... I remember laughing at jokes like this in the 1980's. Thanks for the distant memories. *

    95. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You, Jaysyn, we're going to eat you (and we don't mean in the good way).

      Soylent Green, now with more Jaysyn!

    96. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      I'm not arguing against global warming.

      I'm not even arguing against human influence on global warming.

      Recall, I said I expect warming and a 20" increase in sea level over the next 86 years, showed that co2 correlates with temperatures, and listed human contributions.

      What I am arguing is- it's been warmer- most of history.

      We might be accelerating the trend but warming was very likely to happen- and it's been warming for thousands of years since the bottom which was a near ice age or an ice age depending on how you measure it.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    97. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      If you read the graph, it says it was produced in 2008 based on 2001 data.

      Seems like a nit to me since the graph was clearly supporting a rapid temperature increase; the temperature increase isn't historical on the longer time scale graphs (it'll still be pretty cold compared to the average temperature for most of history), it wasn't an anti-global warming site, I myself stated that I expect global warming and sea temperature rises and agreed that humans contributed to the current warming trend.

      BUT- without humans, the temperature has fluctuated warmer and cooler-- and it's been MUCH warmer for millions (billions) of years in fairly recent history and we are in fact exiting an ice age period (none of which lasted forever) and every prior exit, the temperature returned to 72f.

      It may be bloody hot for humans (and great for bugs) but I'm pretty sure humans are not going to be able to lock down the earth's temperature with our current technology.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    98. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please define "less ice than usual"

      The entire Cretaceous period had NO ice at the poles. That was a period of 79 MILLION years, and so how does your "usual" compare to that statistically? Maybe your usual is 1^-5% of that; in other words statistically insignificant. When discussing climate, and not weather, you need to also keep in mind that climate is something that we as humans never experience because we simply are not here long enough to comprehend it.

    99. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Triklyn · · Score: 1

      no we are not, as david deutsch put it, a catastrophe whose solution is a ton of money is still a catastrophe. the economic cost of current solutions is catastrophic in an of itself.

      climate is changing, more energetic systems means higher highs and lower lows. hurricanes and tornadoes oh my. our farms are where the good weather is... which means any change at all would be catastrophic for our economy, our shipping lines and all.

      any rise in global average means more water in the oceans, so you know floods... and less land.

      stop being facetious.

    100. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      polar ice has been melting for 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. Sounds like warmists are wishing either for a solid state climate or want the ice age back.

    101. Re:Weather is NOT climate by dl_sledding · · Score: 1

      Climate is not weather but the statistical analysis of weather.

      And right there is where the bullshit starts gettin' slung. In the right hands, a good statistician can prove anything with statistics. Which is why you see, so often, GCC graphs that have arbitrary X and Y axis bases, making the change much more marked than in reality.

      Which then makes those charts suspect, which throws suspicion not only on the particular researcher who is giving out flawed interpretations, but also on the entire idea of climate change. Meaning, bullshit.

      EVERYONE also believed in eugenics, in the beginning of the 20th century. It was a scientifically proven concept, that EVERYONE could see the value of. Those who didn't were called crackpots and ostriches. Don't give me the BS about how EVERYONE agrees about GCC. It's a really good money maker right now, and is happily filling lots of scientific coffers. Everything in this world is based on money, and it's financially profitable to PROVE aspects of GCC right now. So, therefore, it's all suspect.

    102. Re:Weather is NOT climate by iMactheKnife · · Score: 1

      Projections are not climate either.

      List me as a denier who knows a lot about the subject and rejects the bullshit. I strenuously object to any idiot that claims a tax on CO2 will save the world.

    103. Re:Weather is NOT climate by iMactheKnife · · Score: 1

      Melting permafrost releases methane. Not much CO2, if any.

    104. Re:Weather is NOT climate by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      You're perfectly free to do your own statistical analysis. The data is available. But I know you won't. You probably don't have the knowledge to do it in the first place and you'd rather just sit back and sling mud about something you're not qualified to judge.

    105. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      >Canadian coastline will never be "tropical".

      Wrong. The continental plates move around over time, and just as the land the US sits on used to straddle the equator, it's entirely conceivable that Canada could eventually move so that it's in the tropics.

      It may take a while, though.

    106. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      The dictionary isn't wrong, as far as it goes. It's your inability to understand the dictionary that is the problem.

    107. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      No, it's just you that's not understanding the dictionary.

    108. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Water level is also "un-countable", but that doesn't mean that waves are the same thing as tides.

    109. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      If the OP needs more than 1.35 million years history to make today's temperatures not look warm, then there's the problem right there.

    110. Re:Weather is NOT climate by TwoEyedJack · · Score: 1

      Climate is the integral of weather.

    111. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Also, a graph that included the last 8 years would show a break down of the correlation of co2 levels and the temperature.

      That's probably a temporary effect- the ocean heat sink is only so big. But it's happened before ( on the same graph- two rises ago the Co2 spiked way above temperatures for a short period).

      When I look at all the graphs it looks like the "correct" temperature of the earth is 72f- about 10 degrees hotter than now. It's just a question of when (not if) temperatures go back to that level.

      In any case, unless we are going to reduce the population, there isn't much we can do that's really going to work.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    112. Re:Weather is NOT climate by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      So the weather will be raining, with clouds, and clear skies, snowing and dry the maximum temperature will be 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 etc degrees C and maximum wind speed will be 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 etc. Nuances in your version of English is quite simply bullshit. The definition was quite clear cut. http://www.grammar-monster.com... so five weather forecasts, five historical weather reports, want higher numbers, counting is going fine so far "Make the non-countable noun an adjective to a countable noun. For example:"

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    113. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everybody's perceptions are shaped by recent weather, that's just human. That's why the day's TV weather report is always being offered up as proof or contradiction of global warming and why you always find higher levels of skepticism after cold weather and higher calls for action after hot weather.

      Climate Change Experts aren't immune from this either. As this hilarious argument from the Guardian demonstrates.
      http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/jun/26/what-really-annoys-scientists-about-the-state-of-the-climate-change-debate

      If I'd spouted such nonsense during my science degree I would have got Fs, these days you get HDs.

    114. Re:Weather is NOT climate by hemod · · Score: 1

      Meh, I live in Canada, future home of 250,000 km of tropical coastline.

      What's your retirement plan? I've invested all my RRSPs (like a 401k) into scuba gear and sunblock.

      Dive Nanasvik!

      Have fun sharing your Canadian tropical paradise with a couple hundred millions of migrating Americans. Oh, wait! Canada will not even exist anymore as an independent country. No problem then.

    115. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah-ha! A climate alarmists is Dave420. Typical reaction to anyone who thinks different is he bullies them by calling them stupid. Yuppers.

    116. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      No, it's just you that don't get plural forms (or have a sense of humor, apparently)

    117. Re:Weather is NOT climate by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1

      GP stated figures for the last 60 million years. Your graph covers less than 2.5% of that range, so it doesn't have anywhere near enough data to refute the GP's claim.

      However, if you look at the graph of the last 65 million years, you'll see that we are, quite literally, the coldest we've been during that entire period.

      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
    118. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1

      What do waves and tides have to do with it? Why don't we start talking about deadly world pools and sea monsters?

    119. Re:Weather is NOT climate by khallow · · Score: 1

      The vast majority of research points to it being less hospitable, and there is a lot of good evidence that with rising temperatures come more heating feedbacks which will accelerate the process.

      Most of that "vast majority" of research says nothing about whether global warming will be net beneficial to humanity. As to that "good evidence" that rising temperature comes with "more" heating feedbacks, we have the obvious counter that the whole system is dominated by negative feedback, radiation of heat to space which occurs at roughly temperature to the fourth power.

      This is not some esoteric fact.

      Indeed, it's some guy on the internet making shit up.

    120. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (1) Its a big deal for the low lands

      In a few centuries.

      (2) Yes they have. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

      "Reducing emissions" won't do shit for climate change, it will just slightly delay temperature rise. We'd have to eliminate emissions, and that isn't going to happen.

    121. Re:Weather is NOT climate by khallow · · Score: 1

      And you have yet to mention anything which would actually significantly stress a civilization. A storm which rips off a few more shingles, levels a few more corn stalks, or breaks a few more windows is not going to threaten human civilization or agriculture.

      Similarly, the economy is extremely adaptable. Even human-caused problems such as the recent real estate crisis don't cause much problems despite being larger perturbations of human economics than climate change is.

      But what is most ludicrous is the assertion that shipping lanes are threatened. This is by far the most adaptable system you mention with real time adaption to weather much less climate. And its shore-side infrastructure can readily be modified to account for even the worst alleged sea level rises from global warming.

    122. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      They're not the same things either.

    123. Re:Weather is NOT climate by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Why don't you try writing something funny?

    124. Re:Weather is NOT climate by FreedomFirstThenPeac · · Score: 1

      As a practicing mathematician and statistician I really don't think the publicly available data is suitable for any weekend warriors to do their own analyses. The data that is available, I fear, will have been "cleaned" to ensure consistency with local dogma rather than to ensure suitability for analysis.

      --
      "There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
    125. Re:Weather is NOT climate by dl_sledding · · Score: 1

      You are perfectly right... I will not do my own analysis, and that is truly because I am not qualified. I fully admit that. However, I also do not believe that those who are doing it are qualified either, based on the horrible data that they are espousing.

      There are very many proven cases of improper baseline issues, poorly collected data, actual changing of raw data, and use of data without adjusting for local environmental changes. This is known but ignored (and even worse, denied) by pro-GCC pundits. It is simply a huge money pit, and there are those who are profiting heavily in both the scientific community and the money-providing foundations. It's all about money. Everything is about money.

      Oh, and there is no mud slinging here... As I stated in my previous post, it's bullshit that's being slung.

    126. Re:Weather is NOT climate by dl_sledding · · Score: 1

      Is the real, raw data even available to the public? From any type of research? I don't know, I am genuinely curious... I thought a lot of that was proprietary info and not generally available.

      And my cynical, paranoid side agrees with your fear, especially with GCC data: that it's been "cleaned". "Trust us! We're the professionals!"

    127. Re:Weather is NOT climate by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      Amounts don't worry.

      People worry.

    128. Re:Weather is NOT climate by riverat1 · · Score: 1
    129. Re:Weather is NOT climate by riverat1 · · Score: 1
    130. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      for the last 10 million years or so, we've had both a polar ocean surrounded by continents and a polar continent surrounded bya circumpolar currents.

      Global climate for such a gepgraphical scenario leans towards ice ages. There are brief pulses the other way, but the general tendency is ice.

      The last 10,000 years or so are a normal interglacial period, but it should be ending and temperatures should be tending cooler. On top of that there has _never_ been such a sudden change in CO2 levels that has been able to be picked up in geological records.

      We're living through the ultimate science experiment.The planet will survive, but civilisation and humans may not.

    131. Re:Weather is NOT climate by YaddaMinski · · Score: 1

      So humans expect the ice at the poles to stay the same? If ice was gaining, then they would scare us with ice age like in the 70's. The earth is self-regulating and will hopefully get rid of humans some day. The Great Lakes pretty much froze over this past winter. Lake Michigan is still around 42 F.

    132. Re:Weather is NOT climate by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Dude,

      http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6ftZ...

      It's spiked this sharply 5 times in the last 1 million years alone.

      That's the pattern- it's like an EKG- hard upstroke of CO2 and Temperature followed by a gradual fall in the co2 and temperature.

      It's likely it did 7 times but there isn't co2 data for the spikes at 900,000 and 975,000 years ago.

      The Co2 Levels are higher than they've been in over a million years and are rising (and have been rising) for decades. I think we can agree on that.

      And most of that increase is due to Chinese use of coal and less forests (in large part due too many people encroaching on the wilderness).

      I don't know about you- but I can't do jack about Chinese use of coal and no one seems to be seriously ready to talk about reducing the population (indeed the "max" population estimate has been creeping up over the years).

      Sure- I use LED and CFL Bulbs. But just about anything else I do is going to be like a spec of dust in the face of the other trends. Chinese pollution is so bad that it's still visible sometimes after crossing the pacific ocean and it's always measurable now.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    133. Re:Weather is NOT climate by D,Petkow · · Score: 1

      http://youtu.be/cBdxDFpDp_k Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down the differences between weather and climate change.

  4. Drill Drop Squirt Boom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many times do we have to perform this sequence before everyone realises it's a one-way process?

  5. Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anecdotally, I don't believe the Earth revolves around the sun and YOU CAN'T MAKE ME.

    That doesn't mean it's not the case, that I'm qualified to research or understand the model or that my opinion holds ANY weight whatsoever.

    What it means is that on some topics, the "majority opinion" doesn't really have much bearing on the facts of the matter - and thus "Democratic" approaches to dealing with problems that are important but beyond the scope/scale of one person or group's anecdotal experiences probably won't be successful without education.

    Should we listen to what they have to say? Absolutely. With that grain of salt handy, absolutely. They aren't 99% of the world's climatologists.

    1. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think the point of the article isn't that this means anything about climate change, rather that these are people likely to be more heavily affected by climate change than anyone else - they are the ones that should be taking an interest and being involved, and the exact opposite appears to be happening, they are denying it.

    2. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by u38cg · · Score: 1

      While in general I agree with you - you are talking about a group of people here who do their life's work at the junction of the earth and the air. It is true they may be misguided or misinformed. But their opinions were not arrived at through talk radio.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    3. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While in general I agree with you - you are talking about a group of people here who do their life's work at the junction of the earth and the air. It is true they may be misguided or misinformed. But their opinions were not arrived at through talk radio.

      No, they formed them through the internet, like everyone else these days. Where do you think these people live, anyway?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by itzly · · Score: 1

      They are not denying that climate has changed.

    5. Re: Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to interject here; I've met and talked with probably almost 100 people that are farmers in my life all over North America and I would give scientific weight on their climate views absolutely 0.

      Give me any major or minor view on climate change and I'll find you 1000 farmers from Arkansas (for example) that agree with it, along with agreeing that the world is flat too. It doesn't make it true.

      Some random Swedish farmers opinions shouldn't even be news worthy, because we could all find millions of groups that have millions of opinions and those could be news too, news that DOESN'T MATTER.

    6. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by ultranova · · Score: 4, Insightful

      While in general I agree with you - you are talking about a group of people here who do their life's work at the junction of the earth and the air. It is true they may be misguided or misinformed. But their opinions were not arrived at through talk radio.

      The chances are that they arrived at them through the time-honored "head in bushes" -method: Something will cause me great harm if true. I don't really have any real power over it, nor any way to significantly mitigate the damage through preparation. Therefore, I'll disbelief it to protect myself from stress and worry.

      If true, such feeling of disempowerment is a bigger problem to Sweden than climate change. The latter is ultimately a matter of enduring hardship and adapting, which is something the Nordics are quite familiar with; but the former is a spiritual malaise that ultimately leads to dysfunctional society and democracy de facto falling and degenerating to corporacy, as has happened in the US.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    7. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Endloser · · Score: 1

      Well technically the Earth doesn't revolve around the sun. http://zidbits.com/2011/09/the-earth-doesnt-actually-orbit-the-sun/

    8. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the point of the article isn't that this means anything about climate change, rather that these are people likely to be more heavily affected by climate change than anyone else - they are the ones that should be taking an interest and being involved, and the exact opposite appears to be happening, they are denying it.

      A farmer, as an individual which will have about 40 years of production, climate change is really a too slow process to significantly alter the production situation, especially in Scandinavia with its continued land rise and large masses of nearby water dampening the swings (at least until/if the Gulf stream diverts).

      Few can see much beyond one's own scope.

    9. Re: Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      I hate to break it to you but as an anonymous coward on slashdot your opinion is worth even less.

    10. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Sweden which is genrally a more civilised and better educated county than America.

    11. Re: Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hate to break it to you but as an anonymous coward on slashdot your opinion is worth even less.

      Why? I see no reason that his views matter less than a farmers. Given that you don't know who they are they might be part of the IPCC.

    12. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      In Sweden which is genrally a more civilised and better educated county than America.

      Well, that is in fact my point. If it were the USA, you could be excused for thinking that they didn't have internet access.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      True but the barycenter between the Earth and the Sun is pretty damn close to the center of the Sun.

    14. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Endloser · · Score: 1

      Agreed, but it is very misleading since not all planets in our solar system share a point near Earth's barycenter. This can lead to a good deal of confusion when asking questions such as, "Does Jupiter revolve around the Sun?" No, it does not. But how many people do you think would knee jerk a "Yes"? So the correct response anytime someone asks if a planet revolves around a star is "No." And that is because they do not. Let's use our words to educate instead of mislead due to a lazy explanation. If we want to teach something to someone who cannot understand what we are trying to teach, we are teaching them incorrectly. They should not suffer due to our laziness. (This comment is directed at our education system; not any of the posts in this thread.) http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/barycenter/en/

    15. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      But their opinions were not arrived at through talk radio.

      Maybe not. But farmers are typically conservatives, and it is conservatives that tend to deny science.

    16. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems entirely possible that the Earth is the ONLY thing in the entire universe that doesn't move, and the insane motion of everything else helps keep the system in check.

    17. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Yes, Jupiter's barycenter is outside of the Sun but that is the only object orbiting the Sun that can be said about. I guess the accurate way of saying that is that objects orbit around the center of mass of the two objects (of course that is complicated by the presence of other objects).

    18. Re: Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      As Amiga3D said, the AC's opinion is worth less than the Swedish farmers' opinions. If the AC is from the IPCC, its opinion is certainly worthless.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    19. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      Both sides deny science, if it fits their politics.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    20. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anecdotally, I didn't believe that the economy was going great great great in 2001 and 2008 and no amount of financial experts could convince me otherwise.

      I wasn't qualified to make any predictions on the economy of economic policies what so ever. My opinions held no weight, but they were still my opinions and I believed then that the economy was a shell game because I looked around me and realized most of the work people were doing was bullshit. It was an information economy after all, we don't have to make shit.

      Today the experts say global warming is a fact. I am not qualified to dispute them, but I still believe their approach is bullshit, mainly because I look around me and don't think the world is getting that much warmer. I will give you that there is such a thing as man made climate change, not because the experts say there is, but because as someone pointed out there a close to 7 billion people on the planet. To me it doesn't make sense that we wouldn't have an afftect on the cliamate. The only way to eliminate that affect like all the greenies are trying to do would be to eliminate all human life on the planet. Bam no more man made climate. All the greenies want solar, wind and tidal power. Guess what if you build enough windmills to generate enough electricity, won't that have an affect on wind patterns, wont that affect the climate. If you want to pollute less, I can understand that. In that case the greenest energy would be nuclear. No the greenies don't want that. Rather than trying to shut down all human innovation and progress with green policies, how about using that mind that is admittedly soo much superior to mine that I can not even contemplate the arguments that are irrefutably being used to prove global warming; and instead use that great mind to develop a long term space colonization plan, that way we are not putting all our eggs in one basket. The dinosaurs didn't build one coal burning power plant, yet the climate wiped them out. The birds who were smarter and developed a way to fly survived. Rather that shutting down power plants because we will kill everything on the planet if we burn coal, how about building space craft so we can survive in the event that the planet turns against us just because she is evil.

    21. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by schnell · · Score: 1

      Both sides deny science, if it fits their politics.

      Internet FOUL! How DARE you introduce logical and rational statements into an Internet argument, sir.

      The next thing you know, people will be equating the same degree of "magical thinking" with conservative farmers denying the evidence of climate change and liberal farmers touting the lack of evidence of benefits of non-GMO produce. Have you no shame?

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    22. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who are you to say the earth doesn't revolve around the sun? You're not a Swedish farmer.

    23. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the point of the article isn't that this means anything about climate change, rather that these are people likely to be more heavily affected by climate change than anyone else - they are the ones that should be taking an interest and being involved, and the exact opposite appears to be happening, they are denying it.

      Well, even if the average Swedish farmer emits twice the carbon dioxide of the other citizens it would still mean that they contribute less to global warming than many climatologists.
      So what we have here is essentially some dude pointing fingers at a group of people that in their ignorance is still better than the group he belongs to.

    24. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Conservatives tend to doubt good science on global warming. Every political movement is based partly on irrationality (it's really hard to build a big movement on the cool-headed rational people), but they tend to be irrational about different things, or at least in different directions. I'm not claiming that liberals are necessarily more rational, but on climate science they tend to line up with the scientists.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    25. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Both sides deny science, if it fits their politics.

      That may be true, however conservatives seem to find it happens more often that their politics are in conflict with science.

    26. Re:Who CARES what non-science approaches "think"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The chances are that they arrived at them through the time-honored "head in bushes" -method: Something will cause me great harm if true. I don't really have any real power over it, nor any way to significantly mitigate the damage through preparation. Therefore, I'll disbelief it to protect myself from stress and worry.

      This, and let's face it, and I mean no offense -- farmers tend to be rural people who, even in Sweden (and here in Finland) are the more conservative -- and slightly simple -- type. In Finland it also is combined with distrust of governmental/"elite" authority that borders on what you see in the US rednecks. Hicks are hicks, regardless of nationality.

  6. In other words.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Farmers who haven't read up on climate change state that mild winters, on their own, aren't sufficient evidence for climate change.

  7. That proves it by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We can safely discard decades of satellite data and trends on global weather and climate, and the analysis of all climatologists all around the world, because a few carefully choosen farmers in sweden think that it is not happening.

    1. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can safely discard decades of satellite data and trends on global weather and climate, and the analysis of all climatologists all around the world, because a few carefully choosen farmers^h^h^h^h^h^h congessmen in sweden^h^h^h^h^h^h the US think that it is not happening.

    2. Re:That proves it by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      you are funny, the actual tale told by the satellite data shows cooling in 70s then warming and now slight cooling

    3. Re:That proves it by AchilleTalon · · Score: 1

      That's not what the article says. Perhaps you should read it more carefully.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    4. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      my farmer almanac's accuracy begs to differ

    5. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People in general are stupid and gullible.

      If I've learned one thing in my life, it is this: whenever you feel the need to express this sentiment, look to thyself first.

    6. Re:That proves it by callmetheraven · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Are you retarded?

      fuck yourself nazi libtard ac

      --
      You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
    7. Re:That proves it by callmetheraven · · Score: 0

      look to thyself first.

      safe to say you were looking in the mirror while you typed this?

      --
      You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
    8. Re:That proves it by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1, Troll

      I think the tin foil is finally getting to you. You're supposed to swath your body in it, not eat it.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    9. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely. I always consider the possibility that I'm an idiot. Sometimes I even manage to figure that out before reality forces me to.

      As a result, I've learned that the times I am most likely to be saying something stupid is when I find myself marveling at the stupidity of other people. I also tend to assume this is true about everyone.

    10. Re: That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen! And I would add that most research scientists get funding/grants from the same governments who want to establish a 'global warming' tax in the first place.

    11. Re:That proves it by Oligonicella · · Score: 2

      And to a long, detailed, thought out post we have here the typical follower's knee-jerk response.

      This is one of many reasons people are not believing the claims.

    12. Re:That proves it by DexterIsADog · · Score: 2

      And to a long, detailed, thought out post we have here the typical follower's knee-jerk response.

      This is one of many reasons people are not believing the claims.

      The problem is that the deniers keep trotting out the *same* nonsense and outright lies, and at some point we have to say, enough. Saying that people don't believe the science because the scientists don't take every crazy rant seriously and debunk the lies endlessly is to participate in the strategy to keep us from taking action before it's too late.

      If you really believe what you said, here's how you can help - post a link about that claim he made that Escondido changed the traffic light patterns to increase their speeding ticket revenue.

    13. Re:That proves it by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      Evidently climate scientists can ignore the data and falsify what they need to buttress the alarm.

      The ends justify the means. The tired 97% of climate scientists agree...has been thoroughly debunked. People are seeing this for the scam that it really is.

      WHEN WILL THE SHEEPLE FINALLY REALISE THE LIZARDS ARE THE REAL MASTERS.

      Man the crackpot denialist invasion of slashdot is getting tiring. What happened to the website that actually shouted down cranky god damn denialists, creationists and other conspiratorial loons.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    14. Re:That proves it by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      Not sure which you are talking about. The ones denying the scam or the ones denying the truth.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    15. Re: That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen! And I would add that most research scientists get funding/grants from the same governments who want to establish a 'global warming' tax in the first place.

      No they don't. The governments took a lot of convincing from scientists; It was definitely not what they wanted to hear.

    16. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The trend in satellite data is for warming. This doesn't mean every point on the earth has always increased in temperature year-on-year

    17. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Either way, they're damaging our movement so they need to be silenced. We need to support long prison terms for these deniers. Despite being racists and killing millions of people just because of their race, the German people got it right when they started putting Holocaust deniers in prison. Racists like the Germans are the dumbest people on the planet, but even they got this right. Why can't we get this right wrt climate disruption?

      Poor strawman, must try harder. E+

    18. Re:That proves it by khallow · · Score: 1

      Nor does it mean that there is any significant warming effects going on. Recall that we've had satellites capable of measuring something close to global mean temperature for perhaps 40 years.

    19. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/10/1305332110.abstract?sid=e22ab694-2066-4020-ac72-0ffa469dbae9

      The authors of this paper think there is evidence of AGW from the satellite data. Although satellite temperature data is measuring radiance in the atmosphere I believe rather than ground or sea temperature.

    20. Re:That proves it by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Regular satellite measurements of the Earth's temperature didn't start until November of 1979.

    21. Re: That proves it by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      If you're more worried about money than the scientific evidence you're doing it wrong.

    22. Re:That proves it by zippthorne · · Score: 1

      You're not really doing anyone any favors by calling people "deniers." I get that you want to refer to people who hold on to skepticism by using a pejorative, but it's only going to have a polarizing effect, preventing those who were on or near the fence from coming over to your side.

      Especially when the pejorative in question is a deliberate reference to anti-semetics who pretend that the freaking holocaust never happened, often with the side claim that they would like there to be one now.

      Most people don't like to be associated, even in a small way, with a group like that.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    23. Re:That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That "long, detailed, thought out post" was a string of irrelevant anecdotes and debunked talking points.

      Traffic lights? Really? You do realize that city traffic planners currently aren't tasked with reducing carbon emissions as their #1 priority, right? Maybe they should have that, but they don't - and the fact that they don't, is not in itself evidence against climate change. If anything, it's evidence that city authorities are terrified of raising taxes.

      The "in the 70s we were on the cusp of the next ice age" stuff? Garbage. I was there in the 70s, I remember the "next ice age" talk as something that was centuries away. There was one - counting from left to right, one - non-peer-reviewed article that said it would happen much sooner than that, and that's somehow become inflated in anti-AGW mythology into "the big scare of the decade".

      Al Gore makes money out of carbon credits? If, 100 years ago, a businessman foresaw that "oil is going to be big in the future" and put their money into oil, would that be evidence that they were full of shit? Only if you have a very strange view of "evidence".

      And that's why the GGP post isn't getting the respect you think it deserves. Because it doesn't remotely deserve it.

    24. Re:That proves it by dave420 · · Score: 1

      It's not scepticism, though - it's cynicism. There's a big difference, even though both positions start by not believing the claims. A sceptic will review the evidence and be willing to change their position. A cynic will hold on to their position regardless.

    25. Re:That proves it by MichaelSimpson77 · · Score: 1
      Seriously anonomous coward? I put my name on it. Where's yours? Just because you are gullible enough to believe everything your overlords tell you, means you know jack. You response is an unthought out attack on me. Do you have pussy tattooed on your forehead? Again, if climate change is so critical, why do the solutions look like a means to extract money from the masses? Why do the solutions not look like solutions? Cap and Trade? Give me a break.

      AC, I know you. You are a pedantic little pajama, hot chocolate drinking boy hiding behind his keyboard.

      Debunked talking points? By who, DailyKaos or HuffPo? If you really have been around since the 70's, you would have remembered the drought and fires from the 70s.

    26. Re: That proves it by MichaelSimpson77 · · Score: 1

      Where the friggin like button. We have a winner. When people are paid to take a position, they lose thier ability to be unbiased.

    27. Re:That proves it by MichaelSimpson77 · · Score: 1
      Well, you now know how the thinking masses feel about the invasion of a non-thinking species. The definition of crackpot is usually assigned to alarmists who run around screaming that the sky is falling.

      Not one iota of fact presented. Just a stream of attacks. Pathetic.

    28. Re:That proves it by MichaelSimpson77 · · Score: 1

      Why is it the alarmists all post as AC, but the rational ones are willing to post with their names? I think it's obvious. Self assured people stand behind their convictions.

    29. Re:That proves it by MichaelSimpson77 · · Score: 1

      The problem is that the deniers keep trotting out the *same* nonsense and outright lies, and at some point we have to say, enough. Saying that people don't believe the science because the scientists don't take every crazy rant seriously and debunk the lies endlessly is to participate in the strategy to keep us from taking action before it's too late. If you really believe what you said, here's how you can help - post a link about that claim he made that Escondido changed the traffic light patterns to increase their speeding ticket revenue.

      The problem is that the alarmists keep trotting out the *same* nonsense and outright lies, and at some point we have to say, enough. Saying that people don't believe the science because the scientists don't take every crazy rant seriously and debunk the lies endlessly is to participate in the strategy to keeps taking money from the middle class and redistributes it to the wealthy.

      Did you see what I did there? I just fed your stupid response back to you. It sounds just as banal coming from me as it did you.

    30. Re: That proves it by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Or have different goals than some of us.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    31. Re: That proves it by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      All the money in the world won't insulate you from the effects in the long run. It didn't cure Steve Jobs pancreatic cancer.

    32. Re:That proves it by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Not one iota of fact presented. Just a stream of attacks. Pathetic.

      Listen cletus, I dont know how its done in alibama, but over here in the north we have this thing called "science" and its done by men called "scientists", not bloggers, preachers, marketing people, or conservative politicians. Now in science we do this thing called "literature review" and it turns out I don't need to present evidence, because other folks have done it for me. Simply go to google, type in IPCC , go to their website and download the reports and theres all the evidence, from tens of thousands of physicts you'll ever need.

      And if that doesn't satisfy you, sorry dude, but your too far gone to be helped, and perhaps a better google search is "banjo tabelature"

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    33. Re:That proves it by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Not sure which you are talking about. The ones denying the scam or the ones denying the truth.

      The crazy god damn loons who think there is a vast left wing conspiracy of hundreds of thousands of scientists lying about physics FOR SOME REASON.

      I'm sorry, but in 2014 there is no functional difference between being a creationist and a global warming denier. It just requires too much belief in weird lizardoid conspiracy theories involving a conspiracy to lie about science going back to the 1870s for reason nobody can seem to explain.

      Personally I'd go for Occams law and suggest the reason 97% of atmospheric physicists say AGM is beyond all reasonable doubt is because thats what the god damn evidence says, and its said that since scientists started talking about the spectral banding in CO2 over 100 god damn years ago.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    34. Re:That proves it by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      So you don't think money has anything to do with it? On either side? Or just one side?

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    35. Re: That proves it by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Money allowed Jobs to be on multiple transplant waiting lists. I could arrange to be on the shortest one, and live in whatever city, but keeping aircraft available at all times to reach a distant transplant center within the allotted eight hours or so would strain my finances. Stupidity allowed the cancer to get as far as it did.

      Similarly, global warming isn't going to affect me much. I live high above the Mississippi, well north, in an area with lots and lots of fresh water, and if prices of stuff I need go up sharply I'm not in trouble. It will be moderately troublesome at worst.

      Somebody with CEO-level income will have home, car, and office climate-controlled for comfort, and will be even less annoyed if food prices double.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    36. Re: That proves it by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Somebody with CEO-level income will have home, car, and office climate-controlled for comfort, and will be even less annoyed if food prices double.

      I said in the long run. If the effects of global warming cause our civilization to break down people will have other things to worry about than providing wealthy people with the amenities.

    37. Re: That proves it by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In the long run, I'm dead. I don't expect to live another fifty years, and I'll be able to insulate myself from most of the ill effects that long. I'm more concerned about my son, but people in the upper 10% of income in the US are going to be able to pass an awful lot of suffering onto other people.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    38. Re:That proves it by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

      You're not getting the point - it's gone on so long, and is so nakedly motivated by greed, manipulation of the media, or hatred, that we should stop giving credence to the willfully ignorant and the outright liars, and spend energy in other pursuits.

      You're really not doing anyone any favors by quibbling over the term "deniers". It's accurate.

    39. Re:That proves it by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sure - except that the climate scientists are *actually* correct, and people who are *correct* have to stop responding to the batshit crazy lies from the other side.

      You sound like one of those "teach the controversy" ninnies, which is fine, until the only "controversy" left is maintained by people peddling lies motivated by greed and hatred.

  8. Re:Libtards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your aids has affected your brain.

  9. The Earth is big. Really big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Farmers also spend a lot of time outdoors, unlike researchers, and have a better idea of how minor human effects are.

    1. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your brain is small. Really small. Being outdoors probably isn't going to help you understand climate patterns any more than watching Fox News will help you understand politics.

      We have measured the increase in the percentages of several gasses in our atmosphere, big or small, it has changed - denialists like you need a hole in the head.

      You have no idea how "minor" or major the effects of human industry are, because you're too stupid/feckless even to honestly look. Go die of thirst already.

    2. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Farmers also spend a lot of time outdoors, unlike researchers, and have a better idea of how minor human effects are."

      They also shat in their fields for millenia giving all the population worms and other parasites before science told them to stop.

      That was a 'human effect' too.

    3. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and fucked farm animals for entertainment thus spreading gloriously nasty bugs around the human race.

    4. Re: The Earth is big. Really big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've not heard of that, but scientists enga/ed in fucknng gorillas because they wanted to breed super soldiersg so scientists are just as likely to be degenerate idiots as farmers.

    5. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being outdoors probably isn't going to help you understand climate patterns any more than watching Mainstream Media will help you understand politics.

      FTFY

      This country's got to pay more attention to the Wingnut Media to make sense of these things!

    6. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      And like the effect under discussion, a far less of one than the benefits provided by farming, especially considering the effect was present prior to the farming.

    7. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      ... and fucked farm animals for entertainment thus spreading gloriously nasty bugs around the human race.

      Now now, I think it's probably safe to say that some of them only made out.

      I mean, seriously, you've seen people with their pets, right? DEE-scusting.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 0

      ... any more than watching Fox News will help you understand politics.

      Watching Fox News is absolutely essential for understanding American politics. Or did you think ignoring the number one influencer (by viewer count) in news when trying to understand the thing being influenced is a good idea?

      ...denialists like you need a hole in the head.

      Yay for anonymous violence.

      Go die of thirst already.

      The National Weather Service has had a flood warning in effect in my region literally every day for the past two months. What thirst?

      Congratulations, by your rhetoric, you have successfully demonstrated that you belong to the "correct" team. What, you want a cookie?

    9. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because they're looking at the whole planet instead of just their little piece of it. Right.

    10. Re:The Earth is big. Really big. by YaddaMinski · · Score: 1

      Yes, the would is dynamic and changes all the time. Life is non-linear aF(x) not equal F(ax) and F(x+y) not equal F(x) + F(y) for some x and y.

  10. Re:Libtards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your rapant racism betrays you as a closet member of the racist Democratic Party. Stop hating yourself.

  11. You are really stoopid. Really stoopid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    n/t

  12. Sweden has been luck by mdsolar · · Score: 2

    Maps showing anomalies for summer heat in the paper "Perception of climate change" by Hansen et al. show Sweden as having led a charmed existence so far. http://www.pnas.org/content/10...

    The US Northwest and Mid-Atlantic, A region around the Urals and China have been fortunate thus far as well.

    1. Re:Sweden has been luck by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The US Northwest and Mid-Atlantic, A region around the Urals and China have been fortunate thus far as well.

      I've been to Scandinavia and it's COLD there. TBH if I lived there I'd want all the warming I could get.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Sweden has been luck by mdsolar · · Score: 1

      That's what the saunas are for.

    3. Re:Sweden has been luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Eh? Cold in Sweden? I go tanning nude starting in late March. August is the warmest month and the heat remains until September. Of course, the rest of the year sucks.

    4. Re: Sweden has been luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the best argument skeptics have. While global clamate may change, who's to say it won't create more arable land elsewhere? If farming all moved to Canada/Scandinavia/Russia and South Africa/Australia/Chile, and the coasts all moved inland 10 miles, exactly what is th tragedy?

    5. Re: Sweden has been luck by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      It's not "the best argument", but it is a good one.

      The best one is "follow the money", then "follow the power".

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    6. Re: Sweden has been luck by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Neither of your arguments have anything to do with science. Neither are even arguments of any kind, just blather.

    7. Re: Sweden has been luck by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry. I thought the article was about Swedish farmers, and the reason they don't believe the AGW doom predictions.

      Maybe I should read the submission again so I understand it is a fully scientific discussion.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  13. It's all a Viking plot by Culture20 · · Score: 1

    They want to make Scandinavia the breadbasket of Europe.

    1. Re:It's all a Viking plot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The gnome team begs to differ.

  14. satellite data shows no warming for past 17 years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Check the data, satellite data shows no warming for the past almost 18 years, despite a time when 25% of all human CO2 has been emitted.

    Hmm, something wrong with the models !

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/04/the-pause-continues-still-no-global-warming-for-17-years-9-months/

    The surface temperature records are heavily manipulated to make the present warmer, and the past cooler to create a trend for political purposes. The satellite record is not so corrupted.

    We do have a new pristine temperature series in the US, the CRN (climate reference network) with no flaky adjustments, but it is only 10 years old.
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/noaa-shows-the-pause-in-the-u-s-surface-temperature-record-over-nearly-a-decade/

    And guess what, it shows NO warming. Scroll down in the article, to see the graph. Of course 10 years is a short period, but again NO warming detected with our best monitoring system.

  15. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Someone who can see more than one paticular area and who keeps particular records of temperatures and weather patterns?

  16. Swedish farmers are wise by rubycodez · · Score: 0, Troll

    patiently watching reality always trumps agenda driven hysteria

    meanwhile the IPCC has been furiously back pedaling on its more dire predictions since 2000

    1. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember back in 1991, Florida was predicted to be under water by now. If these people actually made reasonable predictions instead of insisting the sky was falling and always giving the most dire of possible outcomes, people would take them more seriously about legit concerns regarding real climate change. They literally spent 30 years pissing away good will, or at least letting the uninformed news media and political activists speak for them and contort the message. Of course people don't believe them now.

    2. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... IPCC has been furiously back pedaling...

      Furiously back pedaling? - or - Careful restatement of certain specific points based upon new information, while keeping the overall context intact?

      .
      I've seen so much over the top hype and hysteria from the climate change deniers, that I no longer believe their 10 word or less summaries of why climate change is not happening.

      The climate change deniers need to start presenting a better level of peer-reviewed data and conclusions, and stop their unproven assertions (note: hypothetical research papers funded by the oil and coal industries, however well that funding is hidden, do not count.)

    3. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by bunratty · · Score: 2

      I remember back in 1991, Florida was predicted to be under water by now.

      [citation needed]

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    4. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by rubycodez · · Score: 0

      except those "certain specific points" that had "carefully restatement" were the most sensational and dire predictions

      reallity is trumping hysteria, get over it

    5. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What actually happened is that as more data came in, the confidence interval narrowed and is now focusing in somewhere around the middle of the old confidence interval.

      Naturally, this means that some of the most severe scenarios haven't verified. If the most extreme predictions were actually the ones that were true, that would indicate that science was doing a terrible job, since in that case it would turn out that almost everyone underestimated.

      It also means that some of the least severe scenarios (including the "this'll all blow over" scenario) haven't verified either, but you didn't pay attention to that since you were busy riding your hobbyhorse.

    6. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      And frankly, the hysteria mongers need to quit using "climate change deniers" as this is a misnomer, purposefully omitting that it's AGW that being challenged.

    7. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      very funny spin, spin-doctor

      (different AC here)... That's it. That's your "better level of peer-reviewed data and conclusions". Someone teaches you about extremes being further out than averages, something you seem to have difficulty grasping, and your entire answer comes down to an ad hominem?

    8. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      sorry pal, but the IPCC predictions being back pedalled on were "the averages" of their report

    9. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you mean like the NIPCC reports?

    10. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by itzly · · Score: 2

      Actually, deniers usually go like this: Climate isn't changing (there's a pause!). Even if the climate is changing, it's not caused by CO2 (it's the sun!). Even if CO2 causes climate change, humans didn't produce it. Even if humans have caused it, the effect isn't bad (CO2 is good for plants!). Even if the effect is bad, it's not catastrophic (I like it a bit warmer where I live). Even if the effect is catastrophic, there's nothing we can do about it.

    11. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      And frankly, the hysteria mongers need to quit using "climate change deniers" as this is a misnomer, purposefully omitting that it's AGW that being challenged.

      The more accurate term would be "climate science deniers".

    12. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Florida was predicted to be under water by now

      That was actually in my elementary science textbook from 1976, and it claimed it would happen by 2000. IIRC, the group of scientists it cited were quoting a 20 meter rise in the sea level. It also quoted William Ruckelshaus, first head of the EPA, that we wouldn't be able to leave our homes without wearing a gas mask by the late-1990s. This constant crying of wolf by these anti-science people has made it impossible for real scientists to be taken seriously. The "science is a democracy" crowd that the President keeps quoting is more of a joke. Science is facts. It is not a group opinion.

    13. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember back in 1991, Florida was predicted to be under water by now.

      I don't recall that. Was it a drunk on a street corner? It sounds a rather typical false claim.

      I must admit though I was under the impression most of Florida was swamp anyway so isn't most of it sort of 'underwater' anyway? Never ever been to Florida though so could be a mile wide on this.

    14. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Weekly World News.

      Whereas the far more reliable National Inquirer reported that Cuba and Florida would be joined together,and Castro would be elected President of Floriba/Cubida by now.

    15. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      And, in the end, they got it right so why are you arguing with them in the first place?

    16. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And, in the end, they got it right so why are you arguing with them in the first place?

      Please explain how they got it right. They are wrong in every example he gives.

    17. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Every single shred of evidence points to them not being correct. If one of them was correct, and did not base their conclusion on opinion, they could win the Nobel prize in a heartbeat, and have endless funding for whatever science they want to work on for the rest of their lives. It's rather telling that they haven't.

    18. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      That there is nothing we can do about it because we didn't cause it.

    19. Re:Swedish farmers are wise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Careful restatement of certain specific points based upon new information, while keeping the overall context intact?

      If the 97% or 99% or 99.999% knew what the fuck they were talking about, then no "restatements" would be required. It would be additions. Only additions. Possibly reduction of error bars, et cetera. Restatements, recastings, hemming, hawing, hedging. All that implies that skepticism of consensus science is justified.

  17. Climate is ALWAYS changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's part of natural solar and planetary cycles. There is certainly not a unanimous agreement among the scientific community about whether or not man made CO2 has any substantial effect. The NIPCC produces reports to counter the IPCC reports using the very same scientific research reports that the IPCC uses, except they prove that the research has the opposite conclusion. I don't care that the Libertarian leaning Heartland Institute helped create the NIPCC reports because the UN and government agencies helped create the IPCC report which also have their own political agendas.

    1. Re:Climate is ALWAYS changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Further, to all you people that think CO2 is a "pollutant": 1) stop breathing - you exhale CO2; 2) plant a tree - they consume CO2; 3) stop mixing science and politics - scientists with a political agenda are not scientists; 4) watch The Great Global Warming Swindle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtevF4B4RtQ
      I am not a "denier"; I simply don't have my head up my ass. BS Princeton, MS & PhD Rice - all in quantitive hard-sciences - not humanities political bullshit.

    2. Re:Climate is ALWAYS changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please, research more before talk.

    3. Re:Climate is ALWAYS changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think CO2 is a greenhouse gas as it causes greater warming than the standard atmosphere. Whether this make it a pollutant is definitional and likely to be dependent on the current environment.
      Certainly users of CO2 are useful in reducing the amount in the atmosphere. There's been quite an increase taken in by sea organisms I believe. Still the amount of CO2 rises.
      Scientists who fake results for political ends are not scientists but a scientist can be a good scientist and political.

  18. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Researchers the world over almost unanimously agree that our climate is changing" if this was true, there would be no climate deniers, we would all agree"

    If you were a RESEARCHER, that is.

  19. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's plenty of people who believe that germs don't cause disease, that the Earth is the center of the universe, that Einstein was wrong, that the Holocaust didn't happen.... so does their denial indicate they have a point, or that there's always a few idiots who believe nonsense?

  20. Re:funny by bunratty · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why would there be no deniers if researchers almost unanimously agree? Biologists nearly unanimously agree that evolution is caused by random mutations and natural selection, but there are many millions of people that believe an intelligent agent designed all DNA. Never underestimate the power of a person to disagree if agreeing means that they will need to alter their worldview.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  21. Re:funny by u38cg · · Score: 1

    I take it you don't believe in atom decay either?

    --
    [FUCK BETA]
  22. Motivated reasoning by benjfowler · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It's motivated reasoning: farmers are 'against' climate change, because the implications of it being true would force them to make difficult changes. Therefore they choose not to believe this fact.

    Farmers are typically greedy and not very bright -- mostly due to a 'Dead Sea effect' of all the bright and motivated people leaving rural communities, leaving the genetic detritus behind.

    1. Re:Motivated reasoning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh, a John Kerry liberal. If your smart and rich you go to college, if not you become a farmer (he said join the military and get stuck in Iraq)

      Did you ever stop to consider for a second that insulting people isn't the best way to get them to listen to your arguments? You liberals have insulted people to the point where by default they don't belive you so they look up for themselves. They then see things like what Phil Jones did at the CRU, they see no warming for 18 years, they check the IPCC predictions from past years against actual temperatures and make the conclusion that what you are saying isn't truthful. Instead of trying to correct your arguments, you instead double down on insults.

      So we can either believe what we have looked up ourselves and "risk" being called names by you, or we can ignore facts we have seen just in hopes that you won't call us more names. Guess what most people are choosing these days?

    2. Re:Motivated reasoning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having lived both in the city and in the country, I don't see any difference in intelligence. Greed is everywhere. What is different is farmers are conservative. Those who embrace change, who can deal with people from other cultures leave. The bigots and conservatives stay behind.

    3. Re:Motivated reasoning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I can tell you are not a farmer, and certainly aren't familiar with any other farmers. In my experience--and that of many of my colleagues--the typical bell curve of innovation and knowledge acceptance is not different from the larger population. You have forward thinking early adopters, the slower changing mass in the middle, and those who must be dragged kicking and screaming from one millennium into the next.
       
      true, a certain conservatism guides farming decisions--we're not too distant from a time when a bad choice or bad timing would lead to hunger and misery for an entire community. At least farmers can give concrete reasons for what you perceive as silly.
       
      But overall, your post is rather ignorant. But then again, if I couldn't grow a crop, I guess I'd feel inferior like you. Farming and Fighting are the only real skills needed for abundant life. Every thing else is ancillary.

    4. Re:Motivated reasoning by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      You are correct that it is motivated reasoning. However, not in the way you seem to think. Farmers are highly motivated to understand what the weather is going to be like from year to year (how hot is it going to be, how much is it going to rain, etc), because if they get it wrong they go broke and starve. If enough farmers get it wrong, we all starve. In summary, it is more important to a farmer to get it right than it is to a climatologist.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    5. Re:Motivated reasoning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot Fucking, make it the 3 Fs :)
      Even if you replace farming with fishing it still works! :)

  23. There's something rotten in Denmark too by mdsolar · · Score: 2, Informative

    Bjorn Lomborg Is Part Of The Koch Network — And Cashing In: http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

    1. Re:There's something rotten in Denmark too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hehe, very good read, ty. the lil dane bitch...

    2. Re:There's something rotten in Denmark too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so?
      "Global warming is real â" it is man-made and it is an important problem. But it is not the end of the world." - Bjorn Lomborg.

    3. Re:There's something rotten in Denmark too by Mashiki · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh noes, the evil Koch's. Apparently linking to a Soros linked group for "objectivity" is a-okay though.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    4. Re:There's something rotten in Denmark too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd rate my 5 yr old nephew above the Koch brother's.

    5. Re:There's something rotten in Denmark too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We don't want to here about your sexual fantasies.

    6. Re:There's something rotten in Denmark too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We don't want to here about your sexual fantasies.

      /. their is a 1 missing from in front of the 0 on this comment's rating!

  24. Re:funny by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2

    Biologists nearly unanimously agree that evolution is caused by random mutations and natural selection, but there are many millions of people that believe an intelligent agent designed all DNA.

    I don't believe the two concepts are mutually exclusive, for a few reasons. First, "Random" is a subjective term, in the sense that a particular person considers something "random" if he can't spot a pattern. Secondly, most Christians I know consider it perfectly consistent with their worldview to believe that evolution is a mechanism by which God achieves His goals.

    Never underestimate the power of a person to disagree if agreeing means that they will need to alter their worldview.

    Then presumably that's true for persons on every side of an issue, no?

  25. Got some smart farmers up there..... by bricko · · Score: 1

    Got some smart farmers up there.....

  26. Re:Who you gonna believe? by GNious · · Score: 2

    Definitely not the one who thinks that farmers dealing with weather means the same farmers are dealing with climate

  27. Ha! Sweden is full of Republican farmers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The infection! It is spreading! Where is the Last Ship now?

    Skoh!

  28. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    A fact means the models should match the observed results

    Unfortunately, there are no correct models. The question is: does a model with a smaller climate sensitivity produce a better match with reality ?

  29. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, I believe, here in south hemisphere, year after year, we face abrupt changes from high and lows temperatures, short winter with less days of low temperatures and records of high temperatures exactly how models are predicting.

  30. Re:Who you gonna believe? by itzly · · Score: 2

    Well, if you read the article, the farmers are not denying that the climate is changing, as they can clearly see this themselves. They are disagreeing about the cause. Now, how much experience do farmers have with climate change and its possible causes ? Not much at all. They've only seen climate change once in their lifetimes.

  31. What The Hell by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

    So I went into the thesis.

    There is NOTHING quantitative here. Department of Thematic Studies? WTF?

    As far as I can tell this is a conclusion based on building castles in the air.

  32. Uninformed researcher by Livius · · Score: 2

    The key is the last item in the article:

    “This is a resistance to decrees which they think undermine competitive Swedish agricultural production,”

    The researcher has probably never spent time on a farm. She apparently had a stereotype of farmers as victims of big industry helplessly struggling to live in harmony with nature in the face of changing climate. In real life farmers are industry - the agricultural industry. They work very hard to maintain a farm, a farm being something radically out of balance with nature. Unless the laws and 'free' 'trade' agreements change to alter their economic incentives, their focus will be on their immediate, short-term economic situation and whatever mythology is tied up with their understanding of those economics.

    The telling part is "Or at least that these are not triggered by human activities." If the climate is changing, then the question of the cause is the first part of finding a solution, but the problem does not magically become less serious depending on who or what the cause is. Someone who goes off-topic about human activities is trying - poorly - to rationalize their denial.

    1. Re:Uninformed researcher by pubwvj · · Score: 1

      "In real life farmers are industry - the agricultural industry. They work very hard to maintain a farm, a farm being something radically out of balance with nature"

      Obviously you have no experience farming.

      I farm. I do it in balance with nature. That is a far easier way than you would suggest.

    2. Re:Uninformed researcher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You make a good point. To carry this further, the article has a picture of cows grazing, cows "produce" methane, and methane is one of the greenhouse gasses. So it'd be notable indeed if these "farming ranchers" would see things in a way unfavorable to their livelihood. What if the government were to limit how many cows they can raise in the name of global warming management?

      The sea is a moderating influence on the climates in Scandinavia- when it doesn't bring storms. Last December a powerful nor'easter struck Northern Europe. Great Britain and Norway took most of the hit. When the storm passed over the land, it weakened, and Sweden only saw precipitation. The growing season doesn't extend through December there, so crop damage wasn't mentioned. But since this is the case even during the growing season, then Sweden might hardly ever see such weather, so their summers would regularly tend toward fine weather. Then it would be hard for them to ever say there is a problem, regardless of whether they are open minded about it or not.

    3. Re:Uninformed researcher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of everything outputting CO2 in nature, humans and all of our activities account for 5%.

      5% and we're to blame for 100% of the changing climate.

      5% sounds like a scapegoat to me.

    4. Re:Uninformed researcher by dave420 · · Score: 1

      "Sounds like". Wonderful science! Yes, human CO2 output is not a massive number, but the Earth has rather-well-balanced sinks to counter the natural CO2, so adding 5% (if that is the amount) is enough to tip the balance. If you have a scale balanced perfectly with two 1-tonne weights on either side, even a gram can cause it to swing. That's the whole point and I can't believe I had to explain it to you. Hint: If you think you can debunk an entire field of science by pulling some numbers out of your ass and using your intuition and opinion to judge their weight, you are doing it incredibly wrong. Whoever educated you should feel deeply ashamed, as they did a terrible, terrible job.

  33. Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered so by rumpledoll · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And as we know, farmers are on the cutting edge of science.

  34. Re:funny by Art+Challenor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But, but, but...

    What happens if we clean up the environment and it not the cause of global warming. All we'd have then is no smog, non-polluting power and clean water.

  35. Reverse that logic by gman003 · · Score: 1

    I've never eaten any food from Sweden, other than a few candy fish. Is it logical for me to doubt the existence of Swedish agriculture based on it not affecting me (as far as I know)?

    1. Re:Reverse that logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The North American candy "Swedish fish" is not a Swedish candy... The original does not contain corn syrup.

    2. Re:Reverse that logic by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      I love high fructose corn syrup.

  36. Re:funny by cheesybagel · · Score: 0

    Then there is the Aether theory. You think scientists are somehow magically infallible or something like that?

  37. Re:funny by bunratty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you think an intelligent agent is causing changes to DNA, that is absolutely at odds with thinking the changes are random mutations. When I hear people say that some Christians believe that evolution is how God achieves his goals, I always thought that meant that an intelligent designer set the process in motion and went away and let nature run its course. Are you saying that people who say this believe that an intelligent agent is actively changing DNA? If so, how many changes are due to the agent and how many are natural? And how do you tell?

    People who disagree because of their worldview are typically at odds with vast amount of evidence that falsifies their beliefs. From the disagreements I've seen, it generally a two-sided issue with evidence firmly coming down on one side, and the other side unwilling to change their beliefs to fit the evidence. In the case of evolution and AGW, the evidence comes down firmly on the side of natural process without intelligence for evolution, and human-produced greenhouse gases causing warming for AGW.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  38. Re:funny by cheesybagel · · Score: 2

    Secondly, most Christians I know consider it perfectly consistent with their worldview to believe that evolution is a mechanism by which God achieves His goals.

    Yes. I think he was smart enough to realize it is a lot easier and kewler to do creation using procedural generation with DNA evolution than having to hand carve every model by hand.

  39. D'oh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Climate changes. That's what it does. It doesn't remain at some optimum setting forever and ever. Farmers have continuously dealt with changing climate for millennia. Thus they don't see any reason to hyperventilate over a perfectly natural occurrence.

    This is not to say that humans have no effect on climate. It just means people who deal with weather/climate on a daily/yearly basis and, indeed, depend on it for their livelihood, don't see any catastrophic changes happening. One might think that farmers in high latitudes would serve as a miner's canary but then what do I know?

    1. Re:D'oh! by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      True but climate doesn't change for some magical reason. There are physical reasons behind climate changing. That's one of the things climate scientists are studying. If you want to counter their views on the subject you need to present some actual physical evidence for something different causing the changes.

  40. Re:funny by bunratty · · Score: 1

    But, but, but... You forgot the one-world gubment ruled by socialist dictator Obamabot!

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  41. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah random farmers are qualified to understand long-term climate that they don't actually study based on their personal location, good thinking.

    I'm outside right now and I can tell that you're a moron by the way the wind blows.

  42. Re:No by Layzej · · Score: 2

    Quite the opposite. As of 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement,[ no scientific body of national or international standing rejected the findings of human-induced effects on climate change. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

  43. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    I don't believe the two concepts are mutually exclusive, for a few reasons

    They are for a lot of people, which is what matters for the analogy.

  44. And your posting this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And your posting this because there is any doubt, and we care what Swedish farmers think?
    Reality distortions don't occur due to ignorance, or do they?
    Inquiring minds want to know.

  45. Film at 11! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Random person trusts personal anecdotal evidence over well-researched science, is wrong. Fascinating.

  46. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    Nobody thinks scientists are magically infallible, just that they have a much better track record than Swedish farmers.

  47. Argument's over, go home everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Our local weather trends haven't changed much, therefore the rest of the world isn't changing either."

    Perfectly sound logic, why DO we listen to those pompous scientists anyway?

  48. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then presumably that's true for persons on every side of an issue, no?

    Depends on the issue. Many people prefer data and then adjust their view when new data arises.

    Then there are folks who cannot change their opinions because of this irrational desire not to be wrong or not wanting to agree with the "other side" because the "other side" is evil.

    It doesn't help that there are irresponsible and incompetent media outlets that frame everything as a "Liberal vs Conservative" argument - even when science has proven beyond any doubt that something is a fact - whether it's Evolution or Global Warming.

  49. Re:Farmers may not trust the researchers. by itzly · · Score: 1

    So where are all the dissenting scientists, and how did you figure out their numbers if they are invisible ?

  50. Re:funny by cheesybagel · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Oh really? So how many of the predictions our esteemed climate scientists made with their precious models actually held?

    I would rather side with the farmers.

  51. Maybe Swedes would *prefer* it a bit hotter indeed by Herve5 · · Score: 1

    A couple of years ago I talked with a swedish meteorologist that explained me it's quite difficult to shame people in his country about their impact on global warming, because definitely when you spend a very large part of the year with few sunny hours and one meter of snow at your door stop, "a bit warmer" definitely doesn't sound this bad.
    I expect this applies to Swedish farmers as well...

    --
    Herve S.
  52. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It would be easier to focus on things that people can see everyday like litter everywhere or rivers they can't swim in rather than push what is seen as climate faith on the uneducated through media babble. Unfortunately people would rather be indignant over the common man being skeptical of what's seen as a bunch of chicken littles and accomplish little to nothing rather than drop a pointless argument.

  53. Models? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why are lay folks so hung up on models?

    The data has proven that our climate is warming. The models are just to see how that warming will affect the climate in certain parts of the World. The climatologist are trying to predict what will happen in the future and they are tweaking them. The funny thing is, many of their models were a little too conservative - in some areas, things are worse than they predicted.

    It's unfortunate that the denier pundits (AM Talk Radio and Fox News - a foreign owned entity) use the models as an argument to discredit the facts. I have personally heard Sean Hannity use the "models are wrong" argument in an attempt to discredit global warming and the unsophisticated fall for it hook line and sinker.

    The pundits are nothing but entertainers and their game is to scare their listeners (Oh no! The liberals are using Global Warming as an excuse to tax more!). They want their listeners to be too scared to not listen. They bend the truth, lie, and say anything to piss off and terrify their listeners off so they keep listening.

    I'm always cynical whenever someone labels an issue "Conservative" or "Liberal" because whoever they may be, they are attempting to manipulate me.

    Oh and here's another factoid: Cox family of Cox communications owns and makes millions of dollars off of those pundits. They donate heavily to the Democrats. Yeah, while your listening and boosting listeners, they are funneling money to the Democrats. Suckers.

    1. Re:Models? by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      Because the models are attempting to prove the cause. If the stated cause (people) is wrong, then there is nothing we can do to stop it except cripple our ability to respond to any other crises that come around.

  54. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    Please show a graph with actual temperature, the model output from the scientists, and the global climate model output from the Swedish farmers, so we can see who got closer. Of course, when I mentioned track record, I didn't imply to focus just on climate models. After all, you brought up aether theory as an indication that we were looking much broader than that.

  55. Many(?) Swedes vs. Millions of S.E. Asians by wisebabo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So while I'm not ready to completely discount the stories of some Swedish "focus groups" (from the article), that anecdotal evidence would be balanced (overwhelmed? flooded? washed away? submerged?) by the experiences of tens of millions of rice farmers here in S.E. Asia (Mekong delta) who are literally seeing their future disappear before their eyes.

    I think the rate of inundation by the ocean here (I live in Vietnam) is getting ridiculous, I frequently read in the local papers about KILOMETERS per year of rice paddies being lost to the sea; if not by direct submergence then by saltwater infiltration. I don't think there's a shadow of a doubt to these farmers that SOMETHING very bad is happening, though honestly I'm not sure if many of them have even heard of climate change.

    Now of course there are a lot of other things going on that could be contributing to this. Overuse of groundwater, damming of the Mekong, improper irrigation; I'm not a climate scientist and I haven't screened out those effects (of course climate scientists who've looked at this closely have and they say the effect is real). But neither are those Swedes climate scientists so if their unprofessional opinion is that nothing out of the ordinary is going on, well I've got ten times (a hundred times? a thousand times?) more opinions here to counter that. Then again, there just might be some biases in listening more to white europeans as opposed to brown asians so maybe their opinions don't count. (I rarely if ever see any articles in Western media about the tremendous loss to agriculture that these farmers in the Mekong are facing; the rice basket to HUNDREDS of millions of people; nor do I see articles about the gloomy forecasts made by the governments here that in 20 years or so millions of people in cities like mine, saigon, will be flooded out).

    1. Re:Many(?) Swedes vs. Millions of S.E. Asians by PPH · · Score: 1

      Now of course there are a lot of other things going on that could be contributing to this. Overuse of groundwater, damming of the Mekong, improper irrigation;

      All possible. And you need an answer in a timely manner. And if its going to be expensive to implement, you are going to need some level of certainy before your country invests millions in schemes to correct the wrong problem.

      I'm not a climate scientist and I haven't screened out those effects

      But if you were a climate scientist, everything would look like AGW. And if you were a hydrologist, everything would look like ground water mismanagement. It seems that every special interest requires its own scientific discipline in order to secure the most funding possible. Wouldn't it be nice if some experts with broad backgrounds could look at all the possible causes of a problem and arrive at an unbiased conclusion?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    2. Re:Many(?) Swedes vs. Millions of S.E. Asians by itzly · · Score: 1

      The people you call "climate scientists" already form a very diverse group from lots of different backgrounds. Some dude digging up ice cores has a completely different expertise than somebody else checking out fossil leaves, or somebody update a climate model. And none of them have vested interests in the AGW theory. Plenty of them aren't even researching AGW.

    3. Re:Many(?) Swedes vs. Millions of S.E. Asians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are a lot of things at play, in particular no one has even begun talking about Kilometers of ocean rising. So for starters that seems quite a bit off, and indeed if Kilometers of ocean front were rising it would be a noticeable problem everywhere and not isolated to Vietnam, or SE Asia, or even just the Pacific. Honestly it sounds more like a erosion problem, possibly the known issues you've already stated, and the generally complex nature the Sunda tectonic plate the country sits on could be pushing the coastline further into the ocean year after year.

      Just as much as it would be wrong to claim problems aren't caused by climate change that clearly are, it is damaging to say problems that aren't climate based should be labeled as though they are.

        It's not to say it isn't a big problem, but likely the rest of the world doesn't see it as "their problem". There are lots of countries that have problems feeding their citizens and when the humanitarian aide is needed people will heed. Until then, its a local problem and not likely to excite world news. Not that Swedish farmers are either, I personally don't care what they think. It's not a particularly surprising reaction, and they didn't exactly show their own recorded data to back up their opinions, and thus shouldn't be taken with much consideration.

  56. Well, now that's simple: by Hartree · · Score: 2

    If we get rid of all the farmers, not only will we have unity of ideas, but everyone will starve so we've solved anthropogenic global warming.

    Of course, even at this point it may well take a long time for the existing effects to reverse, but we can rest easy in our graves. ;)

    (Extreme tongue in cheek warning for the humorless bastards on both sides of this flamepit topic who'd take anything seriously no master how ridiculous.)

    1. Re:Well, now that's simple: by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

      Yes but then all the decaying bodies would release so much methane that the world would see irreversible and massive global warming.

    2. Re:Well, now that's simple: by strikethree · · Score: 1

      Of course, even at this point it may well take a long time for the existing effects to reverse, but we can rest easy in our graves.

      Erm... who says it will reverse? Perhaps it is growing warmer regardless and humans are merely accelerating it?

      Or... consider this: Perhaps it is supposed to be going back into an ice age with all of the landmasses covered with glaciers. Perhaps a small amount of human caused global warming is a good thing and we are just overdoing it right now.

      Regardless of any of this, we need to stop polluting. I like breathing clean air and I like drinking clean water and I like walking in clean environments.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    3. Re:Well, now that's simple: by dave420 · · Score: 1

      The questions you pose have already been answered, and the answers are easy to find and understand. There really is no excuse for not knowing them and still posting in a discussion such as this. It makes people think the questions haven't been answered (as why else would a rational person ask said questions?). Your laziness isn't helping the discussion.

    4. Re:Well, now that's simple: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, just the people who define 'science' as what Politicians are willing to pay for in research grants. If you want money, send us your conclusions first.

      Remember, the Earth is the center of the Universe! If you want money from the Church, your research had better come to that conclusion.

  57. Re:Squawk, squawk,squawk by itzly · · Score: 1

    Nice straw man fallacy you've got there.

  58. Statistical variation -- yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It amazes me how a small variation in the data can generate so much apparent controversy (or should I say non-intelligent repetitious shouting). Those of you posting with your ferver on this insignificant story betray how insecure you really are: if you knew you were right, a small number of doubters wouldn't matter to you.

    These threads about global warming are quite entertaining. They provide very little reliable information and prove nothing. They do, however, instruct upon the methods used by propogandists. These threads are the Slashdot equivalent of television wrestling matches: they are designed to attract a certain kind of audience, and the outcome is known in advance. There's no true competition here that will result discovery of any truth.

    So to those of you who are distributing the climate propoganda: make your deposit here in the porcelain bowl, and I'll be happy to pull the lever that produces that satisfying "glug-glug" after it swirls down.

    1. Re:Statistical variation -- yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Boy with your amazing counter arguments who could doubt your brilliance. See I can launch ad homin attacks as well!
      Also I don't consider a debate a competition. I hope to illuminate others and be illuminated in turn. OK it doesn't always happen but if you don't engage in debate its even less likely.

  59. Re:Burn the heretics! by germansausage · · Score: 2

    Anthropocentric global warming is being forced down our throats. But not in the way you meant.

  60. What is a Climate Scientist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The reason there is so much concurrence is all of the so called climate scientists were trained to think the same way and anyone who thinks differently is excluded. If you check with geologists, oceanographers, mechanical engineers (thermodynamics) and meteorologists you will find relatively few of them agree with the climatologists. The climate change establishment is spending as much time trying to discredit anyone who disagrees with them as they do on basic research.

  61. Here we go again, and again, and.... by bswarm · · Score: 1

    Climate change is not local weather. Got it now? If not climb under the rock where you belong.

    1. Re:Here we go again, and again, and.... by bswarm · · Score: 1
    2. Re:Here we go again, and again, and.... by oogoliegoogolie · · Score: 1

      Uhhhh, so if a region's climate changes from wet to semiarid, the local weather is not going to change?

    3. Re:Here we go again, and again, and.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't get it...

    4. Re:Here we go again, and again, and.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Uhhhh, so if a region's climate changes from wet to semiarid, the local weather is not going to change?

      The weather is typically going to change daily, or at least seasonally, even if there's no climate change.

      Weather is not climate.

  62. Re:Who you gonna believe? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

    ivory tower

    I've got a working hypothesis that anyone who uses the term "ivory tower" generally has a massive chip on his shoulder and very little idea what he's talking about. I have yet to see a counterexample.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  63. Re:Squawk, squawk,squawk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think a strawman is really as bad when we're talking about people on the moral level of slimy inner-city used car salesmen. When people have been caught manipulating and flat-out lying for decades, a personal attack might actually be warranted.

  64. Better places to direct your energies. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's a novel concept: The climate _is_ changing, but for NATURAL reasons. And a tip for the enviro-nazis: if you want to make a difference, go clean up China and Mexico. You're past the point of diminishing returns here. But those places are environmental hell-holes.

    1. Re:Better places to direct your energies. by bswarm · · Score: 1

      China officials once said they're not going to do anything to reduce pollution, and that the west started started it, so it's their problem.

  65. Re:Maybe Swedes would *prefer* it a bit hotter ind by PPH · · Score: 1

    Sweden and some other northerly countries are probably situated in much better locations to observe minor climatic variations. A bit hotter probably doesn't mean much in the Midwest of the USA, where they already have long growing seasons. It means a lot where a few degrees can make the difference between sucess and failure of a crop and an entire society. And having such a sensitive indicator makes them better judges of past climate patterns.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  66. Re:funny by phantomfive · · Score: 2

    What happens if we clean up the environment and it not the cause of global warming. All we'd have then is no smog, non-polluting power and clean water.

    This kind of post shows ignorance about reality. CO2 is not smog, stopping AGW is orthogonal to cleaning the water (and could make the water messier, considering all the mining that must be done for lithium batteries etc).

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  67. Re:Farmers may not trust the researchers. by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

    Since you're lazy, here's a good start -> wikipedia.

  68. Re:funny by John+Allsup · · Score: 1

    How many biologists understand the nature of randomness though? When it comes to metaphysical stuff, the biologists are punting the difficult bit into the term 'random' and ascribing this 'random' thingamajig the properties that fundies ascribe to their God. Then things such as mind, consciousness and intelligence have yet to be turned into sufficiently concretely defined concepts to answer questions like 'is evolution directed in an intelligent way' let alone how and if human intelligence and consciousness arise from brain activity, or emerge in other ways. We really know less than we think, and many untestable hypothetical foundations are elavated to the position of unquestionable dogma by the phenomena of 'near universal acceptance by experts'.

    That climate change is happening is beyond doubt, but the case that humanly produced CO2 emissions are the primary cause, and that massively reducing our CO2 emissions will fix the issue is not beyond doubt. Funding for projects which subject these ideas to scrutiny is harder to get than funding for projects which assume the CO2 caused warming and then show results consistent with it. The diagram correlating CO2 with global temperature as inferred from ice cores, famously used by Gore in his 'inconvenient truth' has been claimed by some to put the causative relationship the wrong way round (suggesting that instead rising temperatures cause the oceans to release stored CO2, hence the increase in CO2). Some have advanced the notion that solar activity is the cause, with evidence. But global warming has become so politicised that proper scientific debate is stifled, for example by the need to adhere to CO2 caused warming theories in order to get funding for your project.

    Your point of 'Never underestimate the power of a person to disagree if agreeing means that they will need to alter their worldview.' is just as valid for the wide acceptance of the CO2-warming relationship. The great political momentum attached to this worldview is hard to argue against, even on scientific grounds, since those who don't wish to change can keep pointing to the mass who believe CO2 causes global warming.

    Caveat: I'm not an expert in this area, but find how politicised it is to be worrying.

    --
    John_Chalisque
  69. ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Feelings, instincts, personal experiences are NOT scientific proof.

    This kind of crap shouldn't be posted on Slashdot. What a bunch of Swedish farmers think and feel has nothing to do with the cold hard science that has proven global warming is real.

    Sometimes I feel Slashdot has degraded in the way Discovery channel has.

  70. Political Science != Science by h8sg8s · · Score: 1

    I'm old enough to remember the Food Pyramid and the groupthink 'science' that led to it. To say I'm suspicious of the current AGW craze is an understatement. Anytime contrarian scientific findings and theories are discounted out of hand, my BS detector blows a fuse. Take the politics out of current Climate Science and let's look at *all* the data and theories.

    --
    Organization? You must be joking..
    1. Re:Political Science != Science by dave420 · · Score: 1

      So because of the food pyramid, climate science is wrong?? Distrust science all you want, but if you refuse to research the findings of the IPCC you are engaging in science denialism, not some sort of quest for truth. AGW is not a craze, it's a phenomenon which probably will have some rather expensive and difficult effects on human civilisation. This article is about farmers not believing in science - that is not "scientific findings", but conjecture of non-experts. If you equate their opinions and gut-feelings with actual scientific research, you should sue your old school, as they failed you.

  71. Re:funny by Webcommando · · Score: 1

    Then there is the Aether theory. You think scientists are somehow magically infallible or something like that?

    Not trying to go a little off topic, but

    I actually think the whole concept of Aether being the medium to transmit light "waves" is a good example of science working the way it should. Individuals observed that all waves appear to need a medium to travel in. Therefore, there must be a medium for light waves.

    Now, the difference between blind faith and science is that someone wanted to show that the Aether theory was correct. This was the famous Michelson-Morley experiment where the theory was shown to be wrong (yes, I know there were many experiments in this area of study with varying results) and was a stepping stone to special relativity.

    So yes, scientists are fallible but that isn't the same as not willing to be show the "light" in the face of evidence.

    --
    I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
  72. Don't worry, the next Ice Age is coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fortunately, in 10,000 to 20,000 years or so, the next ice age will arrive and the glaciers will wipe out climatologists and others alike.

    1. Re:Don't worry, the next Ice Age is coming by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      There's been some analysis of when the next ice age would occur. Based on Milankovitch Cycles and natural conditions you are correct. But there's been some work that shows CO2 levels have to be below 250 ppm for the Earth to drop into the next glaciation. As long as levels are above that the next glaciation will be indefinitely postponed.

    2. Re:Don't worry, the next Ice Age is coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. And they figured that out using their oh-so-accurate computer models. Right?

    3. Re:Don't worry, the next Ice Age is coming by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      More likely they used a relatively simple energy balance calculation but computers were no doubt involved. Just not regular climate models.

    4. Re:Don't worry, the next Ice Age is coming by buybuydandavis · · Score: 1

      But there's been some work that shows CO2 levels have to be below 250 ppm for the Earth to drop into the next glaciation. As long as levels are above that the next glaciation will be indefinitely postponed.

      Which would make the release of all the evil CO2 the best thing ever done for human sustainability.

    5. Re:Don't worry, the next Ice Age is coming by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      The next glaciation wouldn't have started for several thousand years. The best thing for human sustainability is to maintain the climate as it has been for the past several thousand years. Then if CO2 started dropping toward 250 ppm it would be easy to burn some coal to bring it back up.

  73. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Resources are scarce and generally have alternative uses. We must not only focus on what those resources have accomplished, but what they have not accomplished. If it takes a quarter of the earth's resources to achieve such changes and millions or billions of people starve to death because of it, is it still a good decision? While may example is perhaps a bit extreme, hopefully it makes clear the absurdity of your assumption: that only good things will happen, with no ill consequences.

  74. Re:Libtards by DexterIsADog · · Score: 0

    Hey, Anne Coulter, I thought you only wrote for pay!

  75. Cause for celebration!? by mark_reh · · Score: 2

    I guess we Americans aren't the only stupid people in the world!

    1. Re:Cause for celebration!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, possibly not. The Swedes emits less than a third CO2 per capita than the Americans but they aren't really affected that much by global warming.
      Either they are stupid for not abusing the situation or the ones who gets hit more by global warming are stupid for contributing so much to it.

  76. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by SuperBanana · · Score: 1

    And as we know, farmers are on the cutting edge of science.

    Many are, actually, because agricultural science is one area where the government both funds it very well (at least in the US) and there's a lot of work put into practical applications. (Some) farmers are using RTK GPS for tending their fields, robots equipped with vision processing to pick fruit (a piece of fruit's IR reflectivity is an excellent way to judge ripeness) and so on.

    I know someone who owns a milk farm. He jokes he's got a "degree in dirt" - but what that means is that he spent four years learning about soil/nutrient management and how to most effectively use his family's most valuable resource.

    Now, that said: these guys are idiots. We have more than a hundred thousand years of ice core samples showing climate data. Everything we're collecting now is far off the charts from everything else.

  77. Framing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This must be slashdot, as nobody appears to have read TFW, or at least comprehended what was said there.

  78. Re:Who you gonna believe? by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

    Exactly, thank you.

    This is just like Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever we fight the next war to line Halliburton's pockets. If you want to know the historical and political factors driving the different factions in the war, are you going to ask a scholar who has researched the history and analyzes news from all sources? No, just ask one of the grunts from some FOB - they know the straight shit.

  79. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, we believe He set shit in motion, not that he interferes with things on a regular basis...

  80. Re:funny by stenvar · · Score: 1

    All we'd have then is no smog, non-polluting power and clean water.

    Sure, by just going back to an agrarian society.

  81. Nothing new here. by Jawnn · · Score: 2

    Just yet another small group relying on provincialist reasoning to deny the existence of something that vast majority of the world's experts agree, after carefully collating data collected on a truly global scale, does exist. Same ignorant denialist shit. Different day. If you substitute "Energy Industry Shill on Fox News" for "Swedish Farmers" would this even be news?

    1. Re:Nothing new here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the average Swedish farmer believe in global warming is irrelevant since they do a pretty good job at not contributing to it compared to most other westerners and even if they did there are less than 180,000 farmers in Sweden, hardly enough to make a difference.
      They could double their emissions and still not be worse than the average Slashdotter and if they halved their emissions they still wouldn't make a larger difference than the average Slashdotter would do if he decreased his emissions by 1%.

      So what all this boils down to is that an alarmist feels that as long as she can point at someone who doesn't care then she doesn't have to do anything to solve the problem either, even if she is a worse offender than the ones who doesn't care.

  82. 99% of ALL scientists... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...agree that the human society will collapse in a few years as Climate Change brings the World's agriculture to a halt.

    What do these farmers know? They're just deniers. Slashdot should allow NO denier propaganda to be published.

  83. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    CO2 is not smog, but reducing CO2 production will most likely also reduce smog.

  84. Re:Who you gonna believe? by jamesl · · Score: 1

    You can see through
      Your rose coloured glasses
      In a world that seems
      Like glamour to you
      You've got opinions and judgments about
      All kind of things
      That you don't know anything about

    Ivory Tower, Van Morrison

  85. Re:Farmers may not trust the researchers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's simply not true; more accurately, any who are not in agreement are drummed out of the committees.

    If that happened, and it doesn't, they could go work for Cato or an oil company and make triple the money. However, bad scientists aren't welcome anywhere. Those that ignore data and can't make mathematically accurate predictions don't survive. Disprove CO2 forcing on the climate and you've got a Nobel prize. Global Cooling was a media hysteria. The scientific community never bought into it. You should know that, so I can only assume you're trolling.

  86. stupid Swedish farmers by argStyopa · · Score: 0

    ...don't understand how important it is to follow scientific fads.

    --
    -Styopa
  87. Environmentalism is about saving humans ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The earth does not care about the composition of the atmosphere. The presence of oxygen at its current percentage is not the "normal" state, a higher carbon dioxide level was "normal" millions of years ago. Go back billions of years and you will find that our oxygen rich atmosphere is the result of an organism that changed the global climate by emitting oxygen as a waste product.

    Don't confuse what is normal for the human species, what we are evolved to expect, for what is normal for the "earth". Environmentalism is about saving humans not the earth.

    1. Re:Environmentalism is about saving humans ... by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      >Environmentalism is about saving humans not the earth.

      No, it's not. Environmentalism is basically about preserving the status quo, environmentally. It's just like social conservatism, except that instead of trying to preserve society at a certain point in time, more or less (like the 50s for American conservatives), environmentalsts want to preserve the environmental status quo at some halcyon age (probably the 1700s or 1800s sometime). So there's multiple components here: they want the temperatures and sea levels to remain the same, because any big changes there will grossly affect human civilization, since we've built so many cities at sea level and because we need a mild climate for agriculture. Environmentalists also want to preserve plant and animal species, for various reasons, but of course only current ones; they don't usually talk that much about going back and trying to revive dinosaurs since they really wouldn't fit into today's world too well.

    2. Re:Environmentalism is about saving humans ... by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Environmentalism is about saving humans not the earth

      Are you sure that the two are separable? While I'd like to think that it's possible for humans to live off the Earth, I'm not absolutely sure that it is possible. (Corrollary : if it is not possible for humans to live, long term, off this planet, then as a species, we're dead.)

      Oh, hang on, it's an AC. You're non-existant already.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  88. Re:Farmers may not trust the researchers. by itzly · · Score: 1

    That's only a handful of people. Where's the real list ?

  89. Re:Squawk, squawk,squawk by itzly · · Score: 1

    Please show your proof that "people have been caught manipulating and flat-out lying".

  90. Re:Libtards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your aids has affected your brain.

    That would be syphilis not aids. Aids is a politically protected disease that can not be associated with less than ideal behavior. Please substitute syphilis in the future.

  91. Re:funny by Art+Challenor · · Score: 1

    Yep, just like Germany which, one day last month generated 50% of their electrical power from solar and is planning to phase out all coal-burning generation (they've already eliminated nuclear after Fukushima). Oh, wait, they have one of the strongest industrial economies in the world. Or Estonia with close to 100% Internet connectivity and a network of EV charging stations nationwide.

  92. Ain't "science" wonderful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now it is finally being reported that NOAA changed the temperature data since the 30's because it didn't fit the global warming hoax!

    When will you dupes finally admit that you've been lied to?

  93. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "People who disagree because of their worldview are typically at odds with vast amount of evidence that falsifies their beliefs. From the disagreements I've seen, it generally a two-sided issue with evidence firmly coming down on one side, and the other side unwilling to change their beliefs to fit the evidence. In the case of evolution and AGW, the evidence comes down firmly on the side of natural process without intelligence for evolution, and human-produced greenhouse gases causing warming for AGW."

    You really should take another look at the situation. The AGW Priesthood actually behave very similarly to the Creationists, and nothing whatsoever like the Evolutionary Science. The only difference is that the AGW people are adherents to a more fashionable religion.

  94. Re:funny by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    It REALLY depends on what you do to reduce CO2. Some ways of reducing CO2 will actually increase pollution. As will all things, any policy changes should be carefully thought out. The details matter. Don't support something only because it claims to stop AGW (or give better healthcare, or give more freedom, etc).

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  95. Re:Maybe Swedes would *prefer* it a bit hotter ind by am+2k · · Score: 1

    Well, if the Gulf Stream ceases to exist due to the changes (which has been considered a couple of times), the Swedes won't be all that glad I guess. Siberia will look like a warm and cozy place in comparison. Rome will be a bit colder than New York.

  96. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    It REALLY depends on what you do to reduce CO2. Some ways of reducing CO2 will actually increase pollution.

    Well, don't use those then.

  97. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    If we don't reduce dependency on fossil fuels soon, the agrarian society will be here even quicker.

  98. Re:Farmers may not trust the researchers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "So where are all the dissenting scientists, and how did you figure out their numbers if they are invisible ?"

    The dissenters are made an example of, and those who might follow them learn to mouth the proper religious formulae and stay Orthodox instead. The ones that have actually stuck their head up and gotten it chopped off are few in number, the ones that have an honest bone somewhere in the back of their mind but keep it suppressed in order to continue working and avoid being strung up by angry mobs may not be countable but everything known about human psychology and sociology leads to the expectation they must amount to many, many times the numbers as the former.

  99. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now we know what is the level of scientific literacy of deniers: FARMER LEVEL.

  100. Tomorrow's Headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obama Declares War On Sweden

    1. Re:Tomorrow's Headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obama must be very constipated with all the people's head up his ass.

  101. Re:funny by itzly · · Score: 1

    and if human intelligence and consciousness arise from brain activity, or emerge in other ways

    If Quantum Field Theory is correct, there is no other way. And with the LHC performing 100 million collisions per second, every single one matching with QFT predictions, there's not much room left for big errors. There's only room for tiny adjustments whose effects would be too small to notice in daily life.

  102. Not a damn thing will be done. by oogoliegoogolie · · Score: 1

    Climate change is happening and nothing is going to stop it. The thing is, nobody is willing to make sacrifices to stop human-made climate change. Essentially we will have to cease being such zealous consumers of resources. That 's never going happen generally because very few people are willing to:

    Give up your cars, including hybrids and electricals. Those may be low or zero-emission vehicles, but the factory where they were build isn't.
    Cancel your annual flight down south each winter.
    Give up your 300W 50" LCD TV, 100W/channel 7-speaker amplifier, and the rest of their electronic gadgets that soak up coal-plant produced electricity.
    Endorse nuclear energy and be willing to allow reactors to be build nearby your homes.
    Be willing to wait an extra week for your courier packages to get shipped by rail instead of fuel-guzzling trucks.
    Give up tropical fruits & vegetables in winter months to cut down on the trucks (thus emissions) needed to ship those items up north from the tropics. Do you really need watermelon in January when it's -25C outside?
    Get rid of your lawn so you no longer need to fertilize it. The nitrogen fixation process uses a ridiculous amount of energy, which likely comes from coal plants.

    The point of this comment is that (if) climate change, sea level increase, melting glaciers & polar ice caps, etc. are caused by human activities, then we humans are going to have stop doing many of things that we normally take for granted in our high standard of living lifestyles. How many of us are willing to make these changes? I bet very few.

    1. Re:Not a damn thing will be done. by volmtech · · Score: 1

      You left out sending 100 million people back to the farm. Or raising about 30 million draft horses. I'm sure we can get college students to help with the harvest. I will need all the help I can get.

    2. Re:Not a damn thing will be done. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He doesn't mention agriculture beyond lawns & people eating out of area fruit so maybe try addressing his post rather than setting up a strawman.

    3. Re:Not a damn thing will be done. by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 1

      Keep your lawn so it slows runoff and prevents flash flooding, but accept that it will look like natural grass and not astroturf

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
  103. Re:funny by Megol · · Score: 1

    That is a very good example - but of the reverse of what you probably meant.

    Aether was a gang of ideas created to solve problems in the scientific models. They were tried and one after another failed when compared to the real world.
    There are still a few people that believe in some form of aether however they are mostly ignored.

    That is the scientific process succeeding. AGW is one of the models that have survived many tests and is the most likely to be proven right.

  104. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hitler and Stalin each had "one of the strongest industrial economies in the world" too. If you're sufficiently totalitarian and sufficiently draconian towards your population, anything is possible.

    I, for one, prefer not to live in Germany. But you're welcome to move: they are desperate for immigrants.

  105. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's pure FUD on your part. If we were running out of fossil fuels, the discussion about global warming would already be over. The IPCC predicts that we have many centuries of fossil fuels left, but even the IPCC doesn't predict that global warming will turn us into an "agrarian society".

  106. Re:Maybe Swedes would *prefer* it a bit hotter ind by Herve5 · · Score: 1

    Very well replied. Now I think imminent changes in the Gulf Stream are more difficult to actually check Comparing this to the remark above (some more warm days will make or kill the growing season), we are facing a hard time...

    --
    Herve S.
  107. Re:funny by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    And no money.

  108. Able to grow crops now grown a bit farther south. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 0

    Even some of the more extreme estimates of the amount of temperature change expected just mean, to a farmer, that his great grandsons might do better if they switch to crops that are currently grown a couple hundred miles closer to the equator or a couple hundred feet lower on the hillside. (Something like they did during the Medieval Warm Period, when Iceland had lots more cropland and grapes were grown on a large scale in Britain.)

    So even if you convince them that global warming is real, don't expect anything but a cheer from the farmers of Sweden.

    There are a lot of steps between "It looks like the average temperature might go up four or five degrees C in the next couple centuries." to "We must take drastic action RIGHT NOW to AVERT DISASTER!". Like figuring out whether such a temperature rise is really a threat - or might even be a boon. We're still working on "Is it real?"

    Except, of course, for politicians, who can use that last claim to increase their power, or (like Al Gore) make billions off a "carbon credit exchange" built on anti-global-warming legislation.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  109. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    A hundred thousand years of ice core samples? Don't scientists claim the earth is over 2 billion years old? I don't doubt the earth is getting warmer and undoubtably man has contributed to that warming. How much contribution may be debatable but what is not debatable is that the earth has been far hotter than it is now. The problem is that we have a group of people who have made up their minds that humanity is destroying the world's climate and that this must be stopped at all costs and they are willing to go to any length whatsoever to further their aims. There is another group that is more afraid of these people than they are of the average global temperature climbing another 10 degrees farenheit in the next century. The first threat is here now and drastic while the second threat is mostly in the future and gradual. The strident howling and shrieking of the climate change gurus is more feared by many than climate change itself.

  110. Re:funny by Mashiki · · Score: 1

    And that's why europeans are building coal power plants at astounding rates, and Germany is buying lots of power from France. With that, Germany also has the most expensive electricity in the world. Forward to bankruptcy!

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...
  111. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    apart from no smog, non-polluting power and clean water but what did the romans ever do for us?

  112. Re:funny by Art+Challenor · · Score: 1

    Wow, one comment that Obama is a socialist and one that the Christian Democrats in Germany are a facist dictatorship.

    These must be comments from the US, the home of the NSA and the largest domestic spying program in the world.

    In the US, as in Germany, you are entitled to your own opinion, however only in the US is there a clear belief that ignorance makes your opinion more worthwhile. Here's a clue, it doesn't. Study some facts, get information from places other than FOX news and come back when you actually know something about, well, anything really, but you could start with geography and the poltics of countries in Europe. Here's a hint, Ted Cruz is not electable (even on the crackpot fringe) and Obama is center-right anywhere outside the US.

  113. Re:funny by Mashiki · · Score: 1

    It's called the Farmers Almanac, and it has over the last 100+ years been more accurate than any other model out there.

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...
  114. Re:satellite data shows no warming for past 17 yea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why trust the CRN above other sources? All the data manipulation I have seen has been valid and is to do with different methodologies and sources. In fact if you don't do this you end up with invalid results.
    (There is probably some data manipulation somewhere that is improper though, just through chance)

  115. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow. That's certainly an ignorant and elitist statement.

    No food for you!

  116. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The strident howling and shrieking of the climate change gurus is more feared by many than climate change itself.

    I'd take that as a warning sign as to a persons ability to asses threat accurately.

  117. And besides.... by Grey+Geezer · · Score: 1

    we kind of like the longer growing season. Please don't do anything that would shorten it.

    --
    The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
  118. not uncommon.. by Karmashock · · Score: 1

    farmers the world over have been amongst the most skeptical of the whole thing because they have weather and climate records that go back hundreds of years.

    People seem to forget that farmers were the first climatologists. And to this day, the most accurate predictions about the weather and climate changes actually come from the agro sector.

    Silly publications like the Old Farmer's Almanac consistently out predict the pHDs and super computers of climate academia.

    example:
    http://news.investors.com/ibd-...

    Now, does that mean global warming isn't real? No... but it does mean that farmers especially feel they understand the climate at least as well as anyone else... and they're therefore less inclined to accept the opinion of experts without more information. And that information has to be in line with their existing information... which as cited... remains at least as accurate in its ability to predict the future as anyone else... if not a great deal more accurate.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  119. Re:funny by Art+Challenor · · Score: 1

    As I mentioned, you are entitled to your opinions, but you are NOT entitled to your own facts. Coal usage in the EU is decreasing, renewable use (not fossil fuel generation) is increasing:
    http://theenergycollective.com...
    http://www.renewableenergyworl...
    (older data) http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-...
    While the price per kWh in Germany is high, it's not even the highest in the EU and certainly not the highest in the world. That statement is just plain WRONG. The price in Germany is not even that far out of line with the rest of the EU where prices are generally at least double the US rates:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

  120. Hmm, so basically ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... Swedish farmers do not understand climate science as well as scientists do. In other news, water is wet, grass is green and your dog wants steak.

  121. Re:funny by Mashiki · · Score: 1

    You realize that using google will disprove the first two links in about 8 seconds right? And the last with Germany on average running 38c/KwH isn't the highest in the EU right now right? Old data from wikipedia isn't exactly making your point.

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...
  122. Re:Who you gonna believe? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

    Some academic with a model in an ivory tower with a million dollar grant or the lyin' eyes of a farmer who spends his life outside dealing with the real climate?

    That line of thought leads you to weather forecasting via groundhog appearance.

  123. Global Warming is Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps what you're failing to understand is that Global Warming is good. It will lead to gentler winters, more arable land in the polar regions, longer growing seasons, our being able to grow crops that we couldn't grow before, the opening up of vast territories to both wildlife and agriculture. The fact of the matter is that in the past the periods of warming are when life bloomed and species diversity expanded greatly.

    Global Warming is good news. You want bad news? Toxic pollution - that's bad news. Global Cooling - e.g., a new ice age - that's bad news. But warming is good. The reality is the world used to be a lot warmer than it is now and it was a better place. That real science, not politically correct greenwash.

  124. Re:funny by Art+Challenor · · Score: 1

    You've posted another opinion, unsupported by ANYTHING as if it were FACTS. Have newer data that disproves mine - post it. Have citations that support you positions - post them. Until you do, you're just making it up...

  125. Stop pointing at single events as evidence. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Noisy climate change dilettantes have set themselves up for this problem because every time they point at some individual extreme weather event and claim it is evidence of climate change they open the door to the reverse argument when the day to day weather really has little significance in regard to long term global temperature trends. That is the problem with throwing bullshit around, it gets everywhere, even on yourself.

  126. Re:funny by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    What about if we fail to take on global warming and the effects cause millions or billions of people to starve to death because of reduced agricultural production? To just simply assume we can keep doing what we've been doing without consequences is just as absurd.

  127. Who CARES what non-science approaches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I live in a farming community in Australia and have farmers volunteering to me they think everything is normal and fine *locally* so *global* warming is bullshit, apparently. And they vote accordingly.

  128. Re:funny by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    "You really should take another look at the situation. The AGW Priesthood actually behave very similarly to the Creationists, and nothing whatsoever like the Evolutionary Science. The only difference is that the AGW people are adherents to a more fashionable religion.

    Oh please. The weight of scientific evidence is far greater on the AGW side. People who think the scientific predictions of climate theory have been inaccurate generally don't understand how accurate scientists expect them to be in the first place.

  129. Re:Who you gonna believe? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    This is just like Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever we fight the next war to line Halliburton's pockets.

    Lets test that.

    Reporter - 1943: Why is the US fighting the Empire of Japan?
    Marine on Tarawa: Because the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.

    Reporter - 2004: Why is the US fighting in Afghanistan?
    Marine in Afghanistan: Because Afghanistan hosted al Qaeda when it attacked the US, killing as many people as Pearl Harbor.

    Reporter - 2014: Why did the US go to war in Afghanistan?
    DexterIsADog: Cuz Halliburtonz!

    I'm going with the Marines.
     

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  130. Re:satellite data shows no warming for past 17 yea by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    The RSS record shows some cooling in the past 18 years but they're using an old satellite whose orbit is decaying and there are questions about how accurate that record is. The MSU satellite record and all of the surface temperature records still show warming.

    Regarding the surface temperature records even if you use the raw data without any adjustments they still show warming.

    Finally the US surface temperature record only covers ~3% of the globe. A minor factor in the whole picture.

  131. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You realize that using google will disprove the first two links in about 8 seconds right? And the last with Germany on average running 38c/KwH isn't the highest in the EU right now right? Old data from wikipedia isn't exactly making your point.

    So why haven't you provided this astoundingly unarguable evidence?

  132. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where would it all go? Unless you destroy it it must be somewhere.

  133. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by pubwvj · · Score: 1

    "And as we know, farmers are on the cutting edge of science."

    Actually, we are. Historically a lot of scientists were farmers.

  134. Re:Maybe Swedes would *prefer* it a bit hotter ind by pubwvj · · Score: 1

    Exactly. Warmer would be appreciated. Warmer is nice for those of us living in the north country. Please come farm through our -45ÂF winters and then pretty soon you'll appreciate a 10ÂF or 20ÂF rise in temperatures. Balmy.

    Some of you are confused, very confused. I believe in global warming, I'm for it. I'm pro-warming. I'm pro-climate change. The best of times have been when our planet was warmer. Life and biodiversity flourished. The worst of times were during global cooling, the ice ages. Move north and get some perspective on this. Or just study geological history. Science rules.

  135. Re:funny by Alsn · · Score: 1

    Except all the major sources of CO2 are also the sources of the particulates that cause smog?

  136. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's called the Farmers Almanac, and it has over the last 100+ years been more accurate than any other model out there.

    Um, bollocks I think is the answer to that. You know they didn't go to the farmer's almanac to work out the weather for D-Day and they got that right in rather tricky conditions. Since electronic computers became part of it weather prediction has just improved.

  137. what is Sweden? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is Sweden?

  138. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know about any priesthood but every climate scientist I respect concurs with man made climate change (although they do differ on the change). They base this on evidence.

  139. How to get a down moderation by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Point out anything counter to the politically-correct paradigm on global warming. B-)

    Religious zealots are more than happy to abuse the moderation system to suppress discussion threads when they begin to question any aspect of their religion.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  140. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and if human intelligence and consciousness arise from brain activity, or emerge in other ways

    If Quantum Field Theory is correct, there is no other way. And with the LHC performing 100 million collisions per second, every single one matching with QFT predictions, there's not much room left for big errors. There's only room for tiny adjustments whose effects would be too small to notice in daily life.

    Well QFT is definitely incomplete.
    Also QFT doesn't mean intelligence and consciousness can't come from another source. It doesn't say anything about intelligence or consciousness.

  141. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Politicians really didn't want to listen about climate change; It took a lot of work by dedicated scientists to strongly indicate it. Although it can make things awkward and skew funding politicos need to be involved if things are going to change.
    Also you can confirm CO2 is a greenhouse case with an experiment (basically it heats up more than 'standard' atmosphere in similar conditions). Any proposition that this isn't the case has to adequately account for this or I regard it as false. So far nothing has.

  142. Time to pack up... by StankeyoSmith · · Score: 1

    Swedish farmers dont believe the climate scientists and all of the climate science evidence that has been collected and analysed.

    Well, it was fun guys, but all the climate scientists the world over now need to pack their things, close everything down and start looking for a new career. Climate Science is now officially dead and wrong.

    The Swedish farmers have spoken.

  143. And ... ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what? This is /.; not Drudge.

  144. Re:Who you gonna believe? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

    And who then refuses to show those records in response to lawful requests for information, and who finally destroys that information to ensure it doesn't get seen and analyzed?

    You have to complete the sentence properly.

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  145. Re:Farmers may not trust the researchers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    She starts with claiming the researchers are almost unanimous. That's simply not true

    Yes it is.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
    This wiki article seems to indicate you are wrong. Also I don't know of any climate researcher I respect who disputes man made climate change.

  146. Oh no! The 'threat' of 'climate change'. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTF? Can this nonsense get any more ridiculous? Do they mean 'catastrophic man-made global warming'? Of course they do - but now they won't SAY it, so that they can say "We didn't mean catastrophic man-made global warming, see? We said 'climate change'."

    What a bunch of duplicitous turds and useful idiots these fucks are, who promote and/or believe in this 'global warming' nonsense.

  147. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a history of stupidity from people who have PHDs so...

  148. Article is a Troll by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    Just /. trolling for "news" to get people blabbing.

    Not worth my time; but somebody could write up a similar thing talking about immunizations and parents of Autistic children...

    They have Autistic children so they must consistently out perform pHDs on things their children (or the pregnant mother) did during their development.

    Too bad the internet wasn't 20 years younger so I could have experienced all this BS with the fight over smoking causing cancer.

    1. Re:Article is a Troll by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Sure... and too bad you couldn't have been around to tell everyone about how global cooling was the next big thing in the 70s... the blade cuts both ways. A bit of humility would be wise.

      Especially since my point was that the farmers are do have the most comprehensive and accurate climate statistics and models that go back over literally thousands of years of use.

      The accuracy or validity of the methods are debatable in some cases but a lot of our science as regards astronomy and climate science was gifted to us by farmers studying the skies to predict weather patterns so they could know when to plant and when to harvest.

      Those are simply facts. And it should be no surprise to anyone that isn't a complete asshat that that deep history and experience has value in a science like climate science.

      Just what is... now don't let me be disturb you in your attempt to dismiss arguments with straw men and other assorted logical fallacies while presuming unproven superiority... please... show me how above the internet you are by in every way resembling the stereotypical internet troll.

      The saddest thing is that you're so unaware and thoughtless that you've not realized the irony of your stupid post in the first place.

      Kindly unplug your internet... you have nothing to contribute.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    2. Re:Article is a Troll by dave420 · · Score: 1

      If you cite "global cooling" as the "next big thing", then clearly you get your scientific understanding from the mass media, and not scientific journals. As such you have just informed everyone you don't really follow the scientific findings, or at least don't understand the difference between a peer-reviewed journal and the tabloid press. As such you don't really have a very trustworthy opinion on this subject, as you have not even attempted to differentiate between guesswork and demonstrable fact.

      The blade only cuts both ways when you start making stuff up.

    3. Re:Article is a Troll by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Riiiiight, and the endless parade of people pushing either side of this issue represent people that only read scientific journals... obviously the mass media, politics, and various other issues have nothing to do with the international global warming push.

      *yawn* Its the double standards I find so interesting.

      Only scientific journals are acceptable sources of information? You do realize that almost no one with an opinion on AGW actually reads those. I question whether you've read anything beyond an abstract.

      Call me a liar... what AGW paper did you read?

      *gets popcorn*

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  149. Re:funny by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

    If you think an intelligent agent is causing changes to DNA, that is absolutely at odds with thinking the changes are random mutations.

    I think you're accidentally misattributing positions to different groups of people. In particular, I think randomness and divinely guided are fairly orthogonal beliefs in this case.

    Whether or not a person can spot a pattern in DNA mutations has little to do with whether or not one believes an omnipotent, omniscient, invisible God is directing the mutations.

    If the God believed in by Christians was some dumb, naturally powered autonomon, then you might reckon that human beings would understand it/Him about as well as we understanding the workings of physics, and therefore we'd have about equal success with understanding why/how Earthly evolution took the path that it did.

    But Christians believe that we're far less intelligent than their God, and that we basically can't comprehend His mind. And so it's pretty consistent with their theology that we wouldn't understand what/how He was up to.

  150. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ahhh that's so cute that you think the marines know (or care) why they are killing people.

  151. No evidence. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where's the evidence for global warming?

  152. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's kind of sad that you don't.

  153. If you believe in global warming you might be dumb by NemoinSpace · · Score: 1

    Real scientists don't make assumptions by measuring the current data point 100,000 times and giving it equal weighting. Of course, when I went to school Earth Science wasn't a real science compared to biology, Chemistry and Physics. But as it turns out, it's all the "science" you morons could handle and was the only one you even attended. Here's my prediction, there's another ice age coming, and since stupidity has survival factor, you less idiotic descendents will be burning all the coal they can dig out of the ice. Please STFU.

  154. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by thule · · Score: 2

    Actually... successful farmers do need to keep up with the latest and greatest and evaluate cost/benefit of those advances. I really hate that people think that farmers are idiots. The ones that are, went out of business years ago.

  155. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At this point there's probably very little we can do to reverse the course of climate change no matter who believes or doesn't believe.

    Given I expect it will be very hard to be a farmer over the next 50 years or so, it really is for the best that the farmers cover their ears and sing "lalalalalala, I can't hear you.".

    We need them to keep trying to grow food, so we have something to eat... If they need to believe "everything is okay" to stay in the game, fine by me.

  156. What difference does "belief" make? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This silly article continues the trend of acting as though people's "beliefs" are significant when it comes to questions about the physical world. I actually won't argue here whether climate change is human-caused or not, or even whether it is occurring. But it should be obvious to everybody that whatever the answers are, people's "beliefs" are completely irrelevant. "Reality is the stuff that can still hurt you even if you don't believe in it." - paraphrasing Philip K. Dick.

  157. You're right, but confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, the trend is the same throughout the "western world" ... the people who live in the big cities are left-wing and all fall in-line supporting AGW while fearing the whole planet has become as screwed-up as their metropolitan dumps, and the people who live in rural areas are more right-wing, tend to not believe in AGW, and know that vast portions of the world are green and healthy and populated with plants and animals.

    This is a sign of extreme mental disorder and poor education - but in the opposite direction you liberals think. You guys who live in totally fake environments of concrete, steel, and glass where you've paved everything over and you jam yourseleves and your kids into huge monolithic indoctrination centers are the ones who are totally diconnected from the Earth. You think the world is running out of trees and animals because you have stupidly eliminated YOURS. You think the world is getting hotter because you have stupidly created urban "heat islands" (the temps are higher in your big cities where you place more and more climate monitoring systems). You guys in your big cities whine about the fate of wild critters like wolves and polar bears... but you have no contact with any of these species except at your cramped artificial zoos. You concern yourselves with the demand that many thousands of miles of the west be preserved in its natural state, but you cannot be bothered to tear-down a few dozen sky scrapers and return THAT land to its wild "pristine" state. Tell me, do ANY of you people in the big cities have even the level of competence of a CHILD from the 1800's? If your power, gas, and water went out for a week could you SURVIVE? How many of you super-geniuses in the metropolitan areas answer questions like "where does drinking water come from?", "where does hamburger come from?", and "where does electricity come from?" with "the faucet", "the store", and "the wall outlet"????? People who live in rural areas are quite aware of weather AND climate and have proven to be far superior as stewards of the Earth... we've not eliminate OUR trees, or OUR wild animals the way you have. Before you rant about the ignorant hicks in rural areas, prove your "superiority" by cleaning up YOUR messes. Get the percent of YOUR land that's covered in green vegitation and open to wild animals to be at least half the percentage that rural folks have. Get your populations of wild roaming animals up to HALF the levels of rural people before you whine about our hunting.

    The ignorance is ENTIRELY focused in the big cities. THAT is where people think a "computer model" is a better indicator of the weather/climate than the actual weather one encounters when one STEPS OUTSIDE and spends a few hours outdoors doing productive work. It's easy to fool big city people into thinking the whole planet is being paved-over and de-forested because that's what they see when they look out the window at their paved-over and de-forested cities. People who live in places where there's not another person within 50 miles, and there are more trees growing than at any other time in their lives, have an entirely different experience. The current generation of computer models are only convincing to people so unfamiliar with actual weather and actual climate that they have not noticed the models cannot even explain current or past weather/climate.

    1. Re:You're right, but confused by dclydew · · Score: 1

      I grew up in the country in Ohio, lived in Columbus and NYC for awhile, moved to a fishing village in Turkey for a couple years and currently live in the countryside in the UK. Politically, I don't agree with either side of the American political false dichotomy (aka the Two Man Con).

      What I do understand, however, is that looking at personal observations or eyewitness testimony is a really bad way to do science, criminal investigation or any sort of objective work. Individuals process objective data through the neurological system, which includes lots and lots of personal beliefs, bias and filters. Climate models may be wrong (I am not a scientist), but personal observation from "country folk" is certainly no more reliable and likely less so... particularly if they are part of a political party which denies global climate change as part of its tribal identifier.

      See Also the 23 Enigma or the Law of Fives.

      --
      Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
  158. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You realise that they have a job and do what they are told right?
    They can rationalize it how they like to make them feel better, but they aren't making policy, and you're not making policy either.

  159. stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reducing CO2 actually HARMS plant life, which NEEDS CO2 to live.

    Oh, and the advocates for all this environmentalism NEVER apply it to themselves. Time to plow-under Manhattan and return that island to nature... it was once a wooded island home to lots of wild life and the rivers that straddle it USED to be clean. Time to make each and every state in the north-east quarter of the country preserve at least the same percent of "open space" as western states like Nevada and Alaska. Two-thirds of all the land (particularly including the cities) in those states should be ripped-up and re-planted as national park lands - put off-limits for average people to use in any way other than for the occasional camping trip. If parts of Colorado must be kept as they were in 1700, then so too should places like Boston and Philadelphia.

    Why NOT? What could possibly be wrong with the cleaner air and water and increased "biodiversity" that would result???? This argument you made works quite well against you. Whatever YOU do for a living and however and wherever YOU live.... surely the planet would be better if that ended and was replaced by "greener" stuff.

    1. Re:stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, and the advocates for all this environmentalism NEVER apply it to themselves.

      Thanks for the slander but yes I do. I don't drive for instance & generally try to lower energy usage (eg I keep the house at a lower temperature than most)

      Time to make each and every state in the north-east quarter of the country preserve at least the same percent of "open space" as western states like Nevada and Alaska.

      I think you'll find they have rather different population densities and thought New York was essentially a city state. I doubt its the cities in Alaska & Nevada that are being preserved as open spaces (I'm not from the USA though).

  160. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That isn't the issue. The question is, do they know why? The answer is clearly yes on the big questions.

  161. Re:Maybe Swedes would *prefer* it a bit hotter ind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It has been considered yes, but it can't really happen.
    The current exist because of the temperature difference. What would happen isn't really that the Gulf stream stops but rather it would change direction. (And not going through the Gulf. Instead a stream would flow up from the coast of Africa up past Britain and even out the temperature to the Northern sea.
    New York would be a lot colder and London would be a lot warmer but Scandinavia will probably not notice it that much.

  162. belive ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are a lot of people on this rock that do believe in a kind of supernatural being.
    There are a lof of people who don't.
    Who cares about beliefs ?

    Besides how global is Sweden ? As in Global Warming.

  163. Re:funny by kwbauer · · Score: 1

    "If so, how many changes are due to the agent and how many are natural?" That is a completely pointless question given the previous statement which was basically that God and Nature are simply different names for the same thing.

  164. Re:Who you gonna believe? by kwbauer · · Score: 1

    I was going to point out that the researchers have only seen it change once in their lifetime as well and then I remembered how smart and infallible they are and realized that that means they are gods and gods are immortal.

  165. Re:Able to grow crops now grown a bit farther sout by dave420 · · Score: 1

    We are not working on "is it real". You clearly don't know much about this.

  166. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think it's quite as clear as you make it out to be.
    Bomb the village to save it. Or killing people on a list because an 'informant' told you he was a bad guy. They do what they think is right, but ultimately do what they are told and justify it to themselves.
    It's just not in their best interests for them to be given all the facts, no disrespect intended, but I don't think they know more than the higher ups who make the decisions. Often those people decide behind closed doors, and then try to find a palatable reason to tell the public. How many times did the justification for going into Iraq change? Do the marines really have time to keep up, or do they do their duty under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, and justify it to themselves how they can.

  167. It's worse by carmechanic314 · · Score: 1

    Most commenters above consider farmers to be to simple to understand the bigger picture. It is worse.... Lot's of them are smart entrepreneurs in a business that is run in a way that pollutes the environment big time. Lot's and lot's of chemicals are being used. They have a business model that does not work with considering the environment. So they are skeptical about everything environmental. I know quiet a couple of farmers, most don't farm biological/ecological and they don't want to hear about it, don't want to know what is wrong with their work (and how it can damage them and their own families) and they don't even want to talk to any bio-farmer. So they are not going along with the climate change reasoning either. Just deny everything and don't change your life. That is the mindset. Now, the bio-farmers (who once where "normal" farmers) have a completely different mindset and do admit that how they used to farm was wrong (and how they realy realy didnt like bio-farmers). They will agree with climate change being a very very serious risk. As a farmer you choose side and stick to (the views) of the group you belong to.....

  168. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here I believe we have a exemplary case of "knows so little of topic X that doesn't understand how little knows about topic X and hence thinks that knows very much about topic X".

    Please read e.g. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn end be less ignorant.

  169. ZOMG kick them out of Sweden by gelfling · · Score: 1

    The hippiest liberalist place on earth has no room for them. Kick them out.

  170. Re:Who you gonna believe? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Quoting song lyrics does not make you correct, even if Van Morrison had some kind of point he was making.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  171. Weather != climate by jandersen · · Score: 1

    People seem to always mistake weather (ie what happens every day, or even over weeks or months) for climate, which is more like an average.

    Think of a desert - here, the Sonoran Desert (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_temperature_in_Arizona) - the average temperature over a year is 22.5 Centigrade, if one simply takes the day and night temperatures for each month, add them up and divide by 24; 22.5C is really quite pleasant. So why is it so damned hot there in July? Who's lying?

  172. Re:Libtards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And today class, we examine the etymology of the epithet applied to that most parsimonius and disagreeable of individuals: the "Libtard". From the roots 'libation' "an intoxicating beverage drunk in ceremonial or celebrative situations" and 'tardy' "slow; sluggish; delaying through reluctance" the word roughly translates as a slow drinker. While some may see this as a responsible and sober outlook on life, the word carries further, negative, connotations. A "Libtard" is usually the guy who accepts drinks from others, but still has a full pint when it should be his turn to buy a round. Other stereotypes include going to the toilet when it is his turn to buy a round, or perhaps deciding that he has had enough to drink and should go home -- when it is his turn to buy a round. Reviled throughout the civilized world, this individual is usually the object of much derision once he has thus absented himself.

    See also: cheapskate, skinflint, miserable bastard.

  173. Re:funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because Lord knows no one has ever monetized and gotten rich off a brand new emerging industry.
    After all, Ford, Edison, Curtis, Rockerfeller...they all died paupers.

  174. Re:Who you gonna believe? by dave420 · · Score: 1

    By your logic a soldier in a trench knows more about the progress of an entire war than the generals... Really?

  175. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by dave420 · · Score: 1

    The future threats are not going to be gradual. The very fact you claim that as gospel truth shows you really don't have a good grasp of the science. If you fear people calling attention to a problem more than the problem itself, you are not operating in the realms of reason.

    Earth has been very much warmer than it is now, but there were no humans around. If it gets hotter and keeps hotter, there also will be no, or at the very best far fewer, humans around. That's the problem.

  176. Phrenology is real people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Francis Galton modernised Eugenics Karl Pearson the Statistician was an advocate as was Winston Churchill. Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, H. G. Wells, Norman Haire, Havelock Ellis, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Robert Andrews Millikan, Linus Pauling and Sidney Webb.
      KKKKKKHHHHHHAAAAANNNN!!!!!! proved its worth during the Genetic wars at the end of the 20th Century so you must accept Anthropogenic Climate Global Change Warming, like Manbearpig, is real.

    Yours cerealousy,

    Al Gore, Nobel Laureate

  177. Reading between the lines... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Haven't RTFA, but...

    i) If one is ignorant of current scientific findings, a rational person might conclude that current mild winters are not evidence of longer-term climate change.

    ii) If one is ignorant about the scientific method, a rational person might conclude that conclusion i) is evidence for the proposition that that longer-term climate change does not exist.

    iii) But regardless of one's awareness of how science works, no rational person could conclude ("at least" as is stated at the end of the summary) that mild winters are evidence that climate change is not caused by human activity.

    iv) A rational person, regardless of that person's awareness or ignorance of science, would logically conclude that a person who does affirm conclusion iii) is motivated by a political agenda, or by a simple unwillingness to accept inconvenient truths.

  178. I wish I didn't have to be an idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's interesting. If I ask what role the clouds seeded by those CO2 spewing jets play, I'm a 'denier' or some other ugly, borderline grammatical term. When I try to find what role water vapor plays as a greenhouse gas, it appears to be a factor.

    I remember a NASA study that said global cloud cover had increased significantly in the jet age from contrails seeding clouds. If I recall, it was something like 10%, and that was a few decades ago.

    "Everybody" who's anybody, the same crowd who warned in the 70's of the coming ice age, says global warming or climate change or whatever you want to call it is caused by CO2.

    I remember getting a bad headache from rum and coke, so I switched to bourbon and coke and still got a bad headache. So I swore off coke. But I digress. Is there one, overriding, trace gas determinant in our complex environment, or are other forces at work?

    By 'trace gas' I mean an atmospheric component that must be a somewhat rare molecule to find. There is more argon in the atmosphere than CO2.

    And yes, I'll admit political conservatism in an independent sort of way. Which means, unlike Al Gore, I have no stake in carbon taxation.

    And it's not carbon control we may need, it's carbon dioxide control. Diamonds aren't causing global anything.

  179. Re:Idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I feel dumber for having read your post.

    In the '70s we were running low on gasoline due to an oil embargo from the middle east, not because oil was running out and we were "just months away from pumping that last barrel from the ground." You're somehow confusing the oil embargo with the later notion that we may be running out of oil. Which isn't to say that oil is not out there under the ground, but rather that the easily extractable oil has already been tapped into. You can still get at the rest of the oil, but it will increasingly cost more money to do so. That isn't a problem as long as the price of oil keeps going up, making it cost effective. Although there is the additional issue that at some point it will cost more energy to extract the oil than you get out of it. Already the tar sands in Canada are near that point.

    As for the stupid alarm that we're going into another ice age, that was simply an article in Time magazine--hardly a peer reviewed journal. Not to mention there was no consensus among 97% of climate scientists that we were in danger of doing so. But you make it sound like it was some big movement that all the scientists were behind and then poof! Forty years later don't those folks look like a fool.

    Taking action against global can save you money, not cost money. Sure, carbon credit programs will cost a couple of bucks, but you can save a ton of money by simply using less gas and electricity. With a little insulation in the shack, turn the thermostat up a little in the summer and down a little in the winter my gas bill is 1/3 what it used to be a few years ago and my electric bill is 1/4 to 1/5 what my neighbors' bills are. The house is still comfortable and my lifestyle has not radically changed.

    But if you want to be a tool for the energy companies, but all means keep on keepin' on.

  180. Sweden has been lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The U.S. Midwest pretty much blows chunks too. We're dealing with record rainfall here because the jet stream has stalled out and is dumping buckets o' wet stuff on us. The Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers are at flood stage and it doesn't look like they're going to get back to normal any time soon.

  181. Who CARES what non-science approaches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    99% of the world's climatologists have degrees in global warming and climate change taught by professors with the same degrees. Very few of them have ever been exposed to theories that do not revolve around evil man and his nasty industry. I simply ask them to reveal their bias and accept that I live on this planet too.

  182. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Of course the planet has been much hotter than it is now. The problem is that we have a large civilization that is adapted to a climate that's been varying within limits for thousands of years, and is getting outside those limits. The planet will survive. The biosphere will survive. Humanity will survive. It's very likely to be extremely expensive, though.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  183. That proves it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can safely discard decades of satellite data and trends on global weather and climate, and the analysis of all climatologists all around the world, because a few carefully choosen farmers in sweden think that it is not happening.

    no, no, no. They know change is happening but they are not convinced that it is different from any of the periods of change that they or their fathers or grandfathers have experienced before.

  184. If farmers say it it MUST be true!! by Optali · · Score: 1
    Now I'm totally convinced. If a farmer from the butt of the world says something it must be totally true.

    I heard they are going to hire Swedish farmers for the CERN and MIT is going to fire all the staff to substitute it by Mongolian shepherds.

    --
    -- 29A the number of the Beast
  185. A reasoned comment by GPS+Pilot · · Score: 1

    I've seen so much over the top hype and hysteria from the climate change deniers

    I don't pay attention to hype or hysteria, but I do pay attention to this reasoned comment from James Lovelock:

    "The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened."

    --
    That that is is that that that that is not is not.
  186. Weather is NOT climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except when it helps "the cause".

    Then... any unseasonably warm weather, tornado or hurricane is the direct result of "GLOBAL climate change".

    You can't have it both ways.

    And... actually... yes. The weather is the climate. In aggregate.

  187. Profits by terrywirth5 · · Score: 1

    It appears that Swedish farmers are no better than Murcan farmers in this regard. All farmers regardless of country/ideology: if profits increase this year (food prices going up everywhere)--status quo; if profits do not go up, ignore/disparage the economic/environmental influences because the concepts are well beyond their grasp. Farmers are in essence superstitious and anti-science. Climate change? I got the Farmer's Almanac.

  188. Re:Farmers may not trust the researchers. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    That's really not a very long list, and it includes quite a few people who aren't climate scientists. I've got nothing against (say) physicists, but I don't go to climate scientists for the latest theories on dark matter. Moreover, there's three categories in that Wikipedia entry: people who generally distrust the modeling and think the predictions are unreliable, people who think the observed warming is not anthropogenic, and people who don't think there is a single main cause. There is no category for scientists who think the planet isn't warming up.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  189. Look At Germany by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    German farmers are happy they can grow things now that only used to grow in Spain and Italy ... :D

  190. Re:Who you gonna believe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think one problem is that farmers, especially farmers in the meat and diary industries, are sometimes pointed out as some of the major cult pits when it comes to global warming. That's why they probably want to deny it, because it affects their business.

  191. Re:funny by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    Emerging industry? I see no one making profits from actually making things. They're getting rich by government grants. The taxpayers support this new "industry" by grants, loans and subsidies.

  192. Farmers being reactionary is so surprising by wolja · · Score: 1

    Gee I'm surprised that Farmers may not accept the evidence.

    From a local perspective given that the Aussie farmers took over 50 years to understand that clear felling was causing the erosion they were bitching about it is not that great a surprise that their Swedish confrères are equally unable to understand reality.

    Now if someone can prove that Farmers are the keystone of right wing blindness and not just religion the world will be explained.

    --
    Wolja Future Tombstone: Shit happened then I died
  193. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    I don't know. Immediate threats tend to be more likely to get attention.

  194. Re:Farmers also not sure of the whole sun centered by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    No matter what it'll get expensive. Ocean rise will be a real bitch for those living on the coasts.

  195. Swedish Chef! by tmjva · · Score: 1

    Of course Swedish Farmers are mainly concerned about supplying the larders of Swedish Chefs!

    But there is only one way to prepare Chicky in the Basky, and that's by firing a shotgun into the air.

    Bork, bork, bork!

    --
    Tracy Johnson
    Old fashioned text games hosted below:
    http://empire.openmpe.com/
    BT
  196. Who stands to gain the most from denying? by dacaldar · · Score: 1

    ... farmers in cold norther climes who would benefit from longer growing seasons?

    It's not that they "don't believe" in climage change, just that they want us to keep doing it!

  197. You are ignorant. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    You give away you know nothing. Turn off your TV and learn to think.

    1. Re:You are ignorant. by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      baseless insults are baseless.

      And its amusing that you've got radical political links on every post you make yet claim other people are brainwashed.

      *yawn*... so many damaged people.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    2. Re:You are ignorant. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      You really have no idea. I pity you. If you think my indie news link is radical politics and only for the brainwashed... total irony. Well, I hope that you will never give up or learn anything so you continue to be unconvincing to intelligent people rather than have to face yourself someday or be capable of influencing thinking people.

      The other reply to you did well enough pointing out your ignorance.

    3. Re:You are ignorant. by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Its a partisan news source... from wikipedia:
      ""Democracy Now! is a United States daily progressive, nonprofit, independently syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion,[2] aired by more than 1000 radio, television, satellite and cable TV networks in North America.[3""

      Progressive... its a political affiliation. That makes it more political then FOX which at least claims to be non-partisan. Democracy Now doesn't even try to make that claim.

      As to the rest of your babbling insults... you've been unable to back any of that up and until you do you're just making animal noises.

      You're just beating your chest, hooting, and trying to throw your own poop at me... and from this I am to respect you? You're a degenerate.

      Either back up your position or your statements are null.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    4. Re:You are ignorant. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      I do not have to prove anything to the likes of you. Since the other replies didn't even get you to consider your ignorance on the topic you are not open to serious discussion making such efforts pointless.

      FOX is propaganda and naturally, they don't say what they are. Just as propagandists renamed themselves P.R. after WW2. That doesn't mean they are less political. GOP-TV is what they really are and if you know anything about their history you'd realize this. It's obvious if you know their history and also why they promote Reagan as a Saint...

      Democracy now isn't radical or propaganda. They don't try to hide their bias with lies. They are more neutral and open than FOX ever could be even if somehow FOX tried... it's entertainment 1st even if you get rid of #2 (propaganda.)

      You ever listen to Democracy Now? It's the most depressing news program I've ever heard. It does not try to help you maintain your reality bubble and it features a wide range of opinions from outside the narrow spectrum; far more than the mainstream US media. It has become more focused in the later years, I was listening back in the 90s when they tried to find intelligent experts from mainstream positions but it didn't prove that fruitful; especially given how radical things have become in the USA as well as the general shift to the "right" across the board. Shouting matches and the disgraceful stuff that passes as "news" today is not allowed. It is NOT entertainment and it is NOT fun. It is what real news is. They try to fill the massive hole left by the so-called "news" today.

    5. Re:You are ignorant. by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Watching you sputter is amusing... the claim that a clearly partisan source isn't partisan is further amusing.

      What is it like to be so deluded?

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    6. Re:You are ignorant. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      ha ha. It's funny how we each think the other is out of touch with reality. Partisan, look it up - perhaps you are not using the correct word.

      Democracy Now doesn't have a party; but if you include 3rd parties, then they'd be closest to being Green Party (which is a party without a whole lot of cohesion to begin with.) Democrats, they are not. They do have a philosophical bias (who doesn't?) Just because there is a huge amount of Republican crazy and stupid to cover doesn't make anybody partisan for picking the abundance of low hanging fruit on the "right".

      If you were outside of the confines of the popular (and narrow) ideologies in this culture, you would see things more clearly. This is where I suggest living abroad for a while; although, without an open mind you can't learn much. Me, I'm so far from the norm the two parties look nearly identical and the USA left/right is an insult to intelligence; a false dialemma which looks just like a childish black/white worldview.... except way too many adults are stuck in this immature perspective defended by mature rationalizations. Billions are spent making people believe good cop and bad cop are not both trying to screw you over and fighting over which one of the two is the bad cop. It doesn't matter; it's all a smokescreen.

  198. Simple show of hands. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In view of the belief that if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem let's approach this from a different angle. If you are troubled by global warming, don't turn on your heaters this winter.

  199. This is great news! by sudon't · · Score: 1

    This is great news! (at least for Americans). See? We are not the only idiots denying climate change. Take that, rest of the World!

    --
    -- sudon't

    Air-ride Equipped

  200. Re:Who you gonna believe? by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

    This is just like Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever we fight the next war to line Halliburton's pockets.

    Lets test that.

    Reporter - 2004: Why is the US fighting in Afghanistan? Marine in Afghanistan: Because Afghanistan hosted al Qaeda when it attacked the US, killing as many people as Pearl Harbor.

    Reporter - 2014: Why did the US go to war in Afghanistan? DexterIsADog: Cuz Halliburtonz!

    I'm going with the Marines.

    You remain adorable! I know, a lesser mind could infer that I claimed Afghanistan was motivated to line Halliburton's pockets, but that's not actually true. Try asking someone with English comprehension skills to read that to you - your conclusion does not logically follow.

    Anyway, it was especially endearing that you left out Iraq entirely, which I now explicitly contend WAS stage managed by neocon war criminals looking for some profit.

    And while the *proximate* cause of the Afghanistan war was Al Qaeda, even in your fake interview, your imaginary soldier left out the reasons Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. in the first place, as if history began on 9/11/01, so you made your hypothetical marine as ignorant as I contended.

    Why do you hate our troops?

  201. Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So not believing in a hoax is news now?