UN Climate Change Panel: It's Happening, and It's Almost Entirely Man's Fault

iONiUM writes The UN released a new climate change report which concludes that it is indeed happening, and it's almost entirely man's fault. From the article: "The IPCC was set up in 1988 to assess global warming and its impacts. The report released Sunday caps its latest assessment, a mega-review of 30,000 climate change studies that establishes with 95-percent certainty that nearly all warming seen since the 1950s is man-made." However, the report isn't entirely dire. It goes on to say: "To get a good chance of staying below 2C, the report's scenarios show that world emissions would have to fall by between 40 and 70 percent by 2050 from current levels and to 'near zero or below in 2100.'" Below zero of course means mining existing CO2 out of the atmopshere somehow.

Comments

Happy Sunday from The Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.

Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone not woowoo anti-science (usually being the theistic types who worship the Invisible Hand) has already established:

1. Climate change is mostly man-made;

2. This doesn't mean the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent significant harm.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

crack pot

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Derp derp Al Gore DerpDerp Manbearpig Derp Derp

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

This political decision from the UN should surprise no one, to be sure. Let me guess - the proposed remedy involves the wealthier nations paying lots of money to the poorer nations? And basically ignores China and India? (Did you know ~30% of San Francisco's air pollution was emitted in China?)

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

And who outsources everything to those countries? Hrm....

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is not a "political decision", but you're right that China and India are great contributors toward the problem. Are you implying that we should stop outsourcing everything to China and India? If so, I agree.

Re:Obviously.

[Noah Haders]

i don't know what it means to "worship the invisible hand" - this sounds like a vague masturbation reference. But I do believe that if we are to mitigate the impact of global warming we need to provide solutions that work in a free market. put it another way, we need to help clean technology companies make a buttload of money and help people save money by using clean energy. (disclosure: I work for a clean technology company)

Re:Obviously.

[roc97007]

I think it's important to note, even if we happen to disagree on the global warming component, we can agree on this.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess - the proposed remedy involves the wealthier nations paying lots of money to the poorer nations?

Let me guess, you prefer war to peace? Because to solve the problem of "they are polluting too damn much", I only see two options. 1) Offer assistance in reducing their pollution. 2) Invade the country and force the residents back to a pre-industrial society. But if you know of a third option, I am all ears.

And basically ignores China and India?

Why would it ignore China and India?

Re:Obviously.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The future of humanity will be much better off with China and India bring modern societies of economic freedomm with commensirate contributions to technological advancement, than in a nice green world with them in dirt floor poverty.

I, for one, welcome a doubling of technological advancement rate.

We can less predict the state of life in 2114 than 1914 could predict today.

Screw them in 1914 if they had slammed on the brakes to "help" us in 2014, leaving us with 1970 tech.

Re:Obviously.

[mspohr]

About 50% of China's pollution is caused by exports.... so all that cheap crap you buy that's made in China counts towards China's pollution. The corporations have not only outsourced all the jobs to China, but the pollution too.
The pollution from shipping the junk from China (boats and planes) isn't tallied in any accounts so total pollution is more.
So, the pollution drifting over San Francisco is just the pollution catching up with the stuff shipped over and sitting on WalMart shelves.

Re:Obviously.

[mspohr]

So you think that the US should be forced back to a pre-industrial society?

Re:Obviously.

[fustakrakich]

Let me guess - the proposed remedy involves the wealthier nations paying lots of money to the poorer nations?

It is nothing of the kind. They want poor individuals to make sacrifices (regress back to donkey carts, work for nothing, and eat bugs) so the delegates and the people they represent can keep their private jets and beluga caviar and still breathe the air and drink the water ,and of course, sell the same to the rest of us... at a very reasonable price, I assure you...

Re:Obviously.

[Jawnn]

Anyone not woowoo anti-science (usually being the theistic types who worship the Invisible Hand) has already established:

1. Climate change is mostly man-made;

2. This doesn't mean the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent significant harm.

I believe that you aren't being fair to the "theistic types" in that you aren't being nearly hard enough on those who are taking advantage of them and those who are similarly gullible. Those cocksuckers are, of course, the energy industry. They have a huge interest in not changing things. Their businesses are hugely profitable. Spending money to avoid the erosion of those profits is part of that business. Spending as little as possible in order to preserve as much profit as possible is just good business, and right now, hoodwinking the gullible has the most ROI. I have seen it before....

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in a town where every third job was directly related to the forest products industry. All my life, I watched huge swaths of ancient forest fall to clear cutting, knowing that the industry's party line, "Trees are America's Renewable Resource", was just so much cynical corporate bullshit. Planting "four trees for every tree 'harvested'" is not the same thing as growing even one board-foot of timber for every board-foot harvested. But the locals bought it, hook-line-and-sinker, because they wanted to. They needed to believe that their livelihoods were derived from a resource that would always be there. Fast forward forty years, or so. All the old-growth timber is long gone. Countless towns like mine are now ghost towns, "the mill" long closed and most of the forest jobs (fellers, choker setters, etc.) also gone. And the locals are still wondering what happened, while a cynical few, who reaped huge profits from the rape of a resource that can not be replaced in several of our lifetimes, could not give a shit. And the "intellectual elite", those credible experts, including most ironically, a handful of industry foresters, who predicted this can only say, "We told you so."

This same thing is happening now on a global scale WRT climate change. The opinion amongst those most qualified to cast one is overwhelming, dwarfed only by the noise from those whose profit is threatened by that opinion. And those whose livelihood, indeed, those whose very lifestyle depends on the industries that produce those profits, want very badly to believe all the noise. Based on my experience, they will continue to do so until it is far too late to do anything about it.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was not aware that the US was a third-world country. I thought the US was one of those "wealthier nations" to which lgw was referring.

I am also curious as to how you came to the conclusion that I support invasions. All I did was point out the options available, I did not state a preference for either. At best, it could be inferred that I prefer the assistance method, which just further makes your post appear silly.

Re: Obviously.

[mc6809e]

Remote Sensing Systems (which uses satellite data) shows that there's been 0.123K of warming per decade since 1980.

Re:Obviously.

[denzacar]

(Did you know ~30% of San Francisco's air pollution was emitted in China?)

Well... 25% of US coal exports goes to Asia.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinener...

U.S. coal exports have made steady inroads into the Asian market since 2007. Almost all the U.S. coal exported to Asia went to the world's top four coal importers: China, Japan, India, and South Korea. Asia's share of total U.S. coal exports increased from 2% in 2007 to 25% in 2012. While U.S. coal has also been gaining market share in Asia, it provided less than 4% of Asia's coal imports in 2012, and less than 1% of total coal consumed by the four large Asian importers.

And as natural gas pushes out coal in the US, that only means even more coal gets to be exported to Asia.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Hey, look at it this way.
USA gets cheap labor and ONLY a tiny fraction of pollution from its own coal.
Meanwhile, China pays USA for coal, keeps nearly all of the pollution from said coal, and exports cheap labor to USA.

USA gets cleaner air, cheap products and profit - while China gets cheap energy, much lesser profit and air and other pollution.
It's a win-win.
Mostly for USA, but it's a win-win.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

To worship the Invisible Hand means to believe that the free market always comes up with the best solutions for humanity, i.e. that it is a silver bullet rather than a tool which - like any tool - sometimes is suitable and sometimes is not. This is the same way some people answer every problem with "God!" even though God is just something humans make up for their own benefit and which as a concept has sometimes helped humanity (some of the most productive civilisations have been theistic) and sometimes has not.

We do need to promote economically sustainable solutions, yes. But that's not the same as providing solutions "that work in a free market", which has never existed. Many of the big tech developments of C19 (including in the USA) were based on temporary monopoly rights and public investments and guarantees which made remaining private investment worthwhile, for example. Government contributions, at least initially, are as essential to long-term R&D as they always have been. It's up to the voter whether they want to hand control over to profit-makers or to keep things under public control after that - and the most successful countries tend to choose a combination of public companies and well-regulated private industry, i.e. which suit no freshman idealist but which keep the average man/woman in the best possible living conditions.

Re:Obviously.

[MightyMartian]

And one only need look on /. where the swirly eyed pseudo skeptics and like minded travelers in space and time reject everything the researchers say in favor of actually accepting that barfing hundreds of millions of years of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere in 300 years actually has some dangerous effects.

What saddens me, as someone who cut my teeth on talk.origins back in the day, is that the Kochites have adapted every Creationist absurdity invented over the last century and recycled all the claims of cabal and conspiracy.

I used to be hopeful that our civilization might avoid the failures past cultures, but we seem to be edging towards short term game, and screwing over our descendants. And for what? Cheap gas?

Re:Obviously.

[Jane Q. Public]

This sentence from OP says it all:

The IPCC was set up in 1988 to assess global warming and its impacts.

The IPCC was not created to determine whether AGW exists. It was created to promote AGW and tell everybody that it DOES exist. Anything else out of its collective mouth is against its charter.

So of course it says AGW exists. The entire reason IPCC exists is to say so.

Re:Obviously.

[gmuslera]

In global thermoclimatic war, the only way to win is not to play. No matter which country did the final pollution/greenhouse emission/etc, what matters is that there is only world for all of us, lose it, and lose all.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw them in 1914 if they had slammed on the brakes to "help" us in 2014, leaving us with 1970 tech.

I was with you up until this. It's not like we have the flying cars we were promised. You know all they are going to get in the future is phones too tiny to operate with your hands and ultraporn. Don't get me wrong: the ultraporn will be great, but it's not like flying cars.

But, that said, bring on the carbonpocalypse. I don't care about climate change (whether or not it exists). I do care about energy independence, so I'm in favor of a massive crash program to build nuclear reactors everywhere.

Re:Obviously.

[MacDork]

1. Climate change is mostly man-made;

AC claims climate barely changed before man evolved. Who is woowoo anti-science again?

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

thesitic types aren't anti-science as you say. and what's your sample size? your opinions don't belong in science.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be the song I'm listening to, but I almost shed a tear reading your post.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's why the IPCC's 1990 and 1995 reports claimed to unequivocally detect AGW. If the IPCC were simply assessing AGW rather than uncritically promoting it, the IPCC might have said that they couldn't yet unequivocally detect AGW.

But they didn't, so Jane's right.

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[itzly]

AC claims no such thing. AC is talking about the climate change we're experiencing now.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that you aren't being fair to the "theistic types" in that you aren't being nearly hard enough on those who are taking advantage of them and those who are similarly gullible. Those cocksuckers are, of course, the energy industry. They have a huge interest in not changing things. Their businesses are hugely profitable. Spending money to avoid the erosion of those profits is part of that business. Spending as little as possible in order to preserve as much profit as possible is just good business, and right now, hoodwinking the gullible has the most ROI. I have seen it before....

And, come 2100, all of them will be selling renewable energy and telling you how burning fossil fuel was bad and that solar, wind, and whatever is available at the time is the only way to go.

Re: Obviously.

[LynnwoodRooster]

And a slight drop since 1997. If you look at RSS, it was essentially flat from 1979 to 1996, then the big 1998 spike happened, then flat since then. It's not really an increasing trend, but a flat/stable with a single big step function that happened in 1998. If it was driven by man, we'd expect to see a relatively consistent, ongoing rise, wouldn't we? Rather than two basically flat/declining periods with one big step function year between...

Re:Obviously.

[popo]

Anyone not woowoo pro-globalization (usually being historically-ignorant, and pro-socialist dictatorships) has already established:

1. There are massive profit incentives in the hundreds of billions of dollars for establishing a worldwide treatise system of carbon credits, which in turn will require a common, goal-seeked understanding of global warming and anthropogenic causality.

2. This doesn't mean that the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent profound harm to your civil rights.

Carry on. ( Non-free thinkers usually do. )

Re: Obviously.

[Eunuchswear]

You have given Dr Roy Spencer a sad.

Even RSS say that their data is dodgy.

Don't eat those cherries.

Re: Obviously.

[itzly]

We would expect to see a consistent rise, if all the heat was just going in the atmosphere. In reality, most of the heat goes in the oceans, and the distribution between oceans/atmosphere has some variation. The most notable of those variations is caused by the ENSO cycle. During El-Nino years, more of the heat goes into the atmosphere, and during La-Nina years, more heat goes into the ocean. The year 1998 which you mention, had a record El-Nino, so a lot of the heat went into the atmosphere. We haven't had a big El-Nino year since then, so it's been slightly cooler. The satellite records are a bit more sensitive to this effect because they don't really measure the surface temperature very well. Instead, they measure the temperature of the atmosphere a bit higher up.

Re: Obviously.

[LynnwoodRooster]

So then man can't do much - it's nature pulling or pushing heat in/out of the system... Because when we try hard (like now with increasing CO2) we don't see any increase in temperatures. But when nature burps (a big El Nino) we see a spike. I'd say we're driven primarily by nature, not man...

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[i.kazmi]

And the wonky weather patterns that we're witnessing? I guess the weather's in on the conspiracy too...

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[PastTense]

No, for the United States the primary remedy should be reducing its share of the world's CO2 production from the current 20% to its share of the world's population (about 5%).

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[itzly]

No, you misunderstand. Increased CO2 results in the Earth building more heat every year. Nature is just responsible for balancing it between ocean and atmosphere. If you make a graph of just the El-Nino years, you see the temperature going up in a consistent trend. The same thing happens for the La-Nina years. It's just that the La-Nina trend line is a bit lower. http://www.bitsofscience.org/w...

Re:Obviously.

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, that's why the IPCC's 1990 and 1995 reports claimed to unequivocally detect AGW. If the IPCC were simply assessing AGW rather than uncritically promoting it, the IPCC might have said that they couldn't yet unequivocally detect AGW.

This discussion wasn't about 1990 or 1995. It was about today. Further, your argument has absolutely nothing to do with what I stated above.

Halloween is over. Time to take down the straw men.

As for "conspiracy", nobody mentioned anything like that until i.kazmi did. A charter is a document, not a conspiracy.

If I (just hypothetically) were to form a non-profit with a charter that said the organization's purpose was to "assess alien abductions and their effects", do you think that organization would go around claiming that alien abductions never happen? Of course it wouldn't. It would promote the idea of alien abductions... because without them or at least a belief in them, the organization would cease to exist, and any officers of the organization would lose their paychecks.

Is that a "conspiracy"? No. It's a charter.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone not woowoo anti-science (usually being the theistic types who worship the Invisible Hand) has already established:

1. Climate change is mostly man-made;

2. This doesn't mean the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent significant harm.

Unless China and India pollution levels are not reined in along with the Western World, there will be no point in any reductions. And governments can forgot about taxpayers funding the clean-up effort; make the industries responsible for the pollution pay the costs of clean-up and reduction. Another world war is the only way to save the planet from the unbridled population explosion in cesspool countries.

Re:Obviously.

[towermac]

"But if you know of a third option, I am all ears."

Third option: Non-carbon generated electricity that is cheaper than carbon. (That's an economic, as in real, 'cheaper', not tax/subsidy to make it cheaper)

"Why would it ignore China and India?"

Because the last one did, and if it hadn't have, they would have told us to go pound sand anyway. They are going to do what they want.

Let me tell you what they want. They want a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with central heat and air and 2 cars in the driveway. Each. Do the math on that times billions of people.

So the cheap electricity option is not even really an option, is it?

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's why the IPCC claimed to unequivocally detect AGW from their very first reports in 1990 and 1995. Because they're just uncritically promoting AGW, not assessing it.

Re:Obviously.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

I have no illusions about the oil industry's "benevolance" but here's the thing.

If we were to suddenly withdraw the 160 exajoules of energy from the world's energy budget provided by oil, you could pretty much guarantee the death of at least 6 billion people over the course of a year.

Our food industry, and interdependent supply chains are critically dependent on cheap, high energy density transportation fuel and the infrastructure that supports it.

*Some* of that be replaced, eventually. It'll be expensive, and quite frankly, is going to require that industrial civilization downsize. Population too, I expect. You're just not going to feed 7 billion plus folks without oil.

So be careful what you wish for. Should economic activity drop enough to no longer be able to sustain oil production worldwide, and that production infrastructure deteriorates enough, you'll see that scenario, played out over 30 years instead of one. Still not pretty.

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

Did you know China's having a serious economic crisis because the era of outsourcing is dying? You're fighting last century's battles, my friend. Manufacturing capacity in the US never really fell, it just became more automated (so the jobs went away, but not the output). As technological progress makes it cheaper to make things here with robots than in China with sweatshops, the tail end of manufacturing is coming back - and because of technology, you don't see the air anymore in most US cities.

Meanwhile, China and India are countries in their own right with their own economies. They're not some children whose deeds can be attributed to their parents in the US! They're going through the same technological revolution we did in the 1800s, though much faster and at 10x the scale. Their air pollution is about what ours was once - it's just that we've cleaned up our act so very much since then that even across an ocean their pollution is a significant portion of ours.

Over the course of this century, US and Europe and Japan are likely to fade as the leading economies. India, China, and Brazil (and to some extent Korea, but their population likely will stay small in comparison) will be the ones to watch, because as technology evens out it's all about population, and if you're worried about carbon emission or any other byproduct of economies, fix your attention there.

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

You go right ahead and reduce your standard of living all you want, if that's what your religion calls for. Hairshirts and self-flagellation? It's your trip, man. But it's not my trip. I want everyone in the world to bring their standard of living up to mine! Instead of making everyone poor, how about we make everyone rich?

For 150 years now, technological improvement has reduced the pollution associated with a given standard of living, and the labor, energy, and resources needed for that production, because that's what technology is: efficiency of production and delivery.

You're worried about our share now, but that's trivial in the scheme of things. China, India, and Brazil won't always be behind us, and it's only a matter of time before they have the same standard of living we do, with 10x the population. Fix your attention there, if your goal is something other than punishing yourself or your neighbor for imagined sins.

Re:Obviously.

[Vegan Cyclist]

This would be a very good topic for a documentary...any idea if there's already one on this? Or any articles you could recommend? Thanks for sharing!

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the solution is easy and we have a good start on making it better. A big problem is the Greens are insistant that
the entire solution be the one and only the one that they propose. They are blind to the problems with renewables and
insist the storage problem is small. They ignore the problems of upgrading the power grid to handle intermittent power
supply. (read smart grid) Mention the success of nuclear power generation and they fly into a rant and talk about danger
and problems with the old nuclear power currently in use. Mention development of new technologies (Molten Salt Reactors)
and they say paying for the R&D would interfere with the R&D for renewables. Not to mention that the current nuclear tech is
clearly the safest & least expensive, power souce on the planet. Science by political polling is non productive. They have no idea on how
safe nuclear power is. You cannot poll the common people and get back valid scientific facts!
TMI - 0.00 people harmed in any way. Well somebody has to pay for that thing, but no physical harm to any body!
Fukushima - 0.00 people harmed by radiation. No likely effects to health to anybody in Japan. 18,000 -> 20,000 people died in the tsunami - RIP
Chernobyl - 80 died in the steam explosion and the ensuing fire. 6,000 people had extrem thyroid problems 20ish died - RIP
All of these plants were designed in the 50's & 60's. Chernobyl was build to a design known to have problems with - wait for it -
steam explosions. Would you buy a new factory build to 1960 specs. Well neither would
anybody else! MSRs for ever - UP WITH LFTRs - google this stuff yourself! - Oh drat - I still do not feel any better!

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

Science is not a "political decision",

But the UN is not a gathering of scientists; it's a gathering of politicians, and as such they make political announcements. As a political body with 1 vote per country, pretty much all they ever do is call for redistribution of wealth, and that directly motivates any muddled reading of science that you'll get from them.

Re:Obviously.

[Pino Grigio]

Science is not a "political decision"

How extremely naive of you.

Re:Obviously.

[sl149q]

Well China is fast on its way to becoming the wealthiest nation in the world. So lets wait about ten years and then try and convince them to pay for it out of their pocket change.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to assume this is a sarcastic summary of the IPCC report.

Yes, something must be done. Obviously. Happily for the IPCC, now having "validated" it's premise for existence and continued funding, this doesn't seem particularly likely to happen any time soon. One can hope, though.

Re:Obviously.

[towermac]

Yes. What would have helped, would have been applied conservatism. After you quit laughing, I'm not talking about what conservatism has come to mean, well, most of this past century.

Root word of conservatism: Conservation. Applied to politics; conservation of public funds and resources. When public action is necessary, then move conservatively, even softly. (That was a public action, leasing all those Federal lands to logger barons)

The only leader I can think of that was close to that ideal was Teddy Roosevelt. And he was called a progressive, and run out of the Republican party.

PS. If it's any consolation, cheap plywood helped us to defeat the Soviet Union. A little..

Re:Obviously.

[DigiShaman]

Pollution exported because our environmental and business climate (taxes) is too restrictive in America to build and operate here. The epitome of ironic!

Re:Obviously.

[towermac]

"profit incentives in the hundreds of billions of dollars"

That money comes from me, man. You're going to fleece me for that much, and give it to the rich.

That's your plan?

Re:Obviously.

[mspohr]

Irony is not realizing that we all live on the same planet and exporting pollution to another country solves nothing.

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[popo]

We're in 100% agreement. You're misreading the position of my comment ;)

Re:Obviously.

[Barsteward]

"You're just not going to feed 7 billion plus folks without oil." - is that your guess or is that substantiated by evidence?

Re:Obviously.

[ArmoredDragon]

Actually market forces are probably going to cause that to happen anyways. In order to be a destination country for whatever tasks, you can't just be cheaper, you have to be MUCH cheaper.

India is coming pretty close to hitting a threshold where the only work that will be outsourced there will be work that you just can't have done anywhere else (the US is currently such a country; a lot of foreign companies outsource work to the US because they just can't find the appropriate labor sources elsewhere.) The only thing is India doesn't specialize too well.

China does on the other hand. When their labor becomes too expensive, specialized tasks will have to be done there. Two things they do very well are textiles as well as making rapid changes to cheaper technology products on a massive scale. Steve Jobs famously mentioned how the later just can't be done in the US; for whatever reason the US just doesn't have the infrastructure and/or knowledge for it (Although a handful of people may have the knowledge, you need a LOT of people to have the knowledge in order for it to be effective.)

Cheap labor has a way of migrating though. During the 50's through early 80's, the "cheap" destination for manufacturing was Japan. Late 80's through today is China. I'm predicting that Vietnam will soon replace China, and afterwards some other emerging economy will replace them. (Note the distinction between emerging economy and developing one. Former communist block countries being emerging, traditionally poor economies being developing. Emerging economies often have the benefit of having derelict infrastructure available that could be re-purposed.)

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's proof that the IPCC has been uncritically promoting AGW ever since the IPCC was created solely to promote AGW:

IPCC 1990: "... The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely for a decade or more..."

IPCC 1995: "... Our ability to quantify the human influence on global climate is currently limited because the expected signal is still emerging from the noise of natural variability, and because there are uncertainties in key factors. ..."

See? The IPCC hasn't ever been assessing AGW. Ever since it was created, the IPCC has just been uncritically promoting AGW because that's the entire reason the IPCC exists. Exactly like alien abduction organizations uncritically promoting belief in alien abductions.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you believe that those demanding "immediate, decisive [and carefully unspecified, for the moment] action" have anyone's interest at heart but the cynical few rapists, then you, sir , need to be careful what you ask for here. These same people are crafting the TPP, for instance, and give the IPCC its marching orders. The UN is their tool. Always has been. They created it. And you are right, they could not give a shit, about you, or about the climate, or about science, which they are making a mockery of here. Dig through the fear-mongering, the ad-hominems, the emotional appeals, the manufactured green sensiblity, the shouting down of critics, the doctoring of data, and examine the alleged evidence critically for yourself. You may find that science can sometimes be as illusory as, say, religion.

In any case, we have every reason to suspect that the UN, or some other agency's cure will be much worse than whatever disease exists. Considering the ways zero or negative C02 emissions could be achieved should give anyone pause, particularly if politicians are involved. History is not too encouraging there.

Re: Obviously.

[TapeCutter]

Roy Spencer? - 10 to 1 the data is stratospheric temps presented as surface temps..

Re:Obviously.

[TapeCutter]

The IPCC do not propose remedies.

Re:Obviously.

[GiordyS]

Strangely, most of the warming predicted by the IPCC is not from CO2 directly. Most of the predicted warming is based upon a Rube Goldberg-like chain reaction of positive feedbacks. They call this 'climate sensitivity'. It's an estimate of how much EXTRA WARMING will occur per doubling of CO2. CO2 should warm the planet about a single degree per CO2 doubling. The IPCC tacks on an extra 2 - 3 degrees due to this 'climate sensitivity'. This extra heat from our supposedly hyper-sensitive climate is what is driving the climate panic. Which is odd since the estimates for 'climate sensitivity' are all over the map. There is huge uncertainty in this area, and there is no observational basis for high climate sensitivity. Quite the opposite in fact. And yet without a high climate sensitivity, there is no crisis.

Skeptics have been pointing this out for years but it has fallen on deaf ears.

Re:Obviously.

[Jane Q. Public]

Apparently I misunderstood your earlier comment. I thought you were being sarcastic.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I wasn't being sarcastic. Since the IPCC claimed to unequivocally detect AGW from their very first reports in 1990 and 1995, they're obviously just uncritically promoting AGW, not assessing it.

Re: Obviously.

[Curunir_wolf]

In reality, most of the heat goes in the oceans

Nope. Skeptical Science tells you that 90% of the warming went into the oceans. That is, of the heat remaining in the system, 90% went into the oceans. But they really left out the percentage that has merely been emitted back to space and/or is simply missing. The IPCC says that the net forcing is +2.30 W/m2 right now. On top of that, there should have been water vapor and cloud feedbacks for another +1.75 W/m2. But all that is showing up is 0.535 W/m2. 86% of the energy is no longer here or is missing. Here is your reference.

Re:Obviously.

[AmiMoJo]

The funny thing is many parts of the energy industry did try to change things. Back in the 70s most of the big oil companies were looking at solar, for example. Even then they realized that oil's days were numbered. Unfortunately for them they didn't really get it, and eventually gave up just before renewable energy really took off.

Re:Obviously.

[AmiMoJo]

No, the climate does change through natural processes. That's not what is happening right now though, and we should still try to stop or reduce it because we can't really deal with the consequences if we don't. Also, I like clean air so burning fossil fuels makes me sad.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

talk.origins. Ok, fair enough. Cut my teeth as an atheist (still am) in the Holy Smoke[?] echo on Fidonet. Still taking a hit not to take a hit, so to speak, because I'm surrounded by people who are just seriously challenged, if not threatened by unbelief, and tend from my perspective to be heavily manipulated by cynical bastards who exploit, institutionally, such fear, so that they can barf mass quantities of precious hydrocarbons shipping raw materials and components all around the world to the cheapest labor/capital for processing, refining, manufacturing, assembly, and shipment back to the markets that formerly had to income to support the consumption levels required for the whole rapacious Ponzi scheme.

Kochites? The Koch Bros. are just tools, witting or not, of the people running this whole scam. The ones whose trust fund grandchildren take up "green" causes like ending "Global Warming" with schemes like cap-n-trade which just line the same people's pockets more and only generate jobs for people who don't produce a damned thing but oversee more and more of every aspect of your and my life every year. You want to have to ask permission to take a dump? Seriously, it's coming to that level of pettifogging micromanagement and control. That's not reductio. It's in the cards. Don't believe me? Ask Eric Schmidt. or better, Elon Musk.

Just because you're not a Creationist does not imply that the PBS worldview is correct. And be careful what you ask for.

Re:Obviously.

[TapeCutter]

Yeah. yeah, is all a giant conspiracy involving just about every scientific institution on the planet and at least 195 nations, it stretches back to 1958 when the National Academies of Science told the US government the same thing.

Re:Obviously.

[AmiMoJo]

I don't think you understand the word "assess".

The IPCC was set up to look into global warming and determine if it is a problem or not. It could have said "not", but the scientific consensus and overwhelming evidence says "problem".

You will also notice that the IPCC is not called the IPAGW. The question of whether climate change, if it is happening, is caused by human activity was left open for them to look into.

Even your ad-hominem attack is wrong.

Re:Obviously.

[DigiShaman]

No, it's ironic because the same environmental policies legislated in the US with regards to manufacturing has done the exact opposite. The "problem" just moved out of the US entirely.

Also known as "the laws of unintended consequences".

Nelson voice: Ha ha!

Re:Obviously.

[Curunir_wolf]

So, the pollution drifting over San Francisco is just the pollution catching up with the stuff shipped over and sitting on WalMart shelves.

Yea, I went to Walmart today to get some PrimoWater (I can't use the chemical laden municipal water for some things, because it's so hard). What a crowd! Don't go on the first of the month - it's when the SS checks hit the bank and the EBT cards are re-loaded so all the Americans depending on public assistance descend on the Walmart to buy food and other "cheap crap", like clothes and housewares they need to live. Their below-livable wages go further there, so that's where they go.

Not sure how we ask these folks to sacrifice more, since they have so little as it is. And most of the middle class folks that can afford to shop elsewhere and actually vote (with their dollars) for non-Chiner produced goods are living paycheck-to-paycheck, because wages for jobs that still exist have been consistently suppressed for over 40 years now. So I don't think many of them are too concerned with a couple of degrees warmer weather, either, it sounds like a lower winter heating bill to them. Much less "sacrificing" to help China and India with their energy resources when they have to budget carefully to afford gas to get to work or payments on a newer more efficient car.

I don't know what the answer is, but adding more taxes to everything, and raising prices on all of it, doesn't seem like a workable plan. The leveling of global wages has been on-going, but it hasn't reduced the cost of living in the US at all, only forced those that managed to maintain a livable wage to make hard choices about what to give up. It didn't help when so many ended up in underwater homes, or, worse, cast out of their homes and back to being renters with nothing to show for it.

I'm afraid any "assistance" the usual suspects from the US (McCain, the John F. Kerry, Gates, the Kochs, Soros, USAID and others) will be "helping" China and India do is learn to further expand the income disparities in their own countries, which is already worse than the US, and has only gotten worse since the US started importing a lot of their stuff.

The traditions in the US come from fierce independence, but living off the land is becoming a lost art, now that her citizens are being trained to ask permission from a bureaucrat before cutting a tree or digging a ditch. And that's only going to get worse before it gets better. Because the Walmart is still taking EBT cards for food.

Re: Obviously.

[madprof]

Yawn. Your political axe to grind is obvious. This place has way too many anti-science trolls these days.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

4 Insightful, amazing. You think climate change is a problem, by the time we've found a solution for it, nobody will be able to read it anymore. Look up "assess". Idiots.

Re:Obviously.

[Loki_1929]

He's correct in what he said, just not why he said it.

Good science isn't political at all; it merely describes reality. Climatology, as groups like the IPCC present it, isn't good science. It's a bunch of fudge-factor-laced models and ignored observations tightly wound around a political agenda. Basically, ignore what you can't explain, place assumptions anywhere the data is incomplete, draw conclusions that don't match up to reality, and pretend it all makes sense because you have "consensus".

That's not to say there's nothing usable in the whole thing. The problem is that we need better data collection, more data collection, and a lot more work put into understanding the underlying mechanics of the system as a whole before we start drawing wide-reaching conclusions about the drivers of the whole thing. The data needs to be put into real context and that means realizing the limitations and inaccuracies inherent in the proxy measurement techniques we have today and not trying to use some statistical fuzzy math to come up with some make-believe historical record.

But back to what he said, he's right in that the political nature of the "Global Warming/Climate Change" zealotry isn't science. It does, however, bear a striking resemblance to many cults.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

google it faggot

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

AC, you missed the point that glw was making. Please try to keep up, AC.

Re:Obviously.

[Loki_1929]

Third option: Non-carbon generated electricity that is cheaper than carbon. (That's an economic, as in real, 'cheaper', not tax/subsidy to make it cheaper)

So, modern nuclear power it is. Start mass producing CANDU reactors (CANDU 6es and ACR-1000s) around the world while pushing ahead with research to convert them to using Thorium so we never run dry. Put them everywhere that needs power and that can't use geothermal. Standardize on common-sense, workable regulations (starting with eliminating any stupid anti-reprocessing rules) and plow through any NIMBY BS put up by local ignorant fools. Within 20 years, you'll have replaced all fossil fuel electricity production with something that actually works and provides plenty of power for everyone.

So the cheap electricity option is not even really an option, is it?

Sure it is. It requires a huge up-front cash investment for construction, but running costs are quite low. Complete the work to replace other fuels with Thorium and you've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 years of power for the entire planet at current rates of use. Increase usage by two orders of magnitude and we're down to maybe 1,000 years if we never put another penny into energy R&D.

Oh darn.

Re: Obviously.

[rrohbeck]

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Re:Obviously.

[ssam]

The climate is not something that you can wait for particle physics style 5-sigma certainty on. We can't run thousands of parallel earths with different atmosphere to see exactly what will happen. What we have is a growing body of observations. You don't wait for a doctor to be 99.99% sure about the day you will die before accepting any treatment, you trust that they will make a good guess based on limited observations they have.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't even imagine how arrogant you have to be to use the phrase "free thinkers" to mean "people who agree with me".

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you were one of the original trolls eh?

Re:Obviously.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

As anonymous coward so eloquently states, numerous articles can be found on google. I also suggest the movie, "Collapse." The Vancouver paper has a nicely written summary of the movie here:

http://www.straight.com/articl...

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidence. Distribution is the largest issue, still. We have no immediate alternative and in a few generations will outpace the energy provided by Sol so it won't matter what alternative you choose. -1 for you, trolling as usual.

Re:Obviously.

[Rei]

Okay, I'll bite. Let's look at a few of what major environmental movements actions were around in the general ballpark of 1914 (let's say, 1910 to 1920) which met controversy from industry. Tell me which of them you think weren't in the right.

Let's first remember that the first real "conservationist president", Theodore Roosevelt, had just served, and taken vast swaths of land away from industrial interests. Lumber interests especially despised him. George Bird Grinnell had just made hunters mad by banning the killing of buffalo and limiting hunting / fur rights in many areas. But let's get to 1910-1920, by the time which a solid "green lobby" had managed become a powerful force in congress. What wins did those eco-nuts manage to pull off?

Establishment of Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Haleakala, Hawaii Volcanoes, Lassen Volcanic, Denali, Acadia, Grand Canyon, and Zion national parks. Most of which met with industry resistance, sometimes major. They'd been trying to make Grand Canyon a national park, for example, since 1882, but it encountered so much resistance that it took 37 years to achieve; its success was considered one of the greatest successes o the conservation movement at the time.

Protection of the most magificent forests of the US. 1914 was the year that famous conservationist John Muir died. It's largely due to his efforts and those who worked with him, for example, that logging of the Giant Sequoias was mostly stopped. The logging industry, one of the biggest in the US at the time, was not amused.

The New York State Audubon Plumage Law banned the sale of plumes of wild birds in the state in 1910 - birds had been widely killed left and right for the fashion industry, and you better believe that the (sizeable) NYC fashion industry fought against that one. But they lost. And by the end of the decade, 12 more states had passed similar laws. Those eco-nuts in the new Audubon Society also got the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 passed, against hunting and fashion interests. It passed a limited but still major earlier victory, the Weeks-McLean Act of 1913.

So, do you think the world would be a better place with the American Buffalo extinct, over half a dozen fewer popular national parks, all of the large sequoias gone, and countless local bird species exinct? Oh, but the economic impact all of those eco-nuts were causing back then, why won't someone please think of the economy...

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy before 10pm and we will double your order, just pay extra shipping and handling.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pollution didn't move itself. It rode on the coat tails of short term profit projections and was bolstered by the WTO which allowed companies to argue that tariffs designed to level the playing field for regulated companies that had to incur the expense of meeting envirinmental, labor or safety standards locally should be shielded from unfair competition in foreign countries that don't regulate businesses for the protection of people or nature.

Financial markets don't price environmental degradation into their calculations unless it diminishes the availability of production resource or the quality of a tourist attraction. Either way, that's reactive, after the fact. It's not a deterrent or part of a solution.

Dieter Helm points out that the cost of mitigation, avoidance or reduction of CO2 and GHGs (and any pollutant) would be most fairly collected at the point of sale, where the end consumer would rightfully foot the bill for implementing the solutions to emissions and pollution. Of course he's European and published his opinion before the American Nukes Council sued to claw back the taxes collected for nuclear waste disposal because it turns out there is no viable or politically agreeable stoage solution. Furthermore he didn't extrapolate to offer suggestions on solving the difficulties of converting the consumption taxes collected in one country into effective solutions where the manufacturing takes place.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Raising taxes doesn't seem 'workable'
- Why? Cuz your gov-reps say so?

Leveling global wages hasn't reduced the cost of living in the US at all...
- It was never intended to.

It didn't help when so many ended up in underwater homes...
- Free Markets don't care. That's why regulation and taxes are legitimate means towards solving the failures of market economics, like pollution.

Re:Obviously.

[sumdumass]

It would be mostly Europe. Well, EU countries anyways. The US.comes in after the EU for the amount of imports from china.

Re:Obviously.

[towermac]

Ah. Good. 'Cause it's a bad plan.

Re: Obviously.

[Curunir_wolf]

That's why regulation and taxes are legitimate means towards solving the failures of market economics, like pollution.

And yet it consistently fails to accomplish anything other than squeezing the middle class, increasing poverty, and increasing income disparities. It never affects "the rich", it falls predominantly on the middle class, which has already suffered from globalization, job competition with 3rd world wages, and excessive regulation that protects the larger corporations and creates barriers for small businesses and sole proprietorships. Doubling-down on these policies simply ensures a neo-feudalism, a partnership between the corporate executives and the government bureaucracies, swapping positions with the revolving door of regulators and boards of directors of the regulated, and the lawmakers that pass laws that they write.

Re:Obviously.

[omfgnosis]

Third option: Non-carbon generated electricity that is cheaper than carbon. (That's an economic, as in real, 'cheaper', not tax/subsidy to make it cheaper)

Weird requirement. We subsidize carbon... why not non-carbon?

Re:Obviously.

[towermac]

I meant not an option, in that we have to do it.

Whatever the technical hurdles are, they can be solved. That is the only accessible power stored in the Earth's crust, besides carbon.

An another thing, the carbon won't last forever anyway, even if global warming was the best thing to ever happen to Man. But one thing that will last almost forever is our current nuclear waste, that can only be disposed of in the reactors you describe.

Re: Obviously.

[Plumpaquatsch]

And a slight drop since 1997. If you look at RSS, it was essentially flat from 1979 to 1996, then the big 1998 spike happened, then flat since then. It's not really an increasing trend, but a flat/stable with a single big step function that happened in 1998. If it was driven by man, we'd expect to see a relatively consistent, ongoing rise, wouldn't we? Rather than two basically flat/declining periods with one big step function year between...

Oh, you mean like so? http://woodfortrees.org/plot/r.... What does that remind me of?

Oh, yeah, The Escalator - "Global Warming" is nothing but long periods of stagnant temperatures with ignorable jumps in between, right?

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: Proportionally the Earth's ocean contains much more heat than the atmosphere.

Speculation: [continuing from above]...therefore additional warming due to increased dissipation lag in the atmosphere will mostly be found in the ocean.

Why must the ratio be constant? And no, it doesn't necessarily follow from physics. Consider the day/night dynamic, for starters.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit! The IPCC was set up in 3 Working Groups. WG-1 assesses the research on the scientific basis of climate change itself. WG-2 assess socioeconmoc and environmental vulnerabilities. WG-3 assesses mitigation, remediation and/or sequestration research.

If you bothered to read the information from the IPCC, itself, instead of regurgitating the political commentary from some 'news' site, you'd be closer to understanding.

There are +1700 reviewers and +300 authors from +80 countries.

Since the 90s, the IPCC Assessment Reports have been more and more negative about our future because so little real progress has been achieved. Even with the global economic downturn, emissions and populations have grown overall. If we measured US emissions in terms of its overall consumption, we'd be well past anything reasonably characterized as progress, notwithstanding CAFE Standards, Clean Air regulations, EPA's expanded authority over red states or Big Oil's blather about becoming responsible energy companies.

Re:Obviously.

[WalksOnDirt]

I don't know what the answer is, but adding more taxes to everything, and raising prices on all of it, doesn't seem like a workable plan.

I think a carbon tax is the only workable plan. If you rebate the tax on a per capita basis the poor should end up with more.

Finding the political will to do this may be difficult.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I will go further and state categorically first principles dictate (no feedbacks considered) rising greenhouse gases upset the balance towards the atmosphere. Basically the initial heat source (not energy) is the atmosphere. Imagine a thermonuclear light bulb dangling in the atmosphere, its height is variable, that doesn't respect the current ratio.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you measure your standard of living? Does it include: Clean Air, Clean Water (outside a bottle), Public Parks, Safety ([drugs, food, environmental, chemical, transportation, etc], or are you happy with high-speed porn, cheap booze and corrupt banksterism as long as you can vacation where its warm once a year?

Re:Obviously.

[Cabriel]

Let's phrase it another way: "Group who is funded to study AGW claims AGW exists so the Group can continue to receive funding."

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

All commercially available nuclear power plants are designed to boil water and spin turbines. They can't reprocess their spent fuel, and most are past or near the end of their design life. In the absence of a safe waste disposal or reprocessing scheme, they should all be decomissioned and turn into multistory jai-alai courts.

The Smart Grid isn't necessary, except that it facilitates retention of the traditional central production/disribution model. If we moved away from that to a more decentralized energy production model, it could be better for everyone involved in manufacturing, installation and maintenance as well as cogeneration and sytems integration technologies that increase efficiency. Hopefully the transition would encourage more efficiency in all things electronic.

Unfortunately, the 2008 financial fraud reduced the capital availability of home equity which could have formed the wealth base to accelerate the residential transition to more efficient systems. But that's what we got for trusting conservatives who, by their nature, fight against change because they seek to protect the status quo, especially from anything new that might jeopardize their long term investment plan.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I'll bite. Let's look at .... the world would be a better place with the American Buffalo extinct, over half a dozen fewer popular national parks, all of the large sequoias gone, and countless local bird species exinct? Oh, but the economic impact all of those eco-nuts were causing back then, why won't someone please think of the economy...

please, mod the parent post up, thanks

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

except it all produces heat, and we all know what happens when you add energy to basically closed system

Re:Obviously.

[dbIII]

Science is not a "political decision"

It's the pre-emptive dirty debating tactic of getting in first and accusing somebody else of what you yourself are doing so that their accusations look like "no you did that not me" playground arguments.
You see it a lot from the science denial crowd and others with no shame.
They also like to go on about the money spent on climate science as funding propaganda when the reality is wandering science deniers on lecture tours are making more money than any Nobel prize winning scientist ever did.

Re:Obviously.

[diamondmagic]

Yes, we can deal with the consequences. If there's two things that are always true, it's (1) we always think things are getting worse, and (2) things are actually always getting better.

Deaths from man-made disasters have dropped greatly over the last century, something like 95%. In present day, the vast majority of deaths are from earthquakes and the effects they cause (especially tsunamis), and even then, only in poorly developed regions.

Imposing vast costs on the economy for the sake of delaying major effects by just a few years is pointless. Mitigating the effects is much more cost effective.

Climatologists only tell us what happens to the climate. If you want to find out what to do about it, you have to ask an economist: The chance that we lose our food supply, or the likelihood of natural disaster deaths going up, is virtually nil.

Re:Obviously.

[Curunir_wolf]

I think a carbon tax is the only workable plan. If you rebate the tax on a per capita basis the poor should end up with more.

What carbon would you like to tax? The electricity people use? Or just some portion based on percentage of generation? Or do you include everyone with wood-burning fireplaces? Do you buy wood pellet stoves for everyone? More for coal? Less for nuclear? Who is poor? What about the middle class - sounds like AGAIN they get to pay the VAST MAJORITY, when they have already been squeezed and squeezed and have lost the value of their wages for 40 YEARS and now you want to take MORE?? Not only that, you want them to pay more for power AND more for power for the POOR that they are already helping support??? We all know the rich will not be affected, because they will WRITE THE LAW!!

Finding the political will to do this may be difficult.

That's because we have more pressing problems to fix.

Re:Obviously.

[diamondmagic]

s/man-made disasters/natural disasters/

Re:Obviously.

[dbIII]

Only some of it. For the rest there's long term storage methods that actually work such as synroc.

Re:Obviously.

[dbIII]

Because those Arabs provide such nice gifts, so nice that we're willing to give them tax breaks and look the other way when they fund things like I.S.

Re:Obviously.

[FlyHelicopters]

If you rebate the tax on a per capita basis the poor should end up with more.

So, what you're REALLY saying is that you want to transfer more wealth from the rich to the poor?

Re:Obviously.

[dbIII]

I'd argue that it was the market protection of steel that started the avalanche. Industries that needed steel and could get it cheaper elsewhere (from places no longer using 1960s technology with a markup to boost profits protected nicely by the government) moved.
Also unintended consequences, and in motion before Nixon implemented environmental policies.

Re: Obviously.

[LynnwoodRooster]

But the years in-between. If you had a constant increase in heat from constant increase in CO2, we'd see atmospheric temperatures increasing regardless of EN/LN effects; those would still cause spikes, but we'd still see a continual trend. From WoodForTrees, looking at the raw data, we don't see it. It's flat - or slightly declining - between each of the large EN/LN events. The atmosphere apparently doesn't heat up until we have such an event.

Re: Obviously.

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, they're not ignorable - they are, in fact, correlated with big El Nino/La Nina events. For example, 1997/1998. That hints that it's driven mainly by natural cycles, and that in-between - those flat areas - when CO2 is steadily increasing, we see basically static temperatures. If CO2 was the primary driver, then wouldn't you expect to see temperature trends that roughly mimic the increase in CO2?

Re: Obviously.

[speederaser]

Roy Spencer? - 10 to 1 the data is stratospheric temps presented as surface temps..

No, the data is accurate. It's a common method of cherry-picking used by deniers. All you have to do is pick a local maxima (like 1998) and run the average from there for a small period like 10 or 15 years.

A 15-year average doesn't mean anything - in climate science you need at least a 30 year average to see a meaningful trend.

Re:Obviously.

[Kernel Kurtz]

Good science isn't political at all; it merely describes reality. Climatology, as groups like the IPCC present it, isn't good science. It's a bunch of fudge-factor-laced models and ignored observations tightly wound around a political agenda. Basically, ignore what you can't explain, place assumptions anywhere the data is incomplete, draw conclusions that don't match up to reality, and pretend it all makes sense because you have "consensus".

This.

I like science as much as anyone but the IPCC's actual predictive track record leaves me fairly underwhelmed.

The problem is that we need better data collection, more data collection, and a lot more work put into understanding the underlying mechanics of the system as a whole before we start drawing wide-reaching conclusions about the drivers of the whole thing

Yup. I've noted in my work that engineers tend to be more skeptical as a group in general. This probably sums up why;

http://judithcurry.com/2014/10... (long read but well worth it).

Basically the whole process is fixated on CO2 to basically the exclusion of all else. Suggesting anything else generally gets you ostracized. Oceans have only really entered the discussion recently and only because the models have been so bad. That's not the science I grew up with.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you intentionally ignoring his point or you are just stupid.
To reitterate: the OCEANS take a lot more to heat up than the atmosphere.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Climate change is mostly man-made;

Since man began spewing out massive amounts of CO2 during the 20th century the warming trend has been:

- Consistent with the prior ancient archaeological record of natural variation.

- Small compared to the full range of natural variation, which swings between ice ages and inter-glacial warm periods which are warmer than today.

Empirically, your assertion that climate change is "mostly man-made" is an absurdity.

Anyone not woowoo anti-science (usually being the theistic types who worship the Invisible Hand) has already established:

Evidence and reason do not support your convictions in AGW. You are angry and frustrated. This explains your insulting tone.

Re:Obviously.

[Uecker]

Participating scientists are not compensated for their efforts.

Re: Obviously.

[lgw]

All of it matters. Our air and water is so amazingly cleaner here than even 50 years ago, it's hard to believe. If you think the environment in the US is getting worse, you need to learn some history!

Chine and India are where we were at our worst - where on a bad day you can't see the building across the street. Will they follow the same path to improvement that we did (or a better one)? I hope so. It's been 45 years now since the Cuyahoga river last (and most famously) caught fire. Let's hope China has had their last river fire, but it's on them to improve.

Re: Obviously.

[Truth_Quark]

UHA, (which uses the same satellite data) gets about 1.4K per decade since 1978

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ancel Keys, in his demonization of fat, made the same argument for the precautionary principle.

Instead of saving us from heart disease, the anti-fat movement has created epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases as it has increased our carbohydrate intake.

Asking us to destroy economies and deprive the poorest of the poor of the energy needed to improve their lives is far more worrisome than any potential average temperature increase.

If you want to do science, instead of just having a set of observations that causes you to chase the precautionary principle, use the scientific method and come up with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement we can actually work with.

Pardon me if I don't trust your guesses.

Re:Obviously.

[Loki_1929]

The human race is a child sitting in the control room of an old Soviet nuclear power plant. A light started blinking red and some of us think we may have done something to make it start blinking red. What you're arguing is that rather than taking the time to understand how a nuclear power plant operates and what the controls in front of us do and what that blinking light means, we should start pushing buttons to see if we can make the red light go away.

That's suicidally stupid, except it's suicide for all of mankind which makes it worse. We're the only known intelligent species in the entire universe living on the only planet in the entire universe which is known to sustain life. We have a responsibility to maintain that life. Purposely screwing with the conditions on that planet without having a solid understanding of how the climate operates is completely insane and irresponsible. A responsible course of action is to take reasonable measures to limit known impact points (i.e. things we know for a fact have a measurable and directly observable negative environmental impact) while we seek to gain an understanding of the system as a whole.

Re: Obviously.

[FlyHelicopters]

All commercially available nuclear power plants are designed to boil water and spin turbines. They can't reprocess their spent fuel, and most are past or near the end of their design life. In the absence of a safe waste disposal or reprocessing scheme, they should all be decomissioned and turn into multistory jai-alai courts.

That isn't true, except in the USA...

The restrictions on the types of reactor designs allowed is a big part of that problem...

Unfortunately, the 2008 financial fraud reduced the capital availability of home equity which could have formed the wealth base to accelerate the residential transition to more efficient systems.

Huh? So home owners were supposed to do *what* with their home equity? Buy more efficient air conditioners?

That makes no sense.

Re:Obviously.

[FlyHelicopters]

Participating scientists are not compensated for their efforts.

Depends on what you consider to be "compensation"...

They aren't all doing it for nothing, rest assured...

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

The IPCC is not a scientific body. It is a political one. I've had the good fortune to meet an ex IPCC member who basically was removed because he wanted to apply scientific questioning to the IPCC process. This was not politically expedient.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we are more like a gassy child locked in a Russian submarine.

Even kids know a flashing red light is bad! The designers of the sub probably chose a red flashing light to signify something that required urgent attention.

Worst metaphor ever!!!

Re:Obviously.

[ssam]

More like we went in and started pressing buttons. Then a light came one. You advocate that we keep mashing the buttons, because it would be dangerous to stop?

Re:Obviously.

[Barsteward]

Thats an old article on old thinking and paradigms. The advance and explosion of use of renewable power generation technology is beginning to mitigate those old ideas. Sure, there will still be oil based things going on for a long time but it will change as more and more electricity is generate by non-polluting tech. Electric cars are beginning to gain traction, battery tech is improving, power storage is developing. Once the manufacturers decide to develop the short haul vans/buses/taxis etc to use electric only, it will reduce oil based transportation. Seems all the detractors of renewable and sustainable energy expect the solution overnight completely forgetting just how many decades its taken the fossil fuel systems to get to the point they are now.

Re: Obviously.

[Eunuchswear]

Nope, the whole point about picking RSS is that the data probably isn't accurate, as that notorious warmist shill Dr Roy Spencer has pointed out, and as RSS themselves acknowledge.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, nature moves it between two parts of the system.

If science is beyond you maybe you could at least try to develop some reading comprehension skills.

Re:Obviously.

[Barsteward]

thats a very defeatist attitude. Why do you expect a solution to be "immediate"? its taken decades to get ICEs to get to the efficiency they have now and they still aren;t as efficient as an electric motor. Trucks can be designed to use electric motors and as they are trucks, they could tow a replaceable power pack because it won;t look daft like it would on a car.
Other sustainable newish ways of generating power are increasing, e,g, solar, wind, tidal that add to the older sustainable versions of hydro and geothermal and the other clean way, nucleur. People tend to forget electricity is already using clean generation int the form of hydro and geothermal. Eventually there are going to be cross continent grids powered by solar, e.g. the UK is currently looking at the idea of getting power from solar farms in the north of Africa

Be positive and look forward, don't cling onto the old ways as the only ways

Re:Obviously.

[Hognoxious]

So you think that the US should be forced back to a pre-industrial society?

You mean the rest of the US?

Signed,
    An Arkansas resident.

Re:Obviously.

[Pino Grigio]

The climate is not something that you can wait for particle physics style 5-sigma certainty on

Yes, yes it is. The most relevant observation so far is that there's been no statistically significant warming for the past 18 years. The reason it's the only observation you should concern yourself with is because the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere has continued to climb. This does tend to falsify the hypothesis that CO2 is a significant driver of climate.

There's a considerable opportunity cost to spending trillions of dollars on a problem that you have no control over anyway (natural variation).

Re:Obviously.

[dave420]

Pseudoscepticism at its finest. Bravo. Future generations will look back upon attitudes such as yours and shake their heads.

Re:Obviously.

[dave420]

So much nonsense. Stop pretending you care about science - you clearly don't give a rat's ass if you don't like what it (or who) is saying. That is patently clear by your assertions in the final paragraph which are patently false and instantly recognisable as such by anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the material at hand. You fail as a scientist, massively and wholly. You disgust me.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

which impact?
Nature of people is that it is always a minor bump in the road. People will start doing other work.
will it impact people? yes.
will it impact local societies? unfortunately yes.
will the impact be bigger if we do nothing? yes.
so let's stop bickering and help each other to overcome the negative impacts of change.

Re:Obviously.

[Bongo]

There is also some overlap between people who are liberal, humanistic, and value science. So naturally, protecting the planet is both a science question, and an ethical/humanistic question.

But what humanistic people sometimes don't notice, is that there is a long path to trek towards becoming humanistic. We don't know how humans develop, but we know it takes a long time. Consider the Suffragettes, who started out in something like 1892, and yet even today we still don't have equal rights for women in the most developed nations. Extend that to protecting wildlife across the whole planet, even in areas where humans are living with tribal, agrarian, or empire based values/outlooks, and you'll see there is a long way to go to get to "climate justice".

This is where humanistic outlooks have it a bit backwards: most of the work isn't in the so-called first world reducing its emissions, it is in the developing world continuing to grow both materially and socially so that the whole planet becomes populated by humanistic humans. Then you can redistribute wealth as much as you want, because we will all equally and genuinely care.

This isn't to say, don't try to develop cleaner technology, but politically, remember, most development will be social, on a planet where the vast majority, especially in the developing world, still believe in 1500 and 2000 year old myths and base their moral and political decisions on those outlooks.

These people are not going to be wooed into changing their morality towards cooperation at planetary scales, on account of some science.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because net income and not wealth is what is generally taxed.

Putting a tax burden on those attempting to accumulate wealth is counterproductive for the economy. In the same token, successful accumulation of wealth is also bad for the economy. If I spend $100,000 a year, have $200,000 a year coming in, all else being equal I'll pay the same taxes weather I'm worth two hundred thousand, a million, or a billion dollars and I'm an equally powerful driver of the economy in all cases.

Tax the wealth on the other hand, and suddenly not only does it make a difference, it makes a difference that actually distributes across "class." Sure, people will just avoid "owning" anything but that's okay, because avoiding owning anything means the wealth is constantly shifting around in the wild where it boosts the economy in the form of jobs, markups, sales tax, fees, etc.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

pwned, can you smell what Rei's been cooking?

Re:Obviously.

[hooiberg]

As a player of civilization, I can say that even if you I did not play the industry path, other players would easily ruin the world without my help. I can see that this works in real life as well.

Re: Obviously.

[Curunir_wolf]

Tax the wealth on the other hand, and suddenly not only does it make a difference, it makes a difference that actually distributes across "class." Sure, people will just avoid "owning" anything but that's okay, because avoiding owning anything means the wealth is constantly shifting around in the wild where it boosts the economy in the form of jobs, markups, sales tax, fees, etc.

I've proposed looking at a wealth tax before - as you point out, it could significantly improve the overall economy for a broader group of people. But every time, I get vigorous opposition to even discussing the idea from both the left and the right. I don't know why that is the case, it's not a radical idea, it's used successfully in many places.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because obviously people like Dr Judith Curry at Georgia Tech are woo woo anti science.

Yes, the conclusions were already established by the dogmatists. Then they started looking for data to support their beliefs. Good bye, scientific method.

Re:Obviously.

[GameboyRMH]

You don't wait for a doctor to be 99.99% sure about the day you will die before accepting any treatment, you trust that they will make a good guess based on limited observations they have.

I encourage all climate denialists to get at least 4, maybe 5-sigma certainty on any cancer diagnosis before taking any action. Cancer treatments are expensive after all, and you should wait until you're really, really, super duper extra sure you have it!

Re:Obviously.

[GameboyRMH]

I want everyone in the world to bring their standard of living up to mine! Instead of making everyone poor, how about we make everyone rich?

But not if it means decreasing your wealth in any way of course. And I'm sure if they remain in poverty forever, that's not ideal but acceptable, right?

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

God, you people are fucking idiots.

"Climate change is mostly man-made"

So your trying to tell me that we have the technology to control:

Solar and Cosmic radiation
The gravitation force of the moon on sea levels
Tectonics
Precipitation
Volcanic activity

The people who write these IPCC reports are the same POLITICIANS who vote in favor of bills that grant legal immunity to environmental destruction by corporations such as Monsanto and Halliburton.

You alarmist nut cases need to get your fucking heads out of your asses and realize that this is nothing more than a means to further widening the class gap with a ridiculously high tax on carbon emissions.

Absolutely nothing in the IPCC reports nor Agenda21 addresses how we're going to fix what we've destroyed, they just want us to throw our money them.

Re:Obviously.

[NetNed]

Sorry, but while the preservation of land is about the environment, it is not about the climate. Just like the whole weather is not the climate bullshit passed off as fact one time, then when it's supporting climate change, it's fact the other way. So you can't claim all is about one. But that same token I could go as far to say that buffalo, just like is claimed like cattle, put off CO2 so they have contributed to green house gases. I don't want to see any species extinct but to claim that was all in the name of climate change is complete and utter bull. If anything climate change has done more harm to the setting aside of lands and protecting animals since it is in direct competition for funds with each other, and "climate change" is raking in the money quite more massively then producing parks and protecting wildlife. Hell, hunting has done more in the way of funds to protect species and insure proper management then any climate group around. Add to that all the holes in so called "facts" from groups like the IPCC and you'd have to either be a idiot or obtuse on purpose not to see the scam for cash that the whole thing has become.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I would advise you to go and get cancer treatment now! before the doctor has any idea what's wrong with you

and as your not sure that all the quack methods might not be wrong you'd better spend all your money on crystals and the other woo shit..(equivalent to windmills and CCS)

Never mind that the cancer treatments could kill you or give you cancer..

follow your precautionary principal quickly (and die in poverty!!!!) or you might die from the cancer you don't have!

Re: Obviously.

[Plumpaquatsch]

So what's the magic by which both El Nino/La Nina "events" drive climate?

Re:Obviously.

[WalksOnDirt]

No, I want people who use more energy to pay more for the environmental consequences. The fact that the rich use more on average means that some poor may gain. I'm ok with that.

Re:Obviously.

[denzacar]

Civilization is not a realistic representation of the real world.
Primarily due to the fact that computer players are not "irrational" the way people are nor are they aware of all aspects of the "game" the way people are.
The same reason prisoner's dilemma doesn't work in real life - you don't get shanked for ratting out in a game.

Re:Obviously.

[WalksOnDirt]

What carbon would you like to tax?

All fossil carbon.

The electricity people use? Or just some portion based on percentage of generation?

Only the part that comes from fossil carbon.

Or do you include everyone with wood-burning fireplaces? Do you buy wood pellet stoves for everyone?

No. Whether they are allowed is a separate issue.

More for coal? Less for nuclear?

More tax on coal and less tax on nuclear, yes.

Who is poor? What about the middle class - sounds like AGAIN they get to pay the VAST MAJORITY, when they have already been squeezed and squeezed and have lost the value of their wages for 40 YEARS and now you want to take MORE?? Not only that, you want them to pay more for power AND more for power for the POOR that they are already helping support???

The middle class should, on average, break even. We need to discourage the use of fossil carbon while doing as little harm to the economy as possible. Cap-and-trade is worse.

Re: Obviously.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Big ocean upwellings/sinks; El Nino/La Nina are the opposite peaks of an oscillation in the Pacific ocean. Why would we expect only one peak to cause a climate disruption?

Re:Obviously.

[Methadras]

Yup, since the winds carry a lot of Chinese pollution across the pacific to the mainland of the US, it is no surprise. All the UN is doing is simply digging in their heels. they have nowhere else to go and they've invested mightily in their global warming/climate change wealth redistribution scheme. They have no choice not to abandon it as the utter farce it is.

Re:Obviously.

[Curunir_wolf]

The middle class should, on average, break even.

Better check your math. The only way that's possible is if either their buying power goes down, or the tax will generate negative revenue.

Re:Obviously.

[FlyHelicopters]

No, that isn't what you said at all.

You said you wanted to rebate the costs to the poor. That is simply a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor.

Now, if there was a tax on energy production that got passed on to everyone without a rebate, fair enough. Those who use more energy would pay more.

Remove the rebates and credits and I'm more onboard. Of course the question becomes, how much is "bad" and how much tax is "bad" and what should we do instead?

Personally I pay about 11 cents per kw/h for my power, and that power comes from coal and natural gas. I would pay more if that power came from nuclear, perhaps in the 17 cents range. Simply taxing the coal power up to 17 cents doesn't actually change anything, the same coal is burned.

Now if that tax came in the form of a carbon tax, that would be fine, so long as ALL forms of power were taxed that way. And that includes the carbon released from the manufacture of solar panels, because that really isn't carbon neutral either.

Then the question becomes, what to do with all that tax money... :)

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

No, that's not OK, as evidenced by the amount I give to charity specifically to help in that way. Remember, trying to give other peoples money to help the poor doesn't make you generous; it make you an asshole.

It's not a zero-sum game. The reason it's not a zero-sum game is called "technology". Technological parity will bring wealth parity, in time.

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, do you think the world would be a better place with the American Buffalo extinct, over half a dozen fewer popular national parks, all of the large sequoias gone, and countless local bird species exinct?

I haven't missed them.

Re:Obviously.

[quantaman]

Science is not a "political decision",

But the UN is not a gathering of scientists; it's a gathering of politicians, and as such they make political announcements. As a political body with 1 vote per country, pretty much all they ever do is call for redistribution of wealth, and that directly motivates any muddled reading of science that you'll get from them.

The caption on the article's first photo reads "UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, left, and Chairman of the IPCC Rajendra K. Pachauri present a..."

So who's Rajendra K. Pachauri?

"He joined the North Carolina State University in Raleigh, USA, where he obtained an MS in Industrial Engineering in 1972, and a PhD with co-majors in Industrial Engineering and Economics in 1974. His doctoral thesis was titled, A dynamic model for forecasting of electrical energy demand in a specific region located in North and South Carolina"

Since the Chairman of the IPCC, the group who wrote the report, is a scientist, I'm curious where you're finding all of these politicians? It seems to me like you're using a heuristic where any scientist who makes a recommendation that runs contrary to your politics gets automatically reclassified as a politician.

Re: Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the year I was born, that's why. I'm hot

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, science is INDEED a political decision. The UN is NOT filled with a bunch of scientists, but rather a bunch of politicians who have kissed enough ass to get assigned to the cushy UN positions. And in order to KEEP those positions, they have to pony up with groundbreaking announcements like this one.

So, man, in all of his power, is fucking up nature. I prefer George Carlin's attitude: "Fuck the fucking fuckers".

No, wait, the relevant quote was:

"We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of fucking Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”

Plastic asshole."

Remember eugenics.

Re: Obviously.

[Plumpaquatsch]

So why does temperature only go up? I thought it was an oscillation? Or is it actually that that oscillation only hides the temperature increase caused by CO2?

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

My boss once wrote kernel code for a living, but he's a second-level manager now. Is he a coder? The farther up the chain you move, the more you align yourself with the interests of the organization.

Re:Obviously.

[quantaman]

My boss once wrote kernel code for a living, but he's a second-level manager now. Is he a coder? The farther up the chain you move, the more you align yourself with the interests of the organization.

So if a scientist expresses an opinion on AGW you can ignore them because it's just one scientist's opinion (and you probably won't hear the opinion anyway since they're probably not doing much media).

If a group of scientists come together to all endorse the same message, you can ignore them because they're just a bunch of politicians who's opinions are determined by the organization.

So there's pretty much no scenario in which you have to confront the existence of a scientific consensus.

Btw, note that your accusation that the IPCC is being dominated by the politics instead of the science is testable. Namely if it were true we'd see parades of high profile climatologists and scientists criticizing the process and the outcome. Instead the lists of 'dissidents' are uniformly unimpressive. This tells me the science behind the report is of far higher quality than you suggest.

Re: Obviously.

[Optali]

Nope, this is a HOAX, there is no such thing as an atmosphere or oceans !! This is all a hoax set up by the IPCC and a worldwide conspiracy of climate scientists aiming to tax and take away the guns of the hard working US citizen!!

Re: Obviously.

[Optali]

Mate. Sorry, but, do you understand graphics?

Imagine that what you are seeing is not the Evil Climate Hoax (we all know it a scam) but that these graphs are the usage of your hard drive.

I just take this first innocent plot: http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl... plain vanilla... and I see that the first value is to the left and it is more or less -0.4... now check out the point where the graph ends... that's somewhat close to 0.2

Now, take an imaginary pencil and draw a straight line from the beginning (at -0.2) to the en (at more or less +0.2)... is the line horizontal or skewed? It is certainly skewed, and that's what we seek.

If the line were more or less horizontal we would know that your hard drive's usage stays the same over time...

But it happens that the line is skewed to the right... which means...? You got it: The usage of your hard drive is increasing!!!! Time to think on getting yourself a RAID system.

Of course, this is not applicable to Climate as we all know that climate is a great hoax.

So, but you don't trust this data, right? Because this data has been all made up by the Evil Minions. That's perfectly good... there is a solution: Gather a few friends, preferentially from around the globe, buy a few cheap thermometers of these digital weather-stations, mate, you may even use data from Weather.com!!!
And now gather the data during 10 years. And after 10 years come back and explain your results.
Easy, isn't it?

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

If a group of scientists come together to all endorse the same message, you can ignore them because they're just a bunch of politicians who's opinions are determined by the organization

More like: that's a non-scientific event staged for a political purpose. Who organized the "coming together" and picked the scientist to participate in the "coming together"?

So if a scientist expresses an opinion on AGW ... So there's pretty much no scenario in which you have to confront the existence of a scientific consensus

Opinions (especially guesses) are useful in the process of science, but are not scientific outcomes. Consensus is meaningless. Models that falsifiably predict outcomes (which differ from the null hypothesis), and then such outcomes emerge - that's compelling. Data that selects one accurate model out of a large pack of models as the only successful predictor - that's compelling.

note that your accusation that the IPCC is being dominated by the politics instead of the science is testable. Namely if it were true we'd see parades of high profile climatologists and scientists criticizing the process and the outcome

Not if they wanted funding, ever again. Also, societal forces are powerful.

Here's an anecdote unrelated to climate. Kary Mullis, Nobel Laureate for biochem, once tried to present a paper at a biochem-themed conference on AIDS research. His presentation (would have) pointed out that there's no actual causal evidence between HIV and AIDS - the correlation is inarguable, but there was no understood process by which HIV might cause the symptoms of AIDS (at a detailed level). He was physically ejected from the conference for daring to question the received wisdom. That's the opposite of good science, but that social force is common, and dissenting opinions get quashed under it.

Re:Obviously.

[quantaman]

More like: that's a non-scientific event staged for a political purpose. Who organized the "coming together" and picked the scientist to participate in the "coming together"?

So you don't trust the UN as a venue for gathering scientists, you're still showing no evidence that it's a problem.

Opinions (especially guesses) are useful in the process of science, but are not scientific outcomes. Consensus is meaningless.

Consensus is meaningless....

So you've created a standard whereby you can pretty much ignore all the scientsts.

Models that falsifiably predict outcomes (which differ from the null hypothesis), and then such outcomes emerge - that's compelling. Data that selects one accurate model out of a large pack of models as the only successful predictor - that's compelling.

So the virtually unanimous opinions of numbers experts is meaningless. But the textbook definition of a publication bias is compelling.

Not if they wanted funding, ever again.

Yes...

Because the last thing a scientist wants to do is discover something new or prove the consensus wrong...

Also, societal forces are powerful.

Here's an anecdote unrelated to climate. Kary Mullis, Nobel Laureate for biochem, once tried to present a paper at a biochem-themed conference on AIDS research. His presentation (would have) pointed out that there's no actual causal evidence between HIV and AIDS - the correlation is inarguable, but there was no understood process by which HIV might cause the symptoms of AIDS (at a detailed level). He was physically ejected from the conference for daring to question the received wisdom. That's the opposite of good science, but that social force is common, and dissenting opinions get quashed under it.

Kary Mullis's paper wouldn't have pointed that out, the causal evidence for HIV and AIDS is overwhelming. Whatever happened at that conference happened because he was selling junk science that's literally getting people killed. Yes he won a Nobel, he also believes in astrology, you really think he's the brave iconoclast you want to use as an example?

You keep saying all you care about is the data, yet you seem to think these people who have the data are somehow incapable of convincing people of their conclusions.

Did you consider the scenario that top scientists are actually very knowledable and rational in their fields, and the reason they're not criticizing the IPCC reports is because they're generally right?

Re:Obviously.

[lgw]

You have your opinion about which scientists have valid opinions, I have mine. Thus we part ways. Compelling data requires no advocates - e.g. I went quickly from scoffing at dark matter to believing the WIMP model whole-heartedly based on the CMBR data, which had nothing to do with the opinion of any given scientist. Such data may yet emerge for a particular climate model that stands out from the crowd, but as yet none have distinguished themselves even from the null hypothesis.

Re:Obviously.

[WalksOnDirt]

Then the question becomes, what to do with all that tax money... :)

Everyone gets an equal share of it back. Trying to keep the government's hand out of it is the hardest part.

Re:Obviously.

[quantaman]

You have your opinion about which scientists have valid opinions, I have mine. Thus we part ways. Compelling data requires no advocates - e.g. I went quickly from scoffing at dark matter to believing the WIMP model whole-heartedly based on the CMBR data, which had nothing to do with the opinion of any given scientist. Such data may yet emerge for a particular climate model that stands out from the crowd, but as yet none have distinguished themselves even from the null hypothesis.

On a fundamental level why do you trust your judgement more than the people whom have been studying it full time for years or decades?

Do you think them to be incompetent? Unethical? It just strikes me as exceptionally arrogant to place so much faith in your own reasoning that you'd completely discount the opinions of one of the smartest and most honest groups on the planet.

And to be honest if you talked about Mullis because also buy into AIDS denialism then you need to step back and seriously reassess how you evaluate evidence.

Re: Obviously.

[riverat1]

The problem with trying to blame El Nino/La Nina or the PDO or the AMO or other natural cycles for the warming is that none of them actually add or remove heat from the Earth system. They simply move it around to different places and in the long run their total effect is essentially zero.

Re: Obviously.

[MacDork]

In reality, most of the heat goes in the oceans

I think you missed a memo. While it may be that most of the heat does go into the oceans, not enough of it has been going in there to explain the recent global warming 'pause' that climatologists are unable to explain.

Re:Obviously.

[GameboyRMH]

So, basically what I said, except you give to some kind of charity so you can lie to yourself about giving a damn - I'm sure the tax breaks on those donations help a lot too.

Re:Obviously.

[Loki_1929]

I encourage all climate denialists to get at least 4, maybe 5-sigma certainty on any cancer diagnosis before taking any action. Cancer treatments are expensive after all, and you should wait until you're really, really, super duper extra sure you have it!

First of all, what on Earth is a "climate denialist"? Are there people who deny that the Earth has a climate? Or is it a farcical misnomer purposely intended to ridicule anyone with the slightest bit of skepticism about something that even the experts aren't 100% certain about? (hint: 95% from IPCC != 100%)

As for your medical advice, the next time you notice your body temperature rise by 1/2 degree in an hour, best go ice bath yourself immediately or you'll soon be dead.

Re:Obviously.

[Uecker]

Participating scientists are not compensated for their efforts.

Depends on what you consider to be "compensation"...

They aren't all doing it for nothing, rest assured...

I am not sure what you are implying. I think it is very obvious that a scientist who is selling out would be on the other side of this debate. The side with the money. Not the side we you have to do a lot of boring volunteer work without pay in addition to your regular duties.

Re:Obviously.

[FlyHelicopters]

Are you kidding? There is piles and piles and piles of money on the global warming side of things...

What do you think the whole thing is about? Money... Control of money...

Re:Obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

True dat. I've been raking in global warming money for years, and now I can't even squeeze in the front doors of any of my mansions because the piles of money have gotten too large. And I'm just a graduate student!

Re: Obviously.

[Charcharodon]

So what you are saying when I put a case of beer in the fridge, sometimes it only makes the air in the fridge cold, and other times it only makes the beer cold.

That is amazing. Science is neat!

Or maybe the other thing that is missing from that theory, other than recordable heat, is logic. I personal would like to see math and the recordings on that baloney.

stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

"mining existing CO2 out of the atmosphere somehow"

somehow like planting some friggin trees? jesus

Re:stupid

[ShanghaiBill]

"mining existing CO2 out of the atmosphere somehow"

Such as extracting it from the atmosphere, or taking it directly from power plant emissions, compressing it into a liquid, and using it for enhanced oil recovery of otherwise unproductive oilfields. The CO2 displaces the oil, and also greatly increases its viscosity.

Re:stupid

[jythie]

Well, that would count as 'somehow'.

Re:stupid

[zippthorne]

Uh.. what do you plan to do with the oil you extract?

Re:stupid

[ShanghaiBill]

Uh.. what do you plan to do with the oil you extract?

Oil has a relatively flat demand curve. So the oil produced through CO2 displacement would mostly replace oil from conventional oil fields, resulting in a net reduction in atmospheric CO2.

I think the point you are trying to make, is that if a solution is not 100% perfect, then it is better to just do nothing. Whatever.

America has plenty of depleted oilfields, while most conventional oil is produced overseas. So by shifting production, enhanced production by CO2 displacement can strengthen our economy, generate jobs for Americans, and weaken repressive governments in countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Make plastic!

Re: stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The CO2 displaces the oil, and also greatly increases its viscosity.

It DEcreases viscosity.
Viscosity is a measure of "stickiness".
If something gets more fluid, it gets a lower viscosity.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think the point you are trying to make, is that if a solution is not 100% perfect, then it is better to just do nothing. Whatever.

He didn't said that.

We're trying to get rid of that thing which is fscking the atmosphere. You're giving a way to keep using it. Doing anything is not a good idea. Specially NOW.

> America has plenty of depleted oilfields,

That's great that something bad is over, it means America has no reason to stay attached to it.

> while most conventional oil is produced overseas.

Too bad for overseas. Not your problem.

> enhanced production by CO2 displacement can strengthen our economy

No, you're rowing in the wrong way. CO2 can be useful for many things, not to burn again and put it back where we don't want it to be.

> generate jobs for Americans

Generate other jobs, not those. Don't lead people to disaster.

> weaken repressive governments in countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela

You have a repressive government right at home (U.S.); but regardless of whether these governments are of your concern, let's solve the warming problem first, it's more important and urgent.

"Man which chases two rabbits, catches none".

Personally, I'd devise a way to increase the forests with the CO2...

Re:stupid

[fustakrakich]

The people who control our energy supplies are sociopaths. I don't believe they care about anybody's economy or repressive governments, outside their possible impediment to conducting business. If you want CO2 displacement, prove it will make a profit. Since our combined dollars don't amount to the proverbial *hill of beans*, next Tuesday will be your big chance to have any effect at all. Don't blame the system. Clean The House! They are all up for election. If you vote them all out, they just might get the message. Don't vote for industry errand boys, and turn off that light!

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The CO2 displaces the oil, and also greatly reduces its viscosity.

FTFY.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

"would mostly replace oil from conventional oil fields, resulting in a net reduction in atmospheric CO2"

No, that would result in no net change in atmospheric CO2.

Re:stupid

[paitre]

Depending on the day of the week, the US is -currently- either the #1 or the #2 producer of convention oil in the world. It's actually why oil prices have been crashing - we don't give a fuck about OPEC, and we're producing it as fast as we can frack it out of the ground. We produce, domestically, about half of the petroleum that we consume, and import half of the rest from Canada & Mexico and the rest from nations that arguably don't like us but love our dollars.

There is a CO2 sequestration, "Air Mining" operation that just opened up in San Antonio (which has pretty shitty air quality due to a variety of factors, not limited to the large number of very large quarries that are littered in and around the city). It will be interesting to see how that project goes and if it is long-term successful.

Re:stupid

[towermac]

"America has plenty of depleted oilfields"

For a second I thought you were going to say, "put the oil back in the ground."

Huh. I'm thinking about that...

Re:stupid

[towermac]

I tell you what though, this is stimulus I can get behind. The common man feels it pretty instantly.

Hmm... correction

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost entirely the white man's fault aka Europe and the USA.

Re:Hmm... correction

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost entirely the white man's fault aka Europe and the USA.

Yea and you can go spin on yer freakin spear point drongo

Funny how it put put land and ying ching chong land that are the main causes of pollution and HOT AIR ,,.

Re:Hmm... correction

[WindBourne]

And the fact that China accounts for 33% of CO2 emissions has NOTHING to do with facts. Right?

Re:Hmm... correction

[Anonymous Coward]

China has 1.357 billion inhabitants, as opposed to 316.1 million in the USA and around 499 millions in the EU, and China's CO2 emissions per capita (in metric tons) are 7.2 as opposed to 17.6 per capita in the USA and 8.6 in the EU. (data from 2013)

It's dubious to preach modesty to emerging countries when you blast CO2 into the atmosphere yourself at alarming rates. In particular, the US has zero credibility in that matter.

Re:Hmm... correction

[WindBourne]

First off, per capita is WORTHLESS. The reason is that emissions has NOTHING to do with the number of ppl. It has EVERYTHING to do with GDP and choices made by businesses.
Secondly, America's 2013 per capita emissions was in 15, not 18. Heck, in this written for 2012, , they show that America was at 16.4, while EU was 7.4, and china was at 7.1.
In 2013, America's per capita went down into the 15, while China went up to 8's and EU edged upwards. So, total BS from you.

Third, I notice no links from you. I have seen you post this BS over and over, and always NEVER with links.
" Fourth, GDP emissions is outrageous from China. One of the worst in the world. And it continues to get bad. This is what has to stop.

Its the trees fault...

[Anonymous Coward]

They shouldn't have let man chop so many of them down.

Been there, done that.

[ColdWetDog]

I'm going to suggest that we all boycott this story and wait until the next installment of Apple vs. Somebody Else before we chip in with our insightful and unique comments.

My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether it's human caused or not. Whether climate change/global warming/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is happening or not. Whether we can actually stop it or not.

Let's just stop pollution for it's own sake!

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

You could start by not exhaling CO2.

Re:My two cents

[DavidCBillen]

I don't think there are other reasons to consider CO2 a pollutant.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just CO2 it's everything else that comes with it, that's why lung cancer is a real concern to people who don't smoke.

Re:My two cents

[wassomeyob]

Exactly. Calls to mind one of my favourite takes on it: http://www.gocomics.com/joelpe...

Re:My two cents

[Kohath]

Here's the problem with that:

The number one air pollution problem in developing countries is indoor air pollution from burning dung and other biomass in homes, something that primarily affects women and children. Switching to electricity generated outside the home using natural gas or even coal dramatically improves the lives of the world’s poor.

and

Lower-income households spend almost a quarter of their income on energy. Cutting out fossil fuels would cause energy prices to soar, punishing the poor the most.

Environmental righteousness makes rich people feel good about themselves. But it hurts the world's poor.

Re:My two cents

[MightyMartian]

How about we stop using a non renewable resource critical to many industrial processes to create energy.

Re:My two cents

[jlgreer1]

Conservation is good. Global warming is a left wing hoax. duh!

Re: My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to EVERYONE being hurt from climate change.

A: "Hey, the world is about to be doomed"
B: "oh noes. We must do something"
A: "yeah. But it might impact certain people"
B:" oh noes. That's even worse. We can't do anything not PC. Let's just sit down and watch the end."
A: "yeah. That feels good."

Yeah right. Not.

Re: My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

A. Nevermind global warming. Let's stop pollution for it's own sake.
B. That hurts poor people.
A. But global warming...

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not human caused; it's man caused, and as we all know, men are dogs.

Re:My two cents

[Mashiki]

Environmental righteousness makes rich people feel good about themselves. But it hurts the world's poor.

Don't forget it also kills people. Remember when various parts of africa were starving and they were going to get GMO corn, but they went off the deep end and called it "poison." Yeah, how many people did that kill again?

Re:My two cents

[itzly]

When first world countries reduce their fossil fuel demand, there will be more left for the poor.

Re:My two cents

[Kohath]

If they're not allowed to use it because of "pollution", how does that help them?

Plus, first world countries also have poor people.

Re:My two cents

[itzly]

They use so little of it, that it won't hurt to give them a bit more time to switch to alternatives.

Re:My two cents

[bunratty]

So CO2 doesn't acidify the oceans?

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you haven't got a clue where CO2 mostly comes from, it's from sources that *also* produce highly toxic pollutants.

Re:My two cents

[Kohath]

How does that policy work? Who gets to hand out exemptions? On what basis? By what authority?

Re:My two cents

[itzly]

The same authority that would tell them to stop, of course.

Re:My two cents

[Kohath]

Which is what?

Re:My two cents

[itzly]

You tell me. If there's no authority that tells them to stop, they will just continue on their own. No need to create exemptions for them.

Re:My two cents

[BlueStrat]

How about we stop using a non renewable resource critical to many industrial processes to create energy.

Make renewable energy sources as economical, efficient, energy-dense, and as storable/portable as current sources and laws/regulations won't be needed. People will switch to the better/cheaper alternative.

Force a switch to renewable energy sources when they haven't met those goals, and national economies and particularly poor people will suffer from huge energy cost increases.

But hey, screw the poor, as long as the IPCC can advance it's political agenda and jet-setting AlGore gets to cash in on carbon credit Ponzi schemes.

Strat

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that renewables are cheaper in the third world.

Re:My two cents

[stoploss]

How about we stop using a non renewable resource critical to many industrial processes to create energy.

Have a citation that hydrocarbons are a non-renewable resource? Because photosynthesizers and the Fischer-Tropsch process would like to have a word with you.

Don't conflate stored energy with the storage medium.

Re:My two cents

[towermac]

I can't speak for what Africans may have said, but it's probably for the best that Monsanto doesn't now own their food supply.

Re:My two cents

[KeensMustard]

That is mostly because they don't have a chimney. With properly designed stoves, the smoke inside the dwelling is not a problem. There is no reason why people could not carry on burning biomass for fuel (since this net CO2 neutral). However, electricity becomes necessary to break the barriers of poverty. The key to delivering that electricity is solar. Over a broad area, solar is cheaper than fossil fuels to establish because you don't need an extensive network of powerlines (which are impossible to maintain in areas without a stable and effective government anyway). Build a local, community owned solar plant, power small industries, fridges and such from that.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem with that:

The number one air pollution problem in developing countries is indoor air pollution from burning dung and other biomass in homes, something that primarily affects women and children. Switching to electricity generated outside the home using natural gas or even coal dramatically improves the lives of the world’s poor.

Well that sure would be great if the world's poorest places could afford to wire up their slums and rural mud huts, and if their inhabitants could afford the costly electrical appliances to make use of it. In the meantime, intervention efforts are focused on more fundamental technology like, you know, proper cook stoves, which both reduce indoor air pollution and increase efficiency, thus reducing emissions.

Re:My two cents

[AmiMoJo]

Clean energy is cheaper and helps the poor. In Nigeria they are building up electricity supplies with geothermal, for example, which is cheap and doesn't make the people living near it ill. Pollution has a very real cost, especially if you are poor and can't avoid it. Coal is only cheap when it is allowed to harm people.

Much of Africa lacks an electricity grid anyway. This is a golden opportunity for them to build distributed energy supplies. Such supplies are cheap too, and more importantly available because no-one is going to build out grid infrastructure to places that can't afford to pay for the energy it carries. Solar PV and batteries to provide lighting in the evenings is a massive deal for developing nations.

As for burning stuff, they don't need electric heating. They need a clean burner, that vents the dust and soot outside their homes. Biomass is carbon neutral, and actually the ash could be captured and used too if they had the equipment.

A western lifestyle is neither necessary nor the best option for much of the world.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is, CO2 is arguably only pollution if climate change is real. Otherwise it's just an invisible, odourless, mostly harmless (provided there's sufficient oxygen in the air to go with it) byproduct of industry.

Now personally I *am* persuaded by the weight of evidence that climate change is a real and present danger, but that presents its own issues. For example, it can be argued that a coal-fired power plant does more damage to our climate if its emissions are free of particulates than if it is allowed to belch out all manner of crap, as the particulates reflect some of the sun's energy (google global dimming theory).

Re:My two cents

[Kohath]

Clean energy is cheaper when it's cheaper and more expensive when it's more expensive. No one has to force poor people to choose environmentally righteous choices when they're also cheaper. But poor people can't afford environmental righteousness all the other times, when it's more expensive.

Re: My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

I deem the western life style neccessary. It is required to have private computers and fast internets that allow me to comment on slashdot.

Dont get me wrong, I will shoot people if they will try to push me into cave-dwelling, tribal, lifestyle. I don't live for the sake of others. I have my own right to live my life as i choose. If i hurt you, sue me or try and shoot me. Gaia is like jesus, just another human invention and i ridicule her, human-hating, worshippers.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

This is bullshit.

Renewables advocates suggest that the richest nations adopt green-energy technologies first, which causes an increase in their development and a decrease in cost per Watt as technology and production improve. Poorer countries benefit from later adoption when the technology is cheaper.

And since any nation can build a windmill (whereas most nations do not have coal deposits or accessible oil deposits that allow them to be energy-independent, for example), renewables also allow poorer nations to have greater energy independence.

Re:My two cents

[FlyHelicopters]

A western lifestyle is neither necessary nor the best option for much of the world.

Says who? You?

The problem with such statements is they are made as if they are simple fact, when in truth they are just opinion.

Re:My two cents

[FlyHelicopters]

Clean energy is cheaper and helps the poor.

This is complete nonsense...

Clean energy isn't cheap, if it was, we'd all be moving to it right now...

I'd put solar panels up in 2 seconds if they were cheaper than the coal power from the grid... They aren't...

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

This dismissal is a problem though. We, as people who know about the ground and it's environment we stand on, shouldn't have to dismiss all those variables. Accept the whole of it!

Re:My two cents

[GlenRaphael]

It would have to go a long way to go to actually make the oceans acidic. What the process currently does is make the oceans "more neutral". (Not to mention that if the warming trend ever resumes, a warmer ocean tends to *release* CO2 as it warms.)

Re:My two cents

[GlenRaphael]

The worst case scenario is actually pretty terrible. You could "create a better world" at the cost of a lot of pain and suffering and starvation. The fundamental problem is that spending resources on climate means *not* spending them on every other current or potential threat to humanity. Even a tiny hit to world GDP growth might over many years make the difference between saving the world and not being able to do so when some unanticipated new threat comes along. (Like a comet aimed at the earth or a plague or, heck, the next phase of global cooling.)

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

CO2 is a heavier than air gas. As CO2 rises there is less oxygen available in every breath you take which has all sorts of fun side effects ranging from ever increasing lethargy, to neural death, to just plain death depending on how much CO2 is out there.

Seems like a decent reason to me. Then again, if we can get those levels back up to about 1500ppm we could have massive plants that support massive reptiles and we could all ride raptors around like raptor jesus.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, it makes it slightly less alkaline, (more neutral)

Which is to say it does not make it acid at all.

For fucks sake stop pretending you know anything about science or chemistry!!!

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

your probably cheering that kids are going needlessly blind then, due to scumbag greens protesting golden rice!!!

Re:My two cents

[conquistadorst]

I call and raise - very few industrial processes produce *just* CO2 as a waste product. Both in the air and on the ground, there's usually a slew of other nasties that bum along for the party.

On the bright side, the Chinese are happy their smog offers the potential to impede the use of laser weapon technology. Yay!

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem with that:

The number one air pollution problem in developing countries is indoor air pollution from burning dung and other biomass in homes, something that primarily affects women and children. Switching to electricity generated outside the home using natural gas or even coal dramatically improves the lives of the world’s poor.

How about "Switching to electricity generated outside the home leapfrogging coal and natural gas to renewables like solar or wind". How about that?

The worldwide catastrophe or we all live in mud huts dichotomy needs to die in a fire.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it makes Westerners feel good if the evils of GMO aren't spread to developing countries but their wallets don't open very wide to offer alternatives.

Re:My two cents

[Chris Mattern]

A western lifestyle is neither necessary nor the best option for much of the world.

Absolutely. We should all live the lifestyle of the average African. You first.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute: what's powering your computer right now?

Re:My two cents

[hondo77]

Is that really the best you have? We shouldn't spend money fighting global warming because then we won't be able to end starvation and stamp out malaria and prevent a big asteroid from slamming into the earth? Really? Only a sociopath.could say that with a straight face.

Re:My two cents

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Do you have a response to bunratty's retort?

Re:My two cents

[rtb61]

The other things those currently in charge want to spend money on, super polluting super cars, mass energy consuming multiple mansions, extreme resource wasting luxury yachts, utterly pointless supremely wasteful jewellery and the list goes on and on and on. They don't care if they destroy the potential of the planet to support human life as long as they can exclusively pose about now over all those lesser people. Psychopaths always consider themselves more evolved rather than accepting the reality of them being a parasitic subspecies of humanity.

The expected responses will soon be coming out.
It will be better warmer with fewer. regions with snow.
Climate change is normal.
It is all a lie.
Climate change scientists just want to become rich.
It is not getting warmer it is getting colder.
We will starve if we attempt to stop it.
Plants grow better with more carbon dioxide.
Climate change, never heard of it.
Climate change is crackpot science.

And of course, pay no attention and watch the programming, new celebrity affair, new celebrity baby, new reality star, with the message pretty and stupid is smart.

It should be pretty obvious by now, they know they are lying, they don't care, their only interests is their own puerile ego and lusts and if they can end humanity as punishment for the psychopaths not being immortal in their insatiable greed, then that provides an ego rush to make up for that loss. The whole climate change argument is about a sickness prevalent in our human society, a sickness that we need to challenge and treat prior to tackling climate, else it will fail. The elimination of psychopathy and it's destructive influence over our shared human society.

Re:My two cents

[rtb61]

Oh crap I forgot one
God will fix climate change, uh huh.

Re:My two cents

[CHIT2ME]

Hope your children and grandchildren like cooking their frappe's over dung fires! What this world needs is a reduction in population. Too many people and religions think that we can just continue to breed like rabbits and we will prosper. I saw this coming in the 1970s and I, for one, am glad that I will not be around to see the starvation, depravation, warfare, and death which is sure to come! I also believe that the human race does not have the smarts or the balls to find a solution. But, cheer up, the earth will take care of itself, with or without us.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change conditions are predictable up to a few years. Many of the factors affecting global warming and its impact at this time. One widespread development in the sector of industry in all corners of the world so that other living beings create spaces increasingly narrow. Come together we build more of our Earth, creating a green environment. What we can do at the moment is, it was a Tree Planting in every inch of ground that is all around us

Re:My two cents

[Mashiki]

Gotcha. So you'd rather that people starve to death, go blind, or anything else as long as it makes you feel good. That kind of tells a lot about a person doesn't it.

Re:My two cents

[RingDev]

Last time I checked a new roof was going to run me ~$10,000 installed. Going to a solar shingle roof was going to be ~$20,000 for the same roof. But thanks to State and Federal grants, I could shave about $5,000 off that price. Leaving me $5,000 more out of pocket than the standard roof replacement.

In Wisconsin, kWh averages about 14 cents per. So I would need to generate 35,700 kWh either in offsetting my existing usage, or with net metering to pay off the difference. Expected life span should be ~20 years, so I need to do it faster than that.

Solar shingles generate ~12 watts per square foot. Lets ballpark that a 2200 sq foot house, two story, maybe some gables, etc... has roughly 500 sq feet of south facing roof line. That's 6,000 watts at peak performance. Even if you only get 1 hour of peak performance a day, and nothing else, you will effectively generate the full 37.5 mWh in the first week.

Even if DOW is doubling their performance number you'll still crush the target in a month.

Even if the state/federal grants have dried up, you're still looking at paying off the difference in a couple of months.

Even if you don't have net metering, at a US average of 11 mWh per month, you'll pay off the difference in ~3 years.

This is of course based on the assumption that you are either building a NEW roof, or that your existing roof is in need of a full rebuild. If you have a house from the 1990's and are looking at throwing a layer of shingles on top of the original shingles, your base cost is going to be a thousand dollars or less for the same roof. It may still be economically wise to go solar, but it will have a much longer payoff than on new roofs.

-Rick

Re:My two cents

[FlyHelicopters]

There is something really wrong with your numbers...

If they were even close to being right, then companies would be falling all over themselves to offer this and be able to show how it is a slam dunk investment...

There would be ads on TV, it would be major national news, it would be the talk of the town, that sort of thing...

I've priced solar panels, they are expensive and make no sense when power costs what it does.

Re: My two cents

[RingDev]

Yeah, I remember the math working out to just barely favorable 10 years ago when I was looking at doing my roof. So either I misses a w to kw conversion, or DOW's claim of 12 w per Sq foot is a massive improvement over the technology from 2004.

-Rick

Re: My two cents

[FlyHelicopters]

I priced it last year, cost of a system large enough to cover half our electric use?

$32,000 including all the various costs (the panels are about half that).

Grid tie, two meters, permits, breakers, etc. all costs money.

Pay back is too long for my tastes, and we have net metering...

If it were $20K, I'd do it, but a $20k system would save us maybe $100 a month on our electric bill. Meh, not worth the trouble.

Re: My two cents

[FlyHelicopters]

DOW's claim of 12w per square foot maybe for direct sunlight with no angles... Full size solar panels usually claim 14 to 16w per square foot, for direct sun with no angles, but they never actually do that. Even a 20 degree angle cuts the power produced by more than you'd think.

Re: My two cents

[RingDev]

Yeah, that is my expectation as well, but I wasn't able to quickly find any number other than their press releases. If I get some time tonight I'll see what I can dig up.

-Rick

Re: My two cents

[FlyHelicopters]

What I do know is that I've been quoted $32K to install a 8kw system. Web sites can say anything they like, but the local company that does these installs is taking into account the actual roof, the actual space, and the actual angle to the sun, to the point where they provide written estimates of the actual power it will produce.

That 8kw system should cut my bill by more than half, but in truth, it might only do 1/3 of the bill due to all those factors.

It simply isn't worth it for that price, it would cost more to finance the system over 5 to 10 years than it would save me in monthly electric fees.

Of course, it perhaps adds something to the value of the house, and it will save power over the long term. But frankly, if the goal is saving money, there are a lot of ways to spend $32K and save more money each month.

Replacing the windows, putting more and better insulation in the house, that sort of thing.

I've already replaced my 13 SEER, 12 year old HVAC system with a 16 SEER, 2 speed, 2 stage system and that cut a bunch from the summer power bills. That was $17K to replace both systems and it will return more money in saved electric bills than the solar panels would, for half the cost.

That being said, for $20K I'd do solar, but it will be awhile I think before it gets down to that price.

Re:My two cents

[doccus]

No, actually, that's correct. Rather, it's EXCESS CO2 that acidfifies the oceans. Excess is that which cannot be absorbed by the normal oceanic cycles responsible for maintaining these affairs.

Re:My two cents

[doccus]

So today they live due to frankengrain, and tomorrow suddenly the entire third world's grain supply will die off due to a weak genetic strain. Oh, wait, that's happening NOW.

Re:My two cents

[doccus]

I am sure that several African countries could be entirely fed from the waste alone from fat over-fed walmart people alone ;-(

Re:My two cents

[jwhitener]

Switching to electricity generated outside the home using natural gas or even coal dramatically improves the lives of the world’s poor.

So would switching to electricity generated outside the home via renewables, or on the home itself using solar...

At this point, anyone claiming that renewables causes "energy prices to soar" really needs to prove it. Because countries all around the world have been increasing renewable use without seeing "soaring prices". And solar and other green technologies are getting cheaper every day.

And wind farms, wave farms, geothermal, solar, etc.. certainly would employ more local people to build and maintain them then if the poor country was just importing coal.

Re:My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

I can agree with this sentiment as long as we don't sacrifice our economies while the rest of the world charges ahead building many more coal fired plants while we strangle our industries.

We cannot solve pollution by starving our economies of energy.

Re:My two cents

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Plus, first world countries also have poor people.

A fun fact: the average income of the poorest 5% of all Americans is about the same as the average income of the richest 5% of all Indians.

So we did almost all of the work to make it happen

[Anonymous Coward]

And now you want us to also do the work of stopping it? Sheesh, why won't anyone else step up for once? Why does it always need to be us humans? Why can't those uppity dolphins do something for once, other than squeak?

Not our fault!

[Anonymous Coward]

Men were fine living in caves with one campfire each. We only invented cars and electricity to impress women.

When in doubt...

[CajunArson]

Double down on non-scientific extremist rhetoric to maintain power. The IPCC isn't even being original.

Hell, even the IPCC doesn't *really* believe in Global Warming as a scientific phenomenon, but only as a political tool to go after those "evil" western democracies that "unfairly" use resources.

After all, if the IPCC thought of global warming scientifically, they wouldn't have self-censored their own report to intentionally omit data about greenhouse gas emissions from Asia... http://news.nationalgeographic...

Re:When in doubt...

[Opportunist]

Since you seem to have a spare world to move to, could you provide pointers where it may be?

Re:When in doubt...

[WindBourne]

Dealing with politics, is totally different than saying that you believe or not. Hell, they adjust these to try and deal with you neo-cons/tea* types.

Re:When in doubt...

[MightyMartian]

The IPCC gains its data from researchers. You're just repeating the tired "scientists are an evil cabal" line that anti science goons have been invoking for over a century when science dares question some sacred belief.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere the more negative effects we see. Therefore reducing greenhouses gasses is a good thing, that will also preserve long chain hydrocarbons for more important uses.

Or do you also believe in magical infinite oil that will continue being brought to the surface like some sort of inverted manna?

Re:When in doubt...

[towermac]

Your conclusion is lacking; it's the evil Western democracies that are pushing it.

I have a better explanation: It's the oil companies themselves that push the whole thing.

First: Kill nuclear power. Check.
Second: Plant an unresolvable 'debate' that must be resolved, thus paralyzing the public. Check.
Third: Create a carbon credit market to legitimize, control, and further entrench carbon in the economy. Check.
      third b): Make the same money twice for selling carbon. Bonus.

Re:When in doubt...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) show evidence that co2 is a greenhouse gas
2) show top ten planetary co2 emmitters (with trends if possible)
3) show top ten planetary co2 consumers (with trends if possible)

it's all a lie, there are no facts, there are just bullies calling people anti science.

mean while there are plenty of things that we can do to improve the planet. stop the forest fires, stop turning fertile land into deserts, stop killing wildlife. but we only hear the politics of people who hate cars, think resources are finite, and believe the world is over populated.

good luck with that!

Re:When in doubt...

[MightyMartian]

The IPCC has citation and reference lists on their reports. Unless you believ scientists are an evil cabal out to steal your car, in which case you're probably in need of something stronger than primary literature.

Re:When in doubt...

[Anonymous Coward]

The IPCC gains its data from researchers.

Then we can only hope that politicians never learn to spin research data!

Re:When in doubt...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are either naive or silly or both. No one is saying scientists are an evil cabal. Most people are not anti-science as you imply, but what you fail to understand is how science is funded.

Currently it is relatively easy to get funding for issues related to showing that GW exists. So one gets inane research showing that one or other species is at risk because of warming. Or scare tactics like sea levels will rise and flood coastal cities. The scientists who publish these findings are not evil or stupid, but they are motivated to show that GW exists because their grant monies depend on it. Consider this quiet laughable list:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Are you aware that it is almost impossible to obtain grant money or science funding in general for anything that smacks of proving that GW does not exist or that while it is occurring it does not present an existential threat to humans?

Understand I am not saying GW is not happening. What I am saying is that almost all of the research currently underway is intended to prove AGW is happening and that it is bad and will destroy the world (and by implication more funding is urgently needed to continue the research). Scientists being human and being concerned about their careers are motivated to show AGW exists since the GW bandwagon has been excellent in releasing science research funds. What little impartiality there is, is from senior scientists and researchers with tenure or approaching retirement. They are in the position to speak their mind. Younger scientists are not.

In other words the current science funding policies are exacerbating an unbalanced view of the problem. In almost every area of human activity if someone gains out of proving something to be so, you can be sure that they will prove it to be so. Scientists are no exception.

This approach is radically different from normal science progress where a hypothesis is set out and teams of scientist work to expand the hypothesis, but are kept honest by other teams of scientists who work equally hard to disprove the hypothesis. No one is keeping the GW scientists honest since any opposition to GW is simply charged with the thought crime of denialism.

Haters gonna hate

[rwa2]

That's nice, but it's not going to change the stance of any Anthropogenic Climate Change deniers.

I'm pretty sure the reason they're denying that Burning Things Causes Heat and Pollution is not because they're dumb, but because they don't want to pay for the cleanup.

First rule of politics and law: never admit fault.

So everyone's wasting their time trying to convince the deniers of anything. They're never going to take responsibility for cleanup. Just start cleaning up without them.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[AqD]

Who would pay for the cleanup? And how would you purpose to ask developing countries to restrain themselves?

You do realize people would have started doing it long ago if it's seen as affordable?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

I'm pretty sure the reason they're denying that Burning Things Causes Heat

I really hope that's not your understanding of the theory of global warming, because it's so completely wrong only someone who uses words like 'haters' would think it........

Re:Haters gonna hate

[silfen]

That's nice, but it's not going to change the stance of any Anthropogenic Climate Change deniers.

We don't deny climate change, we simply don't agree with your approach of "X is bad, therefore let's outlaw it and subsidize alternatives".

but because they don't want to pay for the cleanup.

Actually, I already pay for my cleanup, emitting very little carbon.

What I don't want to have to pay for is your cleanup or Al Gore's mansion or Chinese factories and that is what proposed climate legislation comes down to in the real world, after lobbyists and politicians are through with it.

They're never going to take responsibility for cleanup. Just start cleaning up without them.

That's the right spirit: join us and take personal responsibility for reducing your own carbon emissions.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[rwa2]

OK, I can simplify it more for you... "shit where you eat"

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

Simplify all you want, but do you actually understand the science involved? Your inability to use anything but cute metaphors says no

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm boycotting slashdot if this fucking turd is being given a score of 5...You're all a bunch of douche bags spitting out douchebaggery in one giant circle jerk.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[ColdWetDog]

Forty years ago, this same "evidence" was used to gin up the coming "Ice Age." Now, the same evidence is used to gin up the coming "Global Inferno."

Utter and complete bullshit which is why you deniers always get tossed into the intellectual dustbin.

A few people were concerned that we might be going back into another ice age. There was some suggestive data . It was never accepted by most climatologists. Unlike the current situation where the vast majority of professionals agree on the general outlines of the issue.

Fell free to espouse your intellectual superiority over thousands of professional scientists. Who, unlike yourself, realize that they can be wrong and are still working actively to figure out the details. And surprise, some of the things we think will happen aren't going to. And some things we think won't happen will.

But it's not made up, it's not a conspiracy to piss you off or get more grant funds. It's not even a conspiracy to get the little countries of the world some power over the big industrial powers. It's just complicated physics.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Never go full retard...retard.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[X0563511]

While it would be nice to clean up, we need to stop making the mess first.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[X0563511]

Technically he's right, kinda? You don't create heat. Burning things doesn't create it, the energy was already there and is just being converted from one form or state to another.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[X0563511]

95% of scientists: PANIC! Public: Doesn't panic.
5% of scientists: PANIC! Public: Panics. :/

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

No, you are completely wrong, to an astonishing degree. Do you understand why it's called the greenhouse effect? The amount of energy released by burning is very small compared to the energy that arrives from the sun.

The way CO2 warms the earth is by trapping energy that arrives from the sun. It is similar to what happens in a greenhouse when the sun shines on it.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Phil Jones manipulated data to prove AGW and still couldn't prove it. He then deleted the original data after ignoring 7 years of FOIA requests beucase a court was about to force him to delete the data. He claimed he ran out of disk space, but ran out 7 years after it was asked for. His original data is the basis for all IPCC reports.

This is not the actions of a scientist confident in his results. He also has no answer for the now 18 years of no warming, and he has admitted his models have been shown to be wrong (probably because he manipulted the data originally).

THIS is why AGW supportes get tossed into the intellectual dustbin. They cannot give responses to the above and resort to name calling, like denier, instead. They have lied multiple times and been caught at it over and over to the point the general public no longer believes them. That is why they now depend on a government to implement thier policies against the will of the general public because any democratic method of implementing their policies will fail because of their past lies and they know it.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to come to grips that there are things in this world you are not qualified to have a reliable opinion on. Climate change is one of them. It is not the case that all the climate scientists in the world are wrong, and little old you, skimming a few publicly available papers and commenting on /., is right. Very romantic, but wrong.

What you need to do is start working on how you are going to accept it when we do start doing something about it, despite your blatherings. You're not going to go postal on us, I hope. I'd hate to see you tackled running across the White House lawn, like your friends.

Re: Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically he's right, kinda? You don't create heat. Burning things doesn't create it, the energy was already there and is just being converted from one form or state to another.

And, by the same token, climate change is irrelevant because eventually entropy will take it all and the universe will end up at maximum entropy at an incredibly low temperature. Isn't being technically correct great?

Semantic games are the equivalent of WMDs in a debate.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[rwa2]

Yes, yes, you're smart. We get it. Just substitute your nitpick with "Burning Things Bad". Sheesh.

FWIW, my original post included "Heat and Pollution". The "Pollution" bit that you omitted from your quote should more than cover the greenhouse gas effects, as well as the aerosols that reflect energy back to space and counteract global warming to some degree. Isn't it great how pollution causes both global warming and global dimming? And kinda ironic how our thirst for energy is so high that the stored sunlight we burn from the past also diminishes the amount of energy we receive for the future?

Heat is an issue as well. Urban "heat islands" are well documented in scientific literature. Sure, they're caused just as much by the sun warming up hot pavement as ICE emissions, but they've been demonstrated to change the micro-climates of cities. As you know, heat rises, pulling in denser, cooler air from elsewhere. And then you get all these people wondering why anthropogenic global warming is happening since it's been colder than usual.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[rwa2]

I agree! Politics is just administrative overhead that should be minimized in both time and expense. My electricity comes primarily from hydro and wind, and I take public transit to work. What were we arguing about again?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[silfen]

What were we arguing about again?

We are talking about your demonization of people as deniers, and the political stance that goes along with it, namely that of trying to reduce carbon emissions through legislation.

I believe global warming is happening. I strongly oppose government intervention to stop it.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Barsteward]

stop propagating shit. read this and try and comprehend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Misagon]

"Clean up"? There is no way for us to "clean up"!

Emissions have to be radically lowered and the biosphere has to be given enough time to handle the carbon in the air. Sure, planting trees at a massive scale could help in the long run, but it would still be far from as effective as if the biggest culprits (the biggest opposers: USA, China, Australia... ) would cut their emissions to what the IPCC considers enough.

Even if we stop all emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases right now, the climate is still going to get worse from all the gases that are already in the atmosphere. By all estimates, we wouldn't be able to see a measurable improvement in the world climate until at least 2030.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[towermac]

You're right. But it's not so much that I don't want to pay; I've always paid my way. I just don't like the price that you name. Same old socialist solution; different cause this time.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[rwa2]

Ah, yeah... I'm not demonizing the deniers, just admitting that they're likely more rational and politically savvy than environmentalists give them credit for. More scientific studies (and certainly IPCC announcements) are not going to change that no matter how much you rub their faces in it.

So anyone trying to "save the world" by cutting down carbon footprint will just have to do that much better to pick up the slack. Probably even more to make up for all the coal-rollers trolling them.

We have the benefit of watching this play out in Southeast Asia before it's politically expedient to do anything here. Having lived in Bangkok for a few years, the effects of pollution witnessed by average americans here in the US is a joke. We have a loooonng way to fall before we might have to even consider implementing things like China's One Child Policy. But legislation is reactionary, not proactive. No one is really going to do anything or even legislate anything until the shit really hits the fan. Which, even by the most dire global warming projection, isn't going to be that severe even 100 years out. So this is really going to be a blame game to see if they can spread some of the guilt around to people who don't really have a conscience about this sort of thing anyways.

The problem is even with global warming, the shit will never really hit the fan in a way that fault can be directly tied back to the polluters, and even if it was, good luck getting them to pay for the damages. Higher pollution will erode our health slightly. Sure lots of low-lying population centers will be wiped out, but those events will occur after hurricanes or tsunamis, and migrating the refugees will be part of some humanitarian rescue operation. I bet that even around that time, there will be more government intervention passed to stop the influx of refugees migrating to higher ground than there will be for government intervention to limit pollution.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[towermac]

Yeah. I actually do think that direct heating is vastly underrated (as in, not at all modeled) in the current models. And I get laughed off a thread when I bring it up.

The thing is, heat can't just 'go off into space'; there's nothing to conduct it. The only avenue for heat to escape the surface of the planet is IR radiation, and that ain't much, and the atmosphere blocks a lot that, both ways. Unless you're standing on the filament of a heat lamp or some such, it's a trivial amount of energy transfer, in my opinion. And the models back me up in the sense that IR radiation is not cutting it.

All the heating. Every single watt of electricity, no matter the source, is released as a watt of heat. Most of it is created using a lot more heat than watt for watt. Pavement and rooftops heat up from the sun. Lot of those lately. Big fires. How many total nukes did we set off, at millions of degrees each? How many under the ocean; underground? How long does that stay hot?

There are lots of sources.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[X0563511]

Do I need to remind you that we respect the laws of thermodynamics in this house?

You do not create energy.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[silfen]

The problem is even with global warming, the shit will never really hit the fan in a way that fault can be directly tied back to the polluters, and even if it was, good luck getting them to pay for the damages. Higher pollution will erode our health slightly.

(1) "The polluters" is all of us; every time you turn on a light switch or drive a car.

(2) CO2 at atmospheric concentrations doesn't erode our health.

Sure lots of low-lying population centers will be wiped out, but those events will occur after hurricanes or tsunamis, and migrating the refugees will be part of some humanitarian rescue operation. I bet that even around that time, there will be more government intervention passed to stop the influx of refugees migrating to higher ground than there will be for government intervention to limit pollution.

Even if sea levels rise high enough to submerge Bangkok and New York, none of that would happen; climate change is just too gradual. People would simply migrate away slowly as flooding gradually becomes more frequent. A century ago, Bangkok's population was 450k, now it's 8M; if 8M could migrate to Bangkok in a century, they can easily migrate away again in another century.

(Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes and pretty much unrelated to sea level rise.)

Having lived in Bangkok for a few years, the effects of pollution witnessed by average americans here in the US is a joke. We have a loooonng way to fall before we might have to even consider implementing things like China's One Child Policy.

Americans used to experience horrific pollution and rapid population growth, like Asia. It's economic development that put a stop to that. And that's the best path for Asia as well: rapid economic development.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not shit, its from Phil's mouth in an interview to the BBC and has NOTHING to do wth the emails. Its obvious you have no idea how to respond to what I brought up and are trying to confuse it with another controversy involving Phil Jones (apparently he was a very poorly behaved "scientist").

This is about the 100th time I've posted this to /. and not once has anyone been able to say anything to refute it. The best they come up with is a judge decided he couldn't be prosecuted because the time between when he did something and charges were brought was past the statue of limitations. Yep, AGW supporters rely on a single judge and a statue of limitations as "scientific proof" of global warming because the actual scientific evidence does not support it.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

No one involved in this thread said anything about creating energy. Do you lack reading comprehension?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

Yeah. I actually do think that direct heating is vastly underrated (as in, not at all modeled) in the current models. And I get laughed off a thread when I bring it up.

I don't know why you get laughed at, but you're not understanding the scale of things involved. The atmosphere is huge, if you take into consideration all the CO2 released by humans since the industrial revolution, it hasn't changed the composition of the atmosphere even a tenth of a percent.

The scale of energy we are talking about here is huge also. A nuclear bomb is not even a rounding error in the calculations of the energy budget, which is why they don't get factored into the models.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

So......do you understand the greenhouse effect or not?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

You need to come to grips that there are things in this world you are not qualified to have a reliable opinion on.

That's fine, but if you want me to vote on your side, you better be able to explain it in a way that I do understand and can have a reliable opinion on. Saying, "trust me, you can't understand this but do what I say" is moronic.

I don't trust authority, because power corrupts, and that is true whether you are a scientist or a politician.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[X0563511]

Burning Things Causes Heat

Right there at the start of the "conversation." Not sure how you missed it.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

Are you trying to imply that the miniscule amounts of energy released from burning oil is responsible for global warming?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[rwa2]

yeah, yeah, greenhouse gases like CO2, and to a larger extent methane and water vapor reflect energy attempting to leave the biosphere back to Earth, keeping energy in like a blanket (or insulator), affecting the energy balance. My father-in-law is a mathematician at NASA GSFC, where he works on radiative transfer equations used to tune LIDAR instruments on NASA/NOAA satellites that measure cloud and vegetation cover. What would you like to know?

You can ask me about UNIX too... I did Slackware back when it came on 80 floppies, but I don't talk about that much; at least compared to the time I bootstrapped Debian on a laptop through its parallel port since it didn't have a removable drive or CD or USB.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

You could probably improve your writing style then, because your original post didn't make that clear

Re:Haters gonna hate

[X0563511]

I hope you're trying to be funny. You just said:

No one involved in this thread said anything about creating energy. Do you lack reading comprehension?

I replied with:

Burning Things Causes Heat

Right there at the start of the "conversation." Not sure how you missed it.

If you're still confused I'd suggest you go take a nap or see a doctor, you might be sleep deprived or suffering from brain trauma.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[phantomfive]

He didn't say it creates energy either.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no way you'll be able to get them to change their mind. I can't even get them to defend their positions. You can come at them with facts all day long, and they'll just end with "I'll just agree to disagree". It doesn't matter if it's climate change, vaccines, homeopathy, ghosts, contrails, HAARP, or abstinence only. Show me one source that you could use in a college paper on the subject. One. They can't, and they won't. God forbid, if you ask for more than one source.

These are the people who say college brainwashes you. Well, no shit it does. We had to have EVIDENCE. Taking a philosophy 101 class on the philosophy of science teaches you to recognise pseudoscience (AKA bullshit). Taking statistics teaches you that a friend of a friend is not a reliable source. They rant and rave about how common core will destroy our educational system and we should go back to the old way, when they themselves barely made it through high school.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Your inability to understand them makes my head hurt.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not even a conspiracy to get the little countries of the world some power over the big industrial powers.

Though, the evidence is considerably greater that it is a conspiracy for big countries to get power over the other big industrial powers.

It was, after all, one of the top rationales/excuses Comintern came up with when brainstorming on "How do we set up ideologically a basis for worldwide totalitarianism, since people don't seem to be really buying in enough to the 'worker's paradise' stuff?"

Some history.

Note: I'm not far-right. I don't even like the far-right. But I do know that a claimed agenda and an actual agenda are not necessarily the same thing.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[FlyHelicopters]

You need to come to grips that there are things in this world you are not qualified to have a reliable opinion on.

And you need to come to grips that just saying that and trying to force your views on everyone else is going to end in a bad way.

I'd hate to see you tackled running across the White House lawn, like your friends.

You make jokes like this, but there are far more people against your position than you think.

If your side simply tries to ram it down everyone's throat, you may find yourself at war.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[admiralfurburger]

I always get a kick out of the "But 40 years ago, scientists said it was going to be an Ice Age" types.

Just about 40 years ago, I attended a low end Community College. My Chemistry prof actually had copies of a few of the "Ice Age" magazines. Which he relentlessly made fun of as being Journalists not understanding when they were interviewing crackpots. He was certain of the green house effect, and talked about how in a closely coupled system that had reached a relative stability, it would cause some wicked oscilations throughout the "bread basket" regions of the planet. He didn't use the phrase "Global Climate Change," But it's certainly what he was talking about.
He also was talking about the hole in the Ozone layer & CFCs.
In 1980.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Hognoxious]

That's like saying you can't create bread because the flour, water and yeast already existed.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean the hole the greens got us to fix?

ho, sorry that's right it isn't fixed, and it now looks like a natural process!!!!

and not really those terribly bad cfc's..

that we replaced with more expensive alternates, that turn out to be way more dangerous!!!...

Re:Haters gonna hate

[NetNed]

I think half the time it's the "I am not going to admit I was fooled" crowd that has to stick to the lies they have been fed. To admit otherwise means they might be full of shit. You can tell them all the facts and how numbers were manipulated, how temps were hen pecked to show warming, how no warming has happened in 15 years, how the guy Al Gore called his "mentor" on climate change actually admitted that green house gases effects have been massively overstated and how the amount of money spent has been wasteful and would be way better spent elsewhere. You tell them that and the only thing they can come up with is "You are a denier!" like that is a actual valid rebuttal. When you have to change the name of what you believe because the actual name is a action that isn't happening, I think you seriously need to look in to what you believe and the actual facts of the matter. None of the "believers" what to do that because their biggest fears might come true, that they have been duped and are completely wrong.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[bluefoxlucid]

"It's happening" "We're sure it's happening" "We lied: we knew it was happening, but we trimmed the numbers by 90% to make it not sound like bullshit; it's 10 times as bad as we said" "It's definitely happening, and it's all our fault" is a good way to convince people you're not full of shit.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Brainwave, please let us all know exactly WTF the perfect C02 concentration should be? 280ppm? 350ppm cuz, yunno 350.org?
And who gets to decide? What is the perfect "global" temp?

If you think grant money does not affect the research you are completely full of shit.
Go to whatsupwiththat.com and search for comments from RGB, Dr. Robert Brown, physicist at Duke.
Then come back and tell us we are all full of shit too.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[X0563511]

Which is also just as true.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever you see the term 'deniers' think 'brainwashed'.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[hondo77]

But it's not so much that I don't want to pay; I've always paid my way. I just don't like the price that you name.

So what is your price?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[doconnor]

"I've always paid my way."

You haven't paid for the impact of your greenhouse gas emissions.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[MooseMiester]

A little less arrogance and a little less absolute certainty and you'll help your cause considerably.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

'sfunny. All that you claimed was bullshit.

How do you manage that?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Forty years ago, this same "evidence" was used to gin up the coming "Ice Age." Now, the same evidence is used to gin up the coming "Global Inferno."

Utter and complete bullshit which is why you deniers always get tossed into the intellectual dustbin.

A few people were concerned that we might be going back into another ice age. There was some suggestive data . It was never accepted by most climatologists. Unlike the current situation where the vast majority of professionals agree on the general outlines of the issue.

Fell free to espouse your intellectual superiority over thousands of professional scientists. Who, unlike yourself, realize that they can be wrong and are still working actively to figure out the details. And surprise, some of the things we think will happen aren't going to. And some things we think won't happen will.

But it's not made up, it's not a conspiracy to piss you off or get more grant funds. It's not even a conspiracy to get the little countries of the world some power over the big industrial powers. It's just complicated physics.

Said the exact same thing 40 years ago to those who denied global cooling.

Fucking Obammy's Fault!

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is wrong with all you lily-livered, liberal douchebags? Can't you even read? There is no "global climate change." It's all a liberal plot to line Obammy's (yo mammy) pockets.

Follow the money. All this "alternative energy" stuff is just a con to funnel our tax dollars (don't get me started on the 16th amendment!) to Obammy's cronies. Solyndra, et al were never real companies. all the money went into offshore accounts controlled by Obammy, his whore wife and those kids he pimps out to all the liberals who love that black pussy. Then again, who doesn't love young, black pussy?

The Secret Service has photos of those little whores. Call them at 202-406-5708 and ask about it.

And now, Obammy's cutting the scientists in on the gravy train, along with blowjobs from Malia and Sasha. They swallow like good little whores. $50,000 here, $25,000 there, yes you can fuck Michelle *and* Malia up the ass.

This is what my beloved country has come to. Using bullshit statistics about temperature to rape the treasury while Obammy pimps out his children. 'murica, Fuck yeah!

Re:Fucking Obammy's Fault!

[Anonymous Coward]

the kock brothers ask that you at least wipe your mouth when you move from one to other.
They hate getting each other's cum on their dicks from you.

They also suggest that you use a pillow behind your head. It is obvious that they are fucking any brains out of your head.

Re:Fucking Obammy's Fault!

[Anonymous Coward]

Even as an Obama voter, I cannot disagree.

nope

[Anonymous Coward]

It's your fault UN...you let China do as it pleases and let them export into our markets, then you punish our industries and people. You also fail to properly reward industries that promote clean energy - in fact you punish them No one is buying your propaganda. You set Westerners up for a big fall and then trip them up. And then, it's our fault. NO! It's YOUR FAULT.

Re:nope

[Opportunist]

Who cares whose fault it is? I care about who fixes the mess.

Re:nope

[WindBourne]

Ok, then lets get the Martians to fix the mess. Or we can expect that the Brazilian Indians will fix the mess.
Or perhaps, they are not capable of fixing it, since they are NOT the cause of the mess?

Re:nope

[Opportunist]

Let's assume it IS the Brazilian indian's fault, just for argument's sake. Can they fix it? No. So what have you accomplished now that you know who is to blame? Nothing. But hey, we can feel better when we're watching the water rise 'cause we know it ain't our fault that we're going to fucking DIE.

Re:nope

[WindBourne]

Interesting argument. The issue here is that the west continues to drop their CO2, while many other nations, esp. China, grow their CO2 emissions faster than the west drops.
Now, you can scream about we are going to die (not likely), BUT, the idea of focusing your efforts on nations that ARE dropping their emissions, while you choose to ignore those that are growing it faster than the drop, is pretty damn stupid.

Doesn't sound so hard

[Anonymous Coward]

2050 is a long way away, and 2100 even more so.
At the current rate of tech improvement in solar, wind, and batteries/storage, we will probably be at near-zero CO2 output by 2040.

Re:Doesn't sound so hard

[CaptainDork]

The fail is the word, "probably."

Re:Doesn't sound so hard

[Anonymous Coward]

These 50-100 year forecasts are so incredibly bogus.
For shit sake, 7 day forecasts are wrong more often than not.

Re: Doesn't sound so hard

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a difference between weather and climate. You can extrapolate climate. Weather is much more fine granular and detailed on an hourly basis. Climate doesn't predict if it's gonna rain or not. That's weather.

Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[tlambert]

Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

"The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The IPCC bases its assessment on the published literature, which includes peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sources."

Kind of says it all... they reach the conclusions they are paid to reach by finding published literature that supports those conclusions, even if that literature is from sources which are considered "crackpot" by real scientists because they lack peer-review.

If you are on the anti-side, these idiots being uncredentialed as climatologists does nothing but give you ammunition; if you are on the pro-side, then you aren't doing yourselves any favors by giving these guys a bully pulpit from which to preach.

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, the thing is, that unlike your average slashdot reader the people at the IPCC actually RTFA so are allowed to have an opinion.

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[tlambert]

You see, the thing is, that unlike your average slashdot reader the people at the IPCC actually RTFA so are allowed to have an opinion.

"...and non-peer-reviewed sources"

Which could include Slashdot articles, for all you know.

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[fat_mike]

The IPCC was set up in 1988 to assess global warming and its impacts

Let me fix that for you, The IPCC was setup in 1988 by a bunch of failed scientists who were unable to suck from the government teat of taxpayer money without some kind of scary theory.

It is always about the money.

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[ganjadude]

hey now. slashdot is VERY peer reviewed. look at all these people who dont RTFA explaining how up is down and left is right. its sound science I say!

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[American Patent Guy]

...they reach the conclusions they are paid to reach by finding published literature that supports those conclusions

Ah, finally! A rational viewpoint here...

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[phantomfive]

Technically speaking, Slashdot comments are peer reviewed. :)

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't. Their conclusions are not based on their data. Their data clearly shows that there has been no warming for the last 14-18 years, CO2 has increased 8-10%, plant life is booming. There is no problem with CO2 much less mankind's paltry contribution.

If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all the other problems with climate science by Dr Brown of Duke university

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/

Re:Can we quit publishing about the IPCC?

[Anonymous Coward]

The IPCC doesn't read anything and I dare anyone to prove me wrong.

Kill the Brazilians

[Anonymous Coward]

It's their fault for killing the rainforest.

Re:Kill the Brazilians

[Anonymous Coward]

It's their fault for killing the rainforest.

And for shaving their crotches. Oh, wait, I'm in favor of crotch shaving...

Re:Kill the Brazilians

[Anonymous Coward]

Shaved crotches need less air conditioning and help save the planet. Shave 'em all!

Re:Kill the Brazilians

[Opportunist]

And God shave the Queen?

*ducks*

Re:Kill the Brazilians

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that; when your crotch is cool, you are cool. The worst part of AGW is hot, moist crotches. That should be the end state, not the default.

Re:Kill the Brazilians

[fyngyrz]

I heard it was close -- by a whisker.

No change in sight

[Anonymous Coward]

Real change needed in over 30 years from now? Nope, not happening. This is beyond the planning horizon of mostly everybody living today with differential influence on politics. Especially the big culprits -- the developed countries.

I know one thing for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

This report is going to cause Rush Limbaugh to have diarrhea.

Re:I know one thing for sure

[WindBourne]

No, it will not. This is just more of the same that has been reported. If ANY of the liberals cared, they would focus on getting ALL NATIONS to drop emissions, not just America.

Re: I know one thing for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash : there are works wide treaties. Like the Kyoto protocolls and its successors.

Re:I know one thing for sure

[American Patent Guy]

This report is going to cause Rush Limbaugh to have diarrhea.

Actually, it will give Mr. Limbaugh two more weeks of material to make money out of. I assure you that he loves the IPCC...

Re: I know one thing for sure

[WindBourne]

Kyoto gave the majority of nations a pass, except for the west. As such, it is WORTHLESS.

Re: I know one thing for sure

[dywolf]

a majority of nations account for a tiny fraction of emissions.
and are still under the heading "developing economies".
and are also among the fasted adopters of small scale solar and wind.
they are not the problem.

Re:I know one thing for sure

[dywolf]

So we should just ignore that the majority of it comes from a handful or two of nations? Chiefly the US, China, India, Europe, Canada....ie the first world nations and their industrial dependents?

Re: I know one thing for sure

[WindBourne]

Wrong. The developing nations are NOT the fast adopters of solar/wind. They are moving quickly towards oil and coal.

Re:I know one thing for sure

[WindBourne]

ok, I just LOVE when I see BS like this.
First, you list America in the lead there. We are at 15% AND DROPPING.
OTOH, China is at 33% AND RISING FAST. In 2015, they will be around 36% of CO2 emission, which will STILL BE GROWING.
Europe's decrease is similar to America's.
You think that Canada is a major emitter of CO2? NOT EVEN CLOSE. The ONLY way that they rate up there is if you use per capita. BUT, if you are going to use per capita, than you should be gripping about Australia, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Worse, when the data comes from OCO2, fools like you are going to ignore what CHina's new numbers will be. China KNOWS that their numbers are MUCH higher. That is why they claim BS about investing into lowering it, while the fact is, that they are not only higher, but growing MUCH FASTER.

Until ppl like you accept the idea that ALL NATIONS are in this together, and will simply encourage a tax on goods based on where they come from, the co2 will continue to grow in most nations.

Thanks UN, that cleared everything up

[Karmashock]

Controversy solved. No one needs to talk about this anymore.

*wipes perspiration off brow*

Whow... such a load off my mind.

*walks off whistling*

But don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk are totally gonna get the species off this rock and colonize Mars. But not Venus, because that would be hard.

The easiest solution

[petes_PoV]

it [ climate change ] is indeed happening, and it's almost entirely man's fault

So let's find this man and ask him if he wouldn't mind stopping, please?

Re:The easiest solution

[wbr1]

Sorry. I had burritos from chipotle last night.

Re:The easiest solution

[mspohr]

Back when I worked in the ER, a common complaint was that "some dude" just attacked me.
I always thought that if we could just find "some dude", we could solve a lot of problems.

Re:The easiest solution

[khallow]

Stop.Please.

Re:The easiest solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I betcha that it's Al Gore.

Re:The easiest solution

[fyngyrz]

Huh. Back when *I* worked in the ER, I always heard it was "these two dudes", from which I developed the understanding that no man can be subdued by the machinations of a single opponent.

Re:The easiest solution

[mspohr]

I worked in Reno where all it takes is "some dude". I think the EtOH and late night gambling makes for easy targets.
You must have stronger men in your area.

Re:The easiest solution

[fyngyrz]

It was Texas. They certainly wanted us to *think* they were stronger.

Re:The easiest solution

[I'm New Around Here]

Or just weaker "dudes".

Re:The easiest solution

[GameboyRMH]

It is well-known among medical professionals and law enforcement that Some Dude is the most dangerous man alive :-P

Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's face it, we aren't going to reverse global warming. It's adapt or die, just like it always has been. Good thing we have lots of technology on the horizon to offset our industry.

Re:Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

These idiots act like the world is about ignite...
Even if the polar ice caps melt, only coastal cities will be lost. And lets face it, sooner or later it will happen regardless of whether or not it's anthropogenic.

All in all, they need to stop blaming the public and passing bills that give environmental legal immunity to companies like Haliburton and start regulating the shit out of toxic industries who are mostly to blame...But that's never going to happen.

Re:Adapt or Die

[NotSanguine]

These idiots act like the world is about ignite... Even if the polar ice caps melt, only coastal cities will be lost. And lets face it, sooner or later it will happen regardless of whether or not it's anthropogenic.

You do realize that about 44% (~3 billion) people live within 150km (~93 miles) and more than half of us live withing 200km (~124 miles) of coasts. Just to make sure I'm clear on this: you feel that it's not a big deal that 3.5 *billion* (probably a couple billion more in the next 50 years) will become homeless refugees, along with the loss of arable land, infrastructure and all manner of other things. Is that correct?

Where exactly do you think those people will go? Right to your house, bub. I hope you made some extra potato salad.

Re:Adapt or Die

[CrimsonAvenger]

You do realize that about 44% (~3 billion) people live within 150km (~93 miles) and more than half of us live withing 200km (~124 miles) of coasts. Just to make sure I'm clear on this: you feel that it's not a big deal that 3.5 *billion* (probably a couple billion more in the next 50 years) will become homeless refugees, along with the loss of arable land, infrastructure and all manner of other things. Is that correct?

Since noone (except possibly you) believes that we're going to lose all land within 150km of the coasts in the next 50 years, your argument is, to put it bluntly, stupid.

Predicted sea level rise over the rest of this century (~85 years, not 50) is low enough that the routine level maintenance around New Orleans (a city that basically sits at or below sea level) will easily handle the problem. I'd imagine we could teach the stupider people of the world how to manage building a levee a whole 30cm tall within the frightfully short interval of 85 years, don't you think?

Note: arguing AGW is usually interesting, but some arguments are just plain idiotic....

Re:Adapt or Die

[NotSanguine]

You do realize that about 44% (~3 billion) people live within 150km (~93 miles) and more than half of us live withing 200km (~124 miles) of coasts. Just to make sure I'm clear on this: you feel that it's not a big deal that 3.5 *billion* (probably a couple billion more in the next 50 years) will become homeless refugees, along with the loss of arable land, infrastructure and all manner of other things. Is that correct?

Since noone (except possibly you) believes that we're going to lose all land within 150km of the coasts in the next 50 years, your argument is, to put it bluntly, stupid.

Predicted sea level rise over the rest of this century (~85 years, not 50) is low enough that the routine level maintenance around New Orleans (a city that basically sits at or below sea level) will easily handle the problem. I'd imagine we could teach the stupider people of the world how to manage building a levee a whole 30cm tall within the frightfully short interval of 85 years, don't you think?

Note: arguing AGW is usually interesting, but some arguments are just plain idiotic....

Firstly, yes your assessment is reasonable.

Secondly, please read the comment I was replying to:

Even if the polar ice caps melt, only coastal cities will be lost. And lets face it, sooner or later it will happen regardless of whether or not it's anthropogenic.

The 50 year number I mentioned wasn't a prediction of doom, rather it was, IMHO, a reasonable idea about population growth over that period. As you can see, I was responding to GP's ridiculous suggestion that should the polar ice caps melt, that it [paraphrasing here] wasn't really a big deal. I merely pointed out that the consequences of such an occurrence were much more severe than he(she?) made them out to be.

Re:Adapt or Die

[X0563511]

It's not so much the sea levels that concern me, but weather pattern changes.

We barely know what will happen next week. This is going to fuck all kinds of shit up for food production. Not necessarily for the worst, just change.

Siberia may become the next bread basket.

Re:Adapt or Die

[silfen]

Just to make sure I'm clear on this: you feel that it's not a big deal that 3.5 *billion* (probably a couple billion more in the next 50 years) will become homeless refugees

Each year, about 15% of the US population move. That means that after less than 20 years, the equivalent of the entire population of the US has moved. Does this cause people to become homeless refugees? No, of course not. Sea level rise is so slow relative to natural migration that it has never mattered and will never matter.

along with the loss of arable land

Most arable land is not on the coast, and climate change likely does not cause a significant net gain/loss in arable land. (You can find the papers yourself on Scholar).

infrastructure and all manner of other things

Just like people move around, infrastructure effectively needs to be replaced every few decades anyway. It makes little difference whether it is replaced in the same location or elsewhere.

Is that correct?

No, you got just about everything wrong.

Re:Adapt or Die

[Urkki]

Let's face it, we aren't going to reverse global warming. It's adapt or die, just like it always has been. Good thing we have lots of technology on the horizon to offset our industry.

It's not "adopt or die". It's "die in large numbers and maybe adapt so not everybody dies."

Re:Adapt or Die

[NotSanguine]

Just to make sure I'm clear on this: you feel that it's not a big deal that 3.5 *billion* (probably a couple billion more in the next 50 years) will become homeless refugees

Each year, about 15% of the US population move. That means that after less than 20 years, the equivalent of the entire population of the US has moved. Does this cause people to become homeless refugees? No, of course not. Sea level rise is so slow relative to natural migration that it has never mattered and will never matter.

along with the loss of arable land

Most arable land is not on the coast, and climate change likely does not cause a significant net gain/loss in arable land. (You can find the papers yourself on Scholar).

infrastructure and all manner of other things

Just like people move around, infrastructure effectively needs to be replaced every few decades anyway. It makes little difference whether it is replaced in the same location or elsewhere.

Is that correct?

No, you got just about everything wrong.

There's something called context. Please place my comments in relation to the GP's comments, which was to posit that, and I quote, ."Even if the polar ice caps melt, only coastal cities will be lost."

Now, read my post again in the context of GP's comments and you'll see that my point was that should sea levels rise more than 60 meters (the GP's suggestion, not mine), we'd have much bigger problems than GP thinks. That it's unlikely (in the extreme) for the polar ice caps to melt completely (at least not any time in the foreseeable future) isn't really relevant. Does that make a little more sense to you? Or is there a a lack of imagination holding you back? Sigh.

Re:Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

The people of the Maldives will be so relieved.

Re:Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever been to Winterpeg Manasnowba?

Re:Adapt or Die

[Eunuchswear]

Just like people move around, infrastructure effectively needs to be replaced every few decades anyway. It makes little difference whether it is replaced in the same location or elsewhere.

How often has the Empire State Building been replaced?

Re:Adapt or Die

[silfen]

Now, read my post again in the context of GP's comments and you'll see that my point was that should sea levels rise more than 60 meters (the GP's suggestion, not mine), we'd have much bigger problems than GP thinks.

The maximum possible sea level rise is about 80m, and that would take thousands of years no matter how much CO2 we emit.

Such a change would still be so gradual that it lost in the noise of ordinary human activity: people moving and having or not having kids. So, no, "we" wouldn't have any big problems, and neither would our children; neither we nor our children would even be aware of it.

Does that make a little more sense to you? Or is there a a lack of imagination holding you back? Sigh.

What makes sense to me is that you and people like you are wracked by irrational fears. It must be the left wing equivalent of Christian conservatives fearing the wrath of God.

Re:Adapt or Die

[silfen]

How often has the Empire State Building been replaced?

Glad you asked. Probably about half a dozen times so far. Of course, it's done incrementally and in place, and some of the structure is reused, so you don't usually notice.

For example, in 2013 dollars, the Empire State Building cost about $630M. The owners started a renovation in 2008 that costs nearly the same amount. If Manhattan wouldn't be a good place for this kind of building anymore, people would skip the renovation and just build somewhere else. We wouldn't lose much overall.

In fact, if the Empire State Building weren't so iconic, people might be tearing it down and building a new one in place instead of renovating it. That certainly happens with a lot of other buildings.

Re:Adapt or Die

[BlackPignouf]

Predicted sea level rise over the rest of this century (~85 years, not 50) is low enough that the routine level maintenance around New Orleans (a city that basically sits at or below sea level) will easily handle the problem.

*) If you mix this slow sea rise with more frequents hurricanes, it might not be worth it or even possible to handle the problems. New Orleans wouldn't look so good after 2 one-year-apart Katrinas, even if the sea only rose 3mm during that time.
*) Please feel free to tell Bangladeshis they're stupid and should stop dying when the sea level rises.

Re:Adapt or Die

[NotSanguine]

Now, read my post again in the context of GP's comments and you'll see that my point was that should sea levels rise more than 60 meters (the GP's suggestion, not mine), we'd have much bigger problems than GP thinks.

The maximum possible sea level rise is about 80m, and that would take thousands of years no matter how much CO2 we emit.

Such a change would still be so gradual that it lost in the noise of ordinary human activity: people moving and having or not having kids. So, no, "we" wouldn't have any big problems, and neither would our children; neither we nor our children would even be aware of it.

Does that make a little more sense to you? Or is there a a lack of imagination holding you back? Sigh.

What makes sense to me is that you and people like you are wracked by irrational fears. It must be the left wing equivalent of Christian conservatives fearing the wrath of God.

I'm not wracked ny anything except orons like you trying to twist what I say. Fuck you. Twist on that.,

Re:Adapt or Die

[silfen]

This is what you said:

Just to make sure I'm clear on this: you feel that it's not a big deal that 3.5 *billion* (probably a couple billion more in the next 50 years) will become homeless refugees, along with the loss of arable land, infrastructure and all manner of other things.

This is not supported by the IPCC conclusions or anything else. There is no plausible scenario under which this can happen. Your fears are utterly irrational. Either you are a liar or a moron, take your pick.

Re:Adapt or Die

[NotSanguine]

This is what you said:

Just to make sure I'm clear on this: you feel that it's not a big deal that 3.5 *billion* (probably a couple billion more in the next 50 years) will become homeless refugees, along with the loss of arable land, infrastructure and all manner of other things.

This is not supported by the IPCC conclusions or anything else. There is no plausible scenario under which this can happen. Your fears are utterly irrational. Either you are a liar or a moron, take your pick.

I see that reading comprehension is not your strong suit, so I'll say for the *fourth* time on this thread. My comment was pointing out the idiotic comment by another poster who stated and I quote (note, I'll say it a fifth time. I did not say this. this is a quote from another poster -- cf. http://slashdot.org/comments.p...):

Even if the polar ice caps melt, only coastal cities will be lost.

Such a statement is ridiculous on its face and is both unrealistic (as you pointed out), but if by some bizarre series of events it were to happen, there would be enormous dislocations around the world with huge numbers of refugees in the low lying areas around continents and much more so in the island nations around the world.

So. Just to wrap this up for good as I'm tired of repeating myself -- the complete melting of the polar ice caps is not going to happen on any timescale relevant to our civilization. Another poster suggested that -- not me. It was so ridiculous on its face, I didn't realize I needed to state that up front. Apparently, a whole bunch of you just like to pile on without applying any context. My argument was not This is going to happen and we're all going to die next Thursday. My argument was If, somehow, such a catastrophe happened, the impact would be enormously greater than the GP I was replying to suggested.

Okay. I'm done. If you don't get it now you're likely a troll or just an asshole. Either way, go yell at someone else.

Re:Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last Category 3 hurricane that hit the mainland US?

Re:Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked with the World Trade Center.

Re:Adapt or Die

[silfen]

Such a statement is ridiculous on its face and is both unrealistic (as you pointed out), but if by some bizarre series of events it were to happen, there would be enormous dislocations around the world with huge numbers of refugees in the low lying areas around continents and much more so in the island nations around the world.

There is no bizarre series of events that could cause this; it is physically impossible for this to happen. That's the part you simply seem unable to grasp.

Re: Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

100 chairs. 100 people.
Music plays, 20% of chairs disappear, and the music stops.

Re:Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the sea level itself.
It's the amount of water it represented during a storm.
An inch or two of sea level rise can mean a storm surge large enough to wipe out New York City.
Look at Sandy. That's a perfect example.

Re:Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

An inch of additional water height, spread across a few million acres of water affected and pushed towards shore during a major storm....
that's the difference between a city that suffers minor flooding, and one that washes away.

Re:Adapt or Die

[mrchaotica]

Predicted sea level rise over the rest of this century (~85 years, not 50) is low enough that the routine level maintenance around New Orleans (a city that basically sits at or below sea level) will easily handle the problem.

Contrary to your perceptions of the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans has a fuckton of money (relative to the rest of the world). How do you think Bangladesh (for example) is going to handle it?

Re: Adapt or Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if you start off with simplistic models of population like that, it is no wonder you reach erroneous conclusions.

Zero emissions

[Kohath]

Zero emissions isn't going to happen. It's time for the alarmist side to stop pretending there are any policy choices on the table to prevent the warming they are predicting. Change the conversation from "it's real and we're all doomed unless we change energy policy" to "it's real and here are the most cost-effective ways to make sure we're not all doomed".

Stop trying to scare everyone with the apocalypse talk and spend the next hundred years finding solutions to problems. We're not going to undo modern civilization. Let's find a way to live with it and make the best of things.

Re:Zero emissions

[DogDude]

It's time for the alarmist side to stop pretending there are any policy choices on the table to prevent the warming they are predicting.

What the *fuck* are you talking about? There's plenty of stuff that can be done. The only reason that they're not being done is that the wealthy would have to foot the bill, and they don't want to.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

No matter how hard you bang the drums of class warfare, we're still not going to get to zero emissions by 2100.

Re:Zero emissions

[Anonymous Coward]

part of it is a total reduction in some existing markets, which is a drag

but shifts in the energy economy are going to benefit new players and old players
willing to adapt

so its as much about the established players not accepting any kind of loss
as it is about the being lazy and scared of any market risk

so in 100 years we're going to really take a bath economically because someone
needed that 5% right* now*

maybe its worth thinking about what the market is really optimizing for instead of
mindlessly genuflecting to its brilliance

Re:Zero emissions

[Anonymous Coward]

It could happen if there weren't cynics like you.

I will be at zero emissions or close enough to it next year as an individual. It isn't that hard, it took me 5 years and it would have been easier if stupid home builders would build efficiently from the start. And if one political party and their cheerleaders stopped making it harder than it needs to be because they don't care about their actions and the damage they cause.

There is even a plan for how to do it with current technology, let alone futuristic fusion technology that will make oil and coal seem even stupider than it currently is.

http://thesolutionsproject.org/#page-welcome

"Don't let those who say it can't be done stop those who are actually doing it."

Re:Zero emissions

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny that you think worldwide energy use is about you.

Re:Zero emissions

[Nemyst]

And yet another perfect solution fallacy, ladies and gentlemen.

Re:Zero emissions

[DogDude]

Class warfare has nothing to do with it, you thick shit. The wealthy run the large companies, which in turn own the governments (at least in the US), who make the decisions not to do anything about climate change, and also to spew utter horseshit like, "There's nothing we can do." Regular people aren't the ones clamoring to do nothing about climate change.

Re:Zero emissions

[khallow]

but shifts in the energy economy are going to benefit new players and old players willing to adapt

And harm everyone who depends on energy, which is everyone else. I think one of the silliest aspects of the climate change game is the complete ignorance of the suffering of humanity, just to push a dubious environmental agenda. How will the energy economy adapt seamlessly aside from a few "old players" not willing to adapt?

I note, for example, that Germany and Denmark both have tried to go heavily renewable energy, resulting in much higher electricity costs for their residents. Spain has just dropped its solar power scheme after a bit of failure. Carbon cap and trade schemes in Europe haven't worked all that hot either.

And China is eating everyone's lunch while producing a huge share of the greenhouse gas emissions. Europe might succeed at developing the renewable technology that obsoletes fossil fuels this century, but China will be the ones to make it.

My take on this is that various renewable energy schemes probably will improve with time, but they aren't near future replacements for fossil fuel infrastructure, particularly, for the near future needs of the developing world. As a result, the IPCC's latest demands simply won't be met.

Adaptation will be the real plan. And here, I think the IPCC is being dishonest by grossly exaggerating the cost of adapting to what they view as climate change.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

Zero emissions won't happen. Regardless of anything. It's not about your us vs. them nonsense.

Re:Zero emissions

[ScentCone]

Regular people aren't the ones clamoring to do nothing about climate change.

Yes, they are. The businesses who sell them things are keenly aware of what regular people want and are willing to pay for. Regular people don't want to pay $15 for a gallon of gas, have their taxes hugely increased, have their job go away, have their food become wildly more expensive, and have the economy crippled so they can be seen Doing The Right Thing in a country of 300 million people, while billions of people doing a whole lot of last-century-style polluting don't do anything along the same lines, thus making the economic wreckage even worse.

Re:Zero emissions

[itzly]

Exactly right. What regular people want is feast on cheap oil and gas and cheap food, and give a big "fuck you" to the next generation.

Re:Zero emissions

[itzly]

I note, for example, that Germany and Denmark both have tried to go heavily renewable energy, resulting in much higher electricity costs for their residents.

Yes, but when fossil fuels get scarce and their prices go up, the price of wind and solar will stay the same. It's only a matter of time.

Re:Zero emissions

[DogDude]

Comparing health to the price of gas is moronic. Anybody who values a robust economy more than health can go suck on a tailpipe.

Re:Zero emissions

[sl149q]

And how is that working for you....

There is more coal in the ground than we can burn over the next few centuries.

Re:Zero emissions

[Eunuchswear]

Adaptation will be the real plan. And here, I think the IPCC is being dishonest by grossly exaggerating the cost of adapting to what they view as climate change.

Come on, make a little attempt to be coherent:

Adaptation will be the real plan.

A defensible position if you accept the scientific evidence.

what [the IPCC] view as climate change.

So you are not convinced by the scientific evidence.

Having your cake and vomiting it up?

Re:Zero emissions

[ScentCone]

Comparing health to the price of gas is moronic. Anybody who values a robust economy more than health can go suck on a tailpipe.

They ONLY thing that makes healthy food, high-tech medicine, clean cities, fancy low-emission hybrids and electrics, and everything else not-like-a-century-ago is a robust economy. If you cannot understand the basic plumbing of civilization, please do not vote on Tuesday.

Re:Zero emissions

[ScentCone]

Exactly right. What regular people want is feast on cheap oil and gas and cheap food, and give a big "fuck you" to the next generation.

No, what they want is to not be the chumps that cripple their own economy for NO IMPACT on the climate while populations several times their size and polluting more every minute just carry on as usual.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

What if they want the next generation to have the same living standard as themselves? The alternative seems to be "we should deprive ourselves and live an artificially poor life so our children can grow up to deprive themselves even more".

Why wouldn't we try to make things better instead? If AGW is a problem caused by modern civilization, instead of giving up on modern civilization, we should use modern civilization's capabilities to deal with it.

That is what will happen anyway. There no way people will give up their refrigerator, or their AC, or their vehicle, or their vacations. And there's no way to get developing nations to agree to never buy a refrigerator or an air conditioner. Let's all stop pretending.

Re:Zero emissions

[I'm New Around Here]

Hey, I voted last week.

Re:Zero emissions

[FlyHelicopters]

What the *fuck* are you talking about? There's plenty of stuff that can be done. The only reason that they're not being done is that the wealthy would have to foot the bill, and they don't want to.

Sure, lots of stuff can be done, none of it is going to change the outcome...

That is the critical point that keeps getting missed... We aren't going to cut current levels of CO2 by 40% or 70% or whatever in 30 or 50 years, they will keep going up...

None of the changes will cut anything, perhaps slow the growth a bit, but the outcome remains the same...

Much like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...

Re:Zero emissions

[GameboyRMH]

I don't know why you think zero emissions can't happen, I thought 2100 was a pretty soft goal for it. I figure we'll have zero emissions by 2060.

We can easily have all land transport running on electric power by 2030. Ocean transport can be electric/biofuel or nuclear. Aircraft can run on electric for small planes and biofuel for large ones. Boom, zero emissions.

Solar energy is getting so cheap so fast that the irresponsible "don't worry, the future will solve it" crowd might turn out to be right by accident. And if there is a fusion breakthrough or something even more amazing happens like people not being idiots about fission power, all the better.

Re:Zero emissions

[GameboyRMH]

Wow, who said we have to return to 1700s lifestyles to go carbon-neutral? We just have to change what all that stuff runs on, it's not that difficult or expensive.

Re:Zero emissions

[Anonymous Coward]

you are fucking hilarious.

The wealthy don't fucking care as they can afford the cost, in fact they own companies making more money making useless green shit (forced on us) and pretend they are doing the rest of us a favor.

It's the poor who end up paying(going into debt) for this shit.

every solar panel that green turds put on their roofs are subsidized directly from the poor having to pay more for their power.

In the UK rich landowners love useless windmills, they have to do shit all and rake in the subsidizes (even the prime ministers father in law, makes £1000+ a day from them, paid for by the poorest)

Green fucking idiots have been taken for a ride and are too stupid to notice their pockets being picked!!!

Re:Zero emissions

[Anonymous Coward]

no it won't stay the same, as you need energy to make the fucking useless things.

and as you get less energy that is less reliable, it costs even more...

fuck it your just too fucking stupid like most green twats, I can't be bothered arguing any more with dipshits like you.

Please for the good of humanity, if you are a green fuckwit, help the rest of us out and top yourselfs!!!

You won't be missed and the rest of us can get on with living well!!!!

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

What if they want the next generation to have the same living standard as themselves? The alternative seems to be "we should deprive ourselves and live an artificially poor life so our children can grow up to deprive themselves even more".

What if you tried not arguing a false dichotomy?

Why wouldn't we try to make things better instead? If AGW is a problem caused by modern civilization, instead of giving up on modern civilization, we should use modern civilization's capabilities to deal with it.

That is what environmentalists want to do. That's what renewable energy is for!

There no way people will give up their refrigerator, or their AC, or their vehicle, or their vacations.

No shit, Sherlock. That's why nobody's asked people to do that. Environmentalists just want them to run their fridge, AC and vehicle on solar power instead of fossil fuels.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

Environmentalists just want them to run their fridge, AC and vehicle on solar power instead of fossil fuels.

That might work for some relatively wealthy home owners in California.

Where does an apartment dweller put his solar panels? Do Seattle residents only get refrigeration when it's sunny out? How do you suggest Milwaukee residents use solar power to heat their homes in the winter?

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

Where does an apartment dweller put his solar panels?

In the big commercial megawatt-scale solar farm outside of town, just like everyone and everything else (other than owners of single-family houses and certain commercial or industrial users -- like big-box-retail -- whose buildings are large relative to their energy use).

Do Seattle residents only get refrigeration when it's sunny out?

Yes, because things like batteries and pumped storage are mere figments of my imagination.

How do you suggest Milwaukee residents use solar power to heat their homes in the winter?

The same way they do in Germany

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

So your plan for the Milwaukee resident is for him to tear down his existing house and build a brand new one. (Nevermind the carbon footprint from that.) He can't choose a design he likes because everything must be designed for green concerns. And even after he does this, he will still need to use some sort of energy to heat his house in the winter, even if it's only 20% as much. Where will he get that energy? Winter is 6 months of mostly clouds and darkness with occasional weak sunlight in Milwaukee.

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

So your plan for the Milwaukee resident is for him to tear down his existing house and build a brand new one.

Of course not; I merely expect any new houses that would have gotten built anyway to be built green, and for existing houses to be eventually renovated.

You do realize that old, unrenovated houses are already completely unaffordable to heat there anyway, right?

He can't choose a design he likes because everything must be designed for green concerns.

This BS doesn't even deserve a response, but I'll give one anyway: it's easily possible to build green in whatever architectural style you want (within reason -- igloos don't make sense in Florida, for example).

Where will he get that energy? Winter is 6 months of mostly clouds and darkness with occasional weak sunlight in Milwaukee.

Like I said, the same way they get it in Germany, where they get similar amounts of sunlight as Milwaukee. (The article has an example about Chicago at the end. Since Chicago is near Milwaukee, it ought to be similar).

Besides, we also haven't even started talking about other kinds of clean energy, like wind, biomass and nuclear yet.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

And that still won't lead to zero emissions by 2100 unless all houses are replaced by new ones before then. And, according to the UN, there's no escape from the climate change consequences without getting to zero emissions.

So it's a huge amount of effort, difficulty, and sacrifice (that's wildly unrealistic to expect from an actual human population) only to fail to reach zero emissions.

When can we stop pretending?

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

So it's a huge amount of effort, difficulty, and sacrifice (that's wildly unrealistic to expect from an actual human population) only to fail to reach zero emissions.

You mean, only to fail less badly and suffer fewer climate change consequences.

If your attitude is "fuck it, we're screwed anyway" you might as well kill yourself now.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

My attitude is that we should focus on making things better despite climate change consequences and work on creating a future where we'll have the resources to cope with whatever problems come our way. We should be free and prosperous and bold, not poor and afraid.

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

Ah, so you're actually an environmentalist (albeit a very confused one).

Re:Zero emissions

[nyri]

It's time for the alarmist side to stop pretending there are any policy choices on the table to prevent the warming they are predicting.

What the *fuck* are you talking about? There's plenty of stuff that can be done. The only reason that they're not being done is that the wealthy would have to foot the bill, and they don't want to.

Good to know. Would be so kind and tell us what these solutions are and how the wealthy are stopping us from putting them in practice.

And then a note to everyone modding parent Insightful: I know that you are having your monthly Let's Blame It on Rich field day here. But I think that you could even try to pretend to have an intelligent discussion here. Like if someone says "I don't think there are solutions" then an answer saying "Yes there is but rich folk are not allowing them" does not count as a constructive discussion.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

I'm for helping people be freer and better off, not pretending to save the planet while making people worse off. When helping people be freer and better off is also good for the environment, then lets do that. When helping people be freer and better off is arguably worse for the environment, then a realistic cost/benefit (cost to people, benefits to people, animals and trees and rocks don't count at all) analysis is in order.

Prosperous people take care of the environment. Struggling, desperate people don't. Maintaining prosperity is necessary for a clean and healthy environment. Expanding prosperity is necessary for us to be resilient to any huge challenges in the future.

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

When helping people be freer and better off is also good for the environment, then lets do that.

Unless you're being shortsighted, there is no difference.

Maintaining prosperity is necessary for a clean and healthy environment.

You have that exactly backwards: a clean and healthy environment is necessary to maintain prosperity.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

When helping people be freer and better off is also good for the environment, then lets do that.

Unless you're being shortsighted, there is no difference.

Environmentalists usually choose animal habitats and wilderness for wilderness' sake over what's best for people.

Maintaining prosperity is necessary for a clean and healthy environment.

You have that exactly backwards: a clean and healthy environment is necessary to maintain prosperity.

Only to a point. Cleaner is better until you get to clean enough. After that, benefits to people don't justify the costs to people.

And making poor people poorer is never going to give them the extra resources it takes to clean up anything.

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

Environmentalists usually choose animal habitats and wilderness for wilderness' sake over what's best for people.

No, caricatures of environmentalists do that.

Only to a point. Cleaner is better until you get to clean enough.

Going beyond the "clean enough" point is the least of our worries; we're in no danger of even coming close to it any time soon.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

Also reality is important. If you're saying environmentalists never choose animal habitats over people, that's not reality. You're just telling stories, even if you believe them yourself. Anyone can make up stories to justify anything.

Re:Zero emissions

[mrchaotica]

No, what I'm saying is that the treehugging nutjobs who would choose animal habitats over people only represent a miniscule fraction of environmentalists. Furthermore, I'm saying that weaving strawmen to claim that all environmentalists are nutjobs is not helpful, and is something only nutjobs on the opposite side of the issue would do.

Re:Zero emissions

[Kohath]

It's not just the tree-hugging. The anti-oil-pipeline people are essentially the same. An oil pipeline is better for both people and "the Earth" than train cars loaded with oil. But it doesn't seem to matter.

Then there's anti-nuclear Greenpeace.

Then there's the anti-fracking crowd. Because coal is better for people than natural gas?

Then there's the anti-GMO people. GMOs require regulation, but when they are regulated, they are good for people. And they're better for "the Earth" because crops can be grown with fewer pesticides and less energy use applying pesticides.

How many examples before it's a pattern of disregard for humanity?

Re:Zero emissions

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time for the alarmist side to stop pretending there are any policy choices on the table to prevent the warming they are predicting.

What the *fuck* are you talking about? There's plenty of stuff that can be done. The only reason that they're not being done is that the wealthy would have to foot the bill, and they don't want to.

Your best option is to learn Mandarin so that you can harangue the Chinese and convince them to give up their coal burning. Their CO2 output has already passed the US and it increasing every year IPCC or no IPCC.

You are preaching to the wrong people.

Never go full retard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Alarmists
Going full retard since 1988.

who actually believes this rubbish

[collect0r]

Its always mans fault and this is the same old diatribe we have heard since political parties worked out that they may not be able to tax us on the air we breath but they can tax us on the air we breath out (c02) when they really should be grabbing back the unpaid taxes that the large corporations do not pay and charging them to clean up properly after themselves.

Re:who actually believes this rubbish

[X0563511]

It is our fault. Would you kindly stop saying the equivalent of "boys will be boys" and help fix the fucking problem?

Re:who actually believes this rubbish

[collect0r]

i am not interested in fixing anything the big boys have caused thanks :) i wont be alive when it all kicks off and when i was a kid we didnt have big business bullying us with thier lies

Re:who actually believes this rubbish

[riverat1]

What are you, 90 years old?

Re:who actually believes this rubbish

[brantondaveperson]

... when i was a kid we didnt have big business bullying us with thier lies

Good Lord. How old are you?

From the: The Media has failed us Department

[gbcox]

Once upon a time, long long ago, the news media was objective and reported facts. Think Edward Murrow, Walter Cronkike. These days it's like a page from the 1976 movie "Network" - where news isn't suppose to be informative... it's suppose to be entertainment, the facts be damned. Now we live in a time of "balanced" journalism... which means when two sides of a story are presented the journalist pretends that both are equally valid. Global Warming is just one example of many where this has allowed the public to be mislead. I'm surprised that I haven't yet seen a discussion about whether the earth revolves around the sun, or the sun revolves around the earth... or the earth is flat vs. the earth is round. Perhaps that has already occurred and I have missed it. I wouldn't be surprised. The media needs to pull their collective heads out of their asses and do some actual journalism - however since the media is now controlled by multinational corporations, that probably isn't going to happen. Ratings is the name of the game... so I guess we're the blame also. We need to stop patronizing media outlets that spread bullshit. People need to decide what they want. Do they want to be entertained, or do they want to be informed?

Good to know!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same UN Climate Panel that was predicting 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010, and then silently pulled all mentions of this from their website when 2010 rolled around and they turned out to be off by 50 million?

Re:Good to know!

[Anonymous Coward]

...or is it the one that said glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035?

Re:Good to know!

[Anonymous Coward]

If what you say is true (a big IF), there are already far more refuges in the world due to war than there were 10 years ago. War comes from people not having enough to eat, which can be traced to the weather and drumroll please... climate change.

Just look at the arab spring. Its all about the changing climates.

Re:Good to know!

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a post that should really include a link to the Wayback Machine. Just find the page on the UN Climate Panel webpage that had this prediction, and link to the Wayback Machine's archived copy of it from pre-2010.

(That is, if such a page exists.)

Re:Good to know!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same UN Climate Panel that was predicting 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010, and then silently pulled all mentions of this from their website when 2010 rolled around and they turned out to be off by 50 million?

Yes.

Re:Good to know!

[riverat1]

To be technical they said "up to 50 million." Even now the number is not zero.

Re:Good to know!

[GameboyRMH]

They probably just had the date a little early, give them at least half a decade, look at all the refugees in the middle east right now. Climate change played a big part in triggering the Syrian civil war.

Re:Good to know!

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN...the new Nostradamus!

Re:Good to know!

[MooseMiester]

Sure was. But one never brings up the past to folks who thrive in a world with a constant stream of vitriolic hate, a.k.a. "red meat". Watch MSNBC for one whole evening... What's interesting about all this is that they actually do more damage to the environment by being sensationalist, and by making up tall tales... than is probably being done in most developed countries. The biggest polluters, in the third world, aren't swayed by the diatribe, they are just trying to survive.

But suggest that the endless years of dire predictions that never come true are hurting the cause and you are immediately attacked in the most vicious and insulting ways....

Re:Good to know!

[cbiltcliffe]

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=50+million+climate+refugees+2010

Déjà vu?

[mebollocks]

Why do I get the feeling that this article is posted every few months?

Re:Déjà vu?

[American Patent Guy]

Yes, because the IPCC publishes a "new" report every few months summarizing the same old data, basically so they can stay in the news and maintain their vanity.

Imagine Bozo the clown shouting fire every thirty minutes in a theater empty, except for the global warming alarmists who rush about inside with each honk of his little horn. That's pretty much what we have here.

The Galileo effect ...

[CaptainDork]

... where MUCH later, official apologies are issued all around by the deniers.

Re:The Galileo effect ...

[tlambert]

... where MUCH later, official apologies are issued all around by the deniers.

Except Galileo contradicted established doctrine. Established doctrine in this case is anthropogenic climate change existing.

So really bad analogy here.

Re:The Galileo effect ...

[CaptainDork]

Really? I thought the point was one person standing up to the plate and stating the truth and the entrenched deniers having a major cow over it.

Re:The Galileo effect ...

[tlambert]

Really? I thought the point was one person standing up to the plate and stating the truth and the entrenched deniers having a major cow over it.

No. It's one person "standing up to the plate" and making statements contradicting established doctrine.

For there to be an equivalent to a Galileo situation, you'd need:

(1) Established doctrine would have to be wrong
(2) Someone who said established doctrine was wrong
(3) Then proved it

I don't see that happening any time soon.

Re:The Galileo effect ...

[CaptainDork]

Yeah, all three steps have happened and you won't see that anytime soon because you are in denial.

Re:The Galileo effect ...

[Livius]

Galileo contradicted an ignorant *political* doctrine with a *scientific* observation.

Exactly the same.

Re:The Galileo effect ...

[tlambert]

Yeah, all three steps have happened and you won't see that anytime soon because you are in denial.

So I'm in denial for denying climante-change-deniers by saying I think there's something to anthropogenic climate change?

Wow, you really are "CaptainDork"...

Re:The Galileo effect ...

[CaptainDork]

I think there's something to it as well.

It's Man's Fault

[Jaime2]

What does it matter if it's man's fault? If it turned out that this was all part of a natural cycle that was going to kill us all, then we would have just as much reason to do something about it as if it was our fault.

The real question has always been how much do we spend in order to prevent the damage that is coming. This report seems to be saying "Please turn off everything". So, in order to prevent a large portion of humanity dying, we should stop using the technology that is currently keeping many of them alive. Studies like this are yet another diversion from a real practical discussion of how we make the best of the situation we're in.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[silfen]

I think George Carlin explains this pretty well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:It's Man's Fault

[MightyMartian]

Where in the report doors it say that? Be specific with full citations

Re:It's Man's Fault

[mspohr]

I know it's not fashionable to RTFA but the IPCC report does propose actual solutions and costs those solutions (which will have negligible net cost)... they are the well-know solutions of more renewables, nuclear power and carbon sequestration along with a carbon tax.
The problem is that the corporations which have become rich on the current high CO2 emission path control the world's economies and governments so I can safely predict that nothing meaningful will be done and that we are all literally toast.

For more information (and interesting read), Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything"
http://books.simonandschuster....

Re:It's Man's Fault

[X0563511]

There's a psychological angle. If we caused it, we can conceivably have a chance at fixing it. If we did not, then we'll be fighting against the natural order of things etc.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[itzly]

What does it matter if it's man's fault?

Knowing the process and the source helps to find a way to do something about it.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[Nemyst]

The reason it matters is that if we are at cause, then we also are able to fix the problem. If this is all part of a natural cycle and we only have a negligible impact, then cutting our emissions would be insufficient and we would have to scramble to find another solution.

In many ways, confirmation that man is the major causal factor in global warming should be seen as good news. It means we have the power to fix it.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[ScentCone]

Of course that's what it says. If you want to get fussy about citations, I think the burden's on you to show where they make any sort of viable recommendation that will actually make a difference that doesn't include harming western economies while leaving China and India totally off the hook as they make the biggest growing mess.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[KeensMustard]

This report seems to be saying "Please turn off everything".

Where, specifically in the report does it say that?

Re:It's Man's Fault

[Uberbah]

Of course that's what it says.

As much as I have shares in the Brooklyn Bridge to sell you, BullshitCone.

Re: It's Man's Fault

[Hardhead_7]

Because to understand how to best fix a problem, you generally have to know what causes it. For instance, if it wasn't man-made, you have to come up with crazy expensive geoengineering projects. If not, hey, maybe installing a bunch more solar panels and wind turbines would help. Your argument is just deflection from your own ignorance. Also, you suck at troubleshooting.

Re: It's Man's Fault

[Jaime2]

Are you suggesting that if a measurable amount of CO2 was coming from natural sources that it would somehow be harder to sequester that carbon than if it was man-made CO2? Or that cutting our emissions in the face of a natural uptick wouldn't effectively offset it?

Most of the man made arguments are out there to satisfy the nutty 5 percent who are denying that it's a problem. Stop letting them set the agenda and stop responding to them.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[Jaime2]

If this is all part of a natural cycle and we only have a negligible impact, then cutting our emissions would be insufficient and we would have to scramble to find another solution.

... because natural CO2 is more resistant to sequestration than man-made CO2?

Re: It's Man's Fault

[Jaime2]

Also, you suck at troubleshooting.

Did you think a study like this was going to find anything that changes the facts? Nearly everyone is already running under the assumption the global warming is anthropogenic, except for a few nut cases. Putting energy into gather more factual evidence that it is anthropogenic doesn't change anything - sane people already knew it and insane people won't be convinced.

So, how exactly does this make troubleshooting easier? When you fix a problem, do you do extra work to confirm something that you already know with 99.5% confidence before trying to fix it?

Re:It's Man's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

"The real question has always been how much do we spend in order to prevent the damage that is coming."

No. Just No. We do NOT "prevent" hypothetical damage that is coming - we free up resources and initiative and "adapt" to it.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[Jaime2]

That's just slightly tweaking my statement to "The real question has always been how much do we spend in order to deal with the future.". If the answer is "nothing", then so be it. My post was about the man made part of the statement, I intentionally tried to stay away from a general debate on global warming.

Re:It's Man's Fault

[Jaime2]

What if there is no damage coming?

Then the answer to the question "The real question has always been how much do we spend in order to prevent the damage that is coming" is "nothing". That doesn't make the statement false. It's wasted effort to determine of it was man made in either case.

Haters gonna hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! It is amazing to see the zealotry on display on this topic. Torquemada would be impressed by the slavish adherence to dogma that is clearly and simply unsupported by actual scientific evidence.

Forty years ago, this same "evidence" was used to gin up the coming "Ice Age." Now, the same evidence is used to gin up the coming "Global Inferno."

The only problem the "evidence" simply isn't there. The earth clearly isn't globally warming, the hurricanes aren't there, the earth quakes, tornadoes, brush fires and other supposed manifestations are obvious jokes, and the "evangelists" of AGW like Gore, et al. do more to pump the dreaded CO2 into the air than any other people on the planet.

What a farce! If you were concerned about your bloody carbon footprint and other negative impact on Gaia, you would do the decent thing and off yourselves instead of whining about others who won't submit to your collective and collectivist will.

Ron Paul was right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't you stop this?

Don't be fatuous...

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk are totally gonna get the species off this rock and colonize Mars. But not Venus, because that would be hard.

Everyone knows that men colonize Mars, women colonize Venus.

So what if the planet is too hot and toxic. They can change it.

Nuclear winter ought to cool that shit down

[gelfling]

I say we go for that.

It seems like sometimes....

[Anonymous Coward]

This daily propaganda is brought to you on behalf by our alarmist propaganda friends in the leftwing that think they have a right to control every aspect of you lives. We repeat, there have been no examples of climate change over the last 200 million years. Ice ages are Fox News propaganda. Dinosaurs were genocided by white christian Republican racism! Trust in Scientist Supreme All Gore! He invented the entire internet so he knows what is going on.

And later today on MSNBC, The White House provides scientific proof that minorities that vote Republican are in fact genetically evil white people, and therefor, why it is ok to call them racists too.

the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

Seriously, this group continues to scream that America is the biggest determent to changing this. They grip about the amount that America produces per capita.
Yet, America as a whole, produces less than 15% of the CO2. Likewise, our per capita is less than 16.
BUT, what is most important, is the fact that our production and per capita are dropping each and every year for the last 7 years.

How does this compare to other nations? Well, China, who is given a pass by these groups, now account for more than 33% of yearly CO2 production. In addition, their per capita is now above most of Europe's and will beat America's within 3 years.

At this time, most of the west continues to drop their CO2 though Germany's is back on the rise since they shut down their nuke plants and are replacing them with new coal plants. America has shut down massive numbers of coal plants over the last 6 years due to economics, will not be building new coal plants, and is about to shut down many older coal plants due to EPA finally bringing fourth new regs.
BUT, China, India, South Africa, Russia, etc. continue to build massive new coal plants. These will exists for the next 25-50 years. They will NOT be shutdown. And all of them want to follow China's lead in leaving pollution control off, which will lead to massive new mercury/lead/etc emissions.

The neo-cons/tea* types will not be making changes. They will not look at science and admit that man is causing this. I suspect that they are simply lying to themselves, but at the least, it indicates a real lack of intelligence.
HOWEVER, when the liberals acknowledge that there is a problem and then focus not only a relatively small player, but ignore the major emitter and the fact that 3rd world nations are building new plants at a rate that is mind blowing, well, it shows that liberals are just as foolish, if not worse, than the above neo-cons/tea*.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Nemyst]

The reason that the UN focuses on the US and Europe is that we are the developed nations. We are the West. We should be leading by example, otherwise why the fuck would the newcomers on the scene bother? They've not had the chance to enjoy careless pollution for decades like the US has, and you want to tell them that the US can keep fucking things over because it's not the biggest polluter? Seriously?

If the US were doing their part, it'd put more pressure on the rest of the world. It'd make them able to help other countries build clean infrastructure. Instead, they act as the black sheep, the dissenting opinion which developing countries can point at to justify them not doing anything. And despite all of this, China is in fact doing things. Pollution has become a serious issue and they're working towards solving it with billions of dollars a year. In twenty years, if all else remains equal, I expect China to be significantly more advanced in green tech than the US. Perfect? No. But no one's asking for perfection, just willingness to put the world's fate before your own petty politics.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[hackus]

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the energy industry, as well as the financial industry are the primary benefactors to both primary parties in the USA.

so this is not a neo con, tea party issue.

In fact, as it has been pointed out in pedantic style here on Slashdot and non mainstream media outlets, we live in a oligarchy.

NOT a republic, democratic state as so many idiots continue to believe in.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Oligonicella]

If you are ascribing moral and ethical rationale to any UN actions then you have not been observing the UN very closely. They are if anything, the antithesis of moral, ethical and rational. ALL of the UN's actions are based on petty politics. If you believe otherwise, you're being foolish.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[DavidCBillen]

Thank you. It's refreshing when someone bashes both sides in this pathologically two-sided society of ours.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

and both deserve it.
Back in the 40-70s, we were a nation that worked together. Now, we have become a nation that is almost in a civil war.
HOWEVER, that is America.

When it comes to CO2 emissions, this is a world wide problem in which everybody wants to point to others to fix this, while they continue down their easy path. Even in America, we have coal industry fighting making changes, and yet, they could actually grow, while cutting CO2, by simply switching to converting CO2=>methane.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

If you think that I believe that this is just neo-con/tea* issue, OR that this is just rep/dem, then you obvious did not read my posting. Or have little comprehension.

Re: the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

You do realize that america is already emitting LESS than what we did in the 90s. Right? And that we have actually exceeded what we agreed to in Kyoto? In addition, we continue to drop, while nations like Germany and Japan are actually building new coal plants?

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[drinkypoo]

the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc Seriously, this group continues to scream that America is the biggest determent to changing this.

Wait, what? Somehow people complaining about pollution are to blame for pollution? It doesn't matter how wrong they are, that's a stupid argument.

Re: the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

So, if I gripe about america's deficits and then point my fingers at say all black kids for it, while giving the white neo-cons a pass on it, I would have a good argument, since I was gripeing that we have a deficit problem?
Likewise, if I bitch about america constantly being at war, but claim that we have to stop soldiers from causing this. Right?
the two arguments above make the same sense as ur argument.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

BTW, you think that China is doing things for good? Okay. Lets look at REAL NUMBERS.
Go look at table a1.2 in this study and compare US vs. China.
What you see is that America's per capita has gone from 19.6 in 1990, to 16.4 in 2012, which is a total change of -17%.
OTOH, china has gone from 2.1 in 1990 to 7.1 in 2012 which is a total change of 233%.

And you claim that China is IMPROVING? Seriously? In a normal year, China increases their emissions per capita, by .5-1.0.
OTOH, America has been dropping ours by .5-1 each year. In 3-5 years, China's per capita emissions will surpass America's.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh OK, if its not your fault you'll be OK when the ambient temperature is 60 degrees C.

Could you just stay out of the discussion while the adults work out what we're going to do about that? Thanks.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

As many others pointed out, it is easy to decrease your CO2 output if you outsource all your "cheap and dirty" manufacturing to another country.

US: How dare China pollute so much!
China: Ok we will clean up.
[next shipment]
US: What? I'm not paying those prices! I will take my outsourcing elsewhere!

Don't point the finger if you are the root cause! This is why sometimes these multi-national wealth redistributions are the right and just thing to do.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

First off, as shown above, America has dropped our CO2 by 17%, while China's emissions have gone up more than 250%.
Secondly, what is driving that, is NOT America's 'outsourcing', but China's cheating. America is NOT the one that made China go with 80% coal, NOR, are we the ones that told them that their money for investing into energy, should be used to dump on Western markets.

Basically, what you and other trash are doing, is telling a rape victim, that they are responsible and need to pay the raper money for service's rendered.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

Yes, we adults will discuss how to solve things. Sadly, you kids will continue to scream and ignore facts.

Re: the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

The US never ratified the Kyoto protocol.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yet, America as a whole, produces less than 15% of the CO2"

It's not about how big your slice of the pie is. It's about how big your slice of the pie *should* be. There's only one pie, and the one who grabs the most disproportional piece of it, gets told off the hardest.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

The question becomes, how do you determine how big a slice should be?
For example, China has 1/6 of the world's population, but produces 1/3 of the CO2 and is in the bottom 1% in terms of Emission / $GDP.
America has 1/20 of the world's population, but produces less than 1/6 of the CO2, and is in the upper 33% in terms of Emissions / $GDP.
Then you have Europe. They have slightly more than 1/20 of the world's population, produces slightly less than America, and is also in the upper 33% in Emissions /$GDP.

Yet, some like you, focus on 15% that is DROPPING, while ignoring the 33% from just one nation, that is GROWING rapidly. And that ignores India and other nations that are growing fast as well.

Re: the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[WindBourne]

The US never ratified the Kyoto protocol.

Yeah. So what? We STILL beat what we promised to do in it.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[NoImNotNineVolt]

If you are ascribing moral and ethical rationale to any UN actions then you have not been observing the UN very closely. They are if anything, the antithesis of moral, ethical and rational. ALL of the UN's actions are based on petty politics. If you believe otherwise, you're being foolish.

While what you say is true, it's irrelevant. In this context, their actions are consistent with being moral and ethical. That holds true even if the true basis for their actions is petty politics.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

So First world countries get a pass because they have been have been doing so for som many years, just stop the new guys.

Re: the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[drinkypoo]

the two arguments above make the same sense as ur argument.

Do you even English, bro? Either I was saying the opposite of what you think I said, or your language skills are simply for shit and no one could possibly tell what you're on about.

Regardless, if I see "ur" in a message, I know the author is a fuckbag.

My argument is that the messenger is not responsible for the message. HTH, HAND.

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[strikethree]

They grip about the amount that America produces per capita.
Yet, America as a whole, produces less than 15% of the CO2. Likewise, our per capita is less than 16.

I never understood this "per capita" measurement. Per capita, I should be making a metric fuckton of money... and yet here I am, getting slightly better than jack and shit. Per capita, I pollute more than a majority of the world, and yet here I sit, almost entirely carbon neutral.

What good is this per capita crap? America produces more than China and has a third of the population of China so of course, per capita, it is going to be higher. But that says nothing about the total pollution. If China were manufacturing more than America, they could say they pollute less on a per-capita basis... but, again. What fucking good is that?

Why do people constantly speak about per capita?

Re:the ones to blame are the 350.org, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the reason why the BRIC countries are creating pollution is because the West (EU/US) keeps buying their incredibly cheap products. The products are cheap at the expense of the environment in those countries. They are cheap also because the West demands cheap. When we start attaching responsibilities to the products we consume we will no longer be able to afford them.

What needs to happen is we need to break our addiction for these cheap products but to do that we need to first fix the discrepancy in wealth distribution. Unfortunately those in power holding the wealth (the real drug pushes) do not want us to break our addictive habits.

What about the f*cking hiatus?

[mveloso]

Hey, where'd the hiatus go? You know, the one they said didn't exist, then it did?

Re:What about the f*cking hiatus?

[itzly]

The so-called hiatus is about the atmospheric temperature, which is only a proxy for the real energy budget. Much more energy goes into the ocean, and it's only a matter of time before the process goes another way, and the heat comes back.

Re:What about the f*cking hiatus?

[cbiltcliffe]

Yet, according to NASA studies, the ocean hasn't warmed recently, either.

Another climate change article

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this has to be a record... It's like every other article these days. Climate Change FUD on a daily basis now? Wouldn't have anything to do with the upcoming elections, would it?

Re:From the: The Media has failed us Department

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying that instead of reporting from multiple points of view and letting the reader decide what is right, journalists should decide for the readers and then shove that opinion down their throat, is that about right? People should watch news so big personalities could tell them what to think, not to form their own opinions?

And you're bitching because you think that's *not* what's happening with most US mainstream media?

Is this a post that leaked in here from an alternate dimension? Because if that's what happened, I want to go live there.

They are incorrect.

[Lumpy]

Woman is as much to blame. In fact I see more tiny little blonde women driving Hummer H2's and Escalade XLT's alone than any other vehicle.

Blaming ALL this on men and not pointing the finger at women, the ones that are the real cause of global warming is Sexist.

Women are ALWAYS bitching about how cold it is, it's a fricking conspiracy, they have been trying to raise the temperatures for generations.

Re:They are incorrect.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not funny.

The comment makes the individual look bad, but the +5 makes the entire Slashdot audience look bad.

Re:They are incorrect.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whiny bitch today? Forgot to take you meds?

Re:They are incorrect.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get out of puberty, you'll understand that how things look is completely irrelevant. Perception is not reality.

Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[popo]

How do you explain the matching ice-cap depletion on Mars?

Why, in a supposedly scientific study of warning is the source of warming (ie: the Sun) ignored and/or considered a constant in every study?

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[DamonHD]

Why, in a supposedly scientific study of warning is the source of warming (ie: the Sun) ignored and/or considered a constant in every study?

It isn't.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Mashiki]

Strange. I've read plenty of the "premier peer reviewed papers" and many state that the sun has a minor to no perceivable impact on global temperatures. They then dance around on effect vs affects, and get into a whole pile of other crap. There are a few that do, they're rare and far between.

You know despite the claims that "this summer was a record on heat" if you look at the anomaly mapping, it was actually colder this summer.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[popo]

Show me where it's not considered a constant. 1 study.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[popo]

Exactly. Some will say the sun's energy is indeed variable but the effect on Earth is basically invariable -- thereby calling the sun's energy a constant while pretending to account for variance.

Bad science.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[itzly]

That's not ignoring the sun. That's taking a careful look at the changes in the sun's output, and deciding that it's not a major factor. If you don't believe so, please find a graph of TSI (total solar irradiance) for the last century, and compare with a graph of global temperature anomaly during the same time.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on Earth is this modded Troll???

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[geantvert]

http://www.climate4you.com/Sun...

On that graph, the solar irradiance varies from 1363 to 1368 since 1978 so under 1/2 of a percent.
That is indeed not really significant.

The sun activity cycle of 11 years is also very visible but it more in the range of 1/10 of a percent.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying that an increase of solar irradiance of 1/2 a percent is INSIGNIFICANT????

HUH!!???

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[geantvert]

1/2 of a percent (so +/-0.005) is not an increase but the distance between the maximum and the minimum observed since 1978.

Looking at the trend over multiple years (the dark red line), I only see the regular 11 years cycle with a variation of about 1/10 of a percent. The variation to the trend if any is well below that value.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Kernel Kurtz]

It is a matter of debate between people who study such things, which is not most climate scientists.

http://www.climatedialogue.org...

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Anonymous Coward]

Total solar irradiance is not the issue - it's the change in the UV component that ionizes nuclei for water, clouds and high atmosphere reflectance.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Anonymous Coward]

What, like this?

Fucking dickhead.

Here's a freebie.

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[BCGlorfindel]

That's not ignoring the sun. That's taking a careful look at the changes in the sun's output, and deciding that it's not a major factor. If you don't believe so, please find a graph of TSI (total solar irradiance) for the last century, and compare with a graph of global temperature anomaly during the same time.

You first. If you'd tried taking your own advice you'd have found we don't have nearly a century of data for TSI, we've got only about 30 years of direct measurements.

And if you really want to look at what matters, it should be net energy in and out globally instead of temperature. The IPCC's latest report summarizes the results of our satellite measurement of exactly that, observing it is unlikely any trend exists since 2000 in global top of the atmosphere radiation flux. They don't explain the justification though between this and the later claim that total radiative forcing has steadily increased over that time. The difference is methodology, in that the calculation for total radiative forcing appears to be a summation of measurements of various gas concentrations over that time. Nobody seems to be bothered, worried or interested though in the fact that the directly measured real net forcing doesn't match expectations...

But nevermind the complexity and nuance, as Ban Ki-Moon has said, "Science has spoken!". You don't ask questions when a deity has spoken directly to you and given you direction...

Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Anonymous Coward]

That made zero sense. You got cornered and you pulled out a nice pretty bunny from your hat.

But you're still cornered.

WRONG unless you count China, india, russia...

[WindBourne]

as developed.

The fact is that China ALONE accounts for 30% of all emissions. Their per capita is above most of Europes (not Germany and eastern europe), and will exceed America in the next 3 years.
Likewise, Russian, India, and South Africa are building massive new coal plants that will exists for decades to come.

The ones that need to make changes is ALL OF US. And the hardest one will not be the west, but China, India, Russia, and South Africa.

Not even close.

[WindBourne]

For starters, China, russia, India, and South Africa continue to build out massive new coal plants. They have NO intention of shutting these down for the next 50-70 years.

Re:Not even close.

[jopsen]

For starters, China, russia, India, and South Africa continue to build out massive new coal plants. They have NO intention of shutting these down for the next 50-70 years.

How about you just get your own house in order first... EU have set high goals for reducing emissions, this will prompt research and make renewable energy sources cheaper... If the US followed along, then then price will eventually drop to a point where the third world can play along.

Re: Not even close.

[WindBourne]

U do realize that most r&d in this arena originated in america. Right? And that america continues to outspend both Europe and China on it? Where america is screwing up, is letting our r&d go to nations like china.

Re: Not even close.

[jopsen]

U do realize that most r&d in this arena originated in america. Right? And that america continues to outspend both Europe and China on it?

[Citation needed], CNN certainly says otherwise: http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/12/...
Also what political commitments have you been making? I haven't heard any, that are even remotely as impressive as the Europeans.

Unless you're rich and want to go to space

[iceperson]

In that case spew your carbon footprint all over the planet because of "progress" or something...

Carbon restoration

[vandelais]

What we're doing is taking carbon that was once living matter that was folded into the earth and restoring it to its rightful place in the above ground environment.
It's not man's fault. It's to man's credit that we are doing this.
We are restoring Carbon to its rightful place. It is our duty to continue doing so and adapt to the changes that happen afterwards.

No more Mr. Nice Gaius.

lols

[Anonymous Coward]

atleast one cannot deny it is human aided global warming caused by statistical methods (hockey stick and stuff...)

Follow the money

[grantspassalan]

Someone should do a research project and determine exactly who will benefit from the draconian measures needed to reduce or even eliminate fossil fuel use. Who will profit by the tremendous rise in cost thereof artificially imposed by governments. If this were carefully researched it could qualify for someone’s PhD thesis. Would Al Gore and his allies win or lose if this were imposed upon people, especially in Western industrialized countries.

Re:Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

The individual wins.

Not the power and fuel companies. That is what this is about, and it is what lots of right-wingers are scared about.

Since I and many others get my electricity from solar panels on my house, some coal exec had to tell his trust fund kids they can only go to the Bahamas 5 days this years. Yeah, some coal miners will lose their jobs, but "So be it". I have money left over to spend on other, better things now.

Re:Follow the money

[itzly]

And while they're at it, they should also do a research project and determine exactly who will benefit from continuing as usual. And maybe they can also study how long the fossil fuels will last at the required rate.

Re:Follow the money

[Nemyst]

Are you this thick as not to realize that WE, humans, would win? Do you not see that pollution is harmful to all species, us included? Sure, right now most of climate change doesn't affect you. It probably won't affect you in the next decades either. Heck, you might even die before it does anything serious to you personally.

But if nothing is done, millions will be affected. How many will die is hard to say. What is sure is that selfish and mind-numbingly blind people like you are harming our world's future. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not leave as legacy a contaminated wasteland.

Re:Follow the money

[grantspassalan]

If you think CO2 is harmful to humans and is a pollutant you better stop breathing. You might need to stop far***g also and persuade millions of cows and other livestock to do the same, because that is methane and is an even worse greenhouse gas. I do think however that other forms of pollution, such as too many poisons such as pesticides and nasty food additives that kill people prematurely should be eliminated. The medical/pharmaceutical complex kills close to three-quarter million people in the US alone every year. War and hatred kill millions more. Perhaps something should be done about that first before worrying about possible future warming of the Earth. //“How many will die is hard to say.”//

Why is that so hard to say? That is easy, everybody will die. Despite all modern technological advances, the death rate is still what it has always been, namely 100%.

2015

[Etherwalk]

Anyone not woowoo anti-science (usually being the theistic types who worship the Invisible Hand) has already established:

1. Climate change is mostly man-made;

2. This doesn't mean the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent significant harm.

Seriously, it's almost 2015, didn't we finish this debate decades ago? Can we try to save the planet already?

Re:2015

[CanadianMacFan]

The planet is going to be just fine for a few more billion of years until the sun expands (barring asteroid collisions). It's just the easy first world standard of living that some of us are used to that is in danger of disappearing.

Re:2015

[Anonymous Coward]

We are trying to save the planet.

We're also trying not to dump our standard of living.

I hit this when there were just six posts, and someone had linked to a national geographic report detailing how politically charged this IPCC report is. It's a complete farce. It has since been downmodded to oblivion. Completely ridiculous.

Re:2015

[Anonymous Coward]

You can try. You can't actually succeed. But they're willing to take your money and accept your obedience anyway.

Re:2015

[towermac]

That would be a shame, because there's a few billion brown(ish) people that are about to get their turn.

Re:2015

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt the yellow people will give the brown people a chance.
Besides, nature doesn't give a shit about race. It will destroy white devil and shit skin alike.

Almost right

[WindBourne]

It is NOT the UN that is doing that. It is the liberals in groups like 350 that do that. The UN speaks about it, but has done nothing.

THe ONLY way to solve this, is to involve all nations fairly, and the only way to solve that, is to have nations tax goods predicated on where the good and parts come from. And the normalization can not be per capita since CO2 is NOT correlated with ppl, but with GDP. As such, we should be focusing on emissions / GDP.

Are you sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

> We're not going to undo modern civilization.

What makes you so sure?

The Co-Founder Of The Weather Channel

[Anonymous Coward]

The Co-Founder of The Weather Channel, someone that probably knows a thing or two about the weather and the climate, claims that Global Warming is a hoax and is nothing but politics. Just thought I'd toss that out there as it is fairly recent. Posting as AC because I know that otherwise I'll be modded down into oblivion simply because I'm pointing to a different point of view.

Re:The Co-Founder Of The Weather Channel

[Anonymous Coward]

The Co-Founder of The Weather Channel, someone that probably knows a thing or two about the weather and the climate, claims that Global Warming is a hoax and is nothing but politics. Just thought I'd toss that out there as it is fairly recent. Posting as AC because I know that otherwise I'll be modded down into oblivion simply because I'm pointing to a different point of view.

I find it interesting how (mostly) Americans take pride in anti-science as a "different point of view". You see exactly the same in creationism vs evolution, or anti-vaccine vs medicine.

Re:The Co-Founder Of The Weather Channel

[thephydes]

He may be able to read and describe a weather map, or condense information from the weather bureau into digestible lumps, but that does not make him a climate scientist any more that me having a home weather station makes me a climate scientist. It makes us both weather tinkerers at best.

Cellulose-based Economy

[GarretSidzaka]

This solution entails reducing all emissions to zero with mandatory carbon traps on all energy generation and vehicles. Also there would be a switch from fossil fuels to cellulose fuels catalyzed by algae and bacteria. All plastics would be replaced with cellulose plastics. All this cellulose is mined directly from the atmosphere via giant, genetically engineered, fast growing trees or plants, which are then harvested for all fuel and plastic needs.

The net result should be rapid sequestration of carbon to go along with a lively economy. It would be important to bury our trash (made of the cellulose) into dumps. Also would be important to have measures to do controlled burns of these landfills, hundreds of years in the future, in case the cellulose economy begins to freeze our planet.

Re:Obviously...Not

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The lumber Industry was killed by the EPA and their Spotted Owl nonsense.
2. There are more forested acres in the Northwest now than there were in the 1900.

Part of this statement is correct and part is wron

[Anonymous Coward]

1950-2014 is about equal to the cycle time of one El-none/La-nina PDA/AMO cycle. This now well established cycle which explains largely the warming from 1910-1940, the cooling between 1940-1975, the warming between 1975-1998 and the flat (to be cooling most likely) between 1998-2028(estimated) would say that half the warming in the period 1975-1998 and possibly more of the warming between 1910-1940 was because of the positive cycle of the AMO/PDO deep ocean circulation pattern. Therefore the total warming seen between 1950-2014 which is about 0.5C extrapolated to 2100 assuming that CO2 emissions continue on a exponential curve (required to keep linear heat rising) would be another 0.7C or a total of 1.2C. This corresponds with numerous studies recently that show the TR (transient response to a doubling of CO2) would be 1.2C not the 3C "mean" the IPCC claims for the last 20 years. The IPCC still claims the average TR is 2.5C but almost every report or scientist would now agree the IPCC is overstating the TR. Common sense says that a 2.5 or 3C TR is unable to be supported by any science as there is no known method by which climate forcing can accelerate faster than it currently is and to reach 2.5C by 2100 would require a "miracle" in climate science where temperatures suddenly reverted to the models predictions. There is no known mechanism whereby heat could suddenly be released to accomplish such a feat. Therefore the article above is right that 0.5C is possibly the warming attributable to CO2 but it is completely wrong in saying that CO2 has to be cut to achieve 2.0C as it will require accelerating CO2 level to 1000ppm from the current projection of 550ppm by 2100 to get to 2.0C. It is extremely unlikely we will get to 1000ppm ever as technology change will almost certainly produce ways of removing CO2 or simply producing power in other ways by 2100.

NIPCC Report is out - it's not man's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

NIPCC reviews the exact same source material used by the IPCC except the NIPCC doesn't cherry pick and exagerate. It's natural planetary and solar cycles. http://www.nipccreport.org

Re:NIPCC Report is out - it's not man's fault

[riverat1]

I hope they print the NIPCC on toilet paper because that's all it's useful for.

Who pays for cleanup

[rwa2]

Everyone is going to pay one way or another... some just seem to think starting with prevention will be cheaper than dealing with scrambling for a cure later on.

Others, understandably, will just keep chugging along as they're accustomed to. No reason to change your ways if the sky isn't falling. Can't get blamed for anything that happens that you don't see coming. Can't be held accountable for it either. And they probably won't.

Case in point: drought... (whether it's related to Anthropogenic Climate Change or not is irrelevant). As you may recall, farmers in CA had to ration their water rights this year. The government stepped in and enforced a 30% reduction on farms as they have during past droughts.

For the smaller farms that had already invested in more efficient drip irrigation technologies, this pretty much means they suffered a 30% reduction in crop output, since they're already getting the maximum crop output from their water.

For the larger farms that were using inefficient flood irrigation, they got a nice emergency government subsidy to upgrade to drip irrigation. So they had the same crop output as before this year, because the increases in efficiencies more than made up for reduced quota.

So as you see, under the system we have in place now, it absolutely makes sense to be as wasteful as possible from an entirely rational perspective. The early adopters will bear the brunt of the cost of cleaning things up both before and after issues arise. That's logic. That's the way it is.

For my part, I recently moved to a part of the US which is almost all hydro and wind power. Utilities are expensive. I pay more to to the sanitation dept. to clean my water runoff than it costs to deliver.

1/2 of the world's population lives in southeast Asia... including China, India, etc.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-...
They've been enacting lots of policies to deal with pollution and resources, stuff you'd absolutely hate to have here in the West. The smart and rich ones come here to get away from the pollution and crowding at home. It's nice.

Bu bu bu!

[Anonymous Coward]

A single volcano spews more ****** in the air than all humans combined. And there are many active volcanoes around the globe.

So, put women in charge!

[Noahideeya]

If climate change is "almost entirely man's fault", then this is another good reason to put women in charge!

CO2 levels

[hackus]

Plants simply absorb most of it, as they done so for BILLIONS OF YEARS THROUGH FAR WORSE EPISODES IN EARTH HISTORY.

I am all for growing trees and increasing the density of the natural Biosphere to combat this problem. Make every city block free space required to grow food plants of any kind appropriate, for example.

Make the primary color of all cities green, instead of concrete. Very simple to do, and free food for everyone.

If city workers can plant and water trees they can do the same with food crops.

I am not for carbon credits, AL Gore nonsense and incorrect or bad science.

I am ESPECIALLY AGAINST modifying the atmosphere. You want to try that? Take a crappy 2000 plus year old tech rocket ride to Mars and take your industrial education complex fellow PhDs with you.

Good luck, and do not call us, we will call you.

It won't matter how many reports they make

[mark-t]

Until such time as it is somehow ever immediately profitable for corporations to try changing to do something about this, we can be assured that absolutely nothing will ever change.

You all are to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

Use any type of energy, eat, use any type of vehicle, are alive or dead? Then you contribute to pollution.
If you really cared about the planet you'd stop all these things and leave.

Every person commenting here is part of the problem.

Solutions...no internet, no cell phones, no private vehicles, no travel for any reason, eat only grass that you grew yourself.

And anti-theists, stop wasting good electrons whining about theists, you're not impressing anyone,

Yea...nuclear power

[Danathar]

Like green peace is going to support ANY nuclear power options....

Re:Yea...nuclear power

[mspohr]

Greenpeace isn't the problem. They have no money and no political power. Corporations are the problem. They have a large vested interest $ in the current carbon economy so don't want renewables... they're probably fine with nuclear power (except the oil and natural gas companies).

Re:Yea...nuclear power

[ArmoredDragon]

Actually a LOT of corporations have been trying to push for nuclear power, but NIMBY and Greenpeace types have done a lot to prevent it from happening. Had it not been for politicians, we'd have built more nuclear plants by now.

Re:Yea...nuclear power

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeaa, unfortunately for everyone Greenpeace has issues.

GW lied to us. No shit

[Anonymous Coward]

GW Bush was lying to us when be blamed the cows farting. Who'd have thunk it.

Look at the IPCC track record first

[BCGlorfindel]

Before implementing a global carbon tax maybe the IPCC predictions should be looked at more closely, no?

The IPCC first assessment report(still available on their site) had temperature projections that we can compare today to see how they match reality nearly 25 years later. Take a look for yourself, and they clearly predict a warming of 0.5C from 1990 temperatures by 2014 IF CO2 emissions remained frozen at 1990 levels. So, sort of their best case scenario. In reality, CO2 emissions have steadily climbed much, much higher than 1990 levels. Today's temperatures though sit at a warming of 0.4C higher than 1990 levels.

The IPCC more recent third assessment from 2001 has much improved projections, and we can again compare them to reality 15 years out. The 2001 assessment has error bars included and a decade more research and refining behind it. If you compare it as well, you see today's temperatures DO fit within the error bars projected 15 years ago by the IPCC, albeit barely. Of course, they are way, way down on the lowest end of the error bars.

What the above tells me is that reality has shown the IPCC has consistently been overestimating the amount of warming to be expected. In other words, the science says don't panic just yet.

Switching to electric cars and nuclear power are a good idea regardless of CO2 emissions, so we should push forwards with them. If for no other reason than they are simply better and cheaper if we invest in them properly. A massive reduction in CO2 emissions that comes with it is entirely secondary as a side benefit. Really, less coal smoke and exhaust fumes are probably the bigger win. Particularly in places like China were even seeing the sun is become rare indeed.

Re:Look at the IPCC track record first

[hey!]

And while you're at it, make sure you take into account the error bars.

Re:Look at the IPCC track record first

[hey!]

Oh, and don't forget to use a five year running average as in here. You can see the global five year running average temperature in 1990 was 0.3 C above the baseline; in 2000 it was about 0.8. You can also see the five year average oscillates above and below the underlying rising trend. If you use a piece of paper to cut off the graph at 1950, it looks like global temperatures are falling. In fact in the 50s global cooling was the scientific consensus, but that's coincidentally where the first contrarian papers proposing AGW were published.

Re:Look at the IPCC track record first

[Xyrus]

The IPCC more recent third assessment from 2001 has much improved projections, and we can again compare them to reality 15 years out. The 2001 assessment has error bars included and a decade more research and refining behind it. If you compare it as well, you see today's temperatures DO fit within the error bars projected 15 years ago by the IPCC, albeit barely. Of course, they are way, way down on the lowest end of the error bars.

What the above tells me is that reality has shown the IPCC has consistently been overestimating the amount of warming to be expected.

The problem here is that your focusing on atmospheric temperatures, which only tells a small part of the story (this is also only 15 years which still has too much noise to make any reasonable comparisons, 30 years is typically used). Most of the heat is stored in the oceans, and it was recently discovered that the heat the oceans were storing has been underestimated. That's where the heat has been going.

In other words, the science says don't panic just yet.

Only the idiots are panicking. The scientists are explaining their results and the potential impacts. Few seem to want to listen. Oh well.

Not quite accurate

[WindBourne]

This idea of talking about solving these issues at top level is the WORST idea.
Instead, what is needed, is having the top levels (i.e. federal gov) provide taxation on goods predicate on where it comes from and the CO2 that went into the production.
From there, let the local communities decide. For example, each state in America has different reasons for their emissions. For us in the western states, most of ours are vehicles as well as coal plants. For states like virginia, it is coal plants. For illinois, which has HEAVY nuke plants (and less coal), it will be vehicles.
Likewise, China needs to decide how to solve their issues. Ideally, it would be at a state/province level.

Re:Not quite accurate

[Kohath]

None of that can achieve zero emissions. Nor does it solve any problems caused by climate change.

Re:Not quite accurate

[WindBourne]

Taxing goods based on where they and parts come from, WILL drive manufacturing away from bad areas, over towards good areas. That means that nations that make REAL changes in lowering their emissions per GDP, will actually increase their GDP, and likely drive the taxes even lower. This will only help to cause ALL nations to either keep their emissions low (say Switzerland and Sweden), OR help those that invest into actually lowering their emisions, OR punish those that keep their emissions high. IOW, this approach will in fact lead to all nations dropping emissions one way or another.

So, yeah, this helps LOWER the emissions by rewarding smaller areas that drop their emissions / GDP.

Re:Not quite accurate

[Kohath]

Lower isn't zero. The whole premise is that emissions have to go to zero to avoid climate change consequences. So what is the point of a scheme that doesn't go to zero and thus doesn't avoid the climate change consequences?

damn, ya caught me.

[swschrad]

yeah, I made two trips yesterday when I could have done all my errands in one. here's my drivers license, please don't shoot me... the gunpowder pollutes, too

Short Timers

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is to remove the climate cultists from the UN (including IPCC/IFCCC) and White House/EPA/NOAA.

This will force the remaining cultists in UK into isolation where over time they will die out.

The era of Global Human Warming and its cultists is coming to a cold end.

I'll believe that *you* believe it when I see it

[cascadingstylesheet]

I don't see most people who preach about this stuff living like they believe it. I see them wanting to legislate and tell everyone else how to live.

For example, well, you know.

CO2 mining

[Stickerboy]

>Below zero of course means mining existing CO2 out of the atmopshere somehow.

Yes. It's too bad there's not an easily farmable organism out there that could take all that CO2 in the atmosphere, and, you know, stick it someplace else. Wouldn't that be a godsend? Instead we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year collectively buying political advertisements, making documentaries and mockumentaries and contributing more hot air to the atmosphere than anything CO2 would account for. Server farms included. But think of putting all those billions of dollars to work and farming these miracle organisms at $1 a piece (expensive estimate after economies of scale) to just restore the CO2 balance and shut people up. Nah, it's much more fun to play the blame game and tell other people how to live.

Re:CO2 mining

[itzly]

Planting trees seems easy, but how do you propose to prevent people from chopping them down for wood or other profitable purposes ?

Re:CO2 mining

[riverat1]

You can plant all the trees you want but we're burning thousands of years worth of them every day. There's no way trees can keep up.

Re:CO2 mining

[Dixie_Flatline]

Laws? And enforcement?

Man, we do all sorts of things like this all the time. And just because it's hard to do doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.

Re:CO2 mining

[cbiltcliffe]

Forests, contrary to popular belief, aren't the huge carbon sinks that they appear to be.
The reason for this is that trees eventually die, fall down, and rot, releasing all that carbon they sequestered back into the atmosphere. New growth forests, where all the trees are young enough that there isn't an equilibrium; sure, they pull carbon out of the atmosphere. But old growth, where trees are continually dying, and being replace by new trees? More or less carbon neutral.

Therefore, chopping those trees down for wood is the best thing to do if you're interested in removing carbon from the atmosphere on a long term basis, as long as new trees are planted to replace the chopped ones. Once I cut a tree to make a dining room table and chair set, that carbon isn't going anywhere, unless my house burns down.

Having said that, I'm among the "deniers" who think the IPCC is overstating the effects of human activity by several orders of magnitude.

(B.S.)^45

[Anonymous Coward]

Global warming is a simple scam to fleece the American taxpayer.

Re:I'll believe that *you* believe it when I see i

[itzly]

Breaking through "The tragedy of the commons" requires legislation. Solitary action is pointless.

Re:Obviously. Dinsaurogenic Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The Jurassic period. O2 in atmosphere was 130% modern levels. CO2 was at 1950ppm, 5-7 times modern levels. The temperature was a whole 3 DEGREES C over modern times! Oh noes! The Jurassic DGW, Dinsaurogenic Global Warming, shows that those Dinosaurs with their Airplanes, SUV, Coal Fire Plants and Cars and stuff, you know, those Dinosaurs and their DGW destroyed THE WHOLE PLANET!! With their DGW! Look, who wants 26% atmospheric oxygen? More air to breathe? Who wants that! And who wants more CO2 @1950 ppm, you know, to make all those plants and trees convert that CO2 into a higher O2! Who wants that! And we DON'T want the massive biodiversity of the Jurassic, no, we don't want more plants and animals and trees, no.

Any time period the warmunists want to "prove" thre is AGW the warmunists just cherry pick ranges. And now I give the warmunists what the need on a silver platter - now they have the perfect example - the Dinosaurs and their horrible DGW ( Disnosauric Global Warming ) that destroyed the Jurassic... Wait, no, it didn't, it was the best time for life on earth with 1950 ppm atmospheric CO2!

Debt is Wealth. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery. War is Peace. Cold is Warm.

Another Cult of the Church of Climatology propaganda piece with High Priest Al Goreleone's nod of approval.

First question for manmade climate change deniers

[gestalt_n_pepper]

1) Are you a climate scientist?

If No, then, "Ding, Ding, Ding, ERROR." So sorry, but thanks for playing.

If Yes, then examine minority opinion carefully against data and wisdom of scientific crowds. Probable result will most likely resemble the "No" answer.

Science is never settled.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Science is settled."
That statement alone is my alarm bell.
Science is never settled, so I doubt anything that follows.

Global Warmist revere the IPCC like a church or a monarchy.
They treat people who "don't believe" like heretics.

God is real.
Aliens exist.
Global Warming is a religion.

Next Glacial Period.

[asasdlfgnjl]

Ok I guess we can sequester a lot of CO2 in 2100 to stabilize global temperatures now, so we can later release it around 4500~10000 when glaciation starts up again. And yes it will happen, it has been happing the last three million years. Looking just 80~100 years ahead seems short sighted to me.

Northeastern Liberals

[bobbuck]

So, this means it's time to force the northeastern liberals to move somewhere with a warmer climate, like Mexico, to help cut heating related CO2 emissions? It's for the planet, right??? (To the indignant northeastern liberals who are going to reply to me, yes, it takes more energy to heat a home from 30F to 70F than to air condition a 70F room in a 95F environment.)

My mama told me, you better shop around.

[Apuleius]

How about using the actual global means? Same site. Same interface. Global data instead of just the tropics (keep in mind the greenhouse effect does a lot more to the poles than the tropics.)

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/to/trend

Re:My mama told me, you better shop around.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Sure... Here's an article about the constant "adjustments" to HadCRUT that cause it to constantly lower past temperatures, and increase current temperatures. Additionally, HadCRUT is based on 5+ degree latitude/longitude "cells" that are extremely coarse, and use just 1300 points worldwide for all land mass... And none for much of the oceans (the overwhelming number of measurements are limited to established shipping lanes). Why wouldn't a satellite with full-world coverage be more accurate and higher resolution?

Re:My mama told me, you better shop around.

[riverat1]

Satellites "measure" temperature of nebulous areas of the atmosphere based on a model of microwave emissions of gases (primarily 02 I think). From that they calculate a temperature. Satellites have to make adjustments for a number of things. Orbital variation, degradation of the instruments, the angle of view of the surface, effects on the microwave emissions by clouds and the background being measured against, land elevation rising into the area of the atmosphere being measured and probably several other things.

Satellite temperature measurements and surface measurements are complimentary. They serve as a check against each other and so far what they show isn't that different.

HadCRUT definitely does include sea surface temperatures.

HadCRUT is the dataset of monthly instrumental temperature records formed by combining the sea surface temperature records compiled by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the land surface air temperature records compiled by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.

If you want to include all possible stations worldwide then BEST is your friend. That's what they did and their findings are significantly different than HadCRUT.

Re:My mama told me, you better shop around.

[Apuleius]

If you want to accuse the HadCRUT team of fudging the numbers, hence your putting "adjustments" in scare quotes, kindly provide evidence.

Your choice of loolking at tropical temperatures and excluding polars is utterly disingenuous.

Re:My mama told me, you better shop around.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Satellites are also ground truthed via independent radiosonde data collected throughout the air column.

Re:My mama told me, you better shop around.

[riverat1]

My point was that satellite measurements have their own issues and are not necessarily better or worse than ground based thermometer measurements.

Man's Fault???

[codeButcher]

Just another one of those covert feminism-agenda-pushing articles....

They omitted that the man they are blaming is also white, then it would have been perfect.

Re:Man's Fault???

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget "straight".

You don't say?

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU DON'T SAY?

Man made global warming = Rothschild enslavement

[Anonymous Coward]

First you dumb Americans allowed these zionist bankers get away with the 9/11 inside job .

Now, after the IPCC was completely discredited for fuding data on their hockey stick graphs and more, Slashdot posts another story for it's jew masters.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdqNds9pNuI

Keep letting these zionist bankers control your perception of reality so you can be good little slaves, and be taxed for your carbon footprint

Slashdot should be ashamed for posting this discredited "scientific" trash .

Corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

The corruption of science in 4 easy steps:

1. Climate scientist sitting in his office minding his own business.
2. Government bureaucrat comes in and says, "Hey Dr. Climate Scientist, we have this global warming thing we're looking at and we think it might be a problem. Here's some grant money so you can do some research on it."
3. By the way Dr. Scientist, if you find that global warming is a problem, we're going to give you MILLIONS of dollars in additional grant money.
4. BUT if you find that it isn't a problem, we're not going to give you another dime.

Do climate scientists have a financial interest in reaching a certain conclusion? Yes.
Does the IPCC have a financial interest in reaching a certain conclusion? Yes.

The IPCC is required to find a human cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the IPCC finds a human cause, it's in their basic principles to study human-caused climate change.

"The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the
scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of
risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation."

However, their method of proof is to find that their computer models can't explain the warming, so they claim that the unknown part must be due to humans. They can't explain the recent plateau, so humans must be causing the lack of warming also.

Re:Obviously. Dinsaurogenic Global Warming

[rycamor]

I know one thing: if our C02 levels go up, gardening and farming gets a whole lot easier. It's common practice to pump CO2 into greenhouses in order to optimize growth of tomatoes, peppers, etc...

Ironic that they complain about "greenhouse gasses". Humankind's perfect answer to this problem is to for everyone to plant a garden. That will not only make us healthier but will have an actual effect on our relationship to the "energy crisis", resulting in a lot less transportation of goods.

Re:First question for manmade climate change denie

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Are you a climate scientist?

If No, then, "Ding, Ding, Ding, ERROR." So sorry, but thanks for playing.

They don't select the Pope from an available pool of atheists either.

Tell a lie often enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

The IPCC was set up in 1988 to assess global warming and its impacts.

Um, no. It wasn't. The IPCC Charter and Submission Guidelines, both publicly available on their web site for your perusal, make it clear that it only assesses Human-Induced Climate Change. If you have proof that climate change is being caused by a natural process you'll have to burn in hell before they'll even look at it.

The report released Sunday caps its latest assessment, a mega-review of 30,000 climate change studies that establishes with 95-percent certainty that nearly all warming seen since the 1950s is man-made

Given the cock-eyed view required by the Charter and Submission Guidelines... well duh, of course they're going to find that it's man-made.

Climate doesn't appear to be that easy, either

[fyngyrz]

You can extrapolate climate

That's the claim. As far as I'm aware, no one has succeeded. Our climate -- the world's -- has stubbornly insisted on doing other than what it has been predicted to do by every model I've been able to find.

It would be fascinating, however, to be pointed to a model, than when fed the data prior to 2000, predicted the 2000-2014 range accurately. So, can you point to such a model?

Focus on solutions

[GrahamCox]

By the look of it 99% of this thread is arguing about whether they're right or wrong, whether it's political, blah, blah, blah. To be honest, it's all hot air and not helping.

How about focusing on solutions? Whether AGW is real or not makes no difference, possible solutions are actually not that hard to achieve - that's what people need to understand, that the situation isn't hopeless, and doing them will be a good thing anyway.

For example, growing a lot of fast-growing plant matter such as bamboo and charcoalizing it, and then ploughing that charcoal into the soil will sequester massive amounts of carbon in a form that stays locked up and boosts agricultural yield by improving the soil. Applied on a large enough scale, it could cut C02 emission in half. The boost to production alone makes it worth doing even if it had no effect on C02. Another easy win is changing farming habits so that grazing doesn't over-deplete grasslands - graze a small area then let it fully recover instead of allowing cattle and sheep to wander at will. All this takes is fencing. The improved grassland will fix another 50% of the C02 emission problem if applied everywhere that vast grasslands are grazed. A bonus of merely changing your fencing systems is massively improved drought tolerance - it's being tried here in Australia and the results are astounding. There, 100% of the C02 problem fixed without even starting on renewable energy. Doing all these things is good regardless, solving climate change is just a bonus.

Re:Focus on solutions

[iggymanz]

The IPCC continues to furiously back-pedal on the absurd alarmist claims it's made over the last 14 years. Focus on solutions to what, exactly, a bunch of hooey that isn't going to happen? Where did the "warming" go these last couple years, with arctic ice extents again increasing and in the antarctic the only warming due to volcanic action?

One thing Al Gore and his ilk have proven, there is money to be made by giving agenda driven propaganda organs such as the IPCC a megaphone.

Re:Focus on solutions

[GrahamCox]

Who cares? If it's real, then we get it fixed. If it's not real, we have a much more efficient food production system and energy sources.

The Climate Religion Marches On

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad most people in the world aren't listening and aren't buying their bull shit.

Too late now

[fyngyrz]

What regular people want is feast on cheap oil and gas and cheap food, and give a big "fuck you" to the next generation.

That's pretty much where we are now. We got here, power-wise, because of the oil-interest manufactured hysteria over nuclear power.

But not to worry, that raised finger to the next generation will dovetail nicely with the corporate oligarchy that developed to rule them without regard for their constitution, individual rights, property, privacy, and responsibility.

Always remember: The things that come to those who wait are those things left behind by those who got there first. And people with money always get there first. Or at all, in the case of our government's decision process.

Entertained

[fyngyrz]

Do they want to be entertained, or do they want to be informed?

A nation of couch potatoes looks up at you briefly, small strings of spittle pendant from their slack jaws, then turn their blank eyes back to the latest American Idol or Survivor episode. They are Nero. The TV is the fiddle. The government is the very essence of corrupt Rome. Or, if you like, McDonald's is the bread, and TV the circus. The problem is, as it has been for some time, is that modern Americans are absolutely immune to critical thinking, and are in no way concerned about it. This is why our society is crumbling around us with regard to our rights, liberties, property, responsibility and future prospects.

Welcome to the last stage of failure of a constitutional republic: unsustainable grab-it-all oligarchy.

Re:Entertained

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they want to be entertained, or do they want to be informed?

A nation of couch potatoes looks up at you briefly, small strings of spittle pendant from their slack jaws, then turn their blank eyes back to the latest American Idol or Survivor episode. They are Nero. The TV is the fiddle. The government is the very essence of corrupt Rome. Or, if you like, McDonald's is the bread, and TV the circus. The problem is, as it has been for some time, is that modern Americans are absolutely immune to critical thinking, and are in no way concerned about it. This is why our society is crumbling around us with regard to our rights, liberties, property, responsibility and future prospects.

Welcome to the last stage of failure of a constitutional republic: unsustainable grab-it-all oligarchy.

As part of the collapse you should include poor education whereby self esteem replaces an ability to work with objective facts. You are an excellent exemplar of the problem.

you are missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

All those cows, chewing on their grass, farting their methane without a care in the world about punching holes in the ozone layer regardless of our so-called global warming, are all off the hook?

Garconne, please make that a double whopper!

Re:I'll believe that *you* believe it when I see i

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdote: I do. I've looked at a fair number of reports and evidence and fully agree with the consensus that the current spate of global warming is real, human activity is the cause, and it will soon be a big problem for society.

As such, I've spent my own money on solar panels for my house (and I would have done so even if it wasn't cheaper over the long term vs coal...which it is), I go out of my way to take the bus as much as possible and I do other smaller stuff when I can (spent extra to get a battery powered lawn mower & other yard tools instead of another gas mower).

precautionary principle contra emetic

[epine]

The whole "fault" meme is Garden of Eden bullshit, the implication being that we need to busy ourselves—pronto—with barfing up the forbidden apple.

To get a good chance of staying below 2C, the report's scenarios show that world emissions would have to fall by between 40 and 70 percent by 2050 from current levels and to 'near zero or below in 2100.

This forecast has about a 5% chance of being vindicated retrospectively by future generations of scientists as being mostly on the mark. Isn't it amazing how it comfortably falls within the parameters—as tuned by the 2C free parameter—of what might fly politically (if we really did busy barfing up the forbidden apple).

No species on planet earth has ever before barfed up a forbidden apple. The general principle in the biological world is "see food, eat food". It applies to every life form from bacteria on up.

Our species has managed to turn coal into sugar. It's a clever bit of business in the department of thermodynamic laundering, but hardly the cleverest trick mother nature has yet tossed into the soup—were it not for the human fixation on human exceptionalism.

Prudence might actually be the right path forward. I was in favour of prudence growing up in the 1970s, a point in time where it would have been almost trivial to enact. What was then coming out of most tail pipes was richer in unburnt hydrocarbons than much of what now comes out of the ground. It was one of the hardest things to understand about the world back when I was that age. I now understand that what America was paying for hydrocarbons from the Middle East was a tiny fraction of the wealth one could create through its consumption, this being the primary reason the race was on—the race to exhaust what was already then strongly suspected of being a soon-limited resource. Had the western world slowed its consumption out of prudence, less of the wealth would have crossed the divide. That was too high a price on prudence in the Nixon era, and realistically, it probably still is, because—you know—Sun Tsu and Machiavelli have grown so outdated since the advent of the microchip they are now relegated to the category of mere historical curiosities along with books, and land lines, and VHS.

One of the first professional software developers I ever met was a young fellow driving a first or second generation Honda Civic as The Right Thing To Do (circa 1979). Since then, because the debate has been hijacked by self-serving neo-Luddites vs anyone with even half a clue, the science itself gets more smug by the day. So far as I'm concerned, there is no scientific certainty or consensus on the appropriate societal response to these changes which appear to be taking place with ever greater confidence, though not yet as judged by the standards of scientific process established over hundreds of years as taking hundreds of years, in the ideal case.

Increasingly they just wave around the smoking gun—the gun, the gun, the gun, we've proven the smoking gun—and then they expect their policy recommendations to be given the same heft as the conclusions they are actually trained to reach. Are they crisis management experts? Are they economists? Are they political scientists? Have they traced the precautionary principle all the way back to the primordial soup?

There's no great track record of science getting anything much right over time periods of under twenty years. Give me a century any day. Every year I read another paper outlining yet another carbon sink now suspected. The target is still bobbing around faster than a UFO hand-filmed from a topless Corvette before the invention of wishbone suspension. It's absolutely clear that there's an anthropic contribution to the future condition of the blue marble. I wouldn't have argued against that in the mid-seventies barely out of elementary school. We simply can not un-eat the apple of our own success.

Re:precautionary principle contra emetic

[Kernel Kurtz]

This forecast has about a 5% chance of being vindicated retrospectively by future generations of scientists as being mostly on the mark.

That is another interesting thing about this whole debate. Science used to be a cooperative endeavor. Climate science is so polarized that there will be winners and losers in the historical record.

A couple generations from now, some group - either the Hansens and Manns or the Singers and Lindzens, are going to get the Lysenko Memorial award.

Actually neither of that is true.

[denzacar]

In global thermoclimatic war, the only way to win is not to play.

That is a hidden false dichotomy.
Which sets up things as if countries and people are either 100% polluters or 100% green (or blue) cat people, living in harmony with nature.

When the reality is many shades of green and gray, many levels and kinds of pollution and conservation and cleanup.
E.g. That same polluting China is producing a lot of the world's solar and wind power generators while taking the brunt of most of the pollution.

No matter which country did the final pollution/greenhouse emission/etc, what matters is that there is only world for all of us, lose it, and lose all.

Again... no.
A ton of coal burnt in a 1950's powerplant in North Korea and in a modern plant in Germany will not produce neither the same pollution NOR will that power be used in remotely the same way.

US coal is being exported to China BECAUSE it is not the same where you burn it.
"Cleaner" and cheaper natural gas has pushed it out in the USA, while China can't yet afford to be as picky about its energy sources.

Re:Obviously...Not

[omfgnosis]

1. To the extent this is true, super!
2. If this is true, super!

Why some glum chum?

Re:Obviously. Dinsaurogenic Global Warming

[omfgnosis]

You should consider decaf.

Re:Obviously. Dinsaurogenic Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me see if I've understood your argument:
A couple million years ago some creates, completely different from us, managed to survive in a slightly more extreme version of what we're headed for today, so that means that we will be just fine too.
I think there are a couple of flaws in your theory.
Sure, life will find a way and whatever, but the life we are worried about specifically is human life.
Specifically, will humans be able to survive a 3 degree rise in average temperature?
The dinosaurs aren't around to tell us how they dealt with massive hurricanes.
The dinosaurs didn't have cities built on the coast that will disappear if the too much polar ice melts.
Another difference is that the dinosaurs weren't cutting down acres of forest per day
You could of course say that you don't care about human life, in which case your argument makes complete sense.

truth, science and the need to rule

[Anonymous Coward]

The basic premise of global-warming-cooling-change debate is such that if man found guilty of climate change then politicians must get more power to force a set of new rules on man.
Politicians are power-hungry by definition.
Ruling the production capacity of nations is a great position to be for a beurocrat of low productive ability.
Scientists play a huge role in this debate, they perform studies and studies of studies. Unfortunately most are payed for by politicians in one way or another. Alternatively some are payed by the other side of the argument.
So scienctific publications become irrelevant. Especially if celebrated by one of the "sides" (UN this time).

We all learned in school that earth was lots hotter in the past, we also learn that it was much cooler in the more recent past. We know that CO2 traps heat. The same way we know that there were periods of planetary history with much higher CO2 levels.
So when a group of UN or corporate beurocrats pays some scientists to say "we came to a definite and unchalangeble conlcusion that..." we actually know that this is a show and not science.

What are we supposed to do if we cant trust any side of the discussion?
I suggest keeping some rules:
1. Never trust a lawyer who wants to rule production. Especially on a global scale.
2. Always look at the funding of science to assess its reliability.
3. Never trust conclusions from data that is in hundereds of years about a system that exists millions of years.
4. Be sceptical.
5. If in doubt, trust that humans of the future will be as innovative as we are and able to find good solutions for actual problems that might arise.
6. Teach young humans to think critically and teach them how we learned what we know as truth

Re:From the: The Media has failed us Department

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like searching out any reason the "other side" is wrong. Apparently the situation has devolved to "they're fat and dumb".

Randall Carlson is smarter than you.

[FeltLion]

Ask Randall: Climate Change *Editors note: For an succinct overview of Randallâ(TM)s research regarding âoeclimate changeâ you can view the video of his interview with RealitySandwich.com entitled,âoeClimate Change: A Catastrophistâ(TM)s Perspectiveâ for a better understanding of his perspective. Hello Elizabeth. I am responding to the question you raised regarding my opinion of the New York Times article on the recent work of physicist Richard Muller on climate change. You asked: âoeCan you look at his data and still maintain our recent temperature increases are just an anomaly?â My first impression is that you have not understood my position on this issue. To clarify that position, I would state that I do not consider the present warming of the climate to be an anomaly, rather I believe that the present scale and rate of climate change is well within the range of natural variability, and is, therefore, not anomalous at all. This opinion is based upon nearly three decades of in-depth study into the matter of climate change over multiple time scales. What has become apparent, from an ever growing body of evidence, from many diverse sources, is that the climate of the past has constantly changed, with a range of variability far exceeding anything experienced within recent history, say for example, since the inception of the Industrial Revolution. Certainly you must be aware that our planet has undergone a series of glacial-interglacial ages, with the most recent great Ice Age ending only 10,000 years ago. The termination of that ice age was truly a global warming event. From a variety of proxies, most especially isotopic studies of ice cores extracted from glacial ice in Antarctica, Greenland and numerous mountain glaciers, it has become apparent that the warming that accompanied the shift out of the most recent ice age was extreme in its severity and catastrophically fast, perhaps as much as 15 to 20 degrees C in less than a decade. This is many times more intense than the .8 C degree warming of the last two centuries. In fact there were two catastrophic warming episodes at the close of the ice age separated by a 1400 year, equally fast, return to full glacial cold. As of this writing there is no agreed upon explanation for this climate change event. I will not at this point digress into the subject of what that warming did to the 6 million cubic miles of glacial ice piled up over the North American and European continents, nor the consequences of a very rapid, 400 foot sea level rise (!!) resulting from the melting of that glacial ice, except to say that the ensuing floods could only be described as biblical in scale, causing environmental havoc on a scale almost impossible to visualize. I will add that very few scientists are yet to be truly aware of the extraordinarily catastrophic nature of the events accompanying the planetary shift out of the last Ice Age. Coming to grips with natural climate changes of a scale and intensity of that most recent glacial termination, constitutes, in my opinion, the paramount unresolved scientific question of our time. It may, in fact, have led to the near extermination of the human race. Additionally, ongoing studies of the palaeoclimate record are revealing numerous other extreme climate changes occurring over multiple time scales, none of which can be blamed on anthropogenic consumption of fossil fuels. Throughout the 10,000 years of the Holocene (the current geological epoch in which we find ourselves) the natural variability of the global temperature appears to have ranged from about 2 to 4 degrees C over time scales ranging from decades to centuries. From the ice core records it is apparent that at no time has there been any significant period of stable climate, rather it has been in a constant state of flux; and, human societies have frequently been the victims of the planetsâ(TM) natural climate variability. In regards to recent history, I would like to remind you that between roughly the mid

Mostly used for steel and not energy

[dbIII]

The exported stuff is mostly high quality stuff used for steel production, where it's needed to reduce iron oxide to iron, and not the run of the mill coal (of which they have a lot of their own) used to burn to make steam. Now that China is cutting back on steel production that's going to be noticable and you may see some coal mines in trouble.

It's not all equivalent ....

[King_TJ]

It's one thing to look at a grand piece of "mother nature" like the Grand Canyon or some of the Redwood forests on the west coast and say, "Hey.... this is really something scenic, unique and amazing. Probably would be a good move to try to preserve this for future generations to enjoy."

It's entirely another to let the environmentalists tell you what to do when so often, they don't even have solid answers themselves. Remember the oxygenated gasoline thing, where they were SURE it would lead to less air pollution if gas was reformulated that way? So it happened, and cars and trucks started getting WORSE gas mileage than before - since the new formulation had less energy in it per gallon than before. That means more fuel was burned to drive the same number of miles, so likely no net improvement in pollution. But THEN, they find out the oxygenated stuff was more likely to seep into ground water and do damage. So a doubly-bad "improvement" that cost people money.

Or hey... instead of talking American Buffalo, let's talk about a more recent incident, with the "meadow jumping mouse:

http://lastresistance.com/6395...

Re:It's not all equivalent ....

[Rei]

Right, because when people want action on climate change, they're somehow not doing it to stop the extinction of species and save natural landscapes? Really?

And really, oygenation agents are your boogieman here? Guess what? They *do* reduce emissions. The use of oygenation agents has roughly contributed as much to reducing non-CO2 emissions as tighter emissions standards on cars, give or or take depending on the emission in question. The reduction in mileage isn't because you burn more gasoline, it's simply becaue the oxygenation agents don't contain as much energy as gasoline does.

You're then conflating all oxygenation agents together and totally screwing up in the process. The groundwater chemical you're thinking of MTBE. Yes, it's an oxygenate, but the main reason it was added was as an anti-knock agent. You know what it replaced? Tetraethyl lead. Now, MTBE groundwater contamination isn't a good thing, but it's sure a heck of a lot better than lead contamination. And MTBE is steadily being phased out in favor of cleaner anti-knock agents.

No oxygenation agent is perfect, they all have their drawbacks in specific fields. But overall the environmental benefits indisputably way outweigh the drawbacks. Unless you like lung damage and cancer, that is.

Now, having some level of oxygenates (a few percent) should be a no-brainer, to everyone who's not an idiot that is, and they have little measurable effect on fuel economy. The actual debate comes in when you start adding way more than is necessary to control pollution - for example, E10 and E15. These are more examples of trying to get people to burn an alternative fuel - which is primarily Big Ag, not environmentalists, who by and large strongly dislike corn ethanol.

And lastly, I love the sort of websites you're apparently reading, given your link ;) To get out of the nut-o-sphere: the meadow-jumping-mouse is only endangered because its land has been heavily overgrazed by cattle (not just affecting the mice, but everything in the area, even local water supplies). The mouse used to be a keystone species in the area and the bottom of food chains but is now down to 29 small surviving populations. The logical response to the damage in all regards is to stop heavily overgrazing the land - something that the goverment has been working towards in the area for three decades. But I guess everyone has a right to graze land into a barren wasteland, right?

FYI, I live in Iceland where we long ago went down that road. The results aren't good.

The funny thing is, they're only trying to protect the riverbanks from being grazed into oblivion, which should be a no-brainer - the amount of land lost is comparatively quite small. But the guy doesn't even want to have to pipe water to his cattle, he'd much rather have his cattle destroy the riparian environment and drive a species to extinction than run a freaking hose.

Re:It's not all equivalent ....

[King_TJ]

Umm, first off? This sentence of yours makes little sense:

"The reduction in mileage isn't because you burn more gasoline, it's simply becaue the oxygenation agents don't contain as much energy as gasoline does."

The reduction in mileage because the oxygenation agents don't contain as much energy as gasoline is EXACTLY why you burn more fuel! The typical operator of a vehicle doesn't just say, "Well ... I was going to drive 18 miles in to work today, but because my fuel has less energy in it in the formulation I filled up with, I'll only go 17 miles and stop my car wherever I end up!"

As far as the ethanol fuels like E10 or E15 (or even E85, which is what you usually see here in the USA) ... I definitely recall the environmental groups getting behind them when they were a new thing. (Granted, this dates back as far as the Carter presidency.) There was a belief that anything switching our fuel usage from dinosaur remains to crops like corn HAD to be a good thing. Perhaps NOW they're not so fond of them and it's big Agra pushing them ... but it wasn't always that way.

My web site link about that meadow jumping mouse was just a result of a 15 second Google search, so no -- that's not a site I frequent. The intent of that post was really just to find a quick example of the MANY times environmental groups scream about a species about to go extinct, and negatively affect a lot of people in the process -- even when that species is of questionable value in the big picture. (If it's so close to extinction already and we're getting by fine without much of it around, there's a good chance it's not a real big deal if the last few of them disappear. Species go extinct without any human intervention all the time. When it's a clear concern, people notice and step in to correct it -- such as the honeybee population decline. I don't know anyone who is uptight about a particular type of field mouse, or some of the birds they've gotten all worked up about in the past.)

re: lumber industry

[King_TJ]

I think you're being too short-sighted and cynical myself.

Why do I say that?

Well, when you talk about this situation with the old growth forests .... yep, old growth lumber *is* a limited resource, as anyone remotely following the industry should have been able to see. So what? The industry was also correct ... that trees ARE a renewable resource. All you have to do is plant more of them and WAIT. That's really the only issue here. People in the Pacific Northwest apparently had no "plan B" for what to do when the old trees were all cut down and the new ones were going to need another 100 years or more to regrow.

Like anything? You use it up faster than it can be replenished and you run out ... at least until you give it some time to come back.

You can point fingers at big business or energy companies in particular and scream that they "screwed all of us and LIED about the situation!". But come on... We're all the consumers who DEMAND that energy to survive in our daily lives. They're just supplying the demand. And we DO have no shortage of trees growing in the USA. I see people fighting to save up enough money to get dozens of 'em cut down simply because they're creating endless hassles in people's yards, damaging sewer lines and foundations, creating big cleanup messes each Fall, etc. It's all about the TYPE of wood you're trying to gather up and having the sense to realize that you can only gather up so much at one time, in one area ... and then you're done for a while.

Climate change debate? Not quite the same issue as lumber, but another case where "big energy" will take the brunt of the blame. I think "alternate/clean energy" solutions are coming along nicely -- but you can't rush changes like this, or else you get the sub-standard and uneconomical results we're seeing. (I'm talking about solar panels that cost more to install than they ever recoup in savings for users ..... windmills that can't generate enough wind power to cost-justify themselves without big govt. subsidies, etc. etc.)

Give it a REST will you?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN is the world's most highly politicized joke. It has the likes of Iran in charge of women's rights issues (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/) and that it's this same group of jokers who were caught fudging their data to try to hide the fact that global warming had halted for the last 20 years and they couldn't explain why (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_globalwarmingpseudo47.htm), had their emails proving it dumped, and after a UN "investigation" tidily whitewashed the whole thing (http://www.examiner.com/article/united-nations-backtracks-on-climategate-email-scandal-will-not-investigate), and left the same shady, smarmy, lying gits in charge of it all. And, yet, the lies continue to gush forth and the FACTS continue to fail to support them (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/).

The UN it is bound and convinced its' real purpose, if it can be said to have one, is to pump money from the US to everyone else in the world, taking a big cut of that money for itself as it goes by. Of COURSE it's convinced about global warming! Too bad it can't be convinced about a $17 trillion dollar debt, they won't find our money so attractive when we starting paying with bills that are still damp from the printing presses, and worth exactly as much as that implies!

Stop pretending there is ANY scientific validity to this non-scientific circus. Just give it a rest and let the adults discuss the matter.

Actually, no

[WindBourne]

We do NOT need to worry about zero level at this time. Far more important is getting that 40-70% drop by 2050.
This tax will do just that. In fact, it could cause us to drop our emissions by that within 20 years, rather than 30 years. The reason why, is that if any nation cheats, and we use OCO2/other sats, we can spot them.

1914 - 2014

[Anonymous Coward]

Temperature has increased since 1914. Let's take that as a given.

Now, please explain how the world is worse off in 2014 than in 1914.

We have more people, more food, more technology, higher standard of living, less poverty, and a booming biosphere.

Would you really prefer to turn the clock back to 1914?

mining existing CO2 out of the atmopshere somehow

[KraxxxZ01]

We could, like, build a tree.

Horrified

[vikingpower]

I did a quick scan of primary comments, i.e. of comments that were directly upon TFA, with or without thread attached to them. Around 70%, probably more, of these are overtly in denial of climate change and of CO2 emissions being a problem. Apart from other implications of this figure, I find this quite horrifying, for the reason that /. may be said to represent a good cross-section of ( mostly US-based ) technology-aware people, and hence that the implication is: the USA is going to do nothing to cut emissions. Nothing. Its engineers, its PhDs, its policymakers, its elected politicians, its executives - nothing. Wow.

Re:Horrified

[Anonanonaon]

Well, the impulse behind the AGW racket was never to actually lower carbon emissions.

It has been pushed in order to certify in people's minds that humans, and specifically their leaders, are in control. -Even if that control is shoddy and destructive, at least it's in human hands.

The problem is that it's not.

We are at the mercy of unstable solar system mechanics. The Sun has been acting really weirdly over the last decade just as all of this screwed up weather has been reaching a fever pitch. Correlation doesn't always relate to causation. Except for when it does, which, if you think about it, is 100% of the time when you're looking at the correct indices.

Anyway, as to why we're seeing this big AGW push... History shows that when things get dicey, humans tend to panic and hang their leaders. So.., if our leaders can shift the blame for all the crazy weather onto the shoulders of the 99%, it is hoped that the standard "hang-'em!" response to these catastrophic Earth shake-ups might be avoided. Maybe delay the anger long enough for them to get down into their bunkers and lock the doors before the comets strike.

I'm not counting on it, though. Many Slashdotters are idiots. But others, as you say, are not buying the campaign.

Maybe when the programming is rebuffed in you enough times, you'll also take a fresh look at the story with all of its elements and piece together exactly how it works and realize you've been played. They play on our better natures, on our desire to do the right thing. These traits are excellent ones to have and they should not be discarded. But they do make us vulnerable, so we need a degree of caution in how we apply ourselves. We need to recognize how the game works and choose what role we are willing to play.

We cannot help anybody if we fail to discern truth from lies.

Climate conversation in the news

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are two system demos that track the climate conversation on Twitter and 14,000 news sources, respectively.

The social media debate on climate change (UN Global Pulse R&D)
http://unglobalpulse.net/climate/

News reporting on climate change (Thomson Reuters R&D)
http://sustainability.thomsonreuters.com/global-pulse-climate/

Active links [Re: Climate conversation in the news

[Anonymous Coward]

link 1

link 2

Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too

[Anonymous Coward]

People also do not want to know that the Earth was warmer in dinosaur days when there were more dinosaurs and atmospheric oxygen.

Human made, thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't blame this one on just men.

Reduce man made carbon emissions to zero?

[REALMAN]

Okay everyone!

Put out all fire.
Cut off all electricity.
Stop all traffic

Oh! Don't forget to hold your breath. Forever.

Science is amoral

[Ottibus]

Science is not a "political decision", but you're right that China and India are great contributors toward the problem.

Science is not a political decision, it just makes predictions. The issue becomes political as soon as you apply value judgements to those predictions by, for example, calling Golobal Warming a "problem". Science does not say that global warming is a problem, it just predicts different outcomes based on various possible courses of action. Science cannot make value judgements about those outcomes, it is inherently amoral.

Please note that I do believe that global warming is a problem and that action needs to be taked at a personal, national and international level to reduce the impact of climate change. But that is based on applying my moral viewpoint to the underlying science, it does not come from the science alone.

Some anti-CO2 efforts CAUSE starvation

[GlenRaphael]

A fair amount of starvation has actually been caused by the effort to FIGHT global warming. In particular, the US biofuels mandate was justified as a way to combat global warming - biofuels are alleged to be a carbon-neutral form of energy. But diverting cropland from growing food to growing fuel makes food more expensive. That creates starvation and causes riots and war and refugees. In short, the effort to fight global warming has itself CREATED some of the very problem it claims to be attempting to fight.

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Re:Some anti-CO2 efforts CAUSE starvation

[rhazz]

I bet there are many ways to cut down on CO2 production that have an overall negative impact on society - some obvious, others not so obvious. Converting food crops to gas crops seems like one of the obvious ones, right up there with "Save energy by cooking your pork at half the recommended temperature".

predictions for year 10987

[Anonymous Coward]

Those crazy bastards with their predictions of the state of the whole planet and the rest of the universe in the year 3897 start to

get on my nerves.

350.org is international

[mdsolar]

350.org grew out of StepItUp. StepItUp focused on US policy, and now we have a climate plan to cut emissions 53% by 2050. 350.org aims to get adequate reductions from all emitters to reach a safe concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Much of the work of 350.org is based in developing countries. You have mischaracterized their goals and methods.

Re:350.org is international

[WindBourne]

I have NOT mischaracterized it. I am on the 350 site and read it off and on. It is constantly about America's 15%, even though we are continuing to drop.
And RARELY does it grip about China, or other nations that are growing fast.

Basically, 350 is WORTHLESS. Hell, the group had a GREAT chance to make REAL changes in America's long term emissions. For starters, on the pipeline, they could cut a deal to let it in. In return, increase subsidies on electric cars, as well as moving commercial vehicles to nat gas/serial hybrid. What that means is that the pipeline does NOT increase the CO2, but lowers the costs of tar oil. However, with the above subsidies moving America off oil, that will drop America's oil usage (along with our CO2 emissions), which will drop prices on oil.

350.org is a fucking nightmare and is actually causing CO2 to INCREASE, rather than focusing on stopping CO2 long-term.

Re:350.org is international

[mdsolar]

You seem to have fallen into error.

Re:350.org is international

[Anonymous Coward]

really?

And how much has CO2 fallen under 350.org's leadership? As it is, the pipeline is likely to go through within 3 months, and you will get NOTHING for it.

You COULD have cut a deal earlier, and made it so that we moved faster to electric vehicles, and commercial vehicles over to nat gas (which would drop America's demand for oil, and plummet its price making tar sands too expensive).

So, what error am I in?

Carbon Emissions by Country

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

2010
China: 8286892kt (24.65% of wold total)
US: 5433057kt (16.16%)
India: 2008823kt (5.98%)

2012 estimate
China: 9860000kt
US: 5190000kt
India: 1970000kt

Re:Obviously. Dinsaurogenic Global Warming

[xelah]

An increase in extreme weather, on the other hand, makes gardening and farming a whole lot harder. A frost or drought at the wrong time can completely destroy your crop. You can adapt to changing conditions by growing different crops, but only if you know what the weather is likely to be like. Otherwise your frost tolerant plants get killed by drought one year and then your drought tolerant plants get killed by floods the next.

At least its acheivable

[sabbede]

After decades of warnings that put the deadline for irreversible catastrophe within a decade or two of the time it was issued (now past), it's nice to hear one with a deadline both believable and achievable.

It's a SCAM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any time you hear the UN talking about climate change, what they are really talking about is getting wealthy nations to transfer money to 3rd world countries. In fact, they walked out of the last big climate change meeting after China told them they wouldn't front money.

Re:Obviously...Not

[Jawnn]

1. The lumber Industry was killed by the EPA and their Spotted Owl nonsense.

This is categorically false. The spotted owl "nonsense" did not eve slow down the "harvesting" of old growth timber. Two things killed the timber industry:

• The lack of available hi-value timber species, i.e. old growth.
• The change in tax policies that made practice of exporting raw logs more profitable than milling them in the U.S. 2. There are more forested acres in the Northwest now than there were in the 1900.

  [citation needed] ...because you clearly do no know what you are talking about.
  In other words, you have fallen for the same timber industry bullshit. What you are going to find, if you even bother to look is an impressive number of "re-forested" acres. Big fucking deal. An acre of Douglas fir saplings is not the same thing as an acre of mature forest, nor will it ever be so, given the industry's current practices.

BUT...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not convinced the climate change is anything other than a natural event. But even if it is, I am not going to PAY for it. It's big corporations and politicians that should be paying for it out of their own pockets.

I WILL NOT PAY a carbon tax. I will withold taxes if I must.

I tried to put up a windmill and the permit alone was $6,000. That is extortion, and clearly the politicians are not interested in us applying green energy.

Dihydrogen Monoxide Vapor

[EmagGeek]

Dihydrogen monoxide vapor is a far more prevalent and effective greenhouse gas than CO2. Though methane is even more powerful, dihydrogen monoxide wins on overwhelming volume.

CO2 is a red herring. Methane is a red herring. We have to get handle on dihydrogen monoxide emissions if we are to have a prayer of halting global climate change.

Man alone did not do this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Women are to blame as well.

Re:Obviously. Dinsaurogenic Global Warming

[rycamor]

Oh. Weather might suddenly become unpredictable? I can't believe it! After these aeons of weather being so predictable and dependable... whatever shall we do???

The idea that weather will suddenly become way more unpredictable than before (whatever "before" is) has zero basis in science. Pure fearmongering. The world has always had unpredictable and changing weather, as well as changing landscapes. Which is why only an idiot (or a modern factory-farming civilization) plants only one kind of crop, and bets the farm (literally) on that crop.

I live in north-central Florida, which is sort of a nexus between subtropical and temperate zones. On a good warm year, I can grow bananas and pineapples. On a good cold year, apples and peaches. With short-term crops like vegetables, I keep an eye on which way temperatures appear to be leaning, and plant accordingly.

Not even close.

[Anonymous Coward]

China is building at the rate of 1 coal planet per week, with the CO2 scrubbers turned off, because trade treaties only said China had to install them, but they didn't consider China would deliberately leave them turned off.

/eyeroll

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't 1988 around the time we were worried about global cooling? they would be gullible if they took all those studies at face value since "scientists" were told it was find to lie in their studies to make people believe in global warming.

I guess this will give the UN reason to take our money and give it to other countries, which is the real goal.

I'd give this more credence ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd give this more credence if the movement weren't co-opted by money-grubbing carbon-offset cert. printing goons.

I've heard...

[Anonymous Coward]

..that cave fires and even fires in castles, etc wreaked havoc on people's lungs causing them to die early.

My two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Reducing pollution (which I agree is always good) and reducing CO2 are 2 different issues. The IPCC has lied to the public, ostracized previously respected scientists who didn't tow their line, and continued to get more hyperbolic in their predictions even as real evidence undermined their soapbox. Let's separate the discussion of pollution and CO2.

It may be, but UN Science still has no credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Science crew blew it with me when they were caught cooking the books on this same subject earlier.

No sympathies from me. Get others, looking at the same RAW data, to draw IDENTICAL but un-solicited and un-coopted answers without ANY prompting from anyone associated with the UN Science groups, then I MIGHT think about accepting their version.

Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, you lose forever in my eyes.

Model based BS

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they base this doom and gloom on? MODELS that have NEVER been able to predict anything accurately!!

If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are
broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all
the other problems with climate science by Dr Brown of Duke university

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/

A question for everyone who thinks that CO2 controls the climate. How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit your theory is wrong? 20 years? 30? Never?

All 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 14 and almost 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.

Here are 2 predictions. First I predict that CO2 will continue to increase because China and other countries don't care about CO2. They don't even care about real pollutants much less CO2. Second I predict it will get
colder over the next 20-30 years. Why?

Dr Libby in the 1970s said that "looking forward it will stay cold until the mid 80s (it did), then it will warm by about 1/4 degree F until the end of the century (it did), then it gets cold". When asked how cold she was predicting a 1-2 degree F drop with an outside chance of a 3-4 degree drop.

Dr Easterbrook in 2001 said the PDO was done it's positive warm cycle
and that we were in for 25-30 years of cold weather. How cold? We have
his good, bad and ugly predictions based on previous negative cold
phases of the PDO.

Dr Abdusamatov in 2006 said we are at the top of the temperature sine
wave and it will be 200 years of cold weather. .

Why do I join with them and side with their predictions? While past performance is not a guarantee of future correctness it is a lot better record than the IPCC and their dozens of models of which none have been accurate. They are all based on CO2 controlling the climate and the other 3 are all cyclical natural cycles. I'll go with those who have a good track record at predicting future climate. Dr Libby is the most impressive as her prediction is 30+ years going and still accurate.

IPCC Lying SOS's

[Anonymous Coward]

Horse$#!t.

The IPCC was caught lying about the data.
The statistical methods used almost always produce a hockey stick graph.
The graphs demonstrated in 'An Inconvenient truth" when placed on the same page show that CO2 levels TRAIL, they do not lead, the temperature increases.
It's 2014, Al, and the northern ice caps and the polar bears are still there...and I know that is an inconvenient truth for you, you nasty little Progressive pr!ck.
The CO2 levels during the agricultural revolution were some 400% to 500% HIGHER than they are TODAY and humanity thrived.
CO2, for the love of Heaven is NOT a poisonous gas; it hardens crops against damage from drought.
The number of scientists who believe climate change to be real and anthropomorphic in nature is far outweighed by the number of scientists who believe climatology has lost all claim to credibility. Climatologists are just one step removed from phrenologists.
In the 70's it was 'the coming ice age,' then it was 'global warming.' Since you one world-ers cannot keep up with the environment making you look like jack@$$3$ with your predictions, you picked climate change because now anything the climate does can now be blamed on CO2. Like the price of gold and silver, whichever way it moves, it is bad news at 5 o'clock.

Fact is, most hard science is an inconvenient truth for the folks who want to lay a carbon tax on the West.

It's Man's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

What if there is no damage coming? What if increased CO2 is actually making plants grow better? What if we restrict CO2 to the mythical pre-industrial levels of 270 PPM and go into another ice age and drop below 150? EXTINCTION.

CO2 Does not control the climate. It is beneficial.

Human CO2 is not the problem. CO2 is not a problem. We are currently in a 20 million low CO2 period. In the Permian there was a 30 million year low as well. In between there have been 250 million years with CO2 between 1000-2000 PPM. Life flourished. There was more quantity and diversity than currently.

CO2 is good for life up to 1000-2000 PPM. You've been had. Get over it. Get mad and get even with those who LIED to you.

If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all the other problems with climate science by Dr Brown of Duke university

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/

Stay below 2 degrees C?

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem. We're already seeing lots of studies showing much less that that so we are fine. The latest show 1-1.4 so no problem.

Totally immaterial

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN continues to show its irrelevance in the 21st century by publishing a bogus report with zero real science behind it. Maybe eventually we will get our real science back.

Amazing

[WindBourne]

I point out the fact that the majority of R&D into this comes from America, and that we continue to outspend both Europe and CHina, and yet, you point to a link that has to do with using our technology, to make your companies. IOW, we do the expensive part of finding out how to make this work, while you and china, have investments to CATCH UP to the quantities that we had.
As to political commitments, please. Give me a FUCKING BREAK. Europe has NOT met kyoto. China has made NUMEROUS promises about lowering their CO2, while it continues to INCREASE by 3-7% of the world's output EACH YEAR. Political promises on this mean NOTHING. Absolutely nothing.
If you really really want emissions to go down, then nations would start taxing goods based on CO2 from the regions where they are at. In addition, you would stop this insane per capita BS that you push, and instead, focus on where CO2 REALLY comes from, which is business.

Re:Amazing

[jopsen]

I point out the fact that the majority of R&D into this comes from America, ..... and yet, you point to a link that has to do with using our technology, to make your companies.

Okay, I might have that link wrong... It's not unbelievable,but [citation needed] still stands...


Note, without building something... ie. applying technology you're not getting a big energy sector with private R&D.

Political Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever see a "science paper" with a political summary?

Ever see a climate model that correlates to carbon taxes?

I guess that's two "no's".

Re:Obviously. Dinsaurogenic Global Warming

[brantondaveperson]

Well... that rather depends on where you live doesn't it. I've got a vege patch - I'd hate to have to rely on it for food.

Alarmists just don't get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

On average, 4 tons of CO2 is released each year by passenger vehicles; while the volcano Kilauea in Hawaii, show eruption discharges between 8,000 and 30,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each day.

500 corporations on the other hand are responsible for over 75% of all emissions which ranges in the billions of metric tons. In fact since 2009, it's gone up by 53% and continues to rise unregulated.

The IPCC is nothing more than a political device to convince the public that it is at fault while these corporations hide under the radar and go unpunished for their destruction of the environment.

Rather than allowing politicians to tax us, we need to force them to tax multinational corporations for their destruction of the environment! Better yet, we need to start imposing series regulations on them.

Sources:

http://www.americanforests.org/a-carbon-conundrum/
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2007/07_02_15.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/12/2609611/companies-emissions-revenue/
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/14/hl-compact.htm

Blame Humans!

[MagickalMyst]

Whilst humans are engaging in destructive behaviour on this planet in so many ways, global warming per se is a natural phenomenon - not man made.

If you believe the theory that dinosaurs once roamed the earth, then you probably believe that the earth was warm at that time. Then the Dinosaurs were supposedly killed off by an ice age.

So... Are we still in an ice age?

No. The earth got warmer, and is still getting warmer.

Let's see.. warm temperatures.. cooler.. colder.. colder.. ice age... warming...warmer...warmer.. hot

Do you see a pattern emerging here Scully?

Time for Al Gore and his fear-mongering band of "warmists" to cool down and move along... and take their "global carbon tax" scheme with them.

We alraedy have seen over 50 million displaced...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/15/the-un-disappears-50-million-climate-refugees-then-botches-the-disappearing-attempt/

Climate change is phooy, so claim Republicans

[lsatenstein]

The droughts in Arizona and fires in California are just quirks of nature. The failing orange crops of Florida are imaginary. Last year was the Sabattical one for crops. You know, every seventh year, plants take off producing for the season

Re:From the: The Media has failed us Department

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

Re:First question for manmade climate change denie

[cbiltcliffe]

1) Are you a climate scientist?

If No, then, "Ding, Ding, Ding, ERROR." So sorry, but thanks for playing.

If Yes, then examine minority opinion carefully against data and wisdom of scientific crowds. Probable result will most likely resemble the "No" answer.

So, I guess the medical establishment of a few hundred years ago must have been right when they all were saying to use leeches and bloodletting. After all, they were all saying it, so it must have been right, because they were all experts! And if it was right then, it must still be right now.
Off to the swamp with you!