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2014: Hottest Year On Record

Layzej writes Data from three major climate-tracking groups agree: The combined land and ocean surface temperatures hit new highs this year, according to the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United Kingdom's Met Office and the World Meteorological Association. If December's figures are at least 0.76 degrees Fahrenheit (0.42 degrees Celsius) higher than the 20th century average, 2014 will beat the warmest years on record, NOAA said this month. The January-through-November period has already been noted as the warmest 11-month period in the past 135 years, according to NOAA's November Global Climate Report. Scientific American reports on five places that will help push 2014 into the global warming record books.

560 comments

  1. noooo by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    closing eyes, plugging ears and singing naaaa naaa naaaaaaa. unbiblical! 'murrican dream for all

    1. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Hey, as soon as you want to get real and build out the nukes we'll need to actually address this you let us know.

      Otherwise keep chanting windandsolarwindandsolar while plugging your ears and we'll keep ignoring you.

    2. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And, at the same time, it was the coldest year in Chicago's recorded history. Who knew?

    3. Re: noooo by JWW · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yep. Build nuclear power plants or shut the fuck up. I'm sick and tired of hearing "denier, denier, denier" from these people and then when solutions are proposed, they say "hell no, you can't do that". That fucktard RFK jr. even said no to wind power near the carbon sucking Kennedy compound. What the want is to implement economy crushing socialism, actually solving the problem is NOT what most environmentalists really want.

      Back nuclear or shut the fuck up. Note: I'm not asking the impossible, climate change luminaries like James Hansen have called for nuclear power to be used.

    4. Re: noooo by itzly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Despite you getting sick at hearing "denier, denier", the fact remains that a significant number of the public and in politics deny there's a problem in the first place. How can you expect people to agree on a solution when we can't agree on the problem ?

    5. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agree with most of what you say. Solving the problem is definitely NOT what most environmentalists want. But as far as Nuclear goes, there's not enough U-235 to supply all of our power needs for long. I think all the estimates are under 5 years with all power coming from uranium. But if we went to Thorium, which some of these elitist types don't even want to consider, we could have abundant power into the forseable future. That's what I'd like to see.

    6. Re: noooo by tbannist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not anti-nuclear, but requiring other people to agree to your solution before you'll admit the problem exists is pretty pathetic bullshit.

      How about we agree there's a problem and then start determining what the best solution will be? I'm pretty sure it will include nuclear power, so there's no reason to be an asshole about it.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    7. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I was wondering the same thing! I am in Central WI, and it was the second coldest on record up here.

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

      Guess they should have gotten out of the office more. But please stop stroking the thermo enter!

    9. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 0, Troll

      Wow!!! Hottest year on record. Ooooooo. Guess the world started 135 years ago. And those "records" from 55 million yrs ago counts for nothing.

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    10. Re:noooo by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      If you finally would tell me where you want to dump the shit after it no longer works, I'd be happy to back nuke power. I'm dead serious, tell me where to dump the waste after it's done and I'll be the biggest supporter of it.

      Because that's the damn problem. Maybe the US solved it, I dunno, but in Europe this is actually the effin' issue with nuclear plants: What do we do with the shit after it no longer provides power? Because nobody wants to sit on a pile of radioactive waste that's gonna glow for a few millennia.

      --
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    11. Re:noooo by itzly · · Score: 3, Informative

      It doesn't make sense to compare records from 55 million years ago with this century, unless you also keep in mind the difference in greenhouse gases, albedo, solar radiation, and whatever other influences there are. Also, as far as impact on modern societies, the recent temperature changes are much more relevant to us, than whatever happened millions or billions of years ago. We now have plenty of population centers near the coast, for example.

    12. Re:noooo by Layzej · · Score: 4, Funny

      There is little solace that temperatures were higher in a period that did not sustain humanity.

    13. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nobody can agree on the precipitate, though the class warriors have some ideas. It's all about politics on all sides of the issue.

    14. Re:noooo by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Because that's the damn problem. Maybe the US solved it, I dunno,

      The US certainly hasn't solved it, we've got hot waste sitting around in water pools above reactors with the same design as the one that blew up in Fukushima all over the place right now. I don't know of any sited for such a perfect storm as Fukushima Daiichi, but it's still a bit creepy.

      but in Europe this is actually the effin' issue with nuclear plants: What do we do with the shit after it no longer provides power? Because nobody wants to sit on a pile of radioactive waste that's gonna glow for a few millennia.

      But, but, I keep hearing that this problem is solved in Europe, because France! This is unpossible!

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    15. Re:noooo by ThosLives · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And, at the same time, it was the coldest year in Chicago's recorded history. Who knew?

      Well, yes, because "global" warming isn't really global - a global average is kind of meaningless for determining the local effects in any given region.

      The problem I have with global climate change "debate" is not that climate is changing, but that there is an assumption that the net effect will be negative. Some regions will surely become less hospitable, and some will become more hospitable. I'm disappointed that more studies haven't shown which will prevail (or if there will be a net neutral effect). Instead we just get fear mongering about famine and war.

      Also, I still believe the focus is on the wrong thing: rather than try and stop climate change (after all, if it doesn't change because of CO2, it may change due to something else) we should try and work on technologies so we can survive - no, thrive - regardless of the climate. (Isn't that what humanity has done for most of its existence anyway?)

      --
      "There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
    16. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 0

      Proto-Humans have been around for what 3-5 million years? (Depending on the text)
      So we know that humans are fine in global temperature and CO2 variations in that time period.
      Primates have been around for 20+ million years. So that time frame is good.
      Mammals have been around for 80+million years. So that time frame is good.
      Proto-mammals have been around for 130+ millions years. So that time frame is good. Let's not go further back. The relationship would be less obvious.

      Take a look at the temperature and C02 levels of 55 million years ago (we as a species would survive with ease as would other mammals) and compare it to now. That would be a record worth comparing to. Using the last 135 years as a comparison point is more that silly - it's being dishonest. (ie lying to people to make a point).

      --
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    17. Re:noooo by itzly · · Score: 1

      Using the last 135 years as a comparison point is more that silly - it's being dishonest. (ie lying to people to make a point).

      Why is that silly or dishonest ? What exactly is the "lie" here ?

    18. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey chum, you're right - a significant number of people deny there's a problem in the first place. Problem is, they're not "significant enough" to block progress when 69% of Americans agree that "there is solid evidence that the earth is warming," and 65% of Americans class climate change as a "very serious" or "serious" problem.

      http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

      At what point do you stop whining that not everybody agrees with you, and start actually pushing through the changes that need to happen? Nearly 70% of Americans are on your side... you've got the majority by a wide margin, when can we expect to start seeing the nuclear plants getting approved?

    19. Re: noooo by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Despite you getting sick at hearing "denier, denier", the fact remains that a significant number of the public and in politics deny there's a problem in the first place. How can you expect people to agree on a solution when we can't agree on the problem ?

      I would suggest sheer perseverance of publishing the science in the face of such unfounded denialism will eventually do the trick, in the same way that it worked to convince the public of the link between smoking and cancer despite the opposition from vested interests at the time. The attacks on the science and scientists that we see today is very much the same tactic used by the tobacco industry and conservative organisations against doctors who claimed that smoking was dangerous.

      In the end, science will win over politics (just like it did with tobacco, asbestos, etc). Those "significant number of the public and in politics" who claim to know better than all the climate scientists of the world will look more and more out of touch with reality as the temperature records keep getting broken.

      In fact, the deniers have put a lot of stock in the current slow-down of temperature increase, and once it starts accelerating again (as it has done numerous times when there have been similar slow-downs over the last century) then it will cause great damage to their public support. If you remember back 5 years or so years ago, many deniers were claiming that it was actually getting cooler in comparison to the El Nino year of 1998. Once the record temperatures started happening again they silently dropped that claim, although it still hasn't stopped a lot of people from still bringing up how some people considered global cooling to be a possibility back in the 1970s. How convenient that they forget their own side's similar mistakes.

    20. Re:noooo by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      If we ever get bulletproof failproof rocket launches what's wrong with sending the shit one way to the sun?

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    21. Re: noooo by uassholes · · Score: 0

      Assuming that any past state of the climate is better than any future state of the climate is naive. Find something important to expend your activist energies on.

    22. Re: noooo by unimacs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nuclear power plants are expensive to build and operate with any degree of safety. Wind is actually becoming fairly cost effective. That being said any realistic solution would include nuclear, renewables, and natural gas (at least for awhile). Also a major component would have to be major improvements in energy efficiency whether it be in transportation, HVAC, or transmission. Lots of energy is lost through pure waste. Efficiency measures save money over time and improves cash flow for business that implement them. Doesn't sound like crushing socialism to me.

      Tying renewables and other non-nuclear solutions to some sort of socialist plot is just another way to scare people away from dealing with the problem.

    23. Re:noooo by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      When considering climate change you have to consider periods longer than what in terms of our lifespan would be a sneeze.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    24. Re:noooo by Layzej · · Score: 1

      My sight is set a little higher than to "survive as a species". Also the trend since then has little to do with anthropogenic global warming which is largely why we care about global average temperature records now.

    25. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Because 135 is too short a time frame. If you're tracking a stock and want to see it's history would you use it's price ticks over the last 135 seconds and think that is the representative of the whole? If you follow baseball or basketball would you extrapolate the results from one game and say that is what the player will average over the year or his career? No.
      Compare 135 years to 100 million years and what do you get. Put it on a year scale. Do the math and see if you think the sample means anything.

      One month equals approximately 8 million years.
      One week equals approximately 2 million years. (Yes there are 4.33 weeks in a mth but this exercise to help grasp the scope.)
      One day equals approximately 250,000 years
      One hour equals approximately 10,000 years
      One minute equals approximately 160 years


      So ... we have records for less than the last one minute and we're extrapolating over the past year. (And that's only using 100 million years as a basis.) We can (and should) go further back.

      --
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    26. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem is real people are settled in places that will be hit with disaster by any warming climate. That means real costs. Fanciful ideas about Siberian wonderlands don't help the 3 billion people living on coasts that are very close to current sea levels.

    27. Re:noooo by Rigel47 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Some regions will surely become less hospitable, and some will become more hospitable.

      Indeed, let's add most coastal cities to the "less hospitable" (read - "underwater") category. What you also casually ignore is we don't know what sort of feedback loops might engage as CO2 levels continue to soar.

    28. Re:noooo by bzipitidoo · · Score: 5, Informative

      For some places, Climate Change will be a positive. But the net is hugely negative. 1/3 of the world's people are close enough to a coast that they will have to do something when sea levels rise.

      Climate Change is happening too fast for much life to cope. The speed of the change is all negative.

      The driver of Climate Change is Atmospheric Change. Everyone talks about warming, but all this CO2 has a lot of other effects. The other big effect is Ocean Acidification. This is deadly for shells and corals. The whole oceanic food chain is being strained to the limit from this, and from overfishing.

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    29. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

      We care about survival. (That includes other species). Coastlines rise and fall. Florida wasn't there a short while ago, but it's there now. There used to be a land bridges where now there aren't. All this has happened in the last few thousand years (not millions) and not due to human activity.

      If you want to say we should do things differently ... and we should do (this) or we should do (that) then fine. We'll discuss (this) and (that). But when people say that we're breaking record temperatures and they go back only 135 years then they are misrepresenting the truth - for whatever reason (they're ignorant, they're liars, they are trying to galvanize action with a few "white lies.")

      --
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    30. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but that there is an assumption that the net effect will be negative. Some regions will surely become less hospitable, and some will become more hospitable. I'm disappointed that more studies haven't shown which will prevail

      Ocean acidification alone negates any positive effects that may or may not occur. It's not about "some regions becoming more or less hospitable" anymore. If the ocean life goes, everything goes with it.

    31. Re: noooo by ranton · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm not anti-nuclear, but requiring other people to agree to your solution before you'll admit the problem exists is pretty pathetic bullshit.

      He never said he wouldn't admit the problem exists. He just wants people who aren't interested in real solutions to stop complaining about a lack of action.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    32. Re: noooo by Kierthos · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but it doesn't matter what the American people think. It matters what Congress thinks (or is told to think). And getting that collection of idiots to do anything meaningful is like herding cats.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    33. Re:noooo by ranton · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem I have with global climate change "debate" is not that climate is changing, but that there is an assumption that the net effect will be negative. Some regions will surely become less hospitable, and some will become more hospitable. I'm disappointed that more studies haven't shown which will prevail (or if there will be a net neutral effect). Instead we just get fear mongering about famine and war.

      If sea levels rise and destroy hundreds of cities in the process, who really cares if a few Midwest regions get a little longer growing season? People don't waste time talking about pros and cons because the cons outweigh the pros by such a wide margin that it isn't worth talking about.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    34. Re:noooo by Layzej · · Score: 2

      Some regions will surely become less hospitable, and some will become more hospitable.

      That is undoubtedly true. Part of the problem is that change in general is costly as it requires adaptation. Many died and billions were lost during the Russian heat wave of 2010 although the temperature was not likely much higher than the average summer day in Texas. You'd think they'd welcome a bit of heat in that frozen wasteland but there ya go.

      Regarding adaptation vs. mitigation - the best approach will minimize costs and probably be a combination of the two.

    35. Re:noooo by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem I have with global climate change "debate" is not that climate is changing, but that there is an assumption that the net effect will be negative. Some regions will surely become less hospitable, and some will become more hospitable. I'm disappointed that more studies haven't shown which will prevail (or if there will be a net neutral effect). Instead we just get fear mongering about famine and war.

      How can you say this when an entire third of the IPCC report (Working Group II) was dedicated to the "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" of climate change? They show the positive and negative affects (both direct and indirect).

      Here is a quote from the introduction of the Summary for Policymakers:

      The assessment of impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability in the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (WGII AR5) evaluates how patterns of risks and potential benefits are shifting due to climate change. It considers how impacts and risks related to climate change can be reduced and managed through adaptation and mitigation. The report assesses needs, options, opportunities, constraints, resilience, limits, and other aspects associated with adaptation.

    36. Re: noooo by theendlessnow · · Score: 1

      We could put all the spent rods into new cars! Talk about building excitement! .... or we could do what the Russians do and sink them all to the bottom of the oceans. Stupid oceans... wasted space...

    37. Re:noooo by Layzej · · Score: 1

      That should read: Billions of dollars were lost- did not mean to imply that billions of people somehow lost their way because of the heat wave.

    38. Re:noooo by itzly · · Score: 2

      Because 135 is too short a time frame.

      Too short for what, exactly ? It's long enough to determine that the rise in temperature is not due to random fluctuations (i.e. weather). What exactly would we learn from looking at a longer time period ? By the way, we do have proxy data going back further, if you're interested in seeing the data in historical perspective. So, now what ?

    39. Re: noooo by amorsen · · Score: 2

      Nuclear is fine, but it is expensive and it takes forever to build outside China. 15 years from decision to first power is a typical figure.

      If you are an unfortunate country with little access to hydro power and no land wind or solar resources really worth exploring, you may have to use nuclear and pay the £0.085 pr kWh. This is the case for England. Most of the world has cheaper options.

      --
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    40. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What problem? Weather is fine. I think peoples heads need examined.

    41. Re:noooo by Layzej · · Score: 1

      If you're tracking a stock and want to see it's history would you use it's price ticks over the last 135 seconds and think that is the representative of the whole

      If I had announced a large third quarter loss last week and wanted to know the impact of that announcement I would probably look at the last year of data, not the last 55 million years.

    42. Re: noooo by neurophil12 · · Score: 1

      I'm not anti-nuclear, but requiring other people to agree to your solution before you'll admit the problem exists is pretty pathetic bullshit.

      He never said he wouldn't admit the problem exists. He just wants people who aren't interested in real solutions to stop complaining about a lack of action.

      True, but apropos of nothing. JWW was responding to someone mocking deniers and who said not a peep about what specific solutions should or should not be applied. Hence the response, which I wholeheartedly agree with. He could have made the same point without acting like a jerk.

    43. Re:noooo by amorsen · · Score: 2

      If we ever get bulletproof failproof rocket launches what's wrong with sending the shit one way to the sun?

      That is a big if. Anyway, it is cheaper to send it to Alpha Centauri than to send it to the Sun.

      --
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    44. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Yes - we should look back at the last year (or some such relevant time period). And in geological terms 55 million years is 1 year.

      We're not going back 4+ billion years. (Which would be the entire record.) Nor are we going back to the early proterozoic (2 billions years); nor the pre-cambrian 500 millions ago. No. I think starting 80 million years ago when mammals evolve is good starting point. Temperatures and C02 levels have changed dramatically over that period.

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    45. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Problem with nuclear, other than the obvious dangers in operation, is waste.

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

      We need these to store it. For 100.000 years. And we must find a way, to warn the future, to not dig up the waste. We can't assume that even humans will be the sentient species in that future, or if it is humans, that they can in anyway understand our current communication measures, nor that they have relevant technology to warn them.

      (Our species is not even that old!)

    46. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Such a productive, insightful post. Thanks for bringing nothing to the table but your bigotry.

    47. Re: noooo by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nuclear is fine, but it is expensive and it takes forever to build outside China. 15 years from decision to first power is a typical figure.

      Of course, much of that delay you mention is the endless lawsuits by the anti-nukes and NIMBY types.

      If the nuke plants were built based only on technical issues, they'd go up much faster (and be much cheaper - yeah, decades of lawsuits have to be paid for).

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    48. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Store it, until then, if ever. (There's a chance, that global war will destroy us, so we must store it so safe, that human behavior is no longer a factor)

      You must also assume, that we never get to make those rockets. Maybe we will never find such a solution, or maybe we will have lost the technology, or maybe humans simply do not exist long enough to complete the task.

      In the last 100 years, look what we've done. Who would ever trust humans? I wouldn't. We've proven ourselves the most unreliable factor. The nuclear plants are more reliable than humans. (Can we also remove the human factor from these, please?)

      The plan is not new by the way, it is decades old. But rockets just keep exploding. Having waste worth of hundreds of plants explode in our atmosphere, would wipe out human kind :\ Also, what if some lunatic straps a bomb on it?

    49. Re: noooo by itzly · · Score: 1

      Objective truth finding about the temperature and the cause is not "activist". Besides, nice straw man.

    50. Re:noooo by ThosLives · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But the net is hugely negative. 1/3 of the world's people are close enough to a coast that they will have to do something when sea levels rise.

      So why don't people move now before they're underwater? Put another way - have all the people who are proclaiming coming disaster started moving their assets away from the coasts? Why are we focusing on emissions rather than moving people now? Surely moving people is cheaper (and more direct - that is, localized) than trying to control emissions. Such a thing would avoid depending on other people to fix their behaviors - it would also guarantee an outcome, rather than a probabilistic estimate of what happens if we curb emission X.

      People must really place a huge time preference on things to delay moving in spite of the proposed huge future costs. Or, they just don't believe it... or the "speed" of things isn't really as fast enough for people to care.

      Climate Change is happening too fast for much life to cope. The speed of the change is all negative.

      This is both defeatist and probably more political than technical. If political will is high enough, humans can do crazy things in short (e.g., decade-span) timeframes, especially when we don't have to invent anything but just have to move people inland or build hydroponics or desalination plants etc. It's all political, not technical. If we want to reduce the cost of sea level rise, why not tax people closer to the coast, and reduce tax away from the coast? Rhetoric talks, but money walks. And hitting the individual harder (rather than corporations) will motivate people much faster than not. Hell if you think the future disaster is high enough, you should ask your governments to build everyone living within X of a coast a brand new house inland and giving it to them (and personally be willing to be taxed for it), because that will cost less than the future cost of disaster mitigation later.

      I guess, at the end of the day, the focus is too one-sided on emissions, rather than on relocation or adaptability. I know if I lived close to a coast, I would move inland rather than rely on some disparate group of companies and nations to reduce their emissions which will maybe prevent my land from eroding away or getting hit with bad weather in my or my child's lifetime.

      I would rather put in policies to avoid turning inland (midwest US for instance) farmland into subdivisions - I hate to see our local farmland turning into cookie-cutter homes; reducing farmland seems to make us more sensitive, not more robust.

      So that's what I mean by too narrow focus, in tech, in media, etc - everyone is focused on emissions, not on adaptation. If we don't adapt, we die - trying to refuse to adapt is actually worse in my mind.

      --
      "There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
    51. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

      But rising due to what reason? And what are the consequences. Haven't there been periods of global warming in between periods of global cooling over the last 2.4+ million years? And did you notice there were NO ice ages before that? Hmmm. Millions of years and no ice ages. And then 22 or so in the last 2.4 million years.

      Why is that?

      Are our measurements wrong? Or did something change (perhaps tectonic shifts that changed water and air currents?) All this shows is that things aren't static. What makes you think that the last 135 years are significant or the changes are significant or that you even know what the caused the change?


      I happen to think putting harmful industrial waste into barrels and dumping them into the ocean is far worse that rising CO2 levels. But that's just me.

      --
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      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    52. Re: noooo by lactose99 · · Score: 2

      Well some did try to ban the sales of inefficient (incandescent) light bulbs a few years ago and you see how some of the yahoos railed against that as anti-free-market.

      --
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    53. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Global warming, will result in the northern hemisphere cooling down. There will be very large fluctuations however. On the other side of the globe, on the same hemisphere, we are having warm climates, and warm summers, in Scandinavian countries thought to be snowy.

      However, when the warmth melts too much arctic ice, and the arctic becomes too heated, the Golf stream will slow down and eventually stop. That carries all the warmth we are getting now from the south. Finland got huge fluctuations. More cold sometimes, and suddenly strong heat in the middle of winter. As if the seasons are fucking up. We're getting way more heat in Denmark right now, but there's storms, and sudden icy nights that turns all roads to ice within hours.

      Anyway, when the Golf stream stops, heat stops coming from the south, and cold builds up again in the arctic, but way more intense. The ice return, and spread down to our northern hemisphere. Scandinavian will become snowy tundra with frozen sea, and so will Chicago.

      Until then, hope for good heat, and take to the beach when you can. And prep on winter coats, because it will vary greatly, as the arctic winds swirl.

      Think I'll stay though. Stay in-land, high on land, as the coasts will disappear. Prepare for cold.

    54. Re: noooo by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      There's enough uranium to last a very, very long time--effectively forever, if we manage it properly. The problem is that we throw away something like 99% of it (referring to it as "waste") using the current fuel cycle.

      --
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    55. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You may be right that some regions will experience "Better" weather, while other experience "Worse". For example, England will likely be fantastic wine country in 20 years if trends continue, but France will probably be too hot or arid.

      The problem that you are massively overlooking is that humanity (and life on earth for that matter) has been able to thrive because of the relative stability and predictability of the climate. We are able to plan ahead knowing what the coming seasons will bring, and we are able to build infrastructure which can exploit local climate resources.

      When I hear deniers say things like "The climate always changes, it was hot before, it was cold before that, and it was hot even before that!" What they really fail to realize is that those changes were:

      1. Often catastrophic to the status quo, the ice age was not fun for most. And certainly involved a shift in the balance of power between species... Personally, I like being at the top of the food chain :-P. Ironically, conservatives who LOVE the status quo are so often climate change deniers. Isn't wanting the something to stay the same and be stable a conservative ideal? I guess not when it's something you can exploit for money...

      2. SLOW. The current rate of change is significantly faster than other historical examples of climate shifts. Fast change means much more violent change and much more costly to fix when it happens. Maybe when all those million dollar beach houses are getting flooded, they'll start listening.

    56. Re: noooo by ranton · · Score: 1

      He could have made the same point without acting like a jerk.

      Agreed.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    57. Re:noooo by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      Hint: the overwhelming majority of the radioactivity is gone in 50 years.

      Because that's how radioactivity works - the shorter the half-life, the hotter it is. The stuff that'll still be radioactive for a thousand years will be about as radioactive as coal (or the human body) for the vast majority of that time.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    58. Re:noooo by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      hey, billions of years ago the earth was a ball of molten rock. so we're gonna be fine!

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    59. Re: noooo by jandrese · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The fact that we still don't have a long term solution for the waste is a concerning one. Yucca mountain was our best hope, and its dead.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    60. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Which is why I didn't go back billions. I went back to when mammals were flourishing. We could have gone back earlier but the connection wouldn't have been as clear. Mammals were flourishing 55 million years ago. So the temperature and CO2 levels would be just fine for people. Life was flourishing (so it wouldn't be limited to just mammals).

      Therefore when people bring up the "worst-case" CO2 levels as an example of an existential threat - and we see it's still far lower levels of 55 million years ago then we know we're hearing bullshit.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    61. Re: noooo by Imsdal · · Score: 2

      This idea of having to store stuff for 100K years is so fantastically ridiculous that I can't really believe anyone takes it seriously.

      Almost 400 years ago, the Swedish king Gustaf II Adolf planted oak trees outside of Stockholm, with the expressed intent that they were to be used as war ships in the twentieth century. The oaks are still standing. They are nice and everything, but it's sort of laughable to imagine that they will be cut down for war ships. Still, when he lived, the difference between life then and life 400 years earlier wasn't all that dramatic.

      This is of course completely different now. We can be *extremely* certain that we will be able to either use the remaining energy in the nuclear "waste" or dispose of it in a completely safe way in the next 100 years (or, heaven forbid, that we blow up the planet entirely, in which case the point is pretty moot). The probability that none of that happens, civilization disappears, then reappears in some form in 50,000 years, and that they are able to dig up the buried waste, but can't read warning signs and don't have Geiger cuonters or similar instruments is almost as close to 0% as it is possible to get.

      If that is your best argument against nuclear power, you have nothing to stand on. Nothing.

    62. Re: noooo by Pieroxy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Okay, so let's say I'm sceptic and not a denier. After a quick Google search, I stumbled on these two links:

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...
      http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

      Both are clearly claiming there is no global warming since 1997. Reading it quickly doesn't provide any clue as to whether they are bullshit or not - or at least it would require me to dig into the problem, but I don't have that amount of free time right now.

      Do you have any indication about what's wrong with these assertions?

    63. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Again: 70% of the American public agrees that it's a problem, and 65% agree that it's a "very serious" or "serious" problem.

      Stop blaming other people if you keep re-electing the same gridlocked fucktards that you do every 4 years to represent you - it's not "deniers'" fault at that point, it's your own goddamned fault for being too blinded by ridiculous ideological purity tests.

    64. Re: noooo by Sique · · Score: 1

      The assumption is completely different: We assume that our whole infrastructure is adapted to the climate state about 30-50 years ago. A change in the climate, how favourable it might be in the far future, means at first rebuilding and adapting. We have to clear whole countries like the Maledivas or the coral island states of the Southern Pacific, because they will be under water. We have to resettle the population of Florida and Bangladesh, because most of the land will turn into ocean or swamp. We have to give up all current beach site property, because the beach will be somewhere else. Real estate prices will shift tremendously, power balances will have to be balanced anew. Whole cultures have already crumbled because of subtle climate changes, and today, about 75% of the world populations are living in regions which will be directly affected by climate change. Maybe after some decades, all will be fine, and we might be able to farm in Antarctica, or some deserts have turned into wet lands, but until then, there will be turmoil.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    65. Re: noooo by pastafazou · · Score: 2, Interesting

      bullshit. Wind is a waste of money. We abandoned it centuries ago as a form of power due to it's inconsistency. The only reason we're seeing large wind projects being built is because of massive subsidies. If wind power generation were allowed to compete on a level playing field with all other power sources, it would become extinct in no time. Nuclear is the only viable solution to replace fossil fuels as our primary source of power generation.

    66. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "We can be *extremely* certain that we will be able to either use the remaining energy in the nuclear "waste" or dispose of it in a completely safe way in the next 100 years."

      Where are you getting your information? Or are you pulling predictions outta your ass? You sorta sound like your previously cited King Gustav; just talking shit.

    67. Re: noooo by Maritz · · Score: 1, Interesting

      A skeptic will look at a variety of sources and will concentrate on those that challenge his already-held views. You aren't doing that in this case. You quickly found something that espouses one view, and then you stopped.

      This contradicts your article.

      For what it's worth, I like many would greatly prefer if AGW was bollocks, but it's quite fucking obvious that it isn't. Nuclear energy is definitely the best way to go, and people who accept AGW but oppose that are people who I suspect are more influenced by ideology than by facts.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    68. Re: noooo by tbannist · · Score: 0

      First of all, they're posted on "Watts Up With That?" and that's never a good place to start.

      The central problem with "no global warming since 1997" is that 1998 was an unusually warm year due to an unusually strong El Nino effect (which started in 1997). When you start your trend line with exceptional data, you will always get garbage results and it doesn't matter what trend you're trying to measure. Interestingly enough the years 2005, 2010 and now 2014 are all warmer than 1998 and none of them feature a strong El Nino like we saw in 1998. Since a strong El Nino will raise global atmospheric temperatures by around 0.5 degrees, that means we have definitely seen warming when the year-to-year noise of ENSO (El Nino and La Nina) effects are accounted for. There's also the little tidbit that 1998 is only year in the top 10 warmest years that not in this century, which makes the "no warming since 1998" seem a bit bogus, doesn't it?

      You don't have to take my word for it, though you can read more about it, if you want.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    69. Re:noooo by hamburger+lady · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Mammals were flourishing 55 million years ago. So the temperature and CO2 levels would be just fine for people.

      i hate to break this to you, but the mammals that thrived 55 million years ago were not the same as the mammals of today, much less people.

      just because some long-extinct animals made it fine back then doesn't mean that people would.

      i can't believe i even have to explain this to people.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    70. Re: noooo by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 2

      Yep. Build nuclear power plants or shut the fuck up. I'm sick and tired of hearing "denier, denier, denier" from these people and then when solutions are proposed, they say "hell no, you can't do that".

      Who are you talking to? Mr. Strawman?

      The US is currently building 4 nuclear reactors. "Anti-Nuclear" Obama appointed a bunch of "anti-nuclear activists" to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They have approved 4 reactor construction applications. For those keeping score, that would be 4 more approved applications than Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush's RCS did combined over the previous 28 years.

      At the same time, France and Japan are shutting down reactors. One of the new French President's campaign promises was to scale back France's use of nuclear power.

    71. Re: noooo by JWW · · Score: 2

      Regardless of any facts of climate change, it is an undisputed fact that Nuclear Power is waaaayyyyy cleaner in every way (including spreading of radioactive particles!!) than coal powered power plants.

      We should be switching to Nuclear in the US because its just BETTER.

    72. Re: noooo by pitchpipe · · Score: 0

      Nuclear is the only viable solution to replace fossil fuels as our primary source of power generation.

      Yeah! You're either for us, or against us. You must be either on, or off. You're like a fucking light switch. There is no room for fuzzy, gray, socialistic, faggotry thinking.

      Can't you assholes get that through your thick skulls?!

      --
      Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    73. Re:noooo by SydShamino · · Score: 1

      If it's still hot it's not waste, it's fuel. Reprocess that shit and use it again. Build all the nuclear plants on military bases (or give them military-style security) if the paranoid need to for security, but stop making reprocessing a taboo as it can greatly reduce the "spent" fuel problem.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    74. Re: noooo by JWW · · Score: 2

      The problem is you are acting like we'll have to do that _immediately_ when in actuality we'll have to do that over the next 200-500 years.

      This means that there will be instances where mitigation will be more effective (and more doable) in the future than acting now to drastically (extremely drastically) reduce our use of carbon to make these changes not take place.

      There is a lot of mitigation technology and infrastructure that can be deployed and used in the next 200-500 years to deal with climate change issues.

    75. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      I hate to break it to you but if mammals could thrive at the temperatures and C02 levels of 55 million years ago then we can as well. I can't believe I even have to explain this to people.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    76. Re: noooo by meustrus · · Score: 1

      they have to figure out how to repay their donors with appropriate levels of favors

      They don't have to repay their donors. They have to convince those donors to donate again in the next election. It's not a big difference, but it does present more of a solution: campaign finance reform. Can't the Liberals and the Tea Partiers agree on this one thing, or are they all too busy hating each other to do something that would likely help both groups politically (against corporate Democrats and establishment Republicans)? Unfortunately, with the Supreme Court we currently have (and will likely have for the foreseeable future) it will take a constitutional amendment to fix things at this point. Are the more corporate elements of both parties simply too powerful to let that happen?

      --
      I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
    77. Re: noooo by jakimfett · · Score: 2

      Have to admit, I'm curious about this as well. I'm in the "I think there's global warming, but I'm not sure if we actually understand why" camp, but it kinda annoys me when global warming fanatics froth about "the science", when the best data (eg, stuff that hasn't been adjusted or tweaked) is showing something else entirely.

      I'm not saying global warming isn't a thing...just curious about why nobody ever addresses the data.

      --
      Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
    78. Re: noooo by JWW · · Score: 2

      In the past 10 years, both a very large wind farm and an Natural Gas power plant have been build with 100 miles of where I live. Hydro is already very well utilized in my state. I am fully supportive of all of that. I'm not going to be marching and shouting NIMBY!

      40% of the electricity I use is renewable already.

      What we need to build next is a Nuclear Power plant.

      I never said I was against renewables or Hydro power. I am against regulations and taxes that spike the price of energy and have severe negative economic impacts.

    79. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just 0.085 pounds per kWh? That's it? Damn, we have solar, wind, hydro - lots of those fun, green things here in Southern California - and we START at $0.15 (about 0.096 pounds). Use more than the absolute minimum allotted (equivalent to a few lightbulbs a day and MAYBE a laptop) and you're into tier 2 where you pay $0.19 per kWh. Going to nuclear would save us money...

    80. Re: noooo by meustrus · · Score: 1

      The attacks on the science and scientists that we see today is very much the same tactic used by the tobacco industry and conservative organisations against doctors who claimed that smoking was dangerous.

      They aren't just the same tactics. They are the same people making the arguments. And no, I don't mean the deniers on Slashdot (although with an Anonymous Coward you can never be sure). I don't even mean the talking heads on TV. I mean the people primarily at the Heartland Institute who craft the arguments for the talking heads and all of us sheep who want evidence to back up our beliefs rather than beliefs to back up our evidence.

      --
      I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
    81. Re: noooo by stjobe · · Score: 4, Informative

      We need these to store it. For 100.000 years.

      Sure. If we're stupid.

      If we're smart, we start using thorium reactors instead (so we don't add any more waste than necessary), and build some breeder/burner reactors to reduce the current waste handling to manageable amounts/time spans.

      Yeah, nuclear energy research has moved on from the 60's, even though we still use reactor designs from back then. We should really, really stop doing that.

      --
      "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
    82. Re: noooo by unimacs · · Score: 2

      The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gives the same tax credit for advanced nuclear power as it does for wind energy. Even with the same subsidy the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) will be higher for Nuclear in 2019 than it is for wind. That's according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

      Technology didn't stop 200 centuries ago. It marches forward. Instead of throwing all our eggs into either the Nuclear or Renewable basket, we should invest in both. Nuclear has some serious drawbacks. Don't pretend it doesn't. So does renewables. Let's solve the problems rather than becoming totally reliant on either one.

    83. Re: noooo by unimacs · · Score: 1

      Sorry I meant "centuries ago" not "200 centuries ago"

    84. Re:noooo by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      I hate to break it to you but if mammals could thrive at the temperatures and C02 levels of 55 million years ago then we can as well.

      the argument that humans would be just fine if the earth's average temperature went up 30 degrees F because some long-extinct mammal did well in that environment is too stupid to even consider. you're being a complete buffoon.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    85. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey retard,

      I support nuclear power. But nice strawman.

    86. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think agreeing on a solution without having to agree on the problem is perfectly reasonable. I happen to be in the Richard Lindzen camp, who is usually labeled a denier (estimates warming about 1/3 of general estimates). But a lot of conservatives would be happy to line up in support of subsidies of nuclear/solar/wind combinations based on energy independence/technological superiority arguments.

      The problem with the left is that they find it easy to get together to be against things, but can't get together to support things. It is very clear that building a nuclear plant right now would offset the same amount of energy coming from coal throughout its lifetime, even if we built solar/wind sources as fast as we possibly could, so as of right now the green thing seems to be pushing all of those as fast as possible. It is the left that is preventing that on the nuclear side, not the right.

    87. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you remember back 5 years or so years ago, many deniers were claiming that it was actually getting cooler in comparison to the El Nino year of 1998. Once the record temperatures started happening again they silently dropped that claim...

      No, they have not dropped that claim. Here's a comment by a very low UID making that exact claim a few days ago:

      Climate change is a non-issue. The temperature has NOT risen since 1998. Fact.

    88. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are costs involved in what you are talking about.
      There are places that cannot just relocate people, there is nowhere to relocate them to that will not also be underwater. ( outside US ).
      There will be less land available. Costs/contention for that land will go up. ( prices and possibilities of warfare/civil "unrest" ).
      Where will the arable land be? Who will control it? Will that control be used for evil purposes?
      There are some that cannot afford all this. They will likely be left with areas that will be underwater in the future.
      What will happen to them when it finally does go underwater?
      Will the farmland/place for houses divisions be handled in a sane and reasonable way ( consider, it would be sane and reasonable to move us off gasoline, etc, and we have known this since at least the Carter presidency, but we have not had the progress that sanity would seem to have made reasonable ).

      Now, add to all that, there are ecosystems that will be thrown out of balance.
      Some will adapt, some will not. How many? Where? We cannot predict the weather, we wont predict this either.
      Most will leave aside the ethical issues of the fairness/equity in changing/ending the lives of all the plants and animals that coexist with us, but it should be a factor.

    89. Re: noooo by by+(1706743) · · Score: 1

      I don't think the issue should be about, "is nuclear safe," because it's emphatically not. It's like that quote about democracy -- nuclear is the worst form of energy, but it's better than all others.

      Nuclear energy is, I believe, the safest form of energy (joules per fatality), and it's carbon-neutral. Storage is, relatively speaking, not a huge technological hurdle, especially when compared against the difficulty of nation-scale solar/wind.

    90. Re:noooo by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      We're not talking about 30F now are we. The worst greatest temperature increase I've seen predicted was 3-5 degrees celsius. Not 30 degrees F. (And most are talking about 1.5-2.5 degress C) The consequences of said temperature increase will be rising coastlines not that the planet will be too high to sustain mammalian and other life. By the way -- mammals will not be able to survive throughout the planet as they did 55 million years ago if the avg temperature was 30 degrees F higher.

      Where did you get 30 F? You just baselessly scared yourself silly.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    91. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Humans would survive.

      But in what condition? Will our societies and economies survive the dislocations?

      And what happens to species populations when climate change occurs?

    92. Re:noooo by hamburger+lady · · Score: 3, Informative

      55 million years ago the global mean temperature was roughly 30C. that's compared to 14C today.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    93. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's dead because Harry Reid was Senate majority leader for ages and blocked it. Otherwise, it could happen.

    94. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yucca mountain was our best hope, and its dead.

      Is it really dead? It was all good to go, a done deal, and then the Obama administration just unilaterally axed it.

      Can't a future non-Obama administration just unilaterally bring it back?

    95. Re: noooo by amorsen · · Score: 1

      Alas, power production is not the only expense. In most of the world, price at the plug socket is disconnected from the price in the actual power market.

      California is a particularly dysfunctional case.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    96. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You fuckers are changing the argument again. First it was "no warming". Then its "don't know whats causing it". Now apparently its "you guys aren't serious because you don't want nukes"...which is bullshit. Most major plans for addressing climate change that I've seen all involve both nukes and renewables. Stop trying to change the subject. There is no reason not to pursue renewables (which are highly effective in many real world scenarios) while we attempt to change the political opposition to nuclear.

    97. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Natural gas isn't renewable

    98. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was the Bush administration put the rule in place and I don't recall hearing anyone complain then. But since conservatives don't like Obama, what they didn't care about a few years ago was suddenly an easy and convenient excuse to complain very loudly about Obama and/or the oppressive government we suddenly acquired when he took office.

    99. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's always a problem when someone says that disaster is looming just around the corner. It's like any other gloom and doom prediction. The disaster isn't happening right now--no--that could be refuted by the evidence of personal experience. Rather, it's always in some near, but hazy future that one should worry a great deal about. There are many, many, many such predictions: economic, social, population bombs, religious, asteroids will fall from the skies, the Ozone Layer is Melting, Yellowstone will blow its top, etc. These are the types of predictions that one should be most skeptical about. Again, they have two predicatable characteristics: Big Worrisome Disaster and Somewhat into the Hazy Future but not tomorrow. People do this over and over and over again.

      Okay, if global warming is such a big deal and has already started, then why hasn't the disaster happened yet, at least in part?? Oh, a tipping point you say?? Please make some solid predictions. The problem is that there already is a temperature gradient from north to south in the northern hemisphere where most people live and in the oceans from the poles to the equator. Any predicted change in climate can be seen or mapped onto this gradient. 2C change in climate is like moving from Seattle to Portland. A 3C change is like moving from Chicago to Memphis. A 10C change is like moving from DC to Miami. Heck, there's a 2C difference between Philly and DC, yet hardly any change in plant life. This is a bit like mapping the Ozone hole. Moving into the area under the hole was the equivalent of moving from SF to LA in terms of UV exposure. The highest levels of UV exposure at sea level occur near the tropical boundaries because the sun doesn't get much higher in the sky anymore but the atmosphere gets thicker. The Ozone hole was biggest around the poles largely because the atmosphere is much thinner at the poles. People need to understand what these differences actually mean.

    100. Re: noooo by gmuslera · · Score: 2

      It should be a warning sign that climate scientists are still being surprised by unexpected consequences caused directly or indirectly by global warming, specially of the kind that could do a possitive feedback to the loop. We predict based on what we know, what we observe, and what we model after it. That we are missing on the consequences is not a reason to calm down, but to hurry up, as more things could be impacted and the 200-500 years could turn end being 200-500 months or even days, or hit in an unexpected direction (i.e. temperature or water level didn't rise a lot, but ocean acidification break the food chain, and that affect atmosphere composition)

    101. Re: noooo by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Regardless of any facts of climate change, it is an undisputed fact that Nuclear Power is waaaayyyyy cleaner in every way (including spreading of radioactive particles!!) than coal powered power plants.
      We should be switching to Nuclear in the US because its just BETTER.

      Your logical fallacy is: False Dichotomy. Your uniqueness rank is: 342349523480572347. Troll rating: -23804723. Better luck next time!

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    102. Re: noooo by kolbe · · Score: 1

      One of the best skeptical views originates from the founder of "The Weather Channel" and highly published personality: John Coleman.

      http://johncolemanweather.com/

      If you read what he says and notice just how much of what he says is flat out ignored by mainstream media, it makes you really question the whole global warming myth. I still call bullshit on global warming... it is as misdirected as the 1970's global iceage scare was.

    103. Re: noooo by unimacs · · Score: 0

      Advanced Nuclear gets the same tax credit as wind does. Take a look at the Energy Policy Act of 2005. There seems to be a strong resistance to subsidies for renewables while there are long standing policies and subsidies supporting non renewable sources of power. No one seems to get upset over higher taxes, generation costs, and external costs when it comes to them.

      Why is that? Is it that people just aren't aware of them?

    104. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      closing eyes, plugging ears and singing naaaa naaa naaaaaaa. unbiblical! 'murrican dream for all

      Please grow up, greenfruitsalad..

    105. Re:noooo by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Put another way - have all the people who are proclaiming coming disaster started moving their assets away from the coasts?

      All the people? That's setting the bar a little unfairly high, isn't it? But some of us, yes, we have moved away from the coasts, or just decided not to move to them. Or, in my case, back to them, as well.

      Why are we focusing on emissions rather than moving people now?

      Even if it's too late to stop the coastal cities from being wiped out, it may not be too late to stop whatever is the next level of catastrophe... say, runaway methane warming loops.

      I would rather put in policies to avoid turning inland (midwest US for instance) farmland into subdivisions

      That's another place no one who is paying attention to the weather and the meaning of "flood plain" would move to, or fail to move away from.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    106. Re:noooo by rossdee · · Score: 1

      Yeah, if you shift the "best growing climate zone" away from the equator and toward the poles, you will find there is less area available, and even less area in the south of the southern hemisphere.

    107. Re: noooo by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > solving the problem is NOT what most environmentalists really want.

      And as long as you keep blaming them for the problem, then the actual problem will never get solved.

      > Note: I'm not asking the impossible, climate change luminaries like James Hansen have called for nuclear power to be used

      Not impossible, just expensive. As the CAPEX is generally three to four times that of wind, and the lead times are four to five times as long, no one is giving them the money. That's it, end of story. Start here:

      http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf

      Now turn to page 11. On-shore wind was going in for $1.40 to 1.80/Wp in 2014, it's gone down since publication. Combined with a 30% CF, that gives you an effective CAPEX/Wh of $4.66 to 6. Lazard gives $5.39 to 8.40 for nuclear, although it's gone up since publication (current average is around $9/Wp). Combined with an 85% CF, that's $6.35 to $10/Wh. Which means, all else considered, wind power costs around half that of nuclear.

      And that's why no one other than the Chinese, who are handing out billions of dollars of interest-free and risk-free money for infrastructure, is building them. And even their program is on serious hiatus. The money simply isn't there.

      The *actual problem* with nuclear is that practically every other option is cheaper and lower risk. It is, straight up, a bad investment. So unless you have a few hundred billion sitting in your bank account to buy one, guess what, you're part of the problem.

    108. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back in the good old days, there were a few million proto-human at most. We are now about 7.3 fucking billion. That's why you can't compare the situation as it was 3 millions years ago with what it is now.

      For fuck's sake, when I was born, there were "only" 3.6 billion humans on this fucked up planet.

    109. Re:noooo by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      ^ This...

      These are the sorts of questions that aren't being asked...

      It is just *assumed* that any change must be our fault, that the Earth is static and doesn't ever change unless we do it.

      Maybe we are, I don't know. But I don't think the conversation is very open or honest.

      What I *do* think is that a lot of people see a change to move a lot of money around, which clouds the whole issue.

    110. Re: noooo by RingDev · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would take a quick glance at the author/proprietor's wiki page: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/A...

      It may shed some light as to why that specific site isn't exactly treated as though it has any scientific credence.

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    111. Re: noooo by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      > Of course, much of that delay you mention is the endless lawsuits by the anti-nukes and NIMBY types.

      No it's not, the vast majority is due to the long lead times providing ample time for "something to go wrong" and the project goes into hiatus.

      Why? Because if the time-to-build crosses an election boundary, the cancellation probability goes non-linear. Not so much a problem where there are no real elections to speak of, like the Philippines during Marcos, but a serious problem for places that do have free elections, like the Philippines after Marcos.

      If they took 18 months to built, like a wind farm, we wouldn't have partially completed plants all over the place.

    112. Re:noooo by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2

      > If we ever get bulletproof failproof rocket launches

      Well if you're just going to wave your fairy wand and create perfect rockets, why not just skip a step and wish the fuel into non-existence?

      After all, it's much easier to build bulletproof failproof reactors and bulletproof failproof underground storage, but we don't have those either.

      Also, $10,000 a kg does really bad things to your OPEX.

    113. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that anyone who looks into rational wiki will see it has no credence itself.

    114. Re: noooo by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      Procrastination is not the answer. And "Immediately" was 20 years ago.

    115. Re: noooo by Chas · · Score: 2

      Because agreement isn't required.

      That's the nice thing about the scientific method.

      Also, in the case of nuclear, and just general environmentalism, cheaper, cleaner power that destroys our dependency on fossil fuels and just generally leaving the earth a cleaner place than we left it is NEVER a bad idea. REGARDLESS of what any given person thinks about global warming/cooling/climate change/what-have-you.

      And NO, we don't have to use 50 year old fission-based BWR forever. There are advanced reactor designs out there that are much MUCH safer.
      Once our power infrastructure is in place, we can pursue even cleaner nuclear fusion.

      Renewables (plus storage) will help us cut off problems with peak demand. But anyone telling you that we can go it alone on JUST renewables is lying, selling you something (see lying) or doing some really NASTY hallucinogens and grossly misinformed.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    116. Re: noooo by itzly · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying global warming isn't a thing...just curious about why nobody ever addresses the data.

      Here's some data for you: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g... It's a graph of the global temperature in red, and the trend based on data up till 1997. Now, take a ruler or a piece of paper, put it on your monitor, and extend the trend line until 2014. Would you say the upwards trend has been broken ?

    117. Re: noooo by Holi · · Score: 1

      One article in Science News hardly makes a "global iceage scare". Which makes me tend to believe your calling bullshit is ideology and not science.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    118. Re: noooo by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Both are clearly claiming there is no global warming since 1997.

      I'm sorry but did I miss the part where recorded history started in 1997?

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    119. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >The problem I have with global climate change "debate" is not that climate is changing, but that there is an assumption that the net effect will be negative. Some regions will surely become less hospitable, and some will become more hospitable.

      I think you're overlooking the fact that it's likely that in most places, the extra energy in the system is going to be expressed in more extreme weather events - like 100 year storms every 10 years, that kind of thing.

      So even if the temperature in someplace like like Siberia warms up to a more comfortable level, the accompanying extreme weather may still render it less habitable overall.

    120. Re: noooo by Holi · · Score: 1

      and your reply is useless. I fail to see how calling for nuclear power in a discussion on AGW is anything troll-like... but then again I am probably feeding a troll right now.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    121. Re: noooo by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Okay, so let's say I'm sceptic and not a denier. After a quick Google search, I stumbled on these two links:
      http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

      Your first clue is that anyone who says climate is warming based on a period that not an integer number of years is an imbecile. If you are taking odd months on, at best you're contaminating the data with seasons rather than years.

      Once you've appreciated that, realise that climate is an average of temperature over enough years that the noise is minimised. At 18 years it's still mostly weather. For a strong climate signal you have always needed at about 30 at least.

      Anyone using less WAS doing it because they were cherry picking a period to start at the high point El Nino. It's no longer possible to do even that because 2014 exceeded that temperature. Which is why they are no reduced to the stupidity of using periods that are not even divisible by 12 months.

    122. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    123. Re: noooo by BasilBrush · · Score: 1, Informative

      WatsUpWithThat blog has never presented "the best data". It's a crank anti-science web-blog.

      Even the concept that unadjusted data is better data is dumb conspiracy theory material.

    124. Re: noooo by CWCheese · · Score: 1, Interesting

      yeah, like skepticalscience.com is a reliable source... hah hah hah hah hah hah...

      --
      Have a Day!
    125. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, maybe after Harry Reid disappears from the political scene, Yucca Mountain will finally be opened for it's intended purpose.

    126. Re: noooo by Livius · · Score: 1

      requiring other people to agree to your solution before you'll admit the problem exists

      I think maybe this is the whole basis of climate change denial. People care more about their own pet solution than they do about the problem. And so far the solutions have not been inspiring.

    127. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tell me where to dump the waste after it's done

      Detroit.

    128. Re: noooo by CWCheese · · Score: 1

      It's getting colder because of record warming, didn't they tell you that during the polar vortex discussions last year?

      --
      Have a Day!
    129. Re: noooo by ideonexus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Interesting. No global warming in 17 years... what a funny number, 17. It's a prime number. Why not 10 years, 20, or even 100? Why are "skeptics" always so hung up on 1997 as the baseline for all global warming trends? Does it have anything to do with the fact that the 1997-1998 El Nino event generated a record year for high temperatures? I was just getting interested in the science of global warming when this phenomenon hit, and I remember NASA scientists warning everyone that we could not blame rising carbon dioxide levels for the anomalously hot temperatures of those two years.

      Ironic that 17 years later, the 1997-1998 El Nino event is now the holy grail baseline year to which all skeptics cling like a polar bear to a melting iceberg. In 2008 the skeptics were using this baseline to claim that global cooling was taking place. Then, as yearly record high temperatures kept happening, they used this baseline to claim that global warming had flatlined. Now, just eight years later, the trend from 1997 is on an incline, but the skeptic story is that temperatures aren't warming as fast as predicted. Keep clinging to 1997, you are just one El Nino event away from looking really really silly.

      As for the WattsUpWithThat blog, I used to respect it until Anthony Watts pulled a 180 on accepting the findings of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project. Originally he said he would accept the findings whatever they may be because it was funded by the Koch Brother's, but when the independent research led by a prominent skeptic further confirmed Global Warming was real, Watt's rejected it. The man has zero credibility at this point.

      --
      i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
    130. Re: noooo by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      It is. Unlike WatsUpWithThat it's actually written by domain experts. Climate scientists. If you think being climate scientists disqualifies them from being a reliable source on the topic, you're a cretin.

    131. Re:noooo by Livius · · Score: 1

      If we ever get bulletproof failproof rocket launches what's wrong with sending the shit one way to the sun?

      Or, better yet, the far side of the Moon!

      Seriously, though, by the time we have fail-proof rocket launches, we'll probably have technological solutions to a whole host of what seem like problems now.

    132. Re: noooo by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      We need these to store it. For 100.000 years.

      I can't say I'm surprised to see this drivel from an AC; there'd be few here stupid enough to associate their /. account name with the mindless parroting of cooked-up "facts" from the media and wild-eyed shrieking ferals like Greenpeace.

      Guess what? We'll all suffer a personal environmental catastrophe if we stick spent fuel rods up our arses! For sure! However, I don't think we're planning to do that, are we?

      This bullshit idea of storing spent fuel rods is bloody stupid but just because the States is doing it now doesn't mean even they will still be doing it even a hundred years hence. Other nations have allowed common-sense to trump ridiculous ideology and they don't have this problem.

      Stop pretending "nuclear waste" is a species-level issue. It's a simple policy decision.

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
    133. Re:noooo by david_bonn · · Score: 1

      Also, I still believe the focus is on the wrong thing: rather than try and stop climate change (after all, if it doesn't change because of CO2, it may change due to something else) we should try and work on technologies so we can survive - no, thrive - regardless of the climate. (Isn't that what humanity has done for most of its existence anyway?)

      I'd like to ask the Mayans, Anastazi, Minoans, and the Harappans, about surviving and thriving regardless of climate.

    134. Re:noooo by david_bonn · · Score: 1

      Also, I still believe the focus is on the wrong thing: rather than try and stop climate change (after all, if it doesn't change because of CO2, it may change due to something else) we should try and work on technologies so we can survive - no, thrive - regardless of the climate. (Isn't that what humanity has done for most of its existence anyway?)

      I'd like to ask the Mayans, Anastazi, Minoans, and the Harappans, about surviving and thriving regardless of climate.

      .... or the Vikings who colonized Greenland.

    135. Re: noooo by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      The fact that we still don't have a long term solution for the waste is a concerning one. Yucca mountain was our best hope, and its dead.

      You're so dead certain of this I had to look it up - and goodness me, what a shock it was to read that in the United States of America, nuclear physics works very differently from the way it does in the rest of the world.

      Oh, wait - from the second paragraph on that page, emphasis mine:

      In the United States, the Obama administration stepped back from President Bush's plans for commercial-scale reprocessing and reverted to a program focused on reprocessing-related scientific research.[6] Nuclear fuel reprocessing is performed routinely in Europe, Russia and Japan.

      The idea that Yucca mountain was ever considered a 'solution', much less a long-term solution just beggars belief.

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
    136. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a research who studies glaciers in Peru(?), South America any way, He regrets that the ice record is ruined and there will not be any record of the last 15K years. My question is, what happened before the ice record was created? What was the world like 16K years ago? Eastern Washington is a good example of what happened when it was warm enough to break the ice dam from Lake Missoula Lake Missoula. So you go ahead a listen to the liberal politicians as they raise you "carbon" tax, raise the gas taxes because you are buying enough gas due to you electric cars and promise that they will not raise taxes....

      It was interesting to hear how California's emissions law was side stepped because the electric companies stopped buying power from the Four Corners Power Station because of their emissions and bought into "cleaner" power sources. By the way, Four Corners is still burning coal, their emissions didn't go away because of the contract change.

      Sleep well.

    137. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you seriously saying that rather than at least try to stop making a mess of the environment, we have ONE THIRD OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION move farther inland? How can you even consider that a solution?

    138. Re: noooo by Teckla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let me start my comment by saying I very much believe in global warming and that I believe it is primarily caused by humans dumping enormous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

      I would suggest sheer perseverance of publishing the science in the face of such unfounded denialism will eventually do the trick, in the same way that it worked to convince the public of the link between smoking and cancer despite the opposition from vested interests at the time.

      There's a big difference this time that makes your analogy break down. Smoking does not give people that much of a boost in their quality of life. (In fact, it costs them a lot of money, and it makes them horribly sick--possibly even killing them!)

      Lots of cheap energy gives people an enormous boost in their quality of life. Even if you get everyone agreeing that global warming is real and caused by human industry, they're still going to want their cheap energy--even if that means we continue dumping unprecedented amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

      The two primary camps today are the deniers (who are obviously deluded) and the believers (who are also deluded--they actually believe humanity will solve the problem, given enough evidence or education or whatever).

      There are billions--billions--of humans on the planet, and a large percentage of them want to improve their quality of life--or, at the very least, not see it drop. There are hundreds of countries, many of them ready, willing, and able to burn all the coal and oil they can afford. (If some countries use less--in an attempt to reduce CO2 emissions--there's less demand, thus prices will drop, thus it'll become more affordable to those people and countries that so desperately want that energy to improve their quality of life.)

      Humans are simply not going to stop dumping enormous quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. It. Just. Isn't. Going. To. Happen.

      Our only hope at this point is some breakthrough technologies that produce energy at a lower cost than alternatives like burning coal and oil. If that happens, the free market will take care of the rest. If you want to slow, stop, and reverse global warming, we need to throw money at alternative energy research. Anything else is doomed and hopeless. There's simply too much demand for (cheap) energy.

    139. Re: noooo by cusco · · Score: 0

      Teabaggers will complain about any intrusion into the multinational corporations' god-given right to spend money any way they want. Actual liberals have been crying for campaign finance reform for decades, but the DNC has a stranglehold on control of the party so no movement is likely from that side either.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    140. Re: noooo by cusco · · Score: 2

      It's already too late to "make these changes not take place." If we magically stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow it would still be a century before the excess we have already put up there will finally be cycled out into carbonate rocks, peat, and such. Even more fun, the excess heat is cumulative, we're not getting rid of as much as we should and it's just going to build up. Scariest of all is that we seem to be exceeding the temperature that keeps the subsurface methane clathrates stable.

      So no, we probably don't have 200 years to deal with it.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    141. Re: noooo by jakimfett · · Score: 1

      I actually wasn't referring to the WatsUpWithThat blog, although it does have an interesting analysis of the U.S. Climate Reference Network data, which is what I was referring to, and the raw data, which is also what I'm referring to.

      As I said in my first comment, I'm just curious why some data is used, and other data is ignored.

      As to that last comment...in general, if there's adjustment happening to something like research data, it has to be disclosed in findings reports. Eg, "I adjusted the weight readings by 10.5 grams, because I forgot to tare my scale with the crucible on it". I don't think that all unadjusted data is better. I think that if data is adjusted, the reasons for doing so and the method should also be fully disclosed.

      --
      Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
    142. Re: noooo by cusco · · Score: 1

      Look up the definition of 'statistical outlier' and you have your explanation as to why they say that. 1998 was the hottest year on record, so to start counting from there is deliberately dishonest on their part. The trend over the last century and a half that good records exist is clearly upwards.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    143. Re:noooo by stevelinton · · Score: 1

      Just about all European players have or do reprocess -- France at Cap de la Hague, the UK at Sellafield. It turns out to be
      remarkably messy, difficult and expensive, and very prone to radiation leaks of one kind or another. It was only really economic when there was a military market for the plutonium at basically "any price".

      The problems are not fundamental, they are all engineering, but there were lots of them, and they never really stopped. You're working with something that has a horribly mixed chemical composition, and was designed (as a fuel element) to be tough enough to survive inside a reactor for a few years. You have to dissove everything in loads of hot concentrated nitric acid just to get started, so now you've got industriial quantities of hot radioactive acid laced with a not exactly known mixture of salts, plus insoluble sludge of one kind or another gunging everything up. And you can't ever go into the plant to unjam a conveyer, clear a stuck valve or clean a filter.

    144. Re: noooo by stevelinton · · Score: 1

      On current trends solar and wind are set to hit that goal within a decade or so. There are some interest engineering problems around storage/demand management and power transmission, but the trend lines look quite good. Especially if you enforce even reasonable local environmental standards on mining and burning coal.

    145. Re: noooo by stevelinton · · Score: 1

      As I said in my first comment, I'm just curious why some data is used, and other data is ignored.

      As to that last comment...in general, if there's adjustment happening to something like research data, it has to be disclosed in findings reports. Eg, "I adjusted the weight readings by 10.5 grams, because I forgot to tare my scale with the crucible on it". I don't think that all unadjusted data is better. I think that if data is adjusted, the reasons for doing so and the method should also be fully disclosed.

      If you go back to the original papers you will (by and large) find all the disclosure you want. The problem is that that mans reading and understanding tens of thousands of pages of complex mathematical arguments to see how each aspect of the data analysis was arrived, at, validated, etc. You are (probably) reading summaries of summaries of summaries of review articles of the papers. Complete disclosure there would make the documents thousands of times longer and completely unreadable.

    146. Re:noooo by Boronx · · Score: 1

      "It is just *assumed* that any change must be our fault, that the Earth is static and doesn't ever change unless we do it."

      There's literally nobody except you who thinks this.

    147. Re: noooo by jakimfett · · Score: 1

      I figured the best way to hammer this out was to poke it myself.

      I agree that the trend is upwards. What I'm not so certain is to why its upwards. Given how much crap we've pumped into the atmosphere, and how much we've changed the surface of the earth, it would seem to me that the trend should have been fairly "level" before...I dunno, about the mid 1920s, when cars first started being sold en-masse. But the rate of change doesn't seem to have spiked (or curved) all that much in the next 20-30 years as industrialization took over the world.

      Like I said in my first comment, I think global warming happens. I just don't think we understand why it happens. I'm actually familiar with statistical outliers. Part of what interested me about that blogpost was the observation of differences between the actual trend and the models predicting change. Emphasis again on the fact that I don't think we understand global warming yet.

      --
      Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
    148. Re: noooo by jakimfett · · Score: 1

      *citation needed

      --
      Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
    149. Re: noooo by Trane+Francks · · Score: 1

      The problem with the gridlock is that it is caused by the corporate interests who have lobbied their way into virtual ownership of the elected officials. Until the problem of lobbying is addressed, the US political system will continue along its merry, gridlocked way. If you want to know who's really in power, follow the money.

      --
      ...a FreeDOS contributor: http://www.freedos.org/
    150. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Until the problem of lobbying is addressed, the US political system will continue along its merry, gridlocked way.

      You mean to tell me you can't assess a politician's record, and vote him out, if he turns out to be representing the interests of the moneyed few rather than the interests of his many constituents?

      I'll say it one more time: if you cannot overlook your need to vote for a little (R) or a little (D) come election day, and vote for the candidate who will actually represent your actual interests without being bought up by the first lobbyist who drops a dollar bill in his G-string, and demand that the parties represent YOUR interests, rather than the interests of their wealthy donors, then the gridlock is YOUR fault.

      People get the rulers they deserve, friend.

    151. Re:noooo by Tetetrasaurus · · Score: 1

      If that were the case then we'd be just fine leaving it in pools near the plants as we have been for the last 65 years. But since that's not the case, and even the crap from the first nuke plants is still hot and will be, we went through the whole Yucca mountain debacle to try and store it all. I assume you know how successful that was. The fact is we have no long term solution, and we have no solid ideas for one.

      And this ignores the whole problem of the plant going Fukushima on us. That's a statistical certainty, with frequency increasing with the number of plants.

    152. Re:noooo by Gavrielkay · · Score: 1

      Those questions are certainly being asked. The problem is that they are also being answered in ways that still point to humans burning fossil fuels as the big culprit. Do you really think that you have questions that thousands of climate scientists haven't come up with?

      In any case, even if the thousands of scientists are completely wrong and there's nothing humans did or can do to the overall global climate, we STILL need to accept that the planet is warming. The oceans are acidifying. Methane stores are at risk for release causing even faster change etc. Whether humans are responsible or not does not change the fact that vast amounts of money are going to be spent on mitigation and doing nothing to reduce our environmental impact now only increases those costs for future generations.

      Moving millions of people from coastal cities, islands and flood plains is expensive. Finding new fertile land for farming and getting rid of whatever might currently be on it is going to be expensive. Figuring out alternative food supplies when the ocean ecosystems collapse is going to be expensive - if it's even possible. We can hope it'll be settled diplomatically, but wars could break out.

      The future is not rosy, and pretending there's nothing to be done because you're not convinced that thousands of scientists have asked every single question possible about alternative reasons for warming is going to be little help to future generations just trying to deal with the effects. Yes, the planet has been this warm before, but humans didn't have civilization then, and sometimes I wonder if we still will when it gets that warm again.

    153. Re:noooo by bzipitidoo · · Score: 1

      Are you seriously equating predictions of Climate Change and the problems it will cause, with the likes of the 2012 phenomenon crowd (Mayan calendar stuff), Jupiter Effect believers, and other disaster and "end times" false prophets and nuts? The one is backed by solid science, the others are pseudoscience. If you can't be bothered to appreciate this distinction, then you won't have any idea which warnings to ignore and which to heed. Ignore them all at your peril.

      Global Warming has been happening for years, perhaps centuries. Originally, it was thought that Global Warming didn't really start until about 1800, with the Industrial Revolution, and about 1750 could be used as a baseline. Newer research suggests that even in 1750 there was enough human activity to throw things off. It's only relatively recently that the effects are becoming easily visible, and you can see this yourself if only you will look. Sea level has already crept up a few cm. The ice cap at the north pole is smaller than ever. Glaciers all around the world are shrinking. Atmospheric CO2 has passed 400 ppm, after fluctuating between 180 and 300 ppm for millions of years. Noe of this is as yet a bad problem, and some of it is even good, but if it continues the problems will get much worse.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    154. Re: noooo by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      The whole idea of having to store the spent fuel rods for 100,000 years is based on conflating the concepts of "long-term radioactive" and "highly radioactive." With the obvious exception of Uranium, the two concepts are inversely proportional: the longer the half-life, the lower the radiation and the more radioactive it is, the shorter the half-life. The isotopes that remain radioactive that long aren't very dangerous because they break down very slowly, and the ones that are the most radioactive don't last very long. And, of course, Uranium is an exception because it goes through several different reactions before becoming stable and non-radioactive so that even though it breaks down slowly, each breakdown results in a cascade of radiation.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    155. Re: noooo by radtea · · Score: 1

      How can you expect people to agree on a solution when we can't agree on the problem ?

      First we have to agree on what kind of problem we have.

      To the post-modernist left climate change is, always has been and always will be a social and moral problem, and the only way to solve it is abstinence.

      To post-modernist right (the anti-science, "words mean whatever I want them to" right) climate change is a political problem that needs to be solved by political manipulation (denialism).

      To anyone who isn't an ideology-addled moron climate change is a technological problem that can be solved by the usual mix of minor tweaks to tax policy and technology policy that has fixed every major issue the developed world has faced in the past century. Carbon taxes (and concomitantly reduced income taxes, a move that only a wealth-hating socialist could oppose) will actually do most of the job to incentivise industry to move in the right direction, although direct government support for conventional nuclear and advanced nuclear research would help as well.

      Since no one on the left or right is much interested in doing anything with climate change except whipping up outrage in their base, not much gets done, but slowly technologists and technocrats will push our focus towards actually solutions to the actual problem.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    156. Re: noooo by Quantum+gravity · · Score: 1

      Wind turbines produce about 10 percent of Germany’s electricity.

    157. Re: noooo by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      "Actual liberals ..." Actual conservatives as well, and yet you start your post with an ad hominem.

    158. Re: noooo by kolbe · · Score: 1

      I take it you were not even alive in the 1960's and 1970's, but that's okay as you can google it and find plenty of media articles on the subject. The particular portion of science I am referring to is the lack thereof in the entire GM agenda as none of it is peer reviewed nor capable of being proven due to lack of evidence. The Earth works in different ways at different times; Ways we only started discovery of when official record keeping began in 1914. Sure, tree rings, ice packs and geological layers give us some insight into the past, but it is far from "proven" by any means and no "climate model" to date can even predict the weather for TOMORROW, let alone the past or future.

      You are on /., I urge you to look at this from an unbiased and logical perspective: We don't have all the answers, so why assume someone does when no evidence can prove it?

    159. Re: noooo by cusco · · Score: 0

      The OP just asked about Tea Party and liberals and I wouldn't consider the Teabaggers "actual conservatives", they're the right's radical wing. I haven't been close enough to the conservative movement to really say whether as a group they wanted real campaign reform or just window dressing like the GOP leadership.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    160. Re:noooo by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Those questions are certainly being asked. The problem is that they are also being answered in ways that still point to humans burning fossil fuels as the big culprit.

      Actually, I don't agree...

      I've read the summary of the UN paper and looked at some of what they have been putting out.

      Frankly, I don't buy it.

      In any case, even if the thousands of scientists are completely wrong and there's nothing humans did or can do to the overall global climate, we STILL need to accept that the planet is warming. The oceans are acidifying. Methane stores are at risk for release causing even faster change etc. Whether humans are responsible or not does not change the fact that vast amounts of money are going to be spent on mitigation and doing nothing to reduce our environmental impact now only increases those costs for future generations.

      Moving millions of people from coastal cities, islands and flood plains is expensive. Finding new fertile land for farming and getting rid of whatever might currently be on it is going to be expensive. Figuring out alternative food supplies when the ocean ecosystems collapse is going to be expensive - if it's even possible. We can hope it'll be settled diplomatically, but wars could break out.

      That is a lot of FUD if I've ever read any...

      Are we making any changes? Perhaps, but there is so much money at stack and so much power at stake, I frankly don't trust the powers that be to be honest about any of it.

      Every time I hear about climate change, 2 seconds later I hear "we need more money".

      Yea, yea, the solution always seems to be money, and it always seems to be wealth transfer from those who worked for it to those who didn't.

      I have another solution, if this is such a big problem. How about we kill everyone who isn't earning their keep? Those poor people won't need my money after they are dead.

      Sound stupid? Yea, so do most of the UN proposals.

    161. Re:noooo by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      There's literally nobody except you who thinks this.

      The odds of that being true are nearly zero.

      I'm quite sure that I could find one other person on Earth who also believes it, making your point false.

    162. Re: noooo by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      I take it you were not even alive in the 1960's and 1970's...

      I was and you're full of crap. Funny how to you don't link to "plenty of media articles on the subject", eh?

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    163. Re: noooo by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      Well said. A succinct point and a much tidier response I should have thought to use in the first place!

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
    164. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There have been many such studies - showing that, for example, Canada and Siberia will become the new "bread baskets" - wonderful climates.

      The problem is that a massively large percent of the population of the world lives so close to low-level coastlines that they will be inundated by sea level rise. In some cases, entire countries will be submerged.

      Yes, some areas of the world will become "more habitable" - but far more that are habitable now will become uninhabitable.

    165. Re: noooo by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      Re-read his post, he was agreeing with you. You've got some issues of your own if you find people agreeing with you offensive.

      So anyway, you said you knew who the retard was. I think some of us might already have an inkling.

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
    166. Re:noooo by Bartles · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because when the warming happens a giant tsunami of water made from the melting ice caps and glaciers will wipe out all civilization on the coasts. Get a fucking clue and think for a few seconds.

    167. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Moving a third of the population? are you fucking stupid? don't worry your posts, quite eloquently, state that indeed you are very stupid.

    168. Re:noooo by Bartles · · Score: 1

      Life began in the oceans when they were orders of magnitude more acidic than they are today. Acidic oceans have supported much life in the past. You're nuts.

    169. Re: noooo by swillden · · Score: 1

      The fact that we still don't have a long term solution for the waste is a concerning one. Yucca mountain was our best hope, and its dead.

      Long-term storage is the wrong solution, at least for spent fuel. The right solution is to burn the spent fuel in breeder reactors. The result is waste that only needs to be stored for a couple of centuries.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    170. Re:noooo by swillden · · Score: 1

      Climate Change is happening too fast for much life to cope.

      The rest of your post was good, but this bit is silly. The earth has seen much faster climate change, many times, and not only does life "cope", there's some reason to believe rapid climate change has been one of the biggest drivers of evolutionary diversity.

      With that said, although climate change might be good for biodiversity and a good counter to the Holocene extinction, it's likely inconvenient for us, so we should learn how to engineer the planet's climate and stabilize it, not only against anthropogenic changes, but against "natural" changes as well (the climate isn't very stable, and both ends of the typical range of extremes would be pretty uncomfortable for us).

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    171. Re:noooo by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      And, at the same time, it was the coldest year in Chicago's recorded history. Who knew?

      Well, yes, because "global" warming isn't really global - a global average is kind of meaningless for determining the local effects in any given region.

      The problem I have with global climate change "debate" is not that climate is changing, but that there is an assumption that the net effect will be negative.

      The net effect will be negative. Until the climate stabilizes and life adjusts to the new system, there will be significant disruptions. Historically, changes as small as plus or minus 2C have had significant repercussions, including extinction events. There's approximately 7 billion people on the planet who have relied on the existing climate norms to survive, the vast majority of which do not have advanced technology. As a species we can adapt, but it won't be without costs.

      Furthermore, it is ignorant to claim that some regions will become more habitable. Just because conditions won't be uncomfortable to live in (by human standards) absolutely does not guarantee that the region can actually SUSTAIN human habitation. For example, you may hear the argument that warmer temperatures mean we can farm further north. That's pure nonsense. Our crops are adapted to the regions they're grown in, including the day-night cycles. And while regions may attain temperatures and even rainfall to support crops, it doesn't do any good if your landscape is barren granite and former tundra (e.g. Canadian Shield).

      It's not simply about temperature. It's about being able to sustain human habitation. If current growing regions become deserts, you can't simply move it to a new region. If your city's primary water source is from glaciers that suddenly are melting out, your not simply going to pick it up and move it somewhere else.

      Can we adapt? Sure. Will it be easy? No. Will it be cheap? No.

      I'm disappointed that more studies haven't shown which will prevail (or if there will be a net neutral effect).

      There are plenty that you can find with a simple google search. Probably the most comprehensive summary is in the IPCC reports.

      Instead we just get fear mongering about famine and war.

      Only the media and some fringe enviro-wackos are doing any fear mongering. The science just shows the actions and consequences. That being said, famine and war are logical conclusions in a changing climate. Resource wars are nothing new, and a changing climate with an increasing population is just more fuel for the fire.

      Also, I still believe the focus is on the wrong thing: rather than try and stop climate change (after all, if it doesn't change because of CO2, it may change due to something else) we should try and work on technologies so we can survive - no, thrive - regardless of the climate. (Isn't that what humanity has done for most of its existence anyway?)

      Obviously you haven't been paying attention. Stop climate change? That idea went out the window quite some time ago. It's all about adaptation and mitigation now. We don't have the technology (nor worldwide political will) to stop climate change at this point, as we would need to stop all carbon emissions as well as sequester a significant portion of the carbon we already added to the atmosphere.

      --
      ~X~
    172. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read wattsupwiththat.com frequently, so I can clue you in. They're bullshit! For excellent rebuttals of their standard points, try hotwhopper.com.

    173. Re:noooo by swillden · · Score: 1

      i hate to break this to you, but the mammals that thrived 55 million years ago were not the same as the mammals of today, much less people.

      There's a false assumption behind this line of argument, which is that the climate today is hospitable to humans. It's really not. There are relatively few areas of the planet where humans could survive without some level of technology and effective adaptation of the environment (clothing, man-made shelters and fuel for heating, at least). Humans today live in large numbers everywhere except the most extreme of the climates... from equatorial jungles and deserts to frozen tundra, including places that have annual temperature swings of 150F or more.

      Given that, it's silly to claim that altering temperatures by a few degrees will make the technologically adept humans of today (and decades and centuries hence) incapable of living comfortably in large numbers. Rising sea levels will cause mass displacements, and that will be expensive and difficult, consuming a large fraction of human productivity and likely causing many individual tragedies. Other changes in weather patterns will cause other displacements and changes. Droughts, floods, possibly-increased storms, etc. All of these are real issues, and worth worrying about. But the direct effects of a few degrees temperature change will merely make us adjust our clothing styles and turn down the heat/turn up the AC. Meh.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    174. Re: noooo by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      Your viewpoint is, ironically, too narrow itself. Ecosystems are hard. They're big, and complicated and saving them is going to be difficult. Those ecosystems are things that we rely on as a species, so it's hard to tech your way out of the mess entirely.

      For example, take the Great Barrier Reef. It's immense. It protects an enormous part of Australia's coastline. Artificial reefs that we build aren't as effective as natural ones at least partly because natural ones regenerate, given the right conditions. Additionally, they act as fish nurseries and give refuge to species that we eventually want to eat. As the population of the planet grows, it becomes ever more important to protect these areas to ensure long-term benefit to us. (Also, I beleive that it has its own inherent worth, beyond what we can exploit or derive from it.)

      Heating of the oceans drives acidification. Acidification is bad for animals that make shells...the acid eats away at them. Additionally, the corals have evolved to live in a certain temperature band and so there are just issues with forcing them to live at different temperatures.

      On top of all that, jellyfish don't have any issues with rising temperatures or acidification because they have very few hard parts, and they compete with other sea life at all tropic levels. They eat eggs and larvae and adult fish and invertebrates. Suddenly animals around the reefs are under competitive pressure as well. Jellyfish don't really have many natural predators--it takes ecosystems to keep jellyfish levels where they are.

      I'm not a marine biologist, and this is just grazing the surface of what I've read. While I agree with you that tech will help, we've got so much to do on so many fronts. Out survival depends on the survival of a lot of things. We like to think we're important, but we're really just a disruptive force, not a particularly useful one. The planet would do no worse with humanity gone, but if you could wipe out all the insects with a snap of your fingers, humanity would almost certainly disappear.

      So, think bigger. I think we're mostly on the same page, honestly. But if what you hear is unrelenting gloom and doom, it's because when you start looking at the massive scale of disruption that we're faced with, it's sometimes hard to think of a way that we can legitimately fix it. We're really in a bind. I hope you're right, and we can just think our way out of this mess, and I hope you're part of that solution. We kind of need everyone on board.

    175. Re:noooo by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      as i've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, 55 million years ago the earth was balls hotter. i don't mean 'crank up the AC summer's a few degrees hotter'. i mean a shit-ton hotter.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    176. Re: noooo by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The whole idea of having to store the spent fuel rods for 100,000 years is based on conflating the concepts of "long-term radioactive" and "highly radioactive."

      It's even simpler than that. The idea of having to store waste for 100000 years is based on something someone read about the industry in the 60s and then has been living in a hole for the last 55 years. Since then we've figured out reprocessing, deep breeding, and concocted several other fuel cycles that don't result in the same kind of waste. Heck we have even created reactor designs that could work on the previously stored waste making even the designs from the 60s quite the bit better.

    177. Re: noooo by budgenator · · Score: 1

      69% of Americans agree that "there is solid evidence that the earth is warming," and 65% of Americans class climate change as a "very serious" or "serious" problem.

      http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

      That is a miss-representation of the article;

      While a survey in March found that 69% of Americans agree there is solid evidence the earth is warming, only 33% described it as a “very” serious problem, while another 32% said it was “somewhat serious.” Most Americans believe climate change is real, but fewer see it as a threat

      "serious" is a higher quantitative degree than “somewhat serious”, in fact the same article also says

      Separately, a Pew Research survey of 39 nations conducted between March and May found that 40% of Americans say climate change as a major threat to the U.S., compared to a median of 54% in the global survey.

      Gallop asked what Americans worried about, in regards to climate change, 24% responded a "great deal", 25% responded a "Fair Amount" and 51% responded "a little/Not at all".

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    178. Re: noooo by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      More accurately is should be "Back nuclear energy as an emergency interim power supply to immediately replace fossil fuels" this to be replaced over say a a five decade to one century time line while better energy methods are developed and with greater energy efficiency in it's use. Keeping in mind there is a bit of a catch 22, in modern technological use there is a balance between energy use and use of various resources.

      For example, you can consume thousands of hectares of potential public parks or build an industrial multi story aquaponics facility that uses very little land and supplies food with significantly reduced transport costs and recycles it wastes but consumes quite a bit of energy in lighting, water circulation and where necessary heating. Water is not the problem it appears to be, all discussion about it is tied to corporate lies. It is not about the availability of water it is about the availability of 'CHEAP' water and water has a huge energy costs (basically it is cheaper for them to use drinkable water and pollute it rather than recycle the polluted water they create). Getting it from where ever it is and in what ever state it is in and delivering to it's required location in a potable, drinkable state. Have lots of energy and you can readily get all you need from the air, from sea level and salty to fresh and thousands of feet above sea level or even from recycled once polluted water.

      There is also of course giving a far shake to the majority of the human population who currently suffers a major energy shortage. So nuclear is a necessary evil to solve the problem we have now and that will be phased out over time as better energy generation methods come on line, we are well and truly beyond the point of no return and must solve the current problems as a matter of emergency.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    179. Re: noooo by budgenator · · Score: 1

      He's talking about Temperature, and the article is talking about heat, that what's called a strawman arguement.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    180. Re: noooo by Teckla · · Score: 1

      On current trends solar and wind are set to hit that goal within a decade or so. There are some interest engineering problems around storage/demand management and power transmission, but the trend lines look quite good. Especially if you enforce even reasonable local environmental standards on mining and burning coal.

      I think wind and solar are already quite competitive, except for the base load problem. I'd love to see a lot more R&D money go into things like storage and distribution.

    181. Re: noooo by dylan_- · · Score: 1

      Reading it quickly doesn't provide any clue as to whether they are bullshit or not

      Yes it does. Consider:

      What is he testing for? That temperatures haven't risen.
      What is his Null Hypothesis? That temperatures haven't risen.

      Can you spot the problem there?

      --
      Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
    182. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The research *has* been done. It's summarized nicely in the IPCC reports. If you informed yourself you wouldn't look like such an ass and have your comments modded funny.

    183. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I would suggest sheer perseverance of publishing the science in the face of such unfounded denialism will eventually do the trick

      No, that just gets people to dig in further and contributes to the "smart people are too arrogant" vibe. You have to soften the blow a bit and connect to people on a more human level to be convincing, rather than going on a name and shame campaign to beat people over the head with the data.

    184. Re:noooo by Boronx · · Score: 1

      I have seen people on Slashdot complain that the scientists weren't taking the Sun into account, but maybe that was you, too.

      Let's look at a time line.

      1. Climate scientists: Discover climate has changed dramatically several times ... You: not born yet

      2. Climate scientists: Gather mountains of evidence of such changes ... You: are born

      3. Climate scientists: Discover that humans are affecting climate ... You: blissfully unaware that climate even changes

      4. Climate scientists: Gather mountains of evidence that humans affect climate .... You: learn in school that the climate has changed dramatically several times. Knowledge transmitted indirectly from climate scientists.

      5. Climate scientists: Warn the world that humans are affecting climate ... You: "It is just *assumed* that any change must be our fault, that the Earth is static and doesn't ever change unless we do it."

      So yeah, you're probably the only person in the world to take the time to write that sentence, but not take the time to think about it.

    185. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Must be the same liberals that support child rapist getting their teacher pension no matter what felony they commit.

    186. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Global warming, which is not happening, is natural and beneficial, and happens all the time, and is a hoax and a conspiracy, and is stopping on its own and is not our fault.

    187. Re: noooo by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Yes, some people when confronted with something that doesn't fit their ideology dig in further. But eventually if they have any connection with reality at all they will have to admit the scientists are right. There will always be a few who can't connect with reality though.

    188. Re: noooo by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      It's already too late to "make these changes not take place." If we magically stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow it would still be a century before the excess we have already put up there will finally be cycled out into carbonate rocks, peat, and such.

      It will take a thousand years or more before the excess CO2 gets cycled out in carbonate rocks, etc.

    189. Re: noooo by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      yeah, like skepticalscience.com is a reliable source... hah hah hah hah hah hah...

      You can denigrate SkepticalScience all you want but unlike WUWT their articles contain links to actual scientific papers as references in most cases.

    190. Re: noooo by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Considering that back in the 1920s world population was less than 1/3 of what it is now and the use of fossil fuels was probably well less than 1/3 of what it is now. CO2 levels didn't pass 320 ppm until around 1960 (from starting at 280 ppm in the early 1800s) so there wasn't that much forcing back then.

      If you want to understand what the majority of scientists think about the subject you can't go wrong reading the IPCC AR5 Working Group 1 report.

    191. Re:noooo by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      You want to send Uranium and some other insanely dense shit skywards?

      If that's your plan, say good-bye to the "cheap" part of "cheap and clean nuclear power". And should some terrorists get their hands on some parts of the rockets, wave your farewell greetings to the "clean" part, too.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    192. Re: noooo by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Nuclear power will be in the mix when it can compete on a financial basis with other forms of power. I think in the future it's going to get more and more difficult for nuclear power to compete.

    193. Re:noooo by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Good lord, don't people learn anything from SciFi series? Just 'cause it didn't happen in 1999 doesn't mean we're safe, just look at how 1984 took like 30 more years to come to fruition.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    194. Re:noooo by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      If that is the case I have to wonder why nobody of the experts noticed it and snapped their fingers to come up with a solution.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    195. Re: noooo by kolbe · · Score: 1

      Is it too difficult to use google? The top hit goes to wattsupwiththat:
      http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

      Or even look at John Coleman's points? Wattsupwiththat even pops in the top 3 of that even:
      http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

      Objectively, unbiasedly and openly stated: We do not have all the answers and it's bullshit to assume we know we do.

    196. Re: noooo by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

      No, they have not dropped that claim. Here's a comment by a very low UID making that exact claim a few days ago:

      Climate change is a non-issue. The temperature has NOT risen since 1998. Fact.

      No, that is not the same thing. The original claim was that it was actually getting colder. They justified this by comparing the yearly (and sometimes the average) temperatures to the outlier data point of 1998 (which was not representative of the surrounding years). Sometimes people would try to back up the claim by pointing to journal articles describing how the rate of change had gone down - which is not the same thing!

      Once it became apparent that it wasn't actually getting colder, without fanfare they changed it to "the temperature has not risen". Amazingly, they got away with the switch. The deniers often take the slightest mistake from AGW camp (even from decades ago) as some proof that nobody knows what they are talking about. It is a shame that they don't hold themselves accountable to the same criteria.

    197. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a great post.

      The only way a stop in emissions can come to be is by military force. Likely means that some of the top countries (read: US an Russia) telling the polluters that "you go back to stone age -- either voluntarily or get nuked there". And back that up with action.

    198. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On current trends solar and wind are set to hit that goal within a decade or so.

      Yeah, and last week I was reading about some new battery technology that should provide high capacity, rapid-charging batteries in the next decade.
      And just after that we'll have the first real artificial intelligence! Exciting stuff.

    199. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you fucking retarded?
      Hint: Yes, you are.

      Media from the 60s and 70s is a tad harder to find on the internet than last Tuesday's episode of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

    200. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both are clearly claiming there is no global warming since 1997.

      I'm sorry but did I miss the part where recorded history started in 1997?

      Did I miss the part where it started in 1920 and used shitty and haphazard measuring methodology?
      Earth has been hotter than it is now - much hotter.
      Earth has had a higher concentration of CO2 than it has now - much higher.
      During those time, biomass and biodiversity were also at their highest.

    201. Re:noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      True, but not the same mammals. The entire idea that just because carbon dioxide levels were lower than they were 55 million years ago we as humans will be OK, is to use your terminology, just bullshit.

      What causes extinction is the rate of change. If the rate of change is too great, most species go extinct. When the asteroid hit the Yucatan it was pretty much instantaneous and very few species survived in the immediate vicinity. During the Eocene/Paleocene Thermal maximum that occurred about 55 million years ago about 60% of the mammal species then in existence went extinct over a period of roughly 30,000 to 60,000 years. Currently, the Earth is heating at about 36 times that rate, so we can expect lots of extinction, particularly at the top of the food chain, which is most dependent upon those elements of the food chain below it.

      Major problems for humans will continue to be 1) the consequences of rapid climate change to the pollinator-plant symbiosis, which is already disrupting agricultural production, 2) the rapid change of freshwater resources (either too much rain in places, too little in others, or too unpredictable given the species being raised for food), and 3) the dramatic drop in pH now being seen in world oceans from which humans derive about 50% of their protein. All are now at risk on time scales measured in hundreds of years, not tens of thousands. If you add in the consequences of political instability and other unrelated causes of ecosystem collapse including the potential for nuclear weapons to be used or abused to increase, the time frames may be a lot shorter.

    202. Re:noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      You are obviously not a biologist are you.

    203. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      You confuse Robert and Edward Kennedy.

      No need for nuclear when solar, wind, and tidal can do the job at much less cost. Germany and Denmark are proving it can be done and quickly and these are hardly countries with lots of sunshine.

      Keep in mind that a Chernobyl or Fukushima every few decades is very, very expensive and will remain so for another few thousand years. Indeed, if you look at the economics of nuclear power installations, you see that in the next 10-20 years, more will be phased out than will be built as they just aren't economical. Ever ask yourself, who is going to pay the cost for decommissioning and cleaning up these installations?

    204. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      To understand why you need to look at the isotopic ratios of carbon in the atmosphere. It mimics that seen in rock and not that seen in living plants. This is exactly what one would expect if the source of most carbon in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuels. As it turns out ratios of heave to light carbon closely track the amount of fossil fuels produced and burned.

      What data are you talking about?

      You might ask yourself, why it is, if it isn't getting any warmer, all the world's glaciers are melting at the fastest rates ever recorded? You might also ask yourself why is it that deniers of global warming never are able to answer this question and in fact, avoid it like the plague?

    205. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      If you are not seeing "the data", then you simply aren't reading the scientific literature. Wake up and smell the coffee. You will find it stimulating.

    206. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      You need to study the dynamics of carbon dioxide sinks. The deeper waters of the ocean are absorbing the bulk of the carbon dioxide, which is one of the reasons global warming is so dangerous as it is rapidly lowering the pH of the world's oceans, from which humans derive about 50% of their protein.

    207. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      If it is really just "bullshit" then how do you explain why virtually all the world's glaciers are melting simultaneously?

      Why is it that those who deny global warming never want to address this question?

    208. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      You sound like just the guy to sell some very inexpensive property to in and around Chernobyl, Ukraine. Or maybe you would prefer to buy your vegetables from Fukushima.

    209. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      Just out of curiosity can you explain how we will subsidize nuclear power if we keep cutting taxes?

      Everywhere I look these days on Wall Street or other burses, nuclear power is not much of a growth industry. In fact, if it were for constant government subsidizes the industry would be already dead because it is so uneconomical.

      I'll put my money in solar, wind, and tidal, as at least I can expect to make money rather than loose it, while I hope for yet another government bailout.

    210. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      I am always amused by those who think that soon because the world is heating rapidly, particularly at the poles, we will be able to grow crops at very high latitudes. Forget about it, the soils are just way too poor for that and the winters will be just as dark so at best it would be annuals. Just how much top soil do you think is left after tens of thousands of years of glacier scouring?

    211. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      Sadly, Edward Teller may well have seen what will happen, when he predicted that should humans perish, it will be because they simply can't understand or appreciate the concept of an exponential equation.

    212. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      Why is it there is this ground swell of the need for Thorium reactors, yet if you look at the actual nuclear industry the markets are pretty much all saying there is no future in nuclear power without massive government subsidies? The market for nuclear is shrinking and more plants will be decommissioned over the next 25 years than will be built, largely because they are way too expensive and uneconomical.

      Maybe someday, should fusion work, but the smart money is pouring into solar, wind, and tidal. That's where I'm putting my money and if you don't put any money in, well it doesn't matter too much what you think as you are just along for the ride.

    213. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      If they are so great, why isn't anyone willing to invest in them. Fewer plants are scheduled to be built than will be decommissioned, except in China where the entire funding exercise is strictly government controlled. Germany and Denmark are proving that solar is the way to go and even China is investing far more in solar than in nuclear. If you want to make money on the market, it won't be by investing in nuclear.

    214. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      No, its that they've watched too many commercials and are happy paying more for energy than they would if solar was more widely employed.

    215. Re: noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      Yes, the technical issues of dealing with the potential for radiation poisoning are expensive, very expensive, especially after a meltdown or two like Chernobyl or Fukushima.

    216. Re:noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      "What you also casually ignore is we don't know what sort of feedback loops might engage as CO2 levels continue to soar."

      Sadly, we do. Quite a few more gigatons of carbon dioxide coming from releases of permafrost and release of methane from clathrate deposits in shallow seas, such as the Arctic Ocean. Both have already begun as is arctic amplification caused by the loss of reflective ice. The feedback loops are beginning to be understood and the results will not be pretty.

    217. Re:noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      Sadly, rising sea levels are only a small part of the threat of global warming and probably the most manageable even though virtually every port in the world will need to be rebuilt or moved in the next 100 years. A much bigger concern is the rate of warming and its effects on the ecosystems we take for granted. We are already seeing the disruption of plant pollination and its consequent effects on food production as well as the invasion of temperate areas by tropical species, many highly invasive and capable of causing epidemics in either human or other plant and animal species.

      We are also seeing dramatic disruptions caused by more unstable and more extreme weather, both of which will likely effect non-coastal areas more than coastal areas simply because of the high specific heat of water and because more water will be present in the atmosphere, except in regions where high temperatures will generate increased aridity, such as much of the US Southwest. Although the changes on a global scale may seem slight and gradual, when averaged, more locally collapse or radical change of ecosystems will be the greater problem.

    218. Re:noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      Except for local bolide impacts and other regionally limited catastorphies, what "more rapid changes" are you talking about?

      The current rate of global warming is about 36 times that observed during the Eocene-Paleocene Thermal Maximum, which so far as I am aware is otherwise the single most rapid spike in carbon dioxide concentrations and global warming ever recorded in Earth history, having occurred over roughly a 30,000 to 60,000 year period.

    219. Re:noooo by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

      For most species any rapid change will likely be negative. This occurs because species have evolved to live most successfully in particular niches and under optimal conditions. Move away from optimum and reproductive success diminishes rapidly. It is for this reason so many species have evolved homeostatic mechanisms that permit them to modulate changes, often through behavior or through other traits. Unfortunately, these mechanisms also result in a trade-off between stasis near the optimum, but increasingly sub-optimal performance as you move away from optimal conditions. This is true at both the cellular and multicellular levels of organization.

    220. Re:noooo by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      The time frame that is relevant to human civilization is only about the last 9,000 years because that's the only time period in which it has existed.

    221. Re:noooo by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Surely moving people is cheaper (and more direct - that is, localized) than trying to control emissions.

      The cost of moving people out of 1/3 of the world's major cities is about the same as if there were a global nuclear war in which 1/3 of the world's cities were nuked (well actually much higher because you're better off economically if everyone dies instead of becoming homeless). The world economy would be completly devastated and set back perhaps a century. Whereas we could cut emissions drastically just by cutting future global economic growth by a few percent without regressing at all. Controlling emissions is hugely cheaper.

      Also, forcing people to leave the coast and not rebuild there will throw the population of most coastal regions into open rebellion and continuous war. It's not possible to make billions of people their homes and lose their jobs voluntarily, especially when you don't have replacements for them (but really even if you did).

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    222. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Solar is already cheaper than coal in Australia, it's been following an exponential curve since the 70's reducing the power generating costs. Yet of course our right-wing anti-intellectual government continues to rant that it is more expensive, as our dear leader recently said "someone has to stand up for coal".

    223. Re: noooo by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Oh and France, the lovely free country which provides power far cheaper and currently cleaner than Germany and who's private nuclear industry is doing quite well.

      Why aren't we willing to invest in modern reactor designs? Because they nearly all use a reaction which has a phase that includes Pu239 and that scares the heck out of old farts who still think the cold war isn't over.

      If you want to make money in the market you will invest in what the government gives you incentives to invest. In the USA it's solar, and with the regulatory overhead increasing the cost of nuclear almost by an order of magnitude you won't see any nuclear plants in the USA any time soon. In other countries where they don't artificially prop up green energy and drown nuclear in red tape you see nuclear as one of the cheapest and cleanest forms of sizeable baseload energy. Hence why countries like China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil etc are ploughing ahead building new plants because they are most affordable, and France because fuck America and their overly broad view of nuclear non-proliferation treaties.

    224. Re: noooo by Layzej · · Score: 1

      Woodfortrees.org is a great resource for fact checking BS. according to NASA temperatures have risen 0.14C over the since 1997: http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...

      The source you provide said he would accept the results of the Berkley BEST temperature reconstruction regardless of what they found. Unfortunately for him, BEST finds even greater warming with 0.39C over the period (although this is a land only index): http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl... . He disavowed any preference for the BEST reconstruction once the results were published.

      Satellite data shows 0.14C over the period: http://www.woodfortrees.org/da...

      Any way you slice it - there is no evidence that we have had no warming since 1997.

    225. Re: noooo by Layzej · · Score: 1

      US Climate Reference Network data only covers the U.S.A. The data is a great way to validate whether suspect data is any good, but obviously cannot be used to determine the global average temperature. Fortunately the USCRN data shows the same trend for the continental USA as the adjusted data. This gives us confidence in the results of the various global reconstructions (which show significant warming over the last 18 years).

    226. Re: noooo by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1

      Bullshit. Most (all?) of the Northern hemisphere had the most brutal winter we've had in decades. We broke cold temperature records that were 100 years old or more. Then, on top of that, summer basically never happened. We didn't actually get to normal summer temperatures until September, and there were reports of similarly cool June, July and August temperatures from far afield.
      So for 2014 to be a record hot year, I have to ask: where the fuck was it actually hot? Unless all the land in the southern hemisphere was actually on fire, this claim seems to be a flat out lie.

      --
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    227. Re:noooo by swillden · · Score: 1

      as i've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, 55 million years ago the earth was balls hotter. i don't mean 'crank up the AC summer's a few degrees hotter'. i mean a shit-ton hotter.

      Sure it was a lot hotter. But we could deal with it. At my house this morning it's -23F. We can deal with that, we can deal with heat.

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    228. Re:noooo by swillden · · Score: 1

      Greenland ice core records show a 7C shift in as little as 30-50 years, with no evidence of an obvious cause. Google it.

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    229. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Election day is far too late in the process to make a difference. By then, the candidates have already been bought and paid for, so checking R or D makes little to no difference at that time.

    230. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you start the discussion with an insult, you are ignored for the biased idiot that you are.

    231. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It. Just. Isn't. Going. To. Happen.

      Do you realise how retarded this meme is? It makes you seem like a fucking idiot, regardless of the rest of your post.

    232. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      drinkypoo is indeed a known troll with numerous accounts who has been caught before modding his own comments. Pay him no mind.

    233. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.cfact.org/2014/10/24/why-2014-wont-be-the-warmest-year-on-record/

      Dr. Roy Spencer (climatologist) says no. His reasoning is sound. Seems like this is all Climate Change hype to me.

    234. Re: noooo by pastafazou · · Score: 1

      You're only getting half of the numbers when talking about subsidies. You're referring to subsidies for construction of new projects. I'm talking about the subsidies paid on the electricity generated by renewables. Please see this article for more info: Wall Street Journal.
      If you're too lazy to click and read, here's the base numbers you need:
      subsidies per megawatt hour
      wind: $56.29
      natural gas: $0.56
      nuclear: $3.14
      Those numbers show you how bad wind is for mainstream power generation. The only reason we have so many being built is because of the massive subsidies being paid for the "clean" energy they produce. However, at some point the subsidies run out, and then the turbines become a financial burden. There are times when it makes sense to build a wind turbine, such as a remote location far from the grid. But these times are few and far between. Wind turbines are nothing but a scam, and thirty years from now we're going to see these things abandoned and derelict all over the world.

    235. Re: noooo by pastafazou · · Score: 1

      So why is Germany going full speed ahead with the construction of 26 more coal burning power plants? Oh, that's right, Germany is forced to import two thirds of the energy it consumes, and the massive investments in renewables hasn't done anything to change this situation. Here's an interesting development in Germany's quest for wind powered electricity: Wind power woes.

    236. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are not "hung up on 1997". They start from the current dataset published monthly by the RSS team and go back in time until the line is not flat.

      RSS is one of the 2 satellite global temperature measuring systems with UAH being the other. Both show 2014 as the 7th warmest not 1st.

    237. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LFTR is a great concept. China is building one and in 2 decades they'll be happy to sell them to us. The spent fuel is 87% inert after 10 years and the rest is radioactive for 300 years. Much better than the 10,000-20,000 for the current generation of nuclear power.

      http://energyfromthorium.com/

    238. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can deal with +30F? In what way? Living in caves?

    239. Re: noooo by LinuxLuver · · Score: 1

      Nukes aren't the answer. They are just one more way we try to perpetuate our unsustainable civilization. Just one more lie we tell ourselves. Renewables are the answer, combined with greater energy efficiency and a population policy that understands there is a limit to the number if people this one planet can sustain (and have good quality of life for all). But we're pigs. So we don't like limits. So we try to cheat.

      --
      Only boring people are ever bored.
    240. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For some places, Climate Change will be a positive. But the net is hugely negative. 1/3 of the world's people are close enough to a coast that they will have to do something when sea levels rise.

      Climate Change is happening too fast for much life to cope. The speed of the change is all negative.

      The driver of Climate Change is Atmospheric Change. Everyone talks about warming, but all this CO2 has a lot of other effects. The other big effect is Ocean Acidification. This is deadly for shells and corals. The whole oceanic food chain is being strained to the limit from this, and from overfishing.

      Climate change happens naturally, and has for millions of years, we have cycles of ice ages and so forth. You seriously think we've had any sort of impact on this? You're looking at recent times only, look back further and you'll see the bigger picture. At the moment it's warming, then it will cool, then it will warm, and so forth. We just have to accept whatever weather we get, and STOP WASTING MONEY ON CARBON CREDIT CRAP!

    241. Re: noooo by catprog · · Score: 1

      That is to replace the nuclear plants that were shut down. And what is the latest year a coal plant started planing?

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    242. Re:noooo by Rigel47 · · Score: 1

      What's your take on where things will be in 50 years? If you haven't already, do you plan to have children?

    243. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps this article from Nature - I assume American readers, insular as they are have heard of Nature the pre-eminent scientific journal.

      http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525

      It is very clear. There has been no warming over the last 16+ years. There has been a warming hiatus. Scientists are puzzled and are investigating where the heat has gone.

    244. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess you will reject Nature too.....

      http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525

    245. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the net is hugely negative. 1/3 of the world's people are close enough to a coast that they will have to do something when sea levels rise.

      So why don't people move now before they're underwater? Put another way - have all the people who are proclaiming coming disaster started moving their assets away from the coasts? Why are we focusing on emissions rather than moving people now? Surely moving people is cheaper (and more direct - that is, localized) than trying to control emissions. Such a thing would avoid depending on other people to fix their behaviors - it would also guarantee an outcome, rather than a probabilistic estimate of what happens if we curb emission X.

      People must really place a huge time preference on things to delay moving in spite of the proposed huge future costs. Or, they just don't believe it... or the "speed" of things isn't really as fast enough for people to care.

      Climate Change is happening too fast for much life to cope. The speed of the change is all negative.

      Unfortunately, there are entire countries in danger. There are no volunteers, anywhere, to take on 156 million people from Bangladesh for example. The focus is on prevention rather than adaption because adaption really, really sucks. If we have to go the adaption route, it means watching billions die. They aren't going to drown. Resources will become insufficient in many regions, people will go hungry, and their countries will go to war either with themselves or with their neighbors.

    246. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What he is saying is that it doesn't matter. Vote the incumbent out and you will get his clone, maybe wearing a different primary color.

      It's been a long time since any party was truer to its ideology than its backers.

    247. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our only hope at this point is some breakthrough technologies that produce energy at a lower cost than alternatives like burning coal and oil. If that happens, the free market will take care of the rest.

      And we could have had the free market take care of the breakthrough technology *in the first place* if we would just tax the fucking carbon emissions to start with, which is what the 'believers' have been saying for a few decades. Make coal and oil *more* expensive, you automatically make everything else less expensive, comparatively speaking.

      But the point isn't to tax so that the costs are higher...as you point out, no national solution will fix the rest of the world. The point is to *force the market to come up with something better*. Once they do that, the market will optimize it, and at some point it will be cheaper than everything else *without* any added tax or subsidies, at which point, bam, the entire world does it.

      And this plan is, uh, is basically what did happen with solar, except we sorta forgot to actually *tax* carbon, and had rather shitty incentives for solar. It still slowly happened, and now the only thing needed is to *finish* it. Same with battery tech. The goal is in sight. And let's not mention the fact that, without anyone noticing, cold fusion appears to have happened.

      Of course, if the Republicans hadn't stood around ass-deep in the pocket of big energy for *decades*, bleating how climate change was all a hoax, and actually put reasonable incentives for alternative energy, or reasonable disincentives for carbon pollution, we could have be ten fucking years further along with everything, but that's the sort of stupid shit we get for having a Republican party in our country.

      Granted, there are still other technological solutions that could help also, like inventing clever carbon sinks...which *also* could be invented by the free market if the government would fucking create incentives for that.

      In fact, they tried. That was have the damn premise of cap-and-trade, invented by Republicans back when Republicans actually wanted to stop global warming *and* still believed in the free market. (Neither is true now.) Charge companies for carbon production, and not only would they invent ways to produce less, but companies would arise that would *eat* CO2 and spit out carbon credits for everyone else to buy.

    248. Re:noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And what about making the oceans so acidic that all the sealife we eat dies?

      Oh, wait, I forgot. We're supposed to pretend the *only* side effect of all this CO2 is changes in temperature. Everyone, please continue to ignore the fact it's *killing sealife*.

    249. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who says they don't? Find me an article that says they don't address this question. Seriously. NOAA and it's extension: US NIC, which follow ice packs have indeed stated that Arctic sheets have receded in recent years, but new ice has grown in other places almost simultaneously sir. Last Feb (2014) NOAA reported that the Great Lakes ice cover has been most extensive since mid-90s. Antarctic sheets have grown as have snow packs in various southern hemispheres and mountaintops. Yes, the northern hemisphere is "lacking", but if we REALLY were melting sir, we would see more island and coastline losses than the Alaskan & Canadian ones we are seeing now.

      I do not think a single denier disbelieves global change, it's the whole man made conundrum that drives most real scientists overboard. It just simply cannot be proven as we do not have enough historical data nor an understanding of the earth's cycles. The absolute biggest drive to this entire movement is feelings, not science.

    250. Re: noooo by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      We should be switching to Nuclear in the US because its just BETTER.

      Better than coal?

      It's not better than solar or wind and because it consumes energy after the plant has been decommissioned, then there is the nasty waste, the potent greenhouse CFCs. When you do the evaluation it's actually WORSE.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    251. Re: noooo by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Do you have any indication about what's wrong with these assertions?

      Well, the first one is basing itself on just one dataset, RSS. Why? Well it turns out that RSS has been giving significantly cooler temperatures than all other datasets, so why pick this one?

      Also, looking at RSS for the last 18 years gives us:

      Trend: 0.022 +/- 0.169 C/decade (2sigma)

      So it's not a trend of zero as WUWT claims, it's somewhere between +0.218 and -0.174 C/decade, but the period is too short to give a significant trend.

      --
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    252. Re: noooo by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Please explain why it isn't.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    253. Re: noooo by delt0r · · Score: 1

      This idea of having to store stuff for 100K years is so fantastically ridiculous that I can't really believe anyone takes it seriously.

      Where do people come up with these numbers? its not 100k, not even close. With reprocessing it is like 100 years. Maybe 200 if your really paranoid.

      --
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    254. Re: noooo by delt0r · · Score: 1

      Thorium reactors give no real advantage over reprocessing U fuel cycles. It is the same waste. They are a long way off, even if you started today, and have a lot of critical design aspects that are completely untested and unproven.

      --
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    255. Re: noooo by delt0r · · Score: 1

      If your money is on solar etc.. then you really need your money in power storage. Either massive "cheap" batteries (liquid metal batteries) or something. Pump storage is not a solution to the general problem.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    256. Re: noooo by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Speculative fiction always has been exciting stuff.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    257. Re: noooo by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Good news. The earths temperature has been up and down over this range many times in the geological record.

      The only tipping point we are near is the one that puts us into ice age. Ice lowering the surface albedo and all.

      Also please work the math on 'ocean acidification'; freshman chem. Remember sea water is a _buffered_ solution.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    258. Re: noooo by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      WTF? Excess heat is cumulative? No.

      Not even wrong. Reflects a complete misunderstanding of the problem.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    259. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you wait for agreement on every significant issue then nothing will ever get done. Leadership is moving forward against opposition. It means picking a side, educating the public, and shaming the opposition composed of the ignorant, the "small government at any cost" brigade, or the blatantly compromised such as the coal-industry. That should not be so difficult in the case of global warming which is backed overwhelmingly by science. Any political discussion should be around a convincing strategy, plan of action and funding. Now that will not be easy but it starts by admitting the problem and being determined to do something about it.

    260. Re: noooo by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      California's grid is under-built. Giving transmission owners pricing power.

      SF area (bunch of reds) would PUD up in a second, except they know PG&E owns the transmission and would continue to rape them at a wholesale level.

      They should have taken the transmission when PG&E bankrupted themselves betting. It was a once per century chance.

      Now we have to wait for something to change. PG&E is careful to keep their gouge just low enough that it doesn't attract the kind of money required to build competitive transmission.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    261. Re:noooo by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      To get militarily useful plutonium you have to operate the reactors in a specific way. Uneconomically short fuel cycles, full tilt operation. (The kind of realpolitik fact that makes Iran's claims of nukes for power an obvious lie.)

      Plutonium byproduct of power reactor operations is a mix of isotopes and cannot be chemically separated to weapons grade. They are back to the isotope separation problem of uranium.

      They are not using the plutonium from any of these operations for weapons.

      Sense SALT the nuclear powers have been glutted with weapons grade. The price of nuke fuel crashed after the USSR fell. Aside: An American company bought all the surplus Russian weapons grade, had the Ruskies mix it down to standard fuel grade, took delivery, then declared bankruptcy of the corporate entity that carried the debt. Nelson HA HA / Nelson

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    262. Re:noooo by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      'as little as' is the giveaway to statistical lying there. They are reporting the position of the bottom of the error bar like it means something besides _scary_.

      How many sigmas of variance did they subtract from their best guess to get the 30-50 years? Remember Greenland ice cores get less useful as they get older. Where you put the error bar is a judgement call.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    263. Re:noooo by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      90% of the worlds wine now comes from areas 'too hot for it'. e.g. Lodi and surrounds. Italy.

      Wine chemistry has come a long way sense the only good wine came from Bordeaux. The trick is timing the harvest before the hot weather makes too much sugar.

      Turns out the worlds great wine regions make perfect grapes when ripe. Other regions, you harvest a little early and get wine that's good enough (for us plebes anyhow).

      The worlds wine market it so glutted they are making Vodka out of it and I can get 'Rotheschild Cadet' Bordeaux for well under $10US. (Though I understand that last is some sort of market manipulation/US market share push. Same bottle is 25 euro in Germany. Gonna grab cases next time it hits $7.)

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    264. Re: noooo by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      like those epitaphs which read "I told you I was sick"

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    265. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I wholeheartedly agree that humans will continue their need of energy, the technology we should be looking at is how to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere before it begins to resemble that of Venus. Or figure out how to move to Mars :/

    266. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL, one volcano spews more CO2 in the air than all the human race ever has in its existence. You really believe that a planet that is BILLIONS of years old, a planet that has been hit by asteroids, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc, etc. has fallen to humans in only 120 or so years that humans have been industrialized. What a bunch of CRAP!!! Just use basic common sense. Not to mention the data has already been proven to have been manipulated (by the scientist themselves). Good God , wake the F up!!!!!

    267. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I take it you were not even alive in the 1960's and 1970's, but that's okay as you can google it and find plenty of media articles on the subject.

      The 70s, ehh? Is Soylent Green 70s mass media enough? Was the thing that kicked everything off in that movie Global Cooling?

    268. Re: noooo by cusco · · Score: 1

      Care to elaborate? More CO2 prevents heat from radiating into space, the atmosphere warms up. Most of the heating is happening in the ocean. With less temperature differential the oceans are not able to exchange the heat they acquire. Warm surface water cycles into the depths, average temperature of the ocean, and the planet, rises. And continues to rise as long as the ocean is unable to dump the extra heat. Or is there some magical mystical way that the additional heat is not accumulating?

      In what way am I "misunderstanding the problem"?

      --
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    269. Re: noooo by dywolf · · Score: 1

      i love it when people tell me what i think for me and ignore what i actually say.

      By the way...you are aware there are significant drawbacks to nukes yes? And that nukes aren't the only choice?
      Or that the conflation between "admitting global warming is a thing" and "wanting to impose socialism on everything" doesnt actually exist?

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    270. Re: noooo by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Tip of the day: Everything on Wattsupwiththat is unscientific BS.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    271. Re: noooo by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Coleman is simply an awful choice to discuss this issue. He lacks credentials, many of his statements about climate change completely lack substance or mislead, and I’m not even sure he knows what he actually believes.

      To begin, Coleman hasn’t published a single peer-reviewed paper pertaining to climate change science. His career, a successful and distinguished one, was in TV weather for over half a century, prior to his retirement in San Diego last April. He’s worked in the top markets: Chicago and New York, including a 7-year stint on Good Morning America when it launched. If you watch Coleman on-camera, his skill is obvious. He speaks with authority, injects an irreverent sense of humor and knows how to connect with his viewer.

      But a climate scientist, he is not.

      [..]

      On CNN, he said this consensus is manufactured by the Democratic party’s funding of research with preordained results. “If you’re gonna get the money, you’ve got to support their position,” Coleman said. “Therefore, 97 percent of

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    272. Re: noooo by meustrus · · Score: 1

      It is my opinion that the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement are motivated by the same factors: rich people, large corporations, and generally wealth itself is controlling this country, and the proletariat is getting tired of it. The Tea Party believes all the things that Fox News has to say about liberals, and they're tired of establishment Republicans making deals with liberals because everything liberal is supposed to be bad. Defeating liberalism may be their goal, but the fact is that establishment types are in their way. The Occupy movement, I feel, got a little closer to the actual problem, rather than treating the actual problem like an impediment to their real goal. But they weren't motivated by ambitious desire to control America and they weren't organized like Republicans are, so nobody got elected out of Occupy like people have from the Tea Party.

      That's just my opinion though. What you said is probably more reasonable, cusco: "I haven't been close enough...to really say..."

      --
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    273. Re: noooo by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Coleman is simply an awful choice to discuss this issue. He lacks credentials, many of his statements about climate change completely lack substance or mislead, and I’m not even sure he knows what he actually believes.

      To begin, Coleman hasn’t published a single peer-reviewed paper pertaining to climate change science. His career, a successful and distinguished one, was in TV weather for over half a century, prior to his retirement in San Diego last April. He’s worked in the top markets: Chicago and New York, including a 7-year stint on Good Morning America when it launched. If you watch Coleman on-camera, his skill is obvious. He speaks with authority, injects an irreverent sense of humor and knows how to connect with his viewer.

      But a climate scientist, he is not.

      [..]

      On CNN, he said this consensus is manufactured by the Democratic party’s funding of research with preordained results. “If you’re gonna get the money, you’ve got to support their position,” Coleman said. “Therefore, 97 percent of the reports published support global warming.”

      Nevermind that multiple, independent scientific assessments (e.g. the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change – which just released a new report Sunday, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the National Academy of Sciences), from institutions and scientists around the world, have reached this conclusion based on multiple lines of evidence. Coleman’s attack seems more political and (per his claims of a global conspiracy) delusional than based on substance.

      (Further, a small point, the Democrats alone do not control funding of climate science.)

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

      It goes on.

      Point is:
      a) he is not ignored by media
      b) he is as ignorant of the topic as you are

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    274. Re: noooo by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Watts is hardly unbiased, objective, or even scientifically valid.

      The scientists may not have all the answers, nor do they claim to, but they have a lot more than you and other deniers do, and unlike you they actually know what they are talking about.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    275. Re: noooo by dywolf · · Score: 1

      It's a website that links to actual peer reviewed scientific papers that accurately reflect the sum knowledge of the science involved and accurately reports what is in those papers, as well as laying the science in a clear and accurate fashion.

      So yes, I'd say that makes it pretty reliable.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    276. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But why deal with all that radiaotion if we dont have to?
      Why deal with the potential risks?

      We already have all the nuclear we will ever need in the form of the sun.
      Enough solar energy bombards the earth in one hour (less than) to power all of humanity for a year.
      We only need to harness a tiny fraction of that.

    277. Re: noooo by RyoShin · · Score: 1

      The *actual problem* with nuclear is that practically every other option is cheaper and lower risk.

      My (admittedly limited) understanding is that one of the major problems with both solar and wind power is the fluctuation. Yeah, solar is great for running A/Cs on hot summer days when the sun is shining bright, but not as useful for heaters at night in the winter.

      So unless power transmission tech improves that you can run cables thousands of miles with minimal loss, or battery tech improves that extra power stored during the day is enough for night, you need something else to generate the power that can cover non-productive times for the other sources. If our goal is to get rid of our reliance on coal and fossil fuels, what other option is there but nuclear? If you're lucky you live close to a hydroelectric source, but not everyone is.

      (I also understand there are problems with standard power plants not being able to spin up quickly to meet demand, and assume nuclear would have the same.)

    278. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you read that "wiki" page (not wikipedia) the first several paragraphs are obviously subjective opinions regarding Watts, providing no factual information regarding either his education ("...has no academic training in the physics of climate or related disciplines." however other sources indicate he pursued an engineering degree which ties in with meteorology in my alma mater) or the science behind his assertions. Therefore, it amounts to an ad hominem attack on his credibility. In fact, most of the information about Watts out there does exactly the same thing.

      If you want to argue persuasively, try using facts. Raw data will suffice.

    279. Re:noooo by hawkfish · · Score: 1

      But the net is hugely negative. 1/3 of the world's people are close enough to a coast that they will have to do something when sea levels rise.

      So why don't people move now before they're underwater?

      Um, because a lot of them are not in 'merica?

      Have a look at Bangladesh some time. Most of the country is near sea level and the people have nowhere to go except... India (which they broke away from rather violently.)

      --
      You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
    280. Re: noooo by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Funny how your searches of the whole internet only return links to a denier site. With your next search you should look up "confirmation bias".

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    281. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your Score:5 Insightful argument comment would make a lot more sense if the length of "the pause" in the RSS satellite data indeed began in 1998, when the super El Nino made its mark on temperatures.

      However, it doesn't. The length of the pause is now counted from October 1996, more than a full year before the peak in temperatures. That invalidates, completely, your argument.

      This is of course quite visible in any plot of RSS temperature data. You should go look at one.

    282. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit

      Science is on the side of the realists. The deniers are 100% political.

    283. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit

      Move next to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State if you believe that.

      Eat those tuna that have increased cesium levels due to the reactor issue in Japan.

      Moron.

    284. Re: noooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL

      In Washington State when 97% of my power is hydro, I pay a little under 2 cents per kWh.

      California's problem is that there are too many people shoved into areas that are really not that hospitipal to humans.

  2. And on a local level... by Retron · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...it was the warmest year in the CET (Central England Temperature) record, which goes back to 1659.

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ha...

    1. Re: And on a local level... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I'm sure all of those 17th century temp readings are accurate

    2. Re: And on a local level... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they cared to write down *how* they measured, enough that the instruments can be recreated, and especially if some of the instruments have survived to this day... then maybe.

    3. Re: And on a local level... by itzly · · Score: 3, Informative

      The errors bars do get bigger the further back we go, but they are small enough to make that conclusion.

    4. Re: And on a local level... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd love to see references or articles how temperature is measured to this degree of accuracy then how they are aggregated to a single number! I don't see how one temperature that can be created and how it is meaningful. Given its really difficult to measure temp to a .1 resolution and that the temp at 1ft above the ground is different by more than .1 deg then say 8 ft above. Also given there is normal statiscal variation from year to year how can we say this year is warming than last, when statistical variation is greater than the difference cited.

    5. Re:And on a local level... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Given that 1659 predates both Centigrade and Fahrenheit scales, what were the units that they used to record the temperature back then?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:And on a local level... by itzly · · Score: 1

      Most likely some local scale that was later converted to a standard scale. Since we're not dealing with absolute temperatures, but with temperature anomalies, it's fairly simple to take two overlapping temperature measurements, and figure out how to correct one of them to agree with the other during the period of overlap. Apply the same correction to the period of non-overlap, and you have your answer.

    7. Re: And on a local level... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am buying into that. I do a lot with metrology. I can not see how we can correlate to that degree of accuracy especially given the lack of standards and reproducibiliy for any number or measurement over say over 150 years ago

    8. Re:And on a local level... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, what you're saying is that; you haven't got a clue.

      Please continue to espouse us with your wild ass guesses and supposition. I'm sure you can't possibly be wrong. (In your own mind.)

    9. Re: And on a local level... by Retron · · Score: 4, Informative

      Manley's paper explains how the various figures were derived. The early figures are subject to a good deal of approximation, but if you leaf through the paper you'll see various sources have been used to compile the data. By the mid 1700s records are accurate enough that no approximation is needed. Although it's a far from perfect way of doing things, it's the best we have. The CET series is the world's longest monthly temperature record series, FWIW.

      "Before 1671 intstrumental readings are few; accordingly all values before 1671 have been rounded to whole degrees C. Regular thermometer readings began again in 1672. "

      Here's a link to the paper on the Royal Meteorological Society's website:
      http://www.rmets.org.uk/sites/...

    10. Re:And on a local level... by Retron · · Score: 1

      In Manley's paper it refers to a reference from 1702 of a thermometer graduated in inches. There's your answer!

    11. Re:And on a local level... by itzly · · Score: 1

      Of course I can be wrong. So, please don't hesitate to provide corrections.

    12. Re:And on a local level... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      That matters less, as long as it is possible to recreate the scale and the apparatus used to measure the temperature you can find out how much it would be in C.

      The bigger question I'd have for those early instruments is how accurate they were and how accurate they'd have to be to be a sensible foundation for conclusions.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re:And on a local level... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course I can be wrong. So, please don't hesitate to provide corrections.

      That's not how that works. The onus is on you to provide support for your assertions. Like the Philosophic burden of proof or the Legal burden of proof.

      But, this one time, I'll do it your way. RTFM.

    14. Re: And on a local level... by Layzej · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'd love to see references or articles how temperature is measured to this degree of accuracy then how they are aggregated to a single number

      Happy to oblige:

      http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monit...

      http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/...

      http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/...

      http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/...

    15. Re:And on a local level... by itzly · · Score: 1

      I didn't assert, I made a wild ass guess.

    16. Re: And on a local level... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many thanks.

    17. Re:And on a local level... by hey! · · Score: 2

      Which of course is somewhat more likely in a global warming scenario, but could happen nonetheless whether the globe was warming OR cooling.

      We have to get past this mode of thinking like this: "It's May and we had to put the air conditioners in already, it must be global warming." Or this: "Temperatures outside are near-record lows. So much for global warming."

      Global warming is an increase in the TOTAL kinetic energy of the atmosphere, which is a spherical shell 6371 km in radius and 100km thick. That shell is rotating so that at the equator it's moving roughly 1667 km/h and at the 0 km/h at the poles. As it rotates it is differentially heated in the southern and northern hemispheres by the Sun, and it interacts with oceans, mountains, terrain with various surface albedo, etc. This is responsible for the counterintuitive fact that the average January high for Boston in 37F and the average for Glasgow is 41F, even though Boston sits at 42 degrees north latitude and Glasgow at 56. Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador is at the same latitude as Glasgow and has an average January high of 7F.

      We all know this, but somehow this knowledge flies out the window when it comes to our intuitions about what a warming globe means. Our intuitions about global warming treat the atmosphere as a stationary, shallow, well-mixed pool that may be hotter at one end than the other, but distributes heat in a simple and predictable way through diffusion. But if you think about what the atmosphere actually *is* what even a non-specialist knows it behaves like, it shouldn't be surprising to find some place places get colder in a "warming" scenario, somewhat more get warmer, and quite a few get warmer AND colder depending on the season.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    18. Re:And on a local level... by Retron · · Score: 1

      Yup, I know that global warming doesn't imply that my back yard will get warmer all the time. However, it's interesting to me at least that the warmest year on record here in the UK (records going back 350 years or so) coincides with the warmest year globally.

    19. Re:And on a local level... by hey! · · Score: 1

      Naturally. I should have stipulated that I wasn't particularly addressing you personally so if you took it that way I apologize.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    20. Re:And on a local level... by Tetetrasaurus · · Score: 1

      "rivulets per minute" was the Imperial unit of measure for temperature back then, or the number of rivulets of sweat running down the King's brow.

    21. Re:And on a local level... by Smauler · · Score: 1

      We all know this, but somehow this knowledge flies out the window when it comes to our intuitions about what a warming globe means.

      No... it's perfect common sense. If the global temperature increases by one degree, the the local temperature will probably increase by about one degree.

      If the local temperature decreased by one degree with one degree global warming (with the rest of the world warming by one degree) somewhere else equivalent in the world would have to increase by three degrees. I know this is possible, however I do believe it to be less likely.

      Also, if you want to compare cities at similar latitudes, London is further north than Winnipeg, and both are a lot further north than Odessa in the Ukraine. It's common knowledge in the UK that the continent south of us is generally a lot colder in the winter. Denver's further south than Madrid and Istanbul...

    22. Re:And on a local level... by Smauler · · Score: 1

      Also... it was over 15 Celsius (60 Fahrenheit or so) just before Christmas in London. A couple of years ago it hardly got above freezing throughout December. We're used to odd weather because of where the UK is.

  3. sounds logical. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    CO2 levels measured in the middle of the ocean, far away from most humans:
    https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_full_record.png
    I'm not speculating what CO2 level is normal, what caused it, or how long it will take to go down again, but looking at that graph I would be very surprised if the average temperature temperature didn't rise.

    1. Re:sounds logical. by Pieroxy · · Score: 2

      That's assuming the global warming is mostly due to the CO2 levels which is all but a certainty right now. I've read that the correlation isn't really up to speed these last years.

  4. But That Pause! by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But... but... all the science-deniers keep telling me there's been a "pause" in global warming, and ask me to explain it!

    1. Re:But That Pause! by CajunArson · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Do the "science deniers" include the IPCC that spent thousands and thousands of tons of CO2 putting together reasons for why the pause is actually all part of their increasingly inaccurate models?

      --
      AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    2. Re:But That Pause! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Their funding is funding out soon, time to stir the fire to get more...

    3. Re:But That Pause! by Opportunist · · Score: 0

      And arguing with a denier is like recreating the dead parrot sketch.

      C: I think we need to do something about the sea levels.
      D: Ah yes, what's wrong about it?
      C: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, the sea's rising.
      D: No, no, it's ... the tides.
      C: Look matey, I know the difference between tides and when the levels are rising when I watch it and I'm looking right at it right now.
      D: No, it's not rising, the tide. Remarkable thing, the sea, ain't it? Beautiful waves...
      C: The waves don't enter into it. The water is rising!
      D: Nononono, no, no! It's just the tides.
      C: All right then, if it's the tides, why am I standing in a puddle of water when I didn't last year?
      D: (builds a sand bag castle)
      D: There, it's gone.
      C: No it isn't. You just walled it off.
      D: I never!!
      C: Yes, you did!
      D: I never, never did anything...
      C: (takes a sand bag out of the wall, water starts pouring in)
      C: See? Flood.
      D: No, no..... it's ... springflood.
      C: SPRINGFLOOD?
      D: Yeah! You upset the carefully balanced sand equilibrium.
      C: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. The water levels are rising and when we were talking last year you assured me that the water around my feet were just due to a leaky pipe and you not having had time to mop it up.

      And so on, I don't have time to do the whole sketch now, but I think it would be worth it.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:But That Pause! by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      Haw haw you really gave that denier a good rogering!

      A few more posts like this and the deniers will have nothing to stand on, they will be begin to feel the wrath of our faith!

      Put their feet to the flames brother! To the flames!

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    5. Re:But That Pause! by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1

      Its hard to trust the reports of an organization that said 2013 was the fourth warmest year on record:

      http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

      While at the same time we had record breaking cold temps and huge growth in the polar ice caps:

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    6. Re:But That Pause! by qwak23 · · Score: 1

      Simple.

      God got up to use the bathroom and grab some chips.

    7. Re:But That Pause! by Raenex · · Score: 1

      There is a pause. Despite rising carbon dioxide levels, temperatures have plateaued (this "hottest year on record" is insignificantly the hottest one in a statistical sense), and none of the models predicted this, despite claims of the science being "settled".

      That the science was settled is complete bullshit anyways, because the true threat of global warming has always been predicated on the supposed feedback of water vapor, which is still an open question.

  5. Go Nuclear by ggraham412 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    France went nuclear a long time ago, and they adopted it at a pace that if replicated around the world would cut C02 emissions to levels recommended by the IPCC. Nuclear energy is the only viable technology we have at the moment that can both reduce CO2 emissions meaningfully and avoid throwing an additional billions of people into poverty.

    1. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nuclear energy is the only viable technology we have at the moment that can both reduce CO2 emissions meaningfully and avoid throwing an additional billions of people into poverty.

      [citation needed]

      You people keep making these bald assertions, but I don't see any reason that wind and solar can't handle this problem. We need more power storage, yes. So what? We're building it, and we know how to build more of it. Since solar power produces the most power when we need it the most, and pays back its energy investment in less than a decade but lasts more than two, I'm having a hard time figuring out just where you people got the idea that nuclear was the only answer. Most people who think that there is only one answer are wrong. The world is a lumpy place.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Go Nuclear by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      Solar power repays its energy cost in production in 6 to 12 months, not decades and it lasts over 30 years, not just 20 ... talking about PV obviously.

      Ofc you are right otherwise, except perhaps that storage is overrated. Storage is pointless as long as you are far away from even producing 50% of your needs by renewables.

      Storage is interesting if you want to take your house (or boat or caravan) off grid. For a nation spanning grid it is nearly irrelevant until you approach 100% production of peak demand.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, come back when you can store all that wonderful solar and wind in a reasonable and cheap way.

      I like solar and wind, great for small scale, but it is terrible as a major power source because we CAN'T STORE IT. (cheaply, at least)
      And if we can't store it, we can't do anything useful with it because the power grid demands change dramatically from one hour to the next.
      The power grids need a constant income of power, which changes as demand rises and falls. Solar and wind are neither constant nor reliable to produce power around the clock for those needs.

      Battery tech is holding back solar and wind. And, sadly, until that changes, both technologies will be laughable at any industrial scale.
      This is especially true when you see idiots trying to pave roads with solar panels, or those idiots at california that filled a desert with solar PANELs, not mirrors focused to a few solar panels which would be far superior and cheaper to produce. These people do nothing but harm.

      The only other way for solar to be useful is if metamaterials make a sudden breakthrough in EM harvesting that allows for mass production.
      Right now, solar panels are terrible at angles beyond a pretty damn narrow range at that, the drop-off is pretty large.
      Something that could trap and align EM as it is trapped to eventually be absorbed, that would be the sort of breakthrough.
      There was a fairly good EM trap developed a few years back, the so-called EM blackhole, which is along the lines of what I am talking about.
      That way even ambient sunlight through fairly medium-heavy rainclouds would be enough to gain reasonable amounts of power.

    4. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Since solar power produces the most power when we need it the most

      Spoken like someone who lives in a hot part of the world. Those of us with freezing winters and electric heating (what would be the ultimate goal to reduce emissions, since fossil fuel based heating isn't as clean as nuclear) would *really* like to use most of our power at night so we don't freeze to death. Wind power is too variable to solve the winter nighttime freeze issue.

      >Most people who think that there is only one answer are wrong.

      That is true. Then again, those who think that solar or wind are the only solutions are wrong as well. :)

    5. Re:Go Nuclear by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

      "We need more power storage, yes. So what? We're building it, and we know how to build more of it"

      [citation needed]

      70 years of nuclear history show that it is fully capable of meeting the requirements.

      Can you smelt aluminum with solar and wind?

    6. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see any reason that wind and solar can't handle this problem.

      We have a tremendous nuclear waste problem - tons and tons of 300,000-year waste. The absolute worst thing that currently-living humans can do for the future is to ignore this problem. Solar and wind do nothing to solve it. Integral fast reactors generate all the power we need and convert that into 300-year waste. We can almost certainly build 300-year containment facilities, but no sane human thinks we can build 300,000-year facililities.

    7. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Until you cite sources, I simply reply: no, it doesn't.

    8. Re:Go Nuclear by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      It takes more energy to produce a solar panel than it produces in its lifetime of use

      This isn't just bullshit, it's obvious bullshit. Buying panels at consumer prices has a measurable RoI, which is 3-10 years depending on various conditions (and most of the cost for consumer installations is the labour cost of the installation). Buying them at wholesale prices has a much shorter RoI. If they cost more energy to produce than they generate then even with manufacturing and raw material costs of zero then this wouldn't be possible.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    9. Re:Go Nuclear by conquistadorst · · Score: 2

      Solar power repays its energy cost in production in 6 to 12 months, not decades and it lasts over 30 years, not just 20 ... talking about PV obviously.

      Ofc you are right otherwise, except perhaps that storage is overrated. Storage is pointless as long as you are far away from even producing 50% of your needs by renewables.

      Storage is interesting if you want to take your house (or boat or caravan) off grid. For a nation spanning grid it is nearly irrelevant until you approach 100% production of peak demand.

      Maybe you can cite some of your sources? I'm all about renewable energy, but it sounds like you're cherry picking and blurring data.

    10. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2012/04/26-energy-greenstone

    11. Re:Go Nuclear by BitZtream · · Score: 0

      I'm for using solar power because its effectively renewable, so don't think I'm trying to be anti-solar ... but ...

      Don't talk about solar like its a pollution solution. The pollution from solar doesn't pollute the environment and generate AS MUCH greenhouse gas, but the process of creating solar panels is ridiculously dirty and the panels themselves aren't exactly bio-degradable or easy to recycle.

      Lets not pretend that solar is a 100% solution. Carpet the planet with the amount of solar cells required for our energy budget and you've probably done more damage than current greenhouse emissions for close to the life of the panels.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    12. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Since solar power produces the most power when we need it the most

      Where I live (central Finland), there is darn little sunlight for PV in winter, and guess when we need electric power the most. Yep, in winter, when it's not just cold, it's damned dark. Actually, in December the insolation here is 0.06kWh/m2 per day, but it's 5.36 in June. Pity those who live in Rovaniemi and further north - they get exactly 0.0 in December.

    13. Re:Go Nuclear by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      Why not a diverse set of power sources.
      Wind and Solar where it makes sense, Nuclear in other spots.
      And why the heck doesn't anyone recognize hydro electric as an excellent source of energy as well.

      I keep on hearing these all or nothing approaches to power. Why isn't the conversation about energy diversity?

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    14. Re:Go Nuclear by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Informative

      Even assuming that we do invent those magic baseload batteries soon, your all-renewable energy system is a wavery network (requiring a "smart grid", to be built from scratch at the cost of teradollar or so) of fluctuating sources requiring vast amounts of mechanical maintenance. I would rather have a few AP-1000s chugging away in secluded valleys while we work on getting thorium up to commercial speed.

      Cautionary tale: Germany is now in the throes of building out its smart grid. The flat-earth lobby, now that it no longer has anything nuclear yo protest, has turned its attention to stopping the new transmission lines needed to bring renewable power to market:

      http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12...

    15. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RoI has nothing to do with pollutants released and energy used in manufacturing of component parts. You misunderstand basic business as well - wholesale just means there isn't a retailer in the way. The manufacturing costs are environmental too.

    16. Re:Go Nuclear by itzly · · Score: 1

      but the process of creating solar panels is ridiculously dirty and the panels themselves aren't exactly bio-degradable or easy to recycle.

      [citation required]

    17. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Can you smelt aluminum with solar and wind?

      What do you imagine to be magical about electrical power produced from nuclear that makes it capable of smelting aluminum while you imagine that power from renewables cannot?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    18. Re:Go Nuclear by houghi · · Score: 1

      Germany on the other hand gave in to ideas from the past.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    19. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Solar power repays its energy cost in production in 6 to 12 months, not decades and it lasts over 30 years, not just 20 ... talking about PV obviously.

      Sigh. You obviously know nothing about avoiding people accusing you of exaggeration. I'd say you must be new here, but...

      Also, you're exaggerating. It takes around three years for a thin-film panel to repay its energy investment. But I'm accounting for the entire system, installation, side preparation, et cetera. And then I'm anti-exaggerating, as mentioned previously. All that's important is to show how foolish the claims are.

      Storage is interesting if you want to take your house (or boat or caravan) off grid. For a nation spanning grid it is nearly irrelevant until you approach 100% production of peak demand.

      That's nice. We don't have a nation-spanning grid. You can't just move power from anywhere to anywhere at will. It doesn't work like that. First, there are far too few links; many cities are served by a single point of ingress for electrical power. Second, we lack long-haul capacity, even if we could get the power to the long-haul links, we couldn't carry it.

      We need more storage, or to dramatically improve the grid. It would be nice to do both. But storage pays revenues when the grid fails, which it can do even if you improve it. We clearly need more storage.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This article actually suggests the global net production ~might~ be positive and does a good job explaining some of the environmental costs in manufacturing the panels.

      http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/april/pv-net-energy-040213.html

    21. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      And why the heck doesn't anyone recognize hydro electric as an excellent source of energy as well.

      Because it isn't. It is shit. It always has dramatic environmental impact, which is precisely what we're arguing against with coal and oil.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    22. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Even assuming that we do invent those magic baseload batteries soon,

      I'm not making assumptions. Not only do we already have batteries suitable for backing up base load (used EV battery packs, this is actually Nissan's recycling plan, and probably others') but we also have other technologies, like Beacon Power's atmosphere-evacuated flywheels which float on maglev bearings. The loss is very low, the capacity is quite high, and they are safe because they are made of arrays rather than monolithic flywheels, and because you put them underground.

      Cautionary tale: Germany is now in the throes of building out its smart grid. The flat-earth lobby, now that it no longer has anything nuclear yo protest, has turned its attention to stopping the new transmission lines needed to bring renewable power to market:

      Yes, that is a real problem. Yes, we need to add more transmission capacity. But, look around. We need to do that anyway, no matter what source the energy comes from. If we're going to use more electricity, which we certainly are if we're going to keep buying EVs, then we're going to need to be able to ship it no matter where it comes from.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    23. Re:Go Nuclear by Tailhook · · Score: 1, Insightful

      but I don't see any reason that wind and solar can't handle this problem

      That's you not wanting to face reality the same way deniers don't.

      We're building it

      That's fiction. There are some troubled experimental systems, and what we're learning is that we're going to need a politically infeasible amount of industrial build out to dot the land with tens of thousands of thermal storage facilities and storage reservoirs, both consuming stupid quantities of water that, somehow, no one has a better use for. Not going to happen.

      The land use problem alone precludes solar for more than localized energy supply. Only peanut gallery internet fanbios indulge the fantasy that there is vast amounts of wasted land we can carpet with panels. In the real world every inch of it is contested by lawyers and pressure groups that ensure utility scale, coal-replacing amounts of solar and storage is a pipe dream.

      It's simple. You chuckleheads put down the windandsolar crack pipe and we progress. Until then you'll have the power system you have now, plus a lot more natural gas.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    24. Re:Go Nuclear by itzly · · Score: 1

      The energy used in manufacturing needs to be paid, right ? So, yes, ROI does tell you that it takes less energy to make them than they provide. As far as not counting the pollutants, you may have a point, but that is equally well applied to other sources of energy.

    25. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      and what we're learning is that we're going to need a politically infeasible amount of industrial build out to dot the land with tens of thousands of thermal storage facilities and storage reservoirs, both consuming stupid quantities of water that, somehow, no one has a better use for.

      Ahh, I see you are either ignorant or being disingenuous, since anyone actually interested in this subject cannot be unaware of the usefulness of used EV batteries, or the existence of flywheel systems.

      put down the windandsolar crack pipe

      Ahh, there we go, crack pipe. And people think I'm an asshole.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    26. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      reliability, consistency and stability of power. Didn't GT Advanced Technologies claim that their sapphire glass manufacturing process were damaged by unreliable power?

    27. Re:Go Nuclear by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      I have a very tasteless joke on my mind concerning the pyrolysis of people but I doubt that's what you mean...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    28. Re:Go Nuclear by Mr.+Competence · · Score: 1

      Posting to undo bad mod.

      --
      Those who open their minds too far often let their brains fall out.
    29. Re: Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just as the heat, some will pervicate on anything. Look at the sky now. Mark the position of the sun, come back in an hour, or 60 minutes. Oops, the sun moved? Or did the earth change it's position? No stationary place on earth receives the same amount of sunlight at the same intensity every day. Not only has there got to be sun, but storage, load and backup generation available. And what about this, the sun, isn't as bright every day, the wind is too fast, or too slow, gee, if that windmill could move to a new location, migratory animals, but we have to shut down our clean coal, and open unregulated coal in third world countries? Remember this same group is now trying to figure out how to repower Europe. Check the reports outside of the government in england, Scotland and Germany. People died, because of the now shifting of power to renewables. And no one is being prosecuted for that malfesence. Shame.
      They had record deaths because of the winter cold. Not a lack of snow, that has been getting earlier each year since the global warming scare started.

    30. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Didn't GT Advanced Technologies claim that their sapphire glass manufacturing process were damaged by unreliable power?

      Yes, but they also explained that it is SoP for having equipment on-site to mitigate that problem, and that Apple insisted that they not install it. So in fact, the grid is already not capable of delivering power reliably, and this is hardly a mark against renewables when it's already a mark against everything. The primary reason that we can't deliver power reliably is that we have a dumb grid. Only now is this changing; PG&E for example is literally in the midst of adding sensors to their long-haul lines because they actually cannot monitor their condition. When people hear "smart grid" they think of smart meters and commercial A/C that won't activate when you want it to, but the most important parts are actually nowhere near their houses. It's all about adding sensors and intelligence to back them up to the actual transmission equipment so that PG&E knows that a line is reaching its capacity before it happens, and not after an equipment failure which is the only way they've been able to do it so far. Presumably, the other utilities in the country are in the same shape, but I don't really know about them first-hand.

      Adding more nuclear production won't improve our ability to deliver reliable power, because of the inadequacy of the grid. The grid is often cited as a reason why renewables won't work, but it has to be upgraded anyway because it's not doing its job now. And it's not just monitoring; we have little unused long-haul capacity, and many towns and even cities are served by a single link. You can't call it a grid when it's star-wired.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    31. Re:Go Nuclear by itzly · · Score: 1

      Aluminium refining is a fairly brute force process. Just run a electrical current through some molten salts.

    32. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      6 to 12 months may be for high efficiency systems located in a desert, but its not that far off. For most installed systems it appears to be between 2 and 3 years including the frame. And these numbers are a pretty old (2004), I think many of the newer PV systems are quite a bit more efficient decreasing the payback time.

      http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

    33. Re: Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depending where and how its made. Made in free from regulation China? Or in regulatory heavy America? Probably the same cost in the end price.

    34. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That "300,000 year waste" is woefully unnecessary, a product of the anti-nuclear zealots red taping to death anything related to Nuclear Energy. A vast majority of that "waste" can be reprocessed back into usable fuel.

    35. Re:Go Nuclear by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It sounds like you don't have an example. Nuclear, Coal and Gas have been doing it for decades. Hydro has been doing it for longer.

      Rejecting nuclear for wind and solar means burning oil, gas and coal until wind and solar are able to handle baseloads. Nuclear plants are being replaced with coal, oil and gas plants as we speak.

      Note that "renewable" in this graph goes back to the 1950's and includes hydroelectric. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Electrical_Generation_1949-2011.png

      I don't see renewables replacing anything any time soon. Only nuclear can reduce the carbon emissions significantly.

    36. Re:Go Nuclear by Pope+Hagbard · · Score: 1

      Solar and wind are unsuited for base load because they're not constantly producing. The wind can and does die down, the sun goes down and there are cloudy days. You need something like nuclear to create reliable base load without using fossil fuels.

      That weakness of solar and wind can be mitigated with sufficiently advanced batteries (or some other efficient and capacious storage mechanism), but we're still waiting for that.

    37. Re:Go Nuclear by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2

      Aluminum already is smelted with hydro. Has been for years. The Nechako Reservoir in British Coilumbia was created to power aluminum smelting. The most recent massive aluminum smelting project may be Fjardaal in Iceland, powered by hydro which was created for the Al smelting.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    38. Re:Go Nuclear by amorsen · · Score: 1

      Base load is so low that it is completely uninteresting. The problem with nuclear is that it produces 100% of the time or it loses money. You can do load-following nuclear, but not in a market-based system -- the price goes negative most of the time, and ridiculously high at peak times.

      Nuclear is dependent on a command economy or on proper load-following fossil or hydro power.

      Notice how new nuclear in the UK is guaranteed 0.085 GBP per kWh, at 3 am on a summer night when prices are negative. For 35 years.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    39. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree that solar is not 100% of the solution (unless one heck of a storage system is invented) but I think you're overestimating the amount of solar panels that would be needed. I think I've heard estimates of something like a single county in Utah (~1,000 sq miles) is all that would be needed to handle the entire countries current electrical requirements. Throw in all energy use (Gasoline, propane, diesel, nuclear, etc) and you're talking maybe 2.5 counties, or about 3.5% of a single state, all to rid ourselves of the massive infrastructure, transportation, pollution & refinement apparatus currently required for fossil fuels. Again whole impractical given current technology and economics, but in theory it would be far better than the current system from an environmental standpoint.

    40. Re:Go Nuclear by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      You talked about energy, not about pollutants or environmental costs. The wholesale price is at least the cost of manufacture including the cost of the energy used to produce the panels. If I can buy a panel and get out of it energy worth more than I paid for the panel, then someone else must have been to make the panel for a lower monetary cost than the cost of the panel (or they wouldn't have sold it to me at that price) and, because energy is fungible, their energy cost must have been lower than the energy produced.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    41. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nowhere in that article did it say that "alternative" energy sources use more energy than they provide.

    42. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course they do. Where else would they expect you to use your crack pipe?

    43. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he was referring to Electrical power, which generally peaks during the middle of the day in the US especially in the summer (air conditioners). Maybe they use electric heating a lot in Finland but here in the US it is pretty rare to heat an entire house with it, a vast majority of residential/business heating is with fossil fuels (Propane, Natural Gas, Heating Oil, etc). The only places with places here in the US where there is any significant amount of electric heating are the southern parts of the country it is only intermittently needed during the cold months.

    44. Re:Go Nuclear by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      Also, you're exaggerating. It takes around three years for a thin-film (we did not talk about thin film, and I doubt the energy usage for creating them is much higher) panel to repay its energy investment. But I'm accounting for the entire system, installation, side preparation, et cetera. And then I'm anti-exaggerating, as mentioned previously. All that's important is to show how foolish the claims are.

      That is wrong! The entire system, including aluminium frames is less than 3 years. (And this is true since a few decades meanwhile), a standard installation is between half a year and

      That's nice. We don't have a nation-spanning grid.
      No idea in which nation you live, but very likely you have a nation spanning grid (nearly every nation has that, most grids are transnational anyway).

      We need more storage, or to dramatically improve the grid. It would be nice to do both. But storage pays revenues when the grid fails, which it can do even if you improve it. We clearly need more storage.

      Perhaps you should make up your mind how storage works and how high the amount of "surplus renewables" right now is you produce.
      You will realize quickly there is neither much to store, nor does the storage help much in case when you can store something.
      On grid level the laymen yell for storage is overrated. Storage makes sense for your home, for nothing else. (Except as mentioned in my previous post you are producing over 50% of your energy with renewables and actually only really if you are approaching 100%)

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    45. Re:Go Nuclear by Pope+Hagbard · · Score: 3, Informative

      Base load is so low that it is completely uninteresting.

      Spot the guy who doesn't know anything about power generation.

    46. Re:Go Nuclear by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Citations about what?

      Repay time of solar panels can easy be googled.

      A random link from it: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04o...

      Regarding storage: base load of a typical country is between 40% and 50% of peak load.

      You have like 5h every day where you only need base load, the rest is a curve with a plateau from roughly 11:00 to perhaps 19:00 with the "peak".

      If the percentage of renewables in your power production is low, the amount you produce at night, is not really worth it to be stored and used at day time.

      If you overproduce at daytime, storing it does not help much at night as the base load is so low.

      So storing makes only sense if you produce so much, and can store so much, that the overproduction TODAY at daytime can be stored and used TOMORROW at daytime.

      Storing starts making sense if you produce more than your night base load (which is, as I mentioned above, ~40% and depending on your country, more! Up to 60% in France e.g.) So e.g. if your base load is 40% but the average production of renewables is already over that, storing the excess makes sense. As you can now use it during daytime. If your production is below base load, what would you store? Only the "random" overproduction by wind.

      So bottom line, you need minimum base load% in wind production (which easy over produces) to have something to store at night. And for daytime it is similar but more complicated but in that case you likely want to shift summer solar over production to winter ... which is futile as you never can store so much power. And makes no sense as in winter you get more wind which by far compensates the lack of sun.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    47. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Adding more nuclear production won't improve our ability to deliver reliable power, because of the inadequacy of the grid.

      I'm sorry, but what are you comparing? Applies and coal? Or what?

      The grid is not 100% reliable! It's about 99.99+% reliable. Wind is not 100% reliable, it's about 40% reliable.. even distributed over large area (like 1000s of sq. km.), reliability of wind is orders of magnitude lower than the grid.

      So, WTF are you comparing? Are you saying that the 0.01% faults associated with grid distribution are somewhat comparable with inherently unreliable wind generators??

      That's just unfuckingbelievable. Your comparisons are not only not grounded, they are out of this world.

    48. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The entire system, including aluminium frames is less than 3 years.

      When we talk about "solar panels", we're typically talking about completed panels. Including their frames. HTH. Nobody wants to just buy wafers, or plastic sheet, and build their own complete panels.

      No idea in which nation you live, but very likely you have a nation spanning grid (nearly every nation has that, most grids are transnational anyway).

      If we increased production substantially on the west coast, we could not get it to the east coast. That's what makes it not a national grid. It's also very much not laid out like a grid.

      Perhaps you should make up your mind how storage works and how high the amount of "surplus renewables" right now is you produce

      People are always whining about how solar and wind don't necessarily produce power when you want it, so there's no point in building more. The answer to that whinge is that we should build more storage. It would reduce the use of facilities that we already use today, like peaker plants, and help ride out brief outages which already occur in spite of the half-assed "grid" that we have now, which for many locations is anything but. Now you don't want more storage built because there's not enough need for it? Make up your mind, already.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    49. Re:Go Nuclear by Major+Blud · · Score: 1

      "Because it isn't. It is shit. It always has dramatic environmental impact, which is precisely what we're arguing against with coal and oil."

      Not to mention the safety record. People love to rail against nuclear because of Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, but none of those hold a candle to the amount of damage caused by hydro electric failures:

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

      --
      If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
    50. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      So, WTF are you comparing? Are you saying that the 0.01% faults associated with grid distribution are somewhat comparable with inherently unreliable wind generators??

      It actually doesn't matter for this case: either way, some kind of backup is needed, because at least in the given example, neither current grid power nor wind power is capable of doing the stated job. If you added sufficient storage to solve the wind power problem (and you're being disingenuous, we're not talking about adding only wind power) you'd also be solving the problem of the grid's current reliability, and you would be able to rely on wind power for more of your generation needs. As well, if you improved the long-haul capacity of the power grid, you could ship power further — perhaps, for example, from where the wind is blowing; so if you're solving the problem of the existing grid unreliability through improvements which permit you to ship power from farther away, then you're also increasing the viability of wind and other renewables.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    51. Re:Go Nuclear by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      Why are you anti-nuclear?

      Clean, reliable, *STABLE* power.

      You say there is energy storage being built? Bullshit.
      Where is there directly connected to the grid storage with enough capacity to power a city for a day? For a badly overcast windless day.

    52. Re:Go Nuclear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is bull hit. Aluminum can be recycled, and I'm sure the people with solar panels today recycle their metal, so that makes it greener. The silicon is the same stuff used for computers and cell phones, and I don't see anyone saying that we should be worried about those generating more power than it took to make them.

      It is about 1 year for a solar panel to make the energy it took to make it. And a lot of times, the solar factories are powered by renewable energy as well.

      But, it is just some zombie lie that a right wing talk show made up, and now the smart people have to waste their time debunking it.

    53. Re:Go Nuclear by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

      "...at least in the given example, neither current grid power nor wind power is capable of doing the stated job..."

      Not sure where you live, the grid is very reliable where I am.

      Gas, coal and nuclear are today's technology for meeting demand.

      If you take out nuclear, you're not helping fossil fuel emissions.

    54. Re:Go Nuclear by dylan_- · · Score: 1

      There wasn't any damage caused by hydro electric failure. The damage was caused by a dam failure. A dam that was built for flood protection.

      It's a bad idea to link to articles you're too illiterate to understand.

      --
      Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
    55. Re:Go Nuclear by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Well, if your grid is in bad shape, so that you can not even transport energy from east to west or wise versa: how should storage help there?
      Where should the energy come from you want to store? Where do you want to store it?

      Your idea of storage only makes sense if you have an overproduction of wind or solar at a region that can not transport it away. AND that region has often so much demand that without high wind/solar production it lacks energy (which then only can be provided by conventionals). AND NOW you have the problem of being even able to place a storage there. Can you? Then it should be easy to calculate if that makes sense. Very likely it makes more sense to simply build more renewables and let the excess energy go to WASTE.

      Bottom line those arguments always come from people who never worked in the industry and have no idea how grids work.

      In your example I suggest that the grid gets fixed first. Then you pick better places for renewables. And you install up to 50% of peak demand as wind/solar. AND THEN you start thinking about storage ... IF you really still can not transport the energy to where it is needed.

      E.g. in Germany with its high wind production in the north: it makes absolutely no sense at all to build even a single storage facility in the north. The stored energy had the same problem as the wind: it needs to be transported south! And the region is so huge that it always produces enough wind ... so storing it for "later use localy" makes no sense either.
      And this is true for every grid of a certain size, lets say bigger than 100x100 km^2.

      My point is: calling for storage, especially new solutions, is a 'for laymen' anti renewable argument and the laymen hearing it fall for it as they never really think it through. There is no storage problem!

      That does not mean that Smart Grids and storage wont help. E.g. you can save a lot of balancing energy (fast reacting gas turbines and pumped storage and other hydro plants) if you simply can store "sudden" surplus and can recall it immediately either when the surplus drops or demand increases. However: that is a complete different issue than ordinary "storage" (hybrid and electric car batteries are on the mind for this)

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    56. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Well, if your grid is in bad shape, so that you can not even transport energy from east to west or wise versa: how should storage help there?

      Wait, just stop. This is so obvious it hurts. It's clear you're trying not to see my point of view. Reason this out before you continue.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    57. Re:Go Nuclear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Not sure where you live, the grid is very reliable where I am.

      I live within a bowshot of The Geysers, the USA's largest and most productive geothermal field and facility (which is perpetually over budget and under production.) Power goes out less on my street than on other streets in my county, but power is pretty much crap here. Because this is an agricultural area, and because farmers don't seem to want to bother to stage their pumps so they all go on at the same time, the quality of power is very low. It's enough to cause computers to behave in undefined ways if you don't have backup power, and when there are outages they tend to be fairly lengthy. In spite of being close enough to The Geysers to have been disturbed by the lights for the construction project when they were preparing to do some fracking here. It was of the same type (that is, in similar conditions) to the kind which was found to have caused a 'quake in France, so public opinion ran against it. We already have increased seismicity (for which Calpine is paying, due to lawsuit) which causes substantial property damage since they started pumping primary-treated sewage into the ground to keep the geyser going.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    58. Re:Go Nuclear by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      It's clear you're trying not to see my point of view.
      That is incorrect. I always try to see others point of view. However you fail to make your point of view clear. All arguments you brought so far are wrong.
      If I misunderstood one of your arguments, than clarify, but it seems you don't want to clarify.
      My point is pretty simple: you have not thought out what you want to do with storage and under which circumstances it might help.
      Germany produces meanwhile 28% - 29% of all its energy with renewables.
      The amount of extra storage we have build the last 20 years for that is: ZERO.
      We will build up storage but that is not even on the horizon yet, not even in a pre planning phase.

      So no: I guess no one who is into that matter understands your point of view. But please clarify AND try to understand 'my standpoint/point of view' as well, as you seem to neglect my logic (and I believe in the previous two posts I explained clearly why storage makes no sense at all and is a "buzzword" thrown in by enemies of renewables)

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    59. Re:Go Nuclear by dywolf · · Score: 1

      A "smart gird" (or really just a coherent modern infrastructure) would be beneficial whether it was done in anticipation of renewable energy methods, or not.

      To question it is like saying the GW joke "what if we end pollution and make the world a better place, all for nothing?"

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    60. Re:Go Nuclear by Major+Blud · · Score: 1

      "Construction of the Banqiao dam began in April 1951 on the Ru River with the help of Soviet consultants as part of a project to control flooding and electrical power generation"

      It's a bad idea to mock the source when you haven't read it.

      --
      If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
  6. so what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd like it warmer. I don't give a shit about coastal flooding or droughts or any of that other shit - not my problem.

    1. Re:so what by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Warmer? Are you crazy?

      It's so hot I can't sleep - 12:38am right now and the temperature is 30.7C, with an expected high tomorrow of 41 (105.8F)

    2. Re:so what by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Then move to the Sahara and stfu. Why should everyone suffer for you not wanting to move to a place that is more suitable to your needs?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:so what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because moving to other country is not an option for everyone.

    4. Re:so what by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      But fucking the world up for everyone to keep yourself from having to lift your ass is?

      I start to get into the mindset of the warming deniers.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re: so what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can move as well.

    6. Re:so what by nicoleb_x · · Score: 1

      Everyone? Really? It's climate change not climate fucking. It might actually be better not worse, at least in the long run. When Canada, Russia and Alaska are the premier places to live how can you complain? I say getting humans more comfortable with migration (again) is a good thing. It will spur technology/development and investment and give us a chance to finally let loose of some of those nationalistic bindings. The entire wold population could easily live in a warmer Alaska-Canada or Russia.

    7. Re:so what by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and it wouldn't be so packed like in India (which will probably be uninhabitable by then, but hey, we could resettle them all a few miles further north where it would be a-ok ... well, aside of still not getting any rainfall).

      Turning Sibiria from a cold arid place to a hot arid place isn't going to solve a lot.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    8. Re: so what by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Hey, I won't have a problem. I'm sitting up here a few 100 meters above sea level, that should keep my feet dry another year or two.

      Sorry if I tend to think beyond my own nose tip and care about people other than me...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. So.. is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2014: Hottest Year On Record

    If December's figures are at least 0.76 degrees Fahrenheit (0.42 degrees Celsius) higher than the 20th century average, 2014 will beat the warmest years on record, NOAA said this month.

    So.. is it?

    1. Re:So.. is it? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      It will take a couple of weeks to do the quality control on December's numbers so the official notifications should come out toward the end of January.

  8. Sometimes the handwriting's on the wall... by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    Could it be the literacy rate?

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Sometimes the handwriting's on the wall... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Gee, thanks. When the handwriting is on the wall, my block watch committee is in charge of cleaning it off.

  9. Math Lesson For the Kids. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Siberia: Central Siberia defrosted in spring and early summer under temperatures more than 9 F (5 C) above its 1981 to 2010 average. Ice on the Ob River began to break up two weeks earlier than normal. The heat may have unleashed methane gas trapped in previously frozen permafrost, triggering underground explosions that formed spectacularly deep holes.

    Take a completely average year with completely "normal" temperatures. Let's say that the average summer high worksout to be 80 degrees F. There are still numerous and NORMAL days in the mid to high 90 degree F range, temperatures 10 to 18 degrees F avove it's average.

    I'm not making any statement on the validity of warming. I'm pointing out how even "Scientific" reports and journals like Scientific American paint a falacious picture with word manipulation. A single temperature 9 degrees higher that 19 average is NOT a meaningful statistic. It is ENTIRELY normal!

    1. Re:Math Lesson For the Kids. by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      but i thought 1 day/ month / summer cant be used to claim global warm, i mean climate change.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    2. Re:Math Lesson For the Kids. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but i thought 1 day/ month / summer cant be used to claim global warm, i mean climate change.

      That's what they told me. But, apparently it's allowed after all. At least when it results in a favorably sensational "statistic".

    3. Re:Math Lesson For the Kids. by meustrus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not making any statement on the validity of warming. I'm pointing out how even "Scientific" reports and journals like Scientific American paint a falacious picture with word manipulation. A single temperature 9 degrees higher that 19 average is NOT a meaningful statistic. It is ENTIRELY normal!

      What we are reading is written for the eyes of a mass audience. The only people that know enough to understand the actual basis of their conclusions are other climate scientists. Climate variations are very hard to measure and describe for an average person to understand in the time it takes to read an article. We are past the tipping point of climate change and the environmentalists are getting more desperate every year to convince the average person to take action. It also just so happens that global warming is melting glaciers and permafrost all over the world. Things that have been frozen for longer than anyone can remember, even in the summer. Glaciers from which climate scientists have taken core samples precisely because they have existed for so many thousands of years that they still contained frozen evidence of what the atmosphere was like every single year when a new layer of snow was compacted into them. The melting is the #1 simplest evidence for an average reader to understand, and you want to criticize the wording for not being statistically meaningful? If you want the statistically meaningful results, study climate science and read what the scientists read.

      --
      I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
  10. Re:Before or after? by itzly · · Score: 5, Informative
    The data is corrected and adjusted, not fudged. The methods have been disclosed.

    This is a legitimate question

    Since the answer is a trivial google search away, I doubt that. I found this in 5 seconds: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist...

  11. Re:Before or after? by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Was that before or after the historical data was fudged in ways the 'climate science" community won't disclose?

    (And no, moderators, I'm not trolling. This is a legitimate question.)

    Have you finally stopped beating your wife?

    --

    Stephan

  12. Re:Before or after? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 0

    The historical data was not 'fudged' by climate scientists, but 'deniers' ... so: 'No, that is not a legitimate question' but a very stupid or misinformed one.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  13. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You pose a question but don't give enough information to answer it or even check for validity in the implied claim you're making. Try again.

  14. But its cold where I live today by RichMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The inability of the human species to extract itself from personal state to think globally is going to be our demise. If we can't recognize that we are responsible for maintaining our environment in a livable state we are in big trouble.

    And it really is not "globally" any more. The entire planet is our personal space.

    1. Re:But its cold where I live today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, don't panic. You'll be dead for a thousand years or more before this is even remotely close to being our demise.

      Your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren will be dead of old age, before this is close to being "our" demise.

    2. Re:But its cold where I live today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry I recycle.

    3. Re:But its cold where I live today by wbr1 · · Score: 1
      Not only that, if you believe in mythical sky beings (I do not), then God gave HUMANS the power and responsibility to make of this world what we will.
      To say whatever happens is God's will and we have to accept, not change is either willful ignorance, abject laziness, or masking some ulterior motive (IE greed and power).

      And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28 KJV

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    4. Re:But its cold where I live today by meustrus · · Score: 1

      What about the small shallow islands and coastal nations (like Bangladesh) already being consumed by rising sea levels and erosion? What about the farmlands across the world that will certainly have to be farmed differently (typically at greater expense) with even the slightest change in their local climate? What about ocean acidification, which threatens to destroy fisheries around the world within the next 100 years, decimating marine economies everywhere?

      --
      I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
  15. Before or after? by something_wicked_thi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course it's a legitimate question. It's not that you're asking loaded questions in bad faith and have no intention of believing anyone who gives you an honest answer. And people who are asking legitimate questions always put climate science in scare quotes. And they would never ask a leading question that they could easily learn more about with some google searches. Nor is it trolling to make unfounded, baseless, and unsourced accusations about climate science being shadowy manipulators of data that refuse to provide any details about how they derive their work.

    You're not a troll at all. Just a reasonable person interested in honest discourse. Exactly the kind of person I frequently see here on Slashdot.

    (For those who are truly interested in learning more on the topic of how they correct biases in sea level temperature, unlike the guy "just asking questions" above, perhaps you might find this NASA paper informative and interesting)

  16. Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    More Global Warming propaganda.

    There is no doubt it's getting warmer, it's the claims that man is the cause that I have problem with. No doubt man contributes to it, but Solar activity and earth history going back millions of years indicates this is a normal pattern shift.

    Globalist are just looking for yet another way to steal money from all of us with their "carbon tax" nonsense.

    I remind everybody that under the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, in the U.S. they can only tax forms of INCOME, and anything else is invalid.

    1. Re:Propaganda by Layzej · · Score: 4, Informative

      No doubt man contributes to it, but Solar activity and earth history going back millions of years indicates this is a normal pattern shift.

      The temperature seems to be defying its historical link to solar activity. Based on solar activity we should have been seen fairly severe cooling over the last few decades: http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...

    2. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While they can cite all record highs from the last year, there were more record lows during the same year, and record amounts of precipitation.

      You can view it all on the same page (for the US), as it happens:
      http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records

    3. Re:Propaganda by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 1

      No doubt man contributes to it, but Solar activity and earth history going back millions of years indicates this is a normal pattern shift.

      The temperature seems to be defying its historical link to solar activity. Based on solar activity we should have been seen fairly severe cooling over the last few decades: http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...

      This. We just had a Solar Maximum where you could (and I did) go out and look at the sun (with sun shades!) and see exactly no sun spot. At the maximum. The sun has been very cool lately. If it was at normal levels, global warming would be (very slightly) worse. Of course, the sun's variance is much smaller than the effect CO2 is having anyway.

    4. Re:Propaganda by mc6809e · · Score: 1

      I think it's a little too early to completely rule out a connection.

      The greatest variation in solar output over the course of a cycle is in the blue to ultraviolet part of the spectrum and that happens to correspond to frequencies of light that are the most penetrating to sea water.

      It's possible then that the extra energy during previous vigorous sunspot cycles accumulates in the ocean over the course of many cycles and is slowly released later.

      A weak cycle now might at the moment be partially masked by the release of decades of accumulated energy.

    5. Re:Propaganda by Layzej · · Score: 1

      Good point - except that the oceans are currently accumulating energy. If your theory were true then the oceans would currently be releasing their energy to the atmosphere. In fact the oceans have never (in the record) been hotter: http://www.skepticalscience.co...

    6. Re:Propaganda by Layzej · · Score: 1

      Here is a more up to date graph of ocean heat content. The recent data shows increased warming: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3...

    7. Re:Propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Solar activity may have no bearing on climate, but something is wrong about that statement. Solar activity varies on an approximately 11 year cycle, as the sun moves between solar maximum and solar minimum years with the shift of magnetic fields; it's not a steady up or down over a period of decades.

  17. Re:Before or after? by blind+biker · · Score: 1

    Throwing around nebulous, 100% unsubstantiated accusations to start a flamewar, just to see what sticks? Yes, you are trolling.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  18. Re:Before or after? by blind+biker · · Score: 1

    You pose a question but don't give enough information to answer it or even check for validity in the implied claim you're making. Try again.

    Indeed - textbook example of a troll post.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  19. Cool by Grand+Facade · · Score: 1

    Lets see what happens if we cut down the rest of the trees.....

    --
    Rick B.
  20. As Mark Twain said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's lies, there's damn lies then there are statistics.

  21. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So you missed the story from Australia? Several climate scientists were thrown in jail for getting caught changing historical data to fit their goals...

  22. Re:Before or after? by itzly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, "fudging" means to adjust the data with intent to mislead. In this case, the data is adjusted to correct for errors. If you want to accuse the scientists with intent to mislead you need to substantiate your accusations with some proof.

  23. Citation by Nit+Picker · · Score: 1
    1. Re:Citation by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      FTFC[itation]:

      Our studyâ(TM)s best-case scenario modeled our most optimistic assumptions about cost reductions in solar power, wind power, energy storage, and electric vehicles.

      These assumptions included what would happen due to legislation, entrenched interests, et cetera, not what could happen. It's not about what we're capable of, but about what we're likely to accomplish.

      Here's a bogus assumption from your link, it was set out inbold:

      Whatâ(TM)s needed are zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic rationale for switching over within the next 40 years

      What's needed is to provide that economic rationale somehow. It doesn't matter if new sources are discovered that make it more economically feasible, there are other ways to do that.

      There's also the option of nationalizing the utilities. They've been acting in bad faith for a long time, now. Why they should be permitted to continue to misuse our natural resources for their benefit is a bit unclear to me. They've violated the trust we placed in them, and we're well within both our rights and reason to act accordingly and remove them from their positions of responsibility.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  24. Re: Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The entire world missed that story because it's a load of BS.

  25. Denial as a form of negotiation by kenj123 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is a problem with public policy. even though the overall group could be better off because of government intervention, there still could be sub groups of winners and losers. I think that a lot of the deniers will only admit there is a problem when they are sure the solution does not make them a loser. So it could be beneficial to start implementing solutions and see which one get shot down because these 'denegotiators' think the cost is to high to their group.

  26. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vote much for Jesus Party candidates?

  27. Biggest lie EVER! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Move to Colorado! #globalwarming is #disinformation!

  28. Re:Before or after? by Opportunist · · Score: 0

    Yeah, I missed it, mind providing us with a link?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  29. Yeah, hottest year on record by russotto · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Just like 1991 and 2012. At least until it's quietly corrected and 1934 regains its title.

    1. Re:Yeah, hottest year on record by HBI · · Score: 1

      The bleeding of credibility from each [exaggeration, lie, bald untruth (pick one)] is the ultimate cause of the "denier" victory over the "warmist".

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    2. Re:Yeah, hottest year on record by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1934 wasn't a particularly hot year across the globe. It was a very hot year in the United States, but that's not what we're talking about, is it? Science-deniers love 1934, because they love to cherry-pick data.

    3. Re:Yeah, hottest year on record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you were a student of scientific truth, you would not be using such a term as 'science-denier'. There is a significant amount of valid scientific work on both sides and it is necessary.

      Unfortunately, you are a dogmatic asshole who attempts to slander and silence others at the expense of the very science you pretend to uphold.

      So your choosing to ignore the scientific work that disagrees with your position and deny its existence makes you what?

    4. Re:Yeah, hottest year on record by Layzej · · Score: 2
      Own goal? 1934 was (at one time) hottest in the continental USA. Disinformer above is trying to conflate that with the global temperature record and hopes no one will notice.

      The bleeding of credibility from each [exaggeration, lie, bald untruth (pick one)]...

      Yes? go on...

    5. Re:Yeah, hottest year on record by HBI · · Score: 1

      Listen, the warmists started with the notion that they had to stretch the truth to get their point across. The collections of quotes are legion from the 70s and 80s, even 90s, from disparate voices held in esteem in environmental circles. The fact that that policy is biting you in the ass now is pretty predictable. It was one of those strategic errors you can never fix. Like your virginity, you only get to lose your credibility once.

      Anyway, deflecting at this point is pointless. The damage is done.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    6. Re:Yeah, hottest year on record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um... Yes, when something is the "most ever", the latest one is the one that is "most". So by your measurements in 2011, 1991 was still the "hottest ever" (although I believe nearly every year in the 2000s was the "hottest ever" until the following year came along.) Then by 2013, 2012 had become the "hottest ever". Throughout 2013 and 2014, it was still so. Now, we have the evidence that 2014 was the "hottest ever."

      Sort of like how Maurice Green was the "fastest human on record" upon setting the 100m record in 1999.
      Then Asafa Powell was the "fastest human on record" when he set the new record in 2005 (and continued to be with further records.)
      Now, Usain Bolt is the "fastest human on record" - upon his record setting run in 2008 (and again, has continued set further records.)

      Does that mean that we're contradicting? How can Usain Bolt be the fastest human on record if Powell is?! Easy, he went faster.

      Likewise, 2014 is the "hottest year on record" because it's hotter than the previous hottest year on record. Strange how that works.

    7. Re:Yeah, hottest year on record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They also tend to neglect the small matter of the regional climate change caused by farming (the Dust Bowl) which contributed to warm weather in the US. Of course, that wasn't manmade either...just a big ol' coincidence.

  30. Dear deniers, a proposition: by Opportunist · · Score: 0

    Frankly, I don't want to fight that fight anymore. And to be blunt, hey, I'd love to side with you. It's far more convenient to just sit here, turn the heating up to the 120s (or the AC down to "freeze your toes of" when it's 120 outside), drive around in whatever 10mpg car I can get my hands on because it's just so fuckin' cool to cruise about alone in a 2 ton rhino of a vehicle with 300hp under my ass. Why the fuck don't I do it? Well, I still gave a shit about you.

    Not anymore. So here's the deal. You get to drive around in aforementioned cars, heat and cool your flat, preferably at the same time, 'til the power line glows and generally don't give a shit about anything but your comfort.

    And I get to shoot you when you try to climb onto my mountain to escape the rising flood levels.

    Deal?

    It's just so win-win. If you're right, you get cheap seaside apartments. If I'm right, I get to have some fun.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Dear deniers, a proposition: by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      And I get to shoot you when you try to climb onto my mountain to escape the rising flood levels.

      This is my plan, too, and I already have the means. Is it difficult to sneak into your country? Is there room on your mountain? I will bring tools, and equipment for food production :p

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Dear deniers, a proposition: by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Just immigrate. Judging from how easily people get into the EU, all it takes is a sinking vessel.

      Alternatively, if you speak a language that people can understand (English should do in 90% of Europe, except France) and have some kind of skill that can be deemed useful, just come in and look for a job.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  31. There are more than U-235 nuke tech, y'know ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While U-235 might be the current de-facto fuel for nuclear power station it's not the only fuel source, you know?

    China, for instant, has been very busy in developing nuclear power generators using alternative materials. None of that are generating power right now, but in a decade or two China gonna see at least 30% of its juice being supplied by thorium reactors

  32. Re:Coldest since 1996 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure, the local temperatures in a single area are the the best measure of the amount of heat and energy in the entire global atmosphere....

  33. Re:Coldest since 1996 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because Minnesota averages == global averages... Brilliant deduction. You are a special snowflake, aren't you?

  34. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you want to accuse the scientists with intent to mislead you need to substantiate your accusations with some proof.

    Do you honestly think the scientists are going to give you a signed confession reading "Yes, we mislead you!" or something?

    1) Scientist builds a model that conforms to existing data
    2) Future data doesn't conform to that model
    3) Rather than admit his model may be wrong, scientist cherry-picks new data and continues to advocate same model
    4) GOTO 2

  35. I want it warmer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think the world is too cold. I want it warmer and I want the sea levels to rise. I think there are quite a few people like me out there. Why don't I have a right to a warmer earth? We're supposed to control the earth's climate for the rest of time just to keep the roads in Miami Beach clear of water at high tide? Well there is plenty of space in Alaska and Canada for all those Floridians and New Yorkers that get displaced by rising seas.

  36. I call it bull by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't believe those alaramis. Just crank up the air conditioner* at home and in the truck you use for driving around town, and you'll see there's no warming whatsoever.

    * this coming summer.

  37. Re:Before or after? by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 1

    No. I am an atheist.

    --
    Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
  38. Re:Before or after? by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 0

    No, I'm not posting just to start a flamewar. As for substantiation, the data have been untrustworthy ever since Climategate.

    --
    Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
  39. Re:Before or after? by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 4, Informative
    For those too lazy to click, here it is straight from NASA's FAQ

    Q. Why can't we use just raw data?
    A. Just averaging the raw data would give results that are highly dependent on the particular locations (latitude and elevation) and reporting periods of the actual weather stations; such results would mostly reflect those accidental circumstances rather than yield meaningful information about our climate.

    Q. Can you illustrate the above with a simple example?
    A. Assume, e.g., that a station at the bottom of a mountain sent in reports continuously starting in 1880 and assume that a station was built near the top of that mountain and started reporting in 1900. Since those new temperatures are much lower than the temperatures from the station in the valley, averaging the two temperature series would create a substantial temperature drop starting in 1900.

    Q. How can we combine the data of the two stations above in a meaningful way?
    A. What may be done before combining those data is to increase the new data or lower the old ones until the two series seem consistent. How much we have to adjust these data may be estimated by comparing the time period with reports from both stations: After the offset, the averages over the common period should be equal. (This is the basis for the GISS method). As new data become available, the offset determined using that method may change. This explains why additional recent data can impact also much earlier data in any regional or global time series.

    Another approach is to replace both series by their anomalies with respect to a fixed base period. This is the method used by the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK. The disadvantage is that stations that did not report during that whole base period cannot be used.

    More mathematically complex methods are used by NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NOAA/NCDC) and the Berkeley Earth Project, but the resulting differences are small.

  40. Re:Before or after? by itzly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do you honestly think the scientists are going to give you a signed confession reading "Yes, we mislead you!" or something?

    No, I expect you to come up with some proof. That means you do your own research, and when you get different results, then you publish them. That's how science is done.

  41. No need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its all propaganda. Its a very big if that temperatures will be almost a while half degree celsius warmer than average. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with global warming even if December does come in significantly warmer on average. This is excessive propaganda.if... Average temp is a whole half degree warmer on average EVERY day of December. Absolute crap. Just more propaganda so environmental lobbyists can push more taxes on industry and human endeavour.

    1. Re:No need by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Information you don't like = Propaganda. Information you like = Truth. I get it.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    2. Re:No need by qwak23 · · Score: 1

      Take your silly propaganda elsewhere.

  42. We care about survival? by Layzej · · Score: 1

    We care about survival

    Do you really think that climate change poses an existential threat? Even if so, why should we not care about maximizing profits and minimizing costs rather than simply survival?

    1. Re:We care about survival? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      No. I don't think that climate change poses an existential threat. I think dumping toxic brews is far more harmful than a historically marginal rise in CO2 levels and a changing shoreline.

      Re maximizing profits - what does sarcasm have to do with the conversation? Oh - you mean that Al Gore and other snake charmer's might lose some money if people don't buy their shit. Ok. Maybe you have a point.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  43. Re:Before or after? by itzly · · Score: 2

    Nothing in the entire 'climategate' set of e-mail points to fudging the temperature records. Which is quite telling, actually. You'd expect that scientists that were really fudging the data would talk to each other about it.

  44. Denier? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From Google: Denier is "a unit of weight by which the fineness of silk, rayon, or nylon yarn is measured, equal to the weight in grams of 9,000 meters of the yarn and often used to describe the thickness of hosiery." I guess this relates to warming, since we'll need less clothing.

    1. Re:Denier? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, you'll need more.

  45. What happened to the US? by unimacs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm old enough to remember the first moon shot. There used to be a time when the US was willing to invest billions to achieve goals and conquer technical challenges. Funny, the economy didn't collapse. It wasn't considered socialist or un-American. In fact, it was a point of pride and helped established us as world leaders. Now "American Ingenuity" is becoming a thing of the past.

    While we sit around arguing whether global warming is a real issue or not, the rest of the world is moving forward with solutions. We're getting left in the dust.

    I'm not sure how so many modern conservatives still manage to think of themselves as patriots while sticking their heads in the sand. It's pathetic.

    1. Re:What happened to the US? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Well, then you're old enough to remember when America had money, backed by gold, and before congress raided social security because there was more money in it than could be spent. NONE of this is true anymore.
      The rest of the world (China) is moving forward with solutions.??? I suggest you visit Bejing, if you can find the airport through the smog.
      3. It's all a modern conservative can do anymore to just keep ahead of the waves of socialism and fascism that we brought back with us from WWII. Regardless of what political label you paste on your lapel, the Al Gore carbon credit money grab will continue. Soon the pope will be pushing his encyclical so we all can go back to praying that volcanos stop putting more CO2 into the air than we ever will. The truth is the global warming crowd finally understands ice ages and changed its name to climate change. What they really want is a giant earth thermostat , preferably in California where people are used to getting bent over for things like power and water.

    2. Re:What happened to the US? by unimacs · · Score: 2

      Yep. Tax rates were much higher then too, - especially for the very wealthy. Ratio of CEO pay to average worker income was 38:1 in 1975. Today it's 475:1. Funny coincidences.

      Yet somehow today we're teetering on the edge of socialism.

    3. Re:What happened to the US? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What happened is that everything got privatized and deregulated. Thank Lord Reagan. Most of us are still waiting for anything positive to trickle down.

    4. Re:What happened to the US? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad to see you got a shot at conservatives in there. Meanwhile liberals burn just as much carbon, mind you.

      That being said, characterize / frame the problem as the US versus "Some Bad People" and you'll have all the money you want to spend on this problem. Also, include the military somehow.

    5. Re:What happened to the US? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're obviously old enough to have voted for Jimmy Carter.
      Maybe KoolAid isn't the panacea you were brought up to believe in?

  46. This is getting silly by Layzej · · Score: 1

    My company has stock price records back 1 year when it first went public. To determine the impact last week's announcement I'm looking at the entire record. Would it really benefit me to try to infer the stock price from back 10 years ago when the product was still under development? Should I be happy that the stock price now is still higher than what I infer the company would have traded for 10 years ago? Would my company last long if I only considered action after stock prices had dropped below what I infer the company would have been worth the day we first discussed the idea for the product?

    1. Re:This is getting silly by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

      No. There is a period of time that makes sense to review. I happen to think that 135 years is ridiculous when we're talking about geological time frames. *I* happen to think that when looking at temperature and C02 levels looking back at the past 80-135 million years makes sense and Including pre-cambrian levels does not. You may have a different time frame. Fine.

      But if you look back only 135 years ago you're then taking those temperature and C02 levels to be the established norms and I think that is a grave mistake.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    2. Re:This is getting silly by Layzej · · Score: 1

      I happen to think that 135 years is ridiculous

      Needless to say, scientists disagree. Largely because they have looked at the paleoclimate data and understand the recent trends in that context.

    3. Re:This is getting silly by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      That is the point we disagree on. What makes the point when we starting monitoring changes to be significant? It isn't. And, the time frame is not appropriate. IMHO.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    4. Re:This is getting silly by Layzej · · Score: 1

      Paleoclimate data shows that the climate is much more sensitive to relatively small forcings than we expect it to be to CO2 forcing today. Largely because the ice albedo feedback is much stronger between glacial/interglacial periods. If you favour the paleoclimate data then you should be quite concerned. Luckily the scientists do not disregard the current trend in favour of paleoclimate data as you suggest they should.

    5. Re:This is getting silly by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Now that is the type of argument I like.Yes. Things may get very bumpy for a whole slew of reason (over-population); war based on greed or climate change; destruction of habitats, disease, etc...

      We have built huge cities in flood plains (New Orleans) and entire nations (Bangladesh). There will be huge problems as see levels rise. Some places will endure problems (Florida) and some island nations will cease to be. Wars and other problems may arrive from this.

      I am not saying to be an ostrich and bury ones head in the sand or to go around and *just be happy* (or if you like a more literary reference - that we should all take a Panglossian perspective on what-will-be).

      But being a chicken-little (I'm not referring to you) saying that the sky is falling; and that rising C02 levels are an existential threat to life on earth - now that just rubs me the wrong way. It's like hearing a snake-oil salesman or phoney-assed preacher scaring the rubes.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    6. Re:This is getting silly by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      I happen to think that 135 years is ridiculous when we're talking about geological time frames.

      the only one talking about geological time frames is you. the rest of us understand that 135 years is more than enough to determine a trend in a climate signal.

      55 million years ago the earth was a different place, with a different continental layout (hence no glaciation of the antarctic and greenland). the natural cycle worked completely differently. it's meaningless to bring that up to try to compare to the current epoch.

      likewise, it's meaningless as to determining the cause of current warming. the greenhouse effect is basic science. we can measure the stuff we're dumping into the atmosphere. we can determine how much of it is us. we can calculate the effect.

      we can use the PETM as a proxy as to how the earth and the biosphere will react to sharply rising CO2 levels but it doesn't inform us much at all about what is causing current warming unless you happen to find similar phenomena to back then. which we haven't found and you cannot present.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
  47. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    After climate gate (Hide the decline !) the climate industry has lost credibility.
    They are caught adjusting past temperatures down to make a bigger trend, and adjusting current temps up.

    The adjustments are public, and in some cases controversial (like the urban heat island adjustment opposite from what you think).

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/28/nasa-giss-adjustments-galore-rewriting-climate-history/
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/infilling-is-massively-corrupting-the-us-temperature-record/ -compares raw to adjusted data and data that has been manufactured by interpolating between stations.

    This one shows the adjustments vs time
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/18/hansens-nasa-giss-cooling-the-past-warming-the-present/

    Now why does a good scientist go back to 1911 and assume you know what temp measurements are needing adjustment down?

    And other temp series getting adjustments
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/15/ghcns-dodgy-adjustments-in-iceland/

    BUT in contrast the satellite measurements show no increase for 18 years from NASA and U of Alabama, and the best temperature measurement record in the USA, the USCRN (properly sited across the USA in rural settings with triple redundant SPRT sensors. So NO adjustments are made !)
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/noaa-shows-the-pause-in-the-u-s-surface-temperature-record-over-nearly-a-decade/

  48. If it ain't gonna end our species then who cares? by Layzej · · Score: 1

    Curious that you start with the seeming non sequitur: "what does sarcasm have to do with the conversation?" and then follow immediately with sarcasm. This is about the level of debate that I have come to expect from the contrarians.

  49. lol @ science deniers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bet you believe everything the IPCC says too lololol

    lol "science"

  50. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

    Well. Sarcasm breeds sarcasm. Doesn't it?

    I would like to avoid it.

    I think we, as a species, are doing horrible things to our planet. I just think that mildly rising CO2 levels is trivial in comparison to the dumping toxic brews.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  51. The epitome of alarmism by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A quote from Judith Curry's blog sums it up well;

    "last week, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a supposedly scientific body, issued a press release stating that this is likely to be the warmest year in a century or more, based on surface temperatures. Yet this predicted record would be only one hundredth of a degree above 2010 and two hundredths of a degree above 2005 — with an error range of one tenth of a degree. True scientists would have said: this year is unlikely to be significantly warmer than 2010 or 2005 and left it at that."

    http://judithcurry.com/2014/12...

    1. Re:The epitome of alarmism by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Where's the alarmism in calmly stating a true fact? I think many people who react this way add a silent "...and we're all gonna die!" that is neither stated nor implied. I suppose you see what you're looking for everywhere, if you're looking hard enough.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    2. Re:The epitome of alarmism by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 2

      Omitting the ‘doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts’ is not a morally neutral act; it is a subtle deception that calls scientific practice into disrepute.

      http://judithcurry.com/2014/12...

    3. Re:The epitome of alarmism by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Why do you think something was omitted? Oh, you imagined it because you're looking so hard for it.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    4. Re:The epitome of alarmism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Judith Curry, head of the geophysical department at GA Tech: http://www.desmogblog.com/judi...

      -Funded by oil companies.
      -Denies the scientific consensus.
      -Says the IPCC actually proves that cliamte change isnt happening.
      -Says "climates changes all the time anyway".
      -Is not a climate scientist, but writes about it often anyway.

  52. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by Layzej · · Score: 1

    I was not being sarcastic in the least. We should be focusing on giving to our children the least debt and the most wealth - not merely survival.

  53. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

    Re: " We should be focusing on giving to our children the least debt and the most wealth - not merely survival." I could not agree more. And I may have misinterpreted the meaning and intent of your statement.

    My point about survival is that many global warming people say that rising C02 levels are an existential threat - hence my use of the term survival. Sea levels change all the time, with or without industrial activity. Island chains appear and disappear; coastlines expand and contract. If C02 levels go up will life continue? Is it truly an existential threat?

    Well there was an incredible variety of life 55 million years ago with C02 levels far above the worst-case scenario put forth by alarmist. THEREFORE it is NOT an existential threat.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  54. Interesting by meustrus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's very interesting that 2014 was so hot for most of the world, because 2014 was also the coldest year in Iowa for a long while. Which really is not good for food production; Iowa is some of the most fertile and most valuable cropland in the United States. It just goes to show why we say "climate change" instead of "global warming": sure, global average temperatures are rising, but in anybody's local area what we're actually experiencing is instability. They'd have known that in the 70s if the climate wasn't so hard to accurately model. It sure would be great though if we could know what the climate will be like in any local area after a global rise of 4 C.

    --
    I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Central North America and Central Siberia are going to be hit by colder than normal polar outbursts for a long time under global warming. Warm air rises as the air is heated over the land, cold air falls as the air cools in the upper atmosphere. Cold air descends the poles due to two phenomena related to air heating
      1. at the poles the angle of sunlight is lowest reducing ground heating of air
      2. the poles are usually covered in snow/ice reducing ground heating of air
      So we have hot air rising at not-the-poles and cold air falling at the poles. The air has to circulate, so at ground level cold air will come down from the poles over temperate regions. Oceans are good thermal barriers, they take longer to heat and cool as you have to move the heat into the depths.
      What this all means is that what cold air there is in the system will be bursting out in the center of north-america and center of asia. These cold air bursts will continue and even get more intense as global warming continues. 1. More air circulating due to increased heating. 2. More focused overland outbursts due to increased ocean temperatures.
      These are, on the global scale, locallized phenomena.

      No matter how much it increases global warming is never going to change the fact that the space end of the atmosphere is -273C, we are always going to have cold air dropping at the poles.

    2. Re:Interesting by meustrus · · Score: 1

      What this all means is that what cold air there is in the system will be bursting out in the center of north-america and center of asia.

      So how long will we in America have to endure year after year of "this summer sucks; I hate global warming" followed by "this winter sucks; global warming is a lie" before we reach some kind of new normal?

      --
      I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
  55. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or the emails, from Michael Mann et all, that was leaked...

    Those ass hats only car about there grants/jobs so they fake "hockey stick" graphs an whatnot...

    http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com/

    http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/evelyn-taft-on-year-ends-record-low.html

    http://mitigation2014.org/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgWeYL_fynQ

    http://shruggingout.blogspot.com/2014/02/episode-139-global-warming-is-excuse.html

    John Coleman quot:
              “Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming are a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.”

    later napervillian aka kcim

  56. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by Layzej · · Score: 1

    Even contrarian economists such as Richard Tol agree that we should be implementing a revenue neutral carbon tax to mitigate the worst effects of rising carbon. Since this action is the least common denominator between the "sky is falling" and the "nothing to see here" crowd I suggest we all get behind it. A modest revenue neutral carbon tax would have minimal impact on the economy, would drive investments towards low carbon solutions, would do so in a market driven rather than government mandated way, and would decrease taxes on activities that we should be encouraging such as income and spending. It's kind of a no brainer.

  57. Riiiiight by Anonanonaon · · Score: 1

    In this sucking mud swamp of a debate, it is entirely possible to get completely opposite claims with lots of supporting data depending on which Google search terms you use to fortify your position.

    Quote:

    Numbers released today by NOAAâ(TM)s National Climatic Data Center show that not only has July been abnormally cool in the USA, but so has 2014 in general. For the last 30 days, there have been 574 record highest temperatures in the USA, and 1,726 record lowest. A ratio of 3 to 1, indicating that July was very cool. But, the year so far has also been cool.

    So far for the USA year to date, the numbers of record lows outpace the highs two to one.

    This year, here have been been 12,644 daily record lowest temperatures versus 6,615 record highest temperatures in the USA, a ratio of 1.91 to 1.0.
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

    Remember the "Polar Vortex"? It was a cold damned Spring and Summer through 2014...

    From Wikipedia:

    The 2013-14 North American cold wave was an extreme weather event extending from December 2013 to April 2014, and was also part of an unusually cold winter affecting parts of Canada and the Eastern United States.[6] The event consisted of 2 episodes, the first one in December 2013 and the second in early 2014, both caused by southward shifts of the North Polar Vortex. Record cold temperatures also extended well into March.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...â"14_North_American_cold_wave

    Though, of course, this is blamed on AGW once again. "The planet is warming up, which is why you're freezing your tail off. Obviously."

    Back in the debate swamp, "True Believers" claim that the "Deniers" are funded by the petro-chem industry to fudge data. That may be true. Truthfully, I've not checked. I *have* however checked to see that the AGW side can be accused of similar things; their funding comes from those who would benefit from carbon tax scams. Driven by fear of unemployment and professional crucifixion, they engage in all sorts of funny business...

    BOM finally explains! Cooling changed to warming trends because stations "might" have moved!
    http://joannenova.com.au/2014/...

    But the thing I find interesting is that, as per usual, *nobody* in the MSM or really anywhere in the debate is looking at or discussing the other parallel trends. We've seen massive increases in comet/fireball activity and volcanic activity

    "If you plot data from the last 200 years, there's a clear increase in the number of eruptions over time," Siebert said, "but that's not a function of the actual number of eruptions but rather due to reporting effects."
    http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/are-volcanic-eruptions-increasing.htm

    -You'll notice that while the up-trend is beyond denial every official volcano news site in the first few Google page returns races to assure us that incidence of mountains blowing up are not *actually* on the increase. -It's simply that we have only recently become better at noticing when MOUNTAINS BLOW UP.

    You'll excuse me if I find this to be a rather tenuous bit of self-calming very likely (my opinion) linked to the official media directives telling us that any of the bad CO2 must be due to human activities and certainly not any natural events. -Which, please note, is NOT why I bring up volcanoes.

    CO2 doesn't interest me because nobody has yet put forth a viable explanation for why it would cause any significant net heat capture. CO2 works in both directions. CO2 is opaque to IR; like the clouds of Nuclear

    1. Re:Riiiiight by unimacs · · Score: 2

      So you are saying that data is conflicting because it was cold the first 6 months of the year in the Eastern part of the US? The fact that it was very warm in Alaska and the Western part of the country doesn't matter?

      If you don't think "Human Powers" have a major impact on the environment, take a look around you. I mean really take a look. How much of what you see day to day hasn't been shaped by people? Even most of wild places in the US (outside of Alaska perhaps) are wild because we allow them to be, - because they've been set aside.

    2. Re:Riiiiight by Anonanonaon · · Score: 1

      That was just one website. The other half of the year was record cold as well depending on who you read.

      Of course, Human Powers have a massive impact on the world, even on levels most people aren't largely aware of. I don't like pollution any more than you do, and I'm not looking for existentialist excuses to pour industrial toxins into the environment. I try to respect the world and its living things every day. But that doesn't make AGW and carbon taxes any less a scam. It's just the most immediately cognitively obvious place to look for answers (regarding climate change) on the table, -it makes all the sense in the world- at first, second and even third glance.

      But it's still broken. There are far more interesting things going on.

      One theory is that human behavior, how deeply we invest in psychopathic lies about our reality and how we behave on a national level, has a direct influence on planetary reactions and our experience of them. Insanity causes painful experiential feedback not just on the micro, but on the macro as well.

      Personally, I tend to give credence to these sorts of ideas, but it's the kind of thing which wouldn't make sense to many here and which is impossible to prove either way in any material sense.

  58. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

    Well. In economic terms - what is the worst case scenario to the global economy? If we discuss things along those lines - fine. Then the question is less "chicken-little" then "how do we prepare for the following world events.

    Ultimately I think pollutants, habitat encroachment and over-population are a far greater concern than rising C02 levels.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  59. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by Layzej · · Score: 1

    If this were true, should we pick just one of your concerns to address and ignore all others? What if there is a low impact solution to one of the others that even the most skeptical economist believes we should adopt?

  60. Here in Providence, RI by kilodelta · · Score: 2

    It's been at least 10F above normal all year. It's supposed to be 55F tomorrow. And we've seen only trace amounts of snow so far but lots of rain. In a way as a commuter I'm kind of enjoying it - I walk to the train station, there's no ice or snow to contend with and a little rain is easily dealt with. So if that's climate change I'm all in. Plus the old gas bill for home heating has been very reasonable. Love it because I know it's making National Grid suffer - and of course my ultimate goal is to break them into a million little pieces.

  61. Question: how many years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many years of data are required to establish a baseline for the "normal" range of global temperature?

  62. Hiatus? Does it exist or not? by mveloso · · Score: 1

    Hey, what about that hiatus that didn't exist, and then it existed. Does it not exist again?

    1. Re:Hiatus? Does it exist or not? by Layzej · · Score: 1

      The hiatus has always existed and always will. As you can see from this chart there was a hiatus in the '80s and a hiatus in the '90s. You just have to pick the right start date. That date used to be 1998, but it is somewhat closer nowadays: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g...

  63. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  64. Weather vs. climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Annual temperatures are weather phenomenon, climate change is about 30-yr averages.

    1. Re:Weather vs. climate by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Right. And I know that where I grew up on the Illinois-wisc border, we regularly had -30 to -35 F in the winter. Now, it has been 2 decades since they have seen -20F, and have only seen below -5 but a couple of days / year.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  65. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  66. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    no jail here but calls for dismissal:
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/26/australian-scientist-calls-for-heads-to-roll-over-adjusted-temperature-data/
    almost jailed here:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246661/New-scandal-Climate-Gate-scientists-accused-hiding-data-global-warming-sceptics.html

    not the OP AC, just a googler

  67. And this will continue until .... by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Liberals start looking at this from ALL angles. Right now, the idea of allowing China, India, South Africa, etc to build coal plants at will, while trying to get just the west to cut, is INSANE.
    When data is released from OCO2, it will show that China's and India's emissions are a great deal more than is acknowledged. In fact, China much closer to 50% of world's emissions, than is realized.

    So yea, the neo-cons/tea* are idiots for refusing to look at science, but even more idiotic are those that KNOW that we have problems, but push 'solutions' that have ZERO chance of solving things.
    The fact that Germany killed their nukes, while buying more electricity from Poland (heavy coal user), along with France (largest nuke in terms of %), and are now building new coal plants, speaks volumes about how foolish this liberal type solution really is.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  68. How can the world be warming if it's cold in Ohio? by Layzej · · Score: 1

    Seriously? You can't fathom a world that is warming globally even while some places at certain times are quite cold?

  69. Real hot record 1.2 degrees above the 100 year ave by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the hottest year is 1.2 degrees above the 100 year average? I should be alarmed at this?

  70. Re:How can the world be warming if it's cold in Oh by CajunArson · · Score: 1

    Good, then I'm sure you'll be the first to debunk the accuracy of the anecdotal "evidence" for 2014 being the hottest year EVAR that is linked at the very end of this post.... oh wait I forgot:
    1. Does weather make Global Warming sound real and/or scary? WEATHER == CLIMATE
    2. No to question 1? WEATHER == RANDOM EVENT STFU DENIALIST NON-BELIEVER.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
  71. Typical spoiled child by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    Who thinks he's entitled to make life miserable for all of the grownups around you until you get things exactly the way you want them.

  72. assuming that known damage by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    is better than the past is immoral, no matter how much you think you are entitled to crap on everyone else's head in order to avoid taking responsibility for your actions.

  73. i.e. make everyone else pay the price by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    just so that I can continue doing what I am doing and hopefully die before the major shit hits the fan.

  74. how many respectable sites did you have to... by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    deliberately ignore in order to find someone willing to whore themselves out for you and your fellow denialists?

  75. they do by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, since the data makes it impossible for you to deny the truth you feel entitled to waste everyones time with your denialist BS.

  76. Re:How can the world be warming if it's cold in Oh by Layzej · · Score: 1

    Why would we need anecdotal evidence? We have records from the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United Kingdom's Met Office and the World Meteorological Association all reporting that this is in fact the hottest year on their respective records. Do you think anecdotal evidence trumps hard data?

  77. mainstream media also ignores by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    Bigfoot, pyramid power and Elvis being alive in Idaho, son. then again, being a denialist, your sites might pretend they are real.

    1. Re:mainstream media also ignores by kolbe · · Score: 0

      Sorry to break it to you, but the sheer volume of implausible, unsound and/or improbable Global Warming sites far, FAR exceeds the denialist sites.

      I actually file the majority Global Warming sites away with the tree hugging, PETA loving, EPA driving anti-humanitarian ones... The majority are that bad.

    2. Re:mainstream media also ignores by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      ...tree hugging, PETA loving, EPA driving anti-humanitarian ones...

      Whoops, your agenda is showing.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    3. Re:mainstream media also ignores by kolbe · · Score: 1

      Whoops, you got caught contributing absolutely nothing again.

    4. Re:mainstream media also ignores by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Whoops, you forgot to deny you have an agenda. For your next internet search, look up "straw man".

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
  78. And once again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The NOAA still has not come up with any way to correct their data for the heat-island skew caused by closing their more remote monitoring stations over the years, and the World Meteorological Association was and still is complicit in the ONGOING UNCC data corruption and coverup. As long as these people think it will get them into the US's tax pockets we will continue to set new records every year without fail. And when they realize those pockets are empty, global temperatures will plummet, because sure as freezing Hell, they won't get $$$ from China or India..

    1. Re:And once again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it is frightening that people like you exist and can vote.

  79. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if its a different station then its a different station and the model should treat it as such.
    It seems these climate people rely on people who aren't literate in model fitting. A proper model takes inputs as measurements. A measurement is an observation + uncertainty. The uncertainties are injected into the model fit, the model fit is run and statistics should be generated by the model via covariance propagation. Given enough samples the model will give a report about how good the uncertainty data is.

    But to go into the raw data, manipulate it and then use that as the data inputs smells very fishy and is very likely dishonest. And there are people who have run the unmanipulated data through models and the outputs looks very legitimate (showing the "dust bowl" years were the hottest in the last century).

    Btw there's a very detailed report about how ice levels are at all time highs in both the artic and anarctic regions.

  80. Re: yes warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The no warming since year X trope? Bog standard cherry picking deviod of statistical chops. And really, google serving up the comedy site wattsupwiththat? Heh.

    http://tamino.wordpress.com/20...

  81. at it again, I see by hardihoot · · Score: 1

    Temperature goes up, goes down as it always has. It is normal. Now if they will just stop blaming humans for it. http://www.globalclimatescam.c...

    --
    A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
  82. coming from you by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    that means absolutely nothing.

    1. Re:coming from you by kolbe · · Score: 1

      Neither does "Global Warming", but people seem to drive towards it. Your point?

  83. Yes, now the temp is the same as 700 years ago. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The "record" being the conventional weather station record rather than all the other correlated sources of climate data.

    We don't get to see if this matters until the base level cooling cycle swings upwards again, and by then if it does matter it will be unstoppable.

    I haven't read anything convincing either way, will the cold dip just get flattened off, or will the base level stay so much higher that things will get much hotter than it otherwise would. I can't rely on computer simulation results because they are so variable, in fact the same model will have significantly different outcomes depending on what computer hardware it is run on.

    I am having less confidence in the recording of climate data too because the station within 2000 meters of my location is consistently under reporting precipitation and the noise is not cancelling out because it never seems to over report precipitation levels. This is the data that is fed in to the simulations!

  84. as a liberal by Phantom+of+the+Opera · · Score: 1

    As a liberal, I strongly believe that altering the stoichiometry of a mixture changes its thermodynamic and heat transfer properties.

    1. Re:as a liberal by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      What does being a liberal have to do with anything? The nice thing about science is it doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative or whatever, science just is what it is regardless of your political leanings.

  85. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

    Well there was an incredible variety of life 55 million years ago

    life which was completely different from people and adapted for a much, much hotter earth.

    remember that human beings start to die from heatstroke when the wet-bulb temperature hits about 95F. now remember that 55 million years ago the earth's mean temperature was about 30F higher than it is today.

    --

    ---
    Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
  86. They lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this the same NOAA that discreetly moved all of its temperature tracking stations from neutral locations to locations that are natural hotspots? The same NOAA that had to move the death valley station back when scientists took umbrage at how they were rigging the data?

    Sorry, but after warming went political, I don't trust any data from politically backed scientists.

  87. Where is the Fact? by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Where's the alarmism in calmly stating a true fact?

    Stating that a year is warmer than other years is not a Fact if your margin for error could mean it's not actually warmer than the other years.

    Which is the original point made...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  88. Not by the numbers by rs79 · · Score: 1

    http://climate.gov/news-featur...

    Looks more like it's getting colder to me.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  89. Bad idea to combine wildly varying elevation data by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    What may be done before combining those data is to increase the new data or lower the old ones until the two series seem consistent.

    I sure hope they are not actually doing something like this anywhere, as airflow can dramatically affect temperatures at the top of a mountain in ways that do not correspond or correlate to temperatures in allies below...

    Even just the fact that larger cities build up around stations over time really means you can't treat the data as from the same sensor, since a very large city has substantial effects on weather in the city itself.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  90. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe science needs to be done differently. This kind of arguing doesn't actually convince anyone on either side, so maybe a new approach is needed. Rebuild the process for validating scientific research using a model that assumes scientists are unscrupulous and untrustworthy, much like one authenticates users on a computer network while assuming them untrustworthy as a starting point. If scientific papers were such that they could readily be validated, like an MD5 hash, even if the scientists themselves were assumed to be hostile, then the conclusions would not be nearly as subject to debate.

  91. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, it doesn't point to fudging of temperature records. What it points to is orchestration of an effort to destroy documentation that might have shown such fudging.

  92. We must care for if we don't, we won't survive by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

    You have no idea what you are talking about, when you say there is a "mildly rising carbon dioxide level". The ratio of carbon dioxide produced by human activities is already nearly 100 times that generated by natural processes. This is simple enough to demonstrate given the isotopic composition of the carbon in the atmosphere.

    What you and those who share your optimistic and erroneous assumptions suggest is that we have as much as few hundred years to tackle this problem. The amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere is causing the Earth to warm at a rate 36 times faster than it ever has in the past 100,000,000 years of Earth History, including the Paleocene Thermal maximum that saw the growth of palm tree forests in Wyoming as well as a total change in the composition of North American mammal species. This, not to mention the most rapid drop in oceanic pH at any time in Earth history, which has already placing oyster fishing in the Pacific Northwest in jeopardy of total extinction in less than 50 years. Few recognize that the pH drop has been steep, about 20% in the last 100 years (remember the pH scale is logarithmic) or that humans extract about 50% of the protein they consume from the oceans, so oysters won't be the only losers.

    Life can cope and evolve if change is slow enough. However, when it occurs too rapidly one sees extinction instead and as all indications of studying the biodiversity of just about any taxon on the planet indicates that extinction of most life forms is the path we are headed toward at an every increasing speed. Ecosystems are simply not things that humans are good at understanding, much less putting back together, even though we depend upon them for our survival. Such ignorance, is easy to demonstrate. Simply step outside and identify a hundred species in your immediate surroundings. Most people will be unable to identify 20 or tell you much about their biology, much less one hundred, even though even in the harshest of environments there are typically thousands of species, many of them beetles.

    Unfortunately for humanity, the rate the Earth is warming is accelerating exponentially and we are now beginning to see several predicted effects that will further propel the exponential rise in temperatures: 1) arctic amplification caused by the loss of polar ice cover that will accelerate heating in the relatively shallow Arctic Ocean, 2) incipient release of about 2-3 trillion gigatons of carbon as the permafrost melts primarily as methane, which is already occurring throughout Seberia and Northern Canada, and 3) elevated release of carbon dioxide trapped in near short and shallow Arctic clathrates, which will add another few trillion gigatons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As Edward Teller aptly noted, humans will perish because they fail to appreciate the nature of exponentation and its consequences.

    With just the few degrees of warming that we have seen so far in the past 100 years, the critical link between plants and their pollinators, which is highly sensitive to temperature, is already being disrupted worldwide, one of the major reasons crop yields are declining globally. Many species, such as humans, simply won't be able to cope with the consequences of the loss of pollination within 100 years time, which will almost certainly occur as we see another 5-10 degree temperature rise within the next 100 years. Entire governments and economies are collapsing already and the temperature dial has only moved about 1-2 degrees and equilibrium temperatures with the existing carbon dioxide load has still yet to be attained, even without considering the release of more than 5-10 times as much as can be expected in the next 100 years given existing trends.

  93. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

    Because carbon dioxide levels were higher in the distant past than they are now is hardly an indication that we don't face an existential threat. The issue is one of what is the rate of increase, since it is the rate of change that will determine whether or not species have enough time to evolve.

    Currently, we are tracking a rate of increase of about 36 times that which took place during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal maximum that you are referring to. This spike occurred over a period of about 30,000 to 60,000 years and in the process the flora of North America changed from largely coniferous forests to a situation where palm tree forests grew in Wyoming and the composition of the vast majority of species the native mammal fauna changed entirely.

    You might ask yourself, what is going to happen if it gets so hot and dry in Wyoming that palm trees will again flourish there, or when places like Las Vegas, already less than 50 feet away from water levels in Hoover Dam when no power will keep the lights on the strip? Where will the folks who live in Southern California go, when there no longer enough runoff from the Sierra Nevada or when the Colorado River runs dry further upstream than it does now? You would think that this alone would get republicans thinking more seriously about the consequences of global warming.

    Three major immediate threats beyond sea level rise, which will result in the migrations of hundreds of millions of people globally in the next 100 years given the many very low lying countries, will be 1) the rapid alteration of existing freshwater resources 2) and the disruption of pollination caused by an increasing mismatch between flowering times and the seasonal activity patterns of their pollinators that are extremely sensitive to temperature changes, and 3) the rapid acidification of the oceans, which provide about 50% of human protein and which are the sink for the bulk of the carbon dioxide humans are producing. World oceans are seeing a rapid drop in pH (remember its a logarithmic scale) and virtually the entire marine ecosystem is built upon species with either calcareous exoskeletons (many if not most invertebrates) and virtually all vertebrates that have calcareous endoskeletons, both groups being particularly sensitive as larvae.

  94. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

    Too bad its carbon dioxide that is producing most of the forcing of ecosystem change. You seem to be worried about the cost of mitigating the economic losses to those who generate lots of carbon dioxide. These losses pale in comparison to the loss of agricultural production and fisheries resources, as well as the cost of dramatic changes in freshwater resources that will occur over the next 50-100 years as a result of elevated carbon dioxide levels. Ask yourself, how much will it cost to rebuild or retrofit every port in the world? You think that won't be expensive? However, in 100 years time it will be a necessity.

  95. Re:If it ain't gonna end our species then who care by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

    There was an incredibly diverse biosphere 55 million years ago. The problem for us humans is that it wouldn't have been hospitable to us as a species nor will it be should carbon dioxide rise to those levels again.

  96. Re:Before or after? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    Climate models do not use temperature observations as input. The observational data is compared to the output of climate models to test them.

  97. Re:Before or after? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    John Coleman has a Bachelors Degree in Journalism and no peer reviewed published work in climatology.

  98. Re:Question: how many years by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    The basic "classical" climatological period is 30 years as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. So to answer your question by definition 30 years or more.

  99. Amateur Comments are Uninformed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At first it was fun seeing such a gamut of people from ages 6~60 or so, and with at best a specialty in a completely unrelated field, comment on this. However that didn't last long. It is astonishing the number of analytical errors made in every discussion here. You all need to take a LOT more statistics and simulation courses, either in regular education or as continuing education, etc. before you are remotely qualified to criticize the results. Also leave the political argument from all angles aside and recognize that cleaning data is a complex procedure with complicated purposes.

  100. Puhleeze by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

    The daily climate clickbait has the normal count - close to 500 posts - all the same people, making the same arguments.

    God God Slashdot is the CPI revenue that fucking important that you have to run this crap every 2 days?? Color me sick to death of it. So let's run a pro Obama Care story tomorrow (500 posts assured), followed by some "Corporations are Evil" story (500 posts assured), outsourcing I.T. jobs (500 posts, assured), followed by the ever popular "My I.T. manager is a clueless dolt" (500 posts every time)......

    --
    Murphy was an optimist
  101. Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Our local newspaper had a headline yesterday that it was our coldest year ever recorded. I believe it since it was 10-20 degrees F below normal most of the year. We could use some global warming with highs not breaking 0F this wednesday.
    Not looking for an argument but just reporting what the govt approved media this area stated as fact for the past calendar year.
    http://www.thonline.com/news/tri-state/article_3fb310d7-154b-58da-a54f-c52ee35a4152.html?_dc=786406137980.5208
    Posted: Friday, January 2, 2015 12:00 am | Updated: 7:06 am, Fri Jan 2, 2015.
    BY THOMAS J. BARTON THOMAS.BARTON@THMEDIA.COM
    Mother Nature took Dubuque residents on roller coaster ride in 2014, beginning with a plunge into frigid temperatures and above-average snowfall and finishing with a climb into an unseasonably warm and dry December.
    On Thursday, the National Weather Service indicated 2014 in Dubuque was historically chilly.
    Preliminary data show the average temperature last year was 43.7 degrees, breaking the coldest average temperature on record, 43.8, set in 1875.
    Northeast Iowa began 2014 with a blast of bitter cold as arctic air lunged into the north-central United States, dumping above-average snowfall and jacking up heating bills.
    The so-called polar vortex -- a large area of cold air high up in the atmosphere that normally lives over the poles -- dislodged and sloshed south, funneling frigid air into North America.
    The average temperature in Dubuque in January 2014 plummeted 10 degrees below normal to 9 degrees. The city also was bombarded with 14 inches of snow -- 4 more than it typically receives, according to NWS data.
    But 2014 ended with a conciliatory gesture from Mother Nature. Her gift: A Christmas Eve where temperatures failed to dip below freezing and with clear roads.
    Dubuque in December saw an average temperature of 28 degrees, 5 degrees above normal, and less than 1 inch of snow, tying it for the least-snowiest on record, matching the month's totals in 1939 and 2006.
    December 2013 was vastly different, with an average temperature of 15.5 degrees. The mercury dipped to 21 degrees below zero on Christmas Eve that year.
    This past Christmas Eve, the lowest temperature recorded was 32 degrees, with a high of 34 degrees.
    "It was a cold, snowy winter last year," said NWS meteorologist Tom Olsen. "This winter (thus far), it's been like a whole 'nother year."
    But temperatures are heading back toward normal, and the forecast for the next few days in Dubuque calls for snow and wind chills in the double digits below zero.
    "It's going to get colder with increasing chances for snow," Olsen said. "Expect to start the first weekend of 2015 with about 2 to 4 inches of snow Saturday night and tapering off Sunday morning. It will get breezy Sunday as the system passes through. There could be drifting snow."
    A high of 14 degrees and a low of 3 below are forecast for Sunday. Winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour Sunday likely will push wind chills to 10 to 15 degrees below zero, Olsen said.

  102. Wrong. RSS & UAH have it as 7th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How convenient of them to exclude the 2 most accurate and least homogenized and adjusted data sets. So both the RSS and UAH satellite measurements show that it wasn't even close (7th on both) it has to be the "hottest year ever" to fit with the meme of global warming.

    The ironic thing is that the RSS is run by a scientist who feels human CO2 is causing most of the warming and UAH is run by a scientist sceptical of that position. Nice to see that they can at least keep an honest dataset despite their differing views.

    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%. So despite the "hottest year ever" nonsense we still are not warming.

    Here is a prediction for you, next year a la-nina will hit and it will wipe out any artificial warming that was created in the 3 datasets and yet they will scream again that "CO2 has to be stopped before it kills us all".

    Here are some New Years Resolutions for the pro-AGW crowd some of which touch on this very subject!!

    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/new-years-resolutions-for-climate-scientists/

    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/

  103. That's yer problem right there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Temperature Data Adjustments
    Graph of NCDC temperature data adjustments (degrees F) by year (note: only goes up to 1999)
    Difference Between RAW and FINAL USHCN Data Sets
    Compare this to:
    Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index graph (note: goes up to 2013; baseline period 1951-1980)
    Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (up to 2013)
    Or Compare to:
    Global Temperature [Anomaly] (meteorological stations) graph (note: goes up to 2013; baseline period 1951-1980)
    Global Temperature (meteorological stations)
    Conclusion: if you add temperature corrections, that monotonically increase from 0.0 to +0.5 F from 1960-1990, to the raw temperature data, you see a trend in the adjusted data rising +0.5 F in the period 1960 - 1999.

    The Pause The data adjustments graph shows the adjustments leveling out at 1990 and being relatively flat at about +0.5 F from 1990 - 1999. If that continued from 2000 - 2014, that could explain the "pause." Note to a prior poster: the "pause" is not determined by cherry-picking some point in the past. You determine the pause by starting with the latest data point and moving backwards to determine the length of time the data shows no trend. One can analyze time series both forwards and backwards. Now, if you see reference to 1998, that is a red flag - 1998 is an outlier, and everyone agrees it is an outlier. It should be tossed out for most analyses.

  104. Re:Before or after? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The posted Coleman comment sums up my point of view, how ever I feel that many so called climate scientists are pushing sudo science. This carbon dioxide scare and the handling of it is a time waste. The sun has way more influence then this carbon facade. My main issue with this carbon crap is the socialist overtones like wealth redistribution an whatnot. Now one good Krakatoa volcano blow will make this all a mute point now won't it?

    later Napervillian aka kcim

  105. Mother Nature Wins...Every time by weweedmaniii · · Score: 1

    Call me a skeptic. Mother Nature will do what she damn well pleases with this planet and doesn't give a rip about us humans. 99.5% of all life on this planet has gone extinct and the other .5% will including us. A good old fashioned volcanic eruption like Mt. Tambora in 1815 will cause "climate change". That was called the year without a summer in 1816. I am not so vain as to think we can do anything to this planet that she will even notice, short of a full and total nuclear exchange. Even then I'm certain that a portion of the ocean life won't even notice that anything has happened and will continue to live, evolve & go extinct as Mother Nature sees fit. As time marches on we will see cooling cycles and warming cycles and a year to year comparison is irrelevant, or as relevant as comparing sports teams team stats year after year. Rules changes and personnel changes will alter the numbers significantly. For those of you still firmly on the "global warming" bandwagon then read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... or this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... either one will confirm your belief or refute your belief.

    --
    "If stupid things work...then they are not stupid."
  106. How to Lose 7kg in a Week Without Starving by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  107. Re:Before or after? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    The Sun is of course the source of essentially all of the energy on the Earth's surface but we've been monitoring it intensely since after WW II and continuously since the launch of satellites in the late 1970s. There has been no observed change in the Sun's output that would fully account for the temperature changes we've seen. The Sun's effect on the Earth's surface temperature is modified by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such that the surface temperature is around 58 degrees F greater than it would be without them. Water vapor is of course the most important greenhouse gas but it is controlled by the temperature of the atmosphere and there is essentially nothing humans can do to change it. That leaves the 2nd most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide as something we can exercise some control over.

    The effects of a Krakatoa sized eruption would last for 2 or 3 years with maybe some lingering effects for 4 or 5 years. It would have little effect in the long run. Even the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, the largest eruption in the last 100 years only had 2 or 3 years of effect on temperatures. (BTW, the word you want is "moot" as in "moot point".)

    If you allow your fear of socialist redistribution to color your opinion of climate science then you've got it backwards. Political opinions have no effect on science. Understand the science first then develop your response to its implications. Anything else is wishful thinking.

  108. Re:Before or after? by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 1

    The data's only "untrustworthy" if you're a fucking dipshit anti-science luddite like mister Maynard here.

    This is the kind of guy who puts "some college" on job applications because he once worked at one.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  109. Re:Before or after? by Andtalath · · Score: 1

    Science is complex and verifying others research is the fundamental basic for science.

    Making science more like science is good though.

    And, no, the actual issue is people believing the Oil industries FUD.

    Cause, you know, scientists making a decent wager are obviously more corrupt than people making a fortune.

  110. Duh by Kuruk · · Score: 1

    So the atmosphere is getting more heat retention and our sun is getting hotter on its way to going red giant and swallowing us.

    What did I miss ?

    Call me in a few billion years. The trend will be more obvious than our stupid life spans we look at.

  111. Food for thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/01/04/cold-arctic-blast-polar-vortex/21257707/

  112. Re:as a literal by Phantom+of+the+Opera · · Score: 1

    The loudest people who 'disbelieve' science tend fall on the right side of the political spectrum. That isn't to say everyone who believes in global warming does so because they are thinking about the science, but at least most of those people respect scientists and science. That being said, I meant some snark there, too.

  113. Re:as a literal by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    When it comes to AGW it's true that most of the science deniers are on the right side of the political spectrum. But for anti-VAXers it appears to be more spread out over the political spectrum. For most I think it has a lot to do with how the implications of the science conflict with their ideology.

    But as a liberal myself I pretty much agree with you. Unfortunately snark doesn't come through well in written prose unless you make it obvious.