Slashdot Mirror
US Senate Set To Vote On Whether Climate Change Is a Hoax
sciencehabit writes The U.S. Senate's simmering debate over climate science has come to a full boil today, as lawmakers prepare to vote on measures offered by Democrats that affirm that climate change is real—with one also noting that global warming is not "a hoax." In an effort to highlight their differences with some Republicans on climate policy, several Democrats have filed largely symbolic amendments to a bill that would approve the Keystone XL pipeline. They are designed to put senators on the record on whether climate change is real and human-caused.
It is just there to steal money.
More proof that this debate is political and not scientific.
Passing a law that says it is real is like voting on the sex of a chicken. No matter the outcome of the vote, only testing can provide the answer.
How about we get politics out of science and rely on the scientific method to determine if "Global Warming" is real or not.
I wish the vote were worded "Is the denial of climate change a hoax?"
After they vote we'll never have to discuss this again! Huzzah!!
The place where facts are determined by opinion.
Let's vote the world flat.
It would make map printing easier and do away with time-zones.
Table-ized A.I.
Yep, I may have issues with how some of the measurements and projections are made and what the true impact is but I've never considered it a hoax. Though if it gets us switched over to renewable fuels I can't complain too much. Just like the inedibility of the sun taking out this planet and us having to move elsewhere, fossil fuels won’t last forever, or likely be all that useful on any colony off this planet. Then again I'm not more sane than the next guy, just my bent $0.02.
This is the type of thing you actually have to research and prove one way or the other.
Twinstiq, game news
Indeed. Congress is evidence that evolution didn't take place: they are sh*t-flinging apes, still.
Table-ized A.I.
NASA seems to think that climate change is being caused by human activities and they back it up with a lot of references to studies on the matter. IMHO, we're never going to convince people to change their behaviors or give up their luxuries. If we want to make a difference we need to develop the technologies that make it more advantageous to adopt the renewable solution (like kick-ass cars and cheaper home energy).
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Question: is the sun inedible because it's too hot, or because hydrogen/helium mix just tastes bad?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I think that approximately everyone who is smart enough to get elected to the senate understands that climate does change. Past that point, you can say that "climate change" is as real as Saint Nick.
It's warmer today than it was 100,00 years ago, and it's colder today than it was 150,000 years ago. If that's what you mean by "climate change", we can all agree. San Francisco will not in fact by underwater by the year 2020. That meaning of "climate change" is a hoax, it's false. Recently, the Obama administration updated the dire predictions in some of their stuff from "by 2010" to "by 2050". Maybe the predictions will come true this time, but the search-and-replace nature of changing all references to "2010" to "2050" is a bit suspect. Some informed people think those claims are false, scare mongering, a hoax.
When I've pointed out some of the stuff that professors of climatology said in the 1990s, the environmentalists here on Slashdot have said "that guy is a wacko, he doesn't represent the mainstream of liberal thought on the issue". I'll take them at their word. So we all agree the UC climatologist's "science" was false/bogus/wrong. And we all agree that the climate has changed. Not really useful.
Let's just say that the Scoville units are a wee high on that one...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If we can simply use the vote to determine reality, why are we bothering to vote on climate change. I say we treat the senate gavel like a genie's lamp and vote on the realities of cancer, aliens, death, and god.
Climate change (global warming?) skeptics admit that humans are affecting climate, but the real question is "how much are humans changing it?". And while asking that, we should also ask:
- Is the data used to measure climate accurate? (IPCC controversially says: "urban heat islands don't matter when measuring temperature")
- Is the climate actually warming? (satellite datasets say not for the last 18-25 years, terrestrial datasets say 14 years)
- If there is warming, how much of it is caused by CO2 rises? (not much, since warming has "paused" while CO2 levels increased)
- How accurate are the CO2-temperature feedback models? (not very, they have overestimated by 2-4x)
- How much of the CO2 rise is caused by humans?
- What is the cost/benefit of lowering CO2 now vs delaying 50/100 years when tech will be more advanced?
- If we are going to spend money lowering CO2, would that same money immediately benefit more people if spend on vaccines? cholera? malaria? aids? clean water? sanitation? literacy?
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
Saying whether or not climate change is real, is not real, or is unknown is not a statement for non-subject-matter experts to make until/unless there is enough evidence that it is clearly real or clearly not real to the layman. If either one were the case, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
In other words, every Senator who isn't either a subject-matter expert or an arrogant person and who doesn't want people to think he is in one of those two groups must abstain if this comes to a vote.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
How about we vote on whether or not Congress is a hoax?
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Maybe the next thing they should vote on is
"Are there hats?"
The next time you get to vote on if your senator is a hoax...
The article linked says the bill implied Pi should be 3.2...
So you really want to bring that up in the context of a bill that claims humans cause substantial warming? Or that the warming we see is anything to be concerned about?
Observable reality is what it is, no matter how much a law rounds or chastises.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The scientific method is for experiments. If you wanted to use it to see if global warming was real, you would make a forecast like "The world will get hotter than it's ever been.", and see if it comes true or not. It did come true. Last year was hotter than it has ever been, globally. Scientists were telling us that would happen for years.
It's time to stop denying. It's time to stop saying "they should use the scientific method" when you know full well they have. You know, that is, unless your head is in the ground or your preferred news network is putting it there.
Bruce Perens.
At the 43:25 minute mark, President Obama is supposed to say “I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what — I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe.”
Instead, the entire section is skipped. Obama’s comments resume with “The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.”
Maybe their expectation is that the appeal to military authority will carry more weight than the appeal to a scientific one?
Well we know that there was different amounts of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere through out the history of the Earth. We also know that was a long period where the cellulose in plants could not be broken down by bacteria and ended up being sequestered for millions of years, until we dug it up recently.
No amount of waiting will cause carbon to be trapped in the ground, because bacteria and fungus act too quickly to release it. Looks like fossil fuel was a one time thing and decidedly not renewable.
If we think having Cambrian period atmosphere and weather patterns are acceptable, then we should continue doing what we're doing. It would impact the security of our nation, and be very detrimental to our economy. But anyone reading this would have died of old age by then, so who the fuck cares.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
personally I believe that republicans don't like climate change because it doesn't fit in their neat little world view of libertarianism and markets. I think they are denying the problem until they can come up with a solution that involves some kind of subscription model or something. if you want decent weather you will need to pay for it. as soon as they figure out a way to make a profit from it, it will be the highest priority ever
Are they voting on Climate Change? That is sooo stupid.
They should vote against gravity so we can have our hoverboards.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
That's what I was going for. Plus ça change...
Mostly random stuff.
... you know the rest of us, in the sane world, look upon this and think your gubbermint is batshit crazy, don't you? We'd laugh if they didn't have more guns, bombs, tanks, boats, and war planes than the rest of the world combined. They're going to sit back and do nothing as they watch millions of people get displaced and die of extreme weather events and starvation.
It isn't. It's about 30 K off. Plus due to [a] 1 atm being substantially below the cloud layer, and [b] most of the light being reflected, if this were correct it would make no sense.
Earth temp is 287-288 K, Venus is 336 K at 1 ATM and about .72 AU from the Sun. Do the math. Either Venus should be cooler, or Earth should be warmer, but either way the math doesn't work out. Plus, if you look at the temp/pressure profiles for Earth and Venus graphed on top of each other, they look nothing alike.
It's not coincidence. The relation that you're pointing out is flat-out false, and there's no way to support the general idea without throwing out a ton of empirical evidence. Like that most of the sunlight hitting Venus bounces off, which is why it looks so bright. If the only things in your delusion that affect planetary temperature are pressure and distance from the sun, you're going to have your work cut out for you because most of the Venusian atmosphere receives less energy from the Sun than the equivalent part of Earth's atmosphere.
Stay off the crack rocks and the denier websites.
Previous attempts to convince people have not been successful yet either. It's been said you can't reason someone out of a position they have not reasoned themselves into, this is true for climate change. Simply letting the truth speak for itself and guide policy has been a depressing failure. Different approaches must be tried.
The U.S. Senate, that is.
The heat is just thermo-nuclear!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I'm coming in late on this. First, the activities of man have released a lot of the sun's energy that has been stored for millions of year. So I agree that the gross heat load on the planet has been increased. Whether this overwhelms our planet's ability to dissipate that heat is open to question. Why is it open to question? Because, without numbers, it isn't science, just an opinion.
The Chicken Little people have been watching with alarm several trends over the years showing varying temperature. First, it's too cold; then, it's too hot. (And the butt of the old Henny Youngman joke: if the water turns black, the baby really needed a bath!) Attempts to model the short-term temperature shift have not accurately predicted what is going to happen in the future. Worse, the models don't accurately reflect the past, when applied to the data collected over the years. How to the CLPs explain this? WIth lame excuses, mostley, that reduce to "we don't know enough".
The research needs to continue. The people who build the models need to add to those models those sources of temperature variations that are just now being discovered, said discoveries having blown the older models out of the water. (pun intended) There are zero-dollar things we can do now to improve the situation. Plant trees, especially re-plant those trees that were clear-cut in the Amazon. Replace incandecant light bulbs (and those mercury-filled CFDs) with LED bulbs, not to save the climate, but to SAVE MONEY in the long term; I'm about 45% through this process myself.
I don't object per se to spending money on the problem. I object to spending money recklessly JUST for climate change, without some accurate way of measuring the effects of the changes. Reducing certain factory emissions results in less acid rain, which can have an adverse effect on buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. Containing the worst methane emissions from oil/gas operations makes perfect sense because we can then use the stuff -- but remember that the release from the Earth without man's help overwhelms our pitiful contribution.
The science is far from settled. If it's truely settled, show me the accurate models that predict, with precision, what we see on November 1, 2016
3 would actually be accurate and correct. 4 is just wrong in every sense.
My point was that politics sometimes sometimes follow facts, often they don't, but that doesn't change the nature of the facts themselves.
Yes, totally agree.
Concluding "any facts politicians agree on must be wrong" is as stupid as suggesting the reverse.
Now there you lost me again. The link you provided was the very essence of that - PI as 3.2. I would claim that in general politicians are not scientists and you can say with 99% certainty that any bill such a group tries to pass related to science is going to range from wrong to horribly wrong.
Yes, in fact I would say ""any facts politicians agree on must be wrong", almost by definition!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The input of excess heat has not paused. Have you had a look at the heat content of the oceans lately?
They feel the same to me.
Similar to a state legislature deciding on an official value for pi. I wonder how many Senators took more than a few terms of basic science in pursuit of their law/business degrees?
Further imagine how much lobbyist money is going to be wasted if the vote goes the wrong way and an alternative result is needed? There are much bigger issues to be bought, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
No. The real question is "does climate change fuck us over?" If the answer is "yes" then we need to do something about it whether we caused it or not!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
That statement is exactly correct. Just as correct as saying pi is exactly 3.14 or 3.14159265.
why don't ask politicians get together and repeal the law of gravity then jump from a high building. It makes as much sense as voting on whether global warming is a hoax.
I hope the Senate will take on Astronomy next. I'm sure more than a few Senators take umbrage with the idea that the universe is billions and billions of years old.
The reason for the amendment is not to convince anyone. It's to put people on record about the subject so it can be used in the future as ammunition against them.
I really hate this argument, this drama. Global warming is measurable. It either exists, or it doesn't.
The real controversy is the cause of global warming. Honest scientists argue over this point. At best I can only be a spectator. I don't have any access to the raw data nor to the equipment required to reliably measure whether this cause or that cause directly contributed to global warming. If you don't either, and you have strong feelings one way or the other, I recognize and will respect your faith, and will not argue with you.
That said, I will stipulate that global warming is happening, AND that I am a contributor because; a) I drive an SUV and b) I eat too many beans (creating methane) IF you will stipulate that under no circumstance will one politician anywhere do anything whatsoever to resolve the problem. At best, all their hot air makes it worse.
Lou
Don't worry! He only does that when doing so agrees with his own personal unsupported assumptions.
Well, it should not be. I know, I know, unfortunately it is more often than not, but at least it's not as blatantly stupid as this one. Usually there is at least a bit of relevant data to it.
In other words, it's not something you can wish to be or not to be. Whether global warming exists cannot be determined by wanting it to be one way or the other. You can of course vote on whether you want to do act like there is global warming or whether you want to act like there is none. Ok. That's possible.
But whether it exists certainly is beyond your jurisdiction.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just because the majority think something is true or false doesn't make it so. Voting will not change reality. Washington's royalty culture needs to die.
I agree, it's a symbolic measure, and not a good one at that. All any politician has to say is that 'the symbolic gesture was worthless, I was voting on the whole bill, and it was the best way to get the XL pipeline moving'. Just as they do any other bill.
I don't read AC A human right
I strongly doubt Global Climate Change is driven by human activity, and even I think this is stupid.
-Styopa
Politicians have voted on science before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
While they are at it, I wish they'd vote to abolish winter!
They might as well be voting on whether the world is flat or not. This falls into the category of "not even wrong".
We already know how this is going to come out; the Republican House and Senate will scream "Hoax".
They will do this for a combination of ugly and stupid reasons. First, they are the party of greed. As long as the top 1% are raking it in they don't care who gets screwed. Second, they hate Obama personally, because he is an Uppity N*****. This is a way of telling him to go screw himself.
Finally, it's an expression of the one value that all Republicans agree on: Fuck You. This is the real motto of the Republican party. Being for something is not what motivates them, but being violently against something is what gets them off. They even love to do it to one another, which is why they sling the term RHINO around: Republican In Name Only. For them, it's a curse word.
If there is a scintilla of good to come from this, it's from the stain it will leave on the Republican party. When climate change effects start to really kick in over the next 20 years, they will be on record as being horribly wrong. Since climate change is going to be the defining issue of the 21st century, it will be hard to escape the shadow of this very high profile blunder.
Personally, I hope that not only the Republican party will be held accountable, but that the individuals who vote for this will suffer. When things get ugly, I want them to hounded and blamed in public, and have their lives ruined. It's all that they deserve, and it might serve as a lesson for the future that willful ignorance can have personal, as well as global, consequences.
Why is Snark Required?
There are quite a few proofs out there that demonstrate 2+2=5. Google it and you will see.
Of course some have obvious errors but a few seem legit.
... why don't we vote on the Heidelberg Catechism?
No matter what side you are on, this is stupid.
Global Climate Change is not a hoax. Whew, glad that's settled.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Now look, I know many Americans have been hearing from elite liberal leftist Harvard professors in their ivory towers who keep saying that 15 is greater than 5. And, I have heard from many other experts in this field who are frankly quite skeptical that this is the case, that we're simply overlooking 5 and what a tremendously big number it is. So I don't think it's time to just cut off debate before the data is in, as if 15 is just greater than 5 so we should just get used to it whether we think it's right or just. It doesn't comport with the experiences of average hardworking Americans who deal with these numbers every day, who depend on them for their livelihood. So at the end of the day, I think it's obvious that the data is just not in yet. Now I'm not a mathematician. But one thing I do know, is that on the other side of the aisle, we have people who also are not mathematicians, but they see this as an opportunity for their agenda to shove a draconian arithmetic inequality down the throats of the American people!
Regardless of specifics of the actual objective results, anthropogenic climate change is a scientific question -- whether certain consequences of our actions are leading to a fairly specific set of changes to climate.
That politicians want to vote on it strikes me as a significant indicator as to their incompetence. As if we needed any more...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
First you "legislate" that pizza is a "vegetable", now you're going to vote on whether science is real?
You're insane down south. Absolutely, completely, 100% bonkers.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This assumes there's someone with enough money and power to fund and execute such a strategy by fiat
Would it take a company bigger than Fiat Chrysler (NYSE: FCAU, market cap 15.98B)? A company that makes petroleum-powered vehicles isn't going to like severe restrictions on petroleum use.
who isn't also part of a government.
Chrysler took a TARP loan. Does that make them "part of a government"?
Please get back to work.
"I believe that the Earth is getting warmer, however I do not find sufficient evidence to show that this will be a net bad thing for humanity. Further I do not believe that the proposed measures are the wisest course of action, and we should be investigating alternatives such as geoengineering. In any case we should not act yet, as we do not have a solid enough model of what will happen and the net impact on humanity."
They can easily find a way to say "I support science, but think that this issue isn't clear cut."
Goes double if the people who are doing the vote try and make it a black and white issue. If they try to make it an issue where you either have to support everything they say, or you are an evil denier of all science, it'll be much easier for people to abstain and have a good argument.
It's depressing and (I wish) shocking how many people here who try to pass themselves off as informed don't immediately realize this.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
I spent many years working with vector borne disease control, so I actually know something about this. Let me suggest a slightly different way of thinking about DDT.
The problem isn't DDT per se, but how, where and when it is applied.
In WW2 draftees were dusted with DDT powder to kill body lice, and so far as we know no adverse health results resulted -- probably because there were none. That's because this *application* is benign. Likewise spraying house interiors with DDT is a cost effective, safe, and environmentally benign.
Indiscriminate fogging with DDT on the other hand is neither environmentally benign, nor in the long term effective. DDT is (potentially) great stuff, and therein lies the problem. It promises (to a certain kind of mentality) to take the brain-work out of deciding when and where to spray. It's tempting to roll the trucks with ULV sprayers and spray anywhere and anytime, and it will often produce dramatic effects in the short term for not much money. In the long term it produces a host of environmental problems, and pesticide resistance -- particularly if it enters aquatic habitat. For one thing, it is toxic to invertebrates. **That's why we use the stuff**. The problem is that it is non-specific, and it (and its toxic by-products) remain in the environment for years or decades. Modern alternatives break down rapidly into non-toxic byproducts. In fact DDT's persistence is what makes it highly desirable for in-house spraying. One spraying can last for a year or more. That's good when you want to kill everything, for a long time; but that's not what you want to do when you're applying outside. Many invertebrates are beneficial, or even indispensable.
It's notable that in the article you link only quotes papers from the '69 to '72 era when it comes to the ecological impacts of DDT. This smacks of cherry-picking. When an idea like eggshell thinning enters the scientific discourse, it is normal for evidence for and against the idea to be found in the literature. This means it is *always* possible to find early literature citations which appear to refute the current scientific consensus. A quick google scholar search for articles on eggshell thinning and DDT from 1975 on shows overwhelming evidence in support of the hypothesis. For example it reveals the reason that the early feeding studies cited failed to find eggshell thinning: in many species it is not DDT, but DDE (a by product of the environmental breakdown of DDT) that is the culprit.
That DDT per se is not particularly toxic to humans is no news to anyone. I was actually briefly part of a team that looked at ways of tracking DDT usage so that it could be used in house spraying in Africa. The problem is that in desperately poor countries stuff gets stolen, and the danger is that material intended for safe and environmentally benign domestic spraying would be diverted to agricultural use which while not particularly threatening to human health would have disastrous impact on environmental health and the economic activities that depend on that.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No, we're voting on whether we ever had a horse in the first place. Later we're going to have a vote on whether we wanted the horse out of the barn, and if the barn is better off without it.
We aren't going to vote on closing the door for a looooong time.
What I am presuming the GP is going for as an analogy is that there was a real Saint Nicholas, but that there is also a false legend surrounding the real man that is far grander and more common.
Not perhaps the best analogy.
From ABC: "The Republican-controlled Senate acknowledged Wednesday that climate change is real but refused to say humans are to blame."
Votes are in. Most agree to the fact of climate change. Whether it is significantly man-made or not is contentious.
Bill A: "It passed 98-1 and read simply that "Climate change is real and not a hoax.""
Bill B: "that said human beings contributed to the problem fell one vote short of the 60 needed for it to be adopted". I believe this one had the poison pill attached to it.
Bill C: "The Senate was divided, 50-49, on another measure from Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, that claimed human activities "significantly" altered the climate."
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
This is funny, the implication is that politicians know a lot about climate science. Ha!
Climate science is so much more complex than "warming" or "not warming". Anyone that wants to boil it down to only one variable really isn't trying to solve or understand anything.
I guess I could have been more clear.
There is someone real called "Saint Nick".
There is a mass of gross fiction also called "Saint Nick", originally inspired by the real Saint Nick.
There is something real called "global warming".
There is a mass of gross fiction also called "global warming", originally inspired by the real warming.
Asking someone if they believe in global warming is kind of like asking them if they believe in jolly old Saint Nick. Political opponents can spin either answer (yes or no) to sound ridiculous by associating the term with their choice of meaning.
Another example - did Saddam have a nuclear program, vote yes or no.
He didn't have a program that was a significant threat in the short or medium term. He did buy uranium, which he wanted to weaponize in some form. If you someone says he had a nuclear program, I can make that person sound stupid. If someone says he did not have a nuclear program I can make that person sound ridiculous too.
"U.S. Senate taking a vote on whether Denocrats all suck or not".
A reminder: sensible men and women have already voted on the merits of Congress.
As Gallup confirmed once more in its December 14 poll, Americans agree on at least one thing in our most divided land. We're led by idiots, chiselers, maniacs and fools:
Americans' job approval rating for Congress averaged 15% in 2014, close to the record-low yearly average of 14% found last year. The highest yearly average was measured in 2001, at 56%. Yearly averages haven't exceeded 20% in the past five years, as well as in six of the past seven years.
Climate change (global warming?) skeptics admit that humans are affecting climate, but the real question is "how much are humans changing it?". And while asking that, we should also ask:
- Is the data used to measure climate accurate? (IPCC controversially says: "urban heat islands don't matter when measuring temperature")
No, the IPCC says we apply corrections for the UHI effect and the corrections have been scientifically validated.
- Is the climate actually warming? (satellite datasets say not for the last 18-25 years, terrestrial datasets say 14 years)
It takes a pretty narrow view to try and make that statement. Meanwhile the oceans continue to absorb more energy, sea level continues to rise and ice keeps melting, symptoms of a warming world.
- If there is warming, how much of it is caused by CO2 rises? (not much, since warming has "paused" while CO2 levels increased)
Which just shows that you don't understand the magnitude of natural variability is over 10 times the magnitude of the warming signal from CO2 and feedbacks. Eventually as the warming continues to rise it will overcome the vicissitudes of natural variability. The fact that 2014 is the warmest in the instrument record and it wasn't also an El Nino year indicates that's starting to happen.
- How accurate are the CO2-temperature feedback models? (not very, they have overestimated by 2-4x)
2-4 times is gross hyperbole. Temperatures are still within the uncertainty bands of climate model projections so it's impossible to say the models are wrong.
- How much of the CO2 rise is caused by humans?
Considering that the year to year increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is only about 45% of yearly output of human emissions the answer has to be 100%.
- What is the cost/benefit of lowering CO2 now vs delaying 50/100 years when tech will be more advanced?
If the possible bad effects of not reducing CO2 emissions are even moderately possible then risk management theory says it's far more costly to wait than to do something about it. Even now the cost of wind and solar power is starting to be competitive with existing electricity production so the cost really isn't that great. And the cost of renewables is still going down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
I think the politicians are not brave enough. Recognizing reality? Pffft....how about changing it [we were promised real change, remember?]...for how long this pesky Pie will bother us...no-one can remember this infinitely long rational number anyway?! I demand that the bill "New Pie" is passed ASAP!
Reference [see post office sorting engine]:
http://discworld.wikia.com/wik...
Writers have recognized this issue since long time...Artur C. Clark, for instance, also jokes via dr. Floyd who says to the Russian scientist in 2010 "If Congress has revoked the law of gravity, I'd heard about it!"
No, but if you offset your carbon usage at the same time, you are not a net creator of atmospheric CO2. If everyone did that, we'd be in a much better position. Or, you can just ignore all of that and just focus on his house and jet. I could make a comment about "typical right-wing ideology" ignoring Gore's carbon offsets for a quick "win", but I realise that not all right-wing people are as dense as you appear to be.
No. It was just a trap to make the people who voted against it look like complete idiots divorced from reality. Only one fell for it.
Well, we know the majority of GOP presidential candidates claim to be creationists, so this one is a no-brainer... It'd be hysterically funny if only we're not all sharing the same planet.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Yes, I said it. Climate change is real. Climate is always changing. It is unavoidable, especially in a system with so many variables. There is a well-established record of climate change present in the geological record going back hundreds of millions of years.
Things we do also affect the system. There, I said it. Human activity has an effect on climate. That only makes sense. When you do stuff to a complex system, that system changes. When you alter inputs, the outputs change.
What is at issue is the magnitude of change in output from the change in input caused by human activity. Unfortunately, rather than approach this curiosity with reasoned science, it has become a political hot-button issue, which means the facts will never, EVER be found. Period. I doubt we even have the capacity to accurately model a more or less chaotic system with millions of variables.
All of that having been said, there are attitudes on both sides that are just unfathomably stupid. From the leftists who want to kill everyone but themselves and go back to living in caves, to the right-wing wackos who want to burn all the fossil fuel they can "because freedom," they are all a bunch of fucking idiots.
The rules here are pretty simple. Stop wasting shit, and stop multiplying like rabbits. The Earth has finite resources, and can therefore support only a finite amount of consumption. When we reproduce irresponsibly and consume all that we can possible consume just because we can, we're going to hit that limit a lot sooner.
I really wish the environmentalists would take a more conservationist approach rather than a purely biased political one. I am all about conservation, but I despise environmentalism, just like I despise hyper-consumptionism.
And as a disclaimer, my contributions to the conservation of world resources are: not having children, biking to work, and not having an oversized house filled with shit China told me I needed.
This is a political maneuver designed to embarrass the GOP. 98 senators have already affirmed this amendment which was tacked onto the XL pipeline bill. To be clear, the amendment has no real effect on the construction of the Keystone pipeline; it simply forces all senators and representatives to get on the record on climate change. The GOP is up against a wall on the Keystone pipeline -- even if this bill passes, it will be vetoed by the executive branch and the GOP probably does not have the votes to override the veto (hard to vote for something that contributes to global warming after you've acknowledged that global warming is real.) This amendment is the Democrats fucking with the Republicans, pure and simple.
You're standing on the train tracks.
There is a train coming.
It's about a mile down the tracks, so you've got a bit of time.
Your shoelace is untied.
Do you get off the tracks first, or tie your shoe?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Spending ~0.05% of the GDP is not "very detrimental", surely. Spending far more than that to mitigate the displaced communities, displaced farmland (yes, that is a thing), and the new and exciting pests and diseases sounds like a far worse deal to me (and to anyone else who actually could be bothered to read what the IPCC has been saying).
Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, Stanford and ClimateChange.Net:
"To capture the public imagination... we have to... make simplified dramatic statements, and little mention of any doubts one might have.... Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest".
In the 1970s, Dr Schnieider was warning of the dangers of global cooling, and getting grant money to study the dangers of cooling caused by pollution. His colleague ecology professor Kenneth E.F. Watt at the University of California explained their view:
âoeIf present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
You may notice 2000 has come and gone, and we're not in an ice age.
Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich:
By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry peopleâ
United Nations Environmental Program, in 2005:
"Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, United Nations University experts say the international community urgently needs to define, recognize and extend support to this new category of refugee."
They are actually still making that same "50 million refugees" claim, after doing a search-and-replace to change "2005" to "2020". Cristina Tirado (University of California) made the claim of 50 million climate refugees by 2020 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
James Hansen headed NASAâ(TM)s Goddard Institute for 30 years before moving to University. In 1988, Hansen was asked by journalist greenhouse effect would affect New York by 2008. âoeThe West Side Highway [an elevated freeway] will be under waterâ , Hansen said.
UN IPCC author Michael Oppenheimer was âoechief scientistâ for the Environmental Defense Fund in 1990. He said that by 1995 global warming will be "desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots."
Just for fun, along with all of these climate scientists, let's throw in our favorite leader of the global warming movement, Al Gore. Oppenheimer (above) was also an advisor to Al Gore, who claimed:
âoethe entire North Polar ice cap will disappear in five years. Five years is the period of time during which it is now expected to disappear.â (The polar ice caps have actually INCREASED since then, significantly).
United Nations Environmental Program, Director of New York office in 1989:
Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000
We're spending $360 billion dollars a year based on these people's predictions - several thousand dollars per family in the US.
I'm going to repeat once more, it is true that today it is warmer than it was 500 years ago, and much colder than it was 1,000 years ago. So yes, the climate changes in cycles, absolutely. Stanford, Berkeley, and Princeton have just ridiculously exaggerated the effect, while pitching for yet another $10 million grant to continue their work. Are these crazy "warnings" which never come true a bit of a sales a pitch for the grants they're asking for, perhaps?
Even if you accept that there is global warming/climate change, the real question they should be asking is whether the solutions being tried or proposed really solve the problem.
> but unless you can show how the scientists are wrong
Ok, no problem there. Let's have a look at what "scientists" from Princeton, UC Berkeley, and the UN have said, and see if they've been right or wrong.
It might help to keep in mind this information from Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, Stanford and ClimateChange.Net:
"To capture the public imagination... we have to... make simplified dramatic statements, and little mention of any doubts one might have.... Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest".
In the 1970s, Dr Schnieider was warning of the dangers of global cooling, and getting grant money to study the dangers of cooling caused by pollution. His colleague ecology professor Kenneth E.F. Watt at the University of California explained their view:
"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
You may notice 2000 has come and gone, and we're not in an ice age.
Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich:
By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry peopleÃ
United Nations Environmental Program, in 2005:
"Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, United Nations University experts say the international community urgently needs to define, recognize and extend support to this new category of refugee."
They are actually still making that same "50 million refugees" claim, after doing a search-and-replace to change "2005" to "2020". Cristina Tirado (University of California) made the claim of 50 million climate refugees by 2020 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
James Hansen headed NASA's Goddard Institute for 30 years before moving to University. In 1988, Hansen was asked by journalist greenhouse effect would affect New York by 2008. "The West Side Highway [an elevated freeway] will be under water", Hansen said. 2008 was seven years ago. New York isn't underwater
UN IPCC author Michael Oppenheimer was "chief scientist" for the Environmental Defense Fund in 1990. He said that by 1995 global warming will be "desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots."
Just for fun, along with all of these climate scientists, let's throw in our favorite leader of the global warming movement, Al Gore. Oppenheimer (above) was also an advisor to Al Gore, who claimed:
"the entire North Polar ice cap will disappear in five years. Five years is the period of time during which it is now expected to disappear." (The polar ice caps have actually INCREASED since then, significantly).
United Nations Environmental Program, Director of New York office in 1989:
Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000
We're spending $360 billion dollars a year based on these people's predictions - several thousand dollars per family in the US.
I'm going to repeat once more, it is true that today it is warmer than it was 500 years ago, and much colder than it was 1,000 years ago. So yes, the climate changes in cycles, absolutely. Stanford, Berkeley, and Princeton have just ridiculously exaggerated the effect, while pitching for yet another $10 million grant to continue their work. Are these crazy "warnings" which never come true a bit of a sales a pitch for the grants they're asking for, perhaps?
Let's listen to what some subject matter experts have said.
Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, Stanford and ClimateChange.Net:
"To capture the public imagination... we have to... make simplified dramatic statements, and little mention of any doubts one might have.... Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest".
In the 1970s, Dr Schnieider was warning of the dangers of global cooling, and getting grant money to study the dangers of cooling caused by pollution. His colleague ecology professor Kenneth E.F. Watt at the University of California explained their view:
"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
You may notice 2000 has come and gone, and we're not in an ice age.
Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich:
"By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people"
United Nations Environmental Program, in 2005:
"Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, United Nations University experts say the international community urgently needs to define, recognize and extend support to this new category of refugee."
They are actually still making that same "50 million refugees" claim, after doing a search-and-replace to change "2005" to "2020". Cristina Tirado (University of California) made the claim of 50 million climate refugees by 2020 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
James Hansen headed NASA's Goddard Institute for 30 years before moving to University. In 1988, Hansen was asked by journalist greenhouse effect would affect New York by 2008. "The West Side Highway [then an elevated freeway] will be under water" , Hansen said. 2008 was seven years ago. New York isn't underwater.
UN IPCC author Michael Oppenheimer was "chief scientist" for the Environmental Defense Fund in 1990. He said that by 1995 global warming will be "desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots."
Just for fun, along with all of these climate scientists, let's throw in our favorite leader of the global warming movement, Al Gore. Oppenheimer (above) was also an advisor to Al Gore, who claimed:
"the entire North Polar ice cap will disappear in five years. Five years is the period of time during which it is now expected to disappear." (The polar ice caps have actually INCREASED since then, significantly).
United Nations Environmental Program, Director of New York office in 1989:
Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000
We're spending $360 billion dollars a year based on these people's predictions - several thousand dollars per family in the US.
I'm going to repeat once more, it is true that today it is warmer than it was 500 years ago, and much colder than it was 1,000 years ago. So yes, the climate changes in cycles, absolutely. Stanford, Berkeley, and Princeton have just ridiculously exaggerated the effect, while pitching for yet another $10 million grant to continue their work. Are these crazy "warnings" which never come true a bit of a sales a pitch for the grants they're asking for, perhaps?
> The actual science that actual scientist do. AGW is real, it's been measured and matches the predictions of the scientists. In fact, since scientists are conservative with data, their predictions
"Actual scientist" as in the guys from UC Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, and NASA? Let's have a look at what they've been saying.
Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, Stanford and ClimateChange.Net:
"To capture the public imagination... we have to... make simplified dramatic statements, and little mention of any doubts one might have.... Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest".
In the 1970s, Dr Schnieider was warning of the dangers of global cooling, and getting grant money to study the dangers of cooling caused by pollution. His colleague ecology professor Kenneth E.F. Watt at the University of California explained their view:
"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
You may notice 2000 has come and gone, and we're not in an ice age.
Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich:
"By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people"
United Nations Environmental Program, in 2005:
"Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, United Nations University experts say the international community urgently needs to define, recognize and extend support to this new category of refugee."
They are actually still making that same "50 million refugees" claim, after doing a search-and-replace to change "2005" to "2020". Cristina Tirado (University of California) made the claim of 50 million climate refugees by 2020 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
James Hansen headed NASA's Goddard Institute for 30 years before moving to University. In 1988, Hansen was asked by journalist greenhouse effect would affect New York by 2008. "The West Side Highway [then an elevated freeway] will be under water" , Hansen said. 2008 was seven years ago. New York isn't underwater.
UN IPCC author Michael Oppenheimer was "chief scientist" for the Environmental Defense Fund in 1990. He said that by 1995 global warming will be "desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots."
Just for fun, along with all of these climate scientists, let's throw in our favorite leader of the global warming movement, Al Gore. Oppenheimer (above) was also an advisor to Al Gore, who claimed:
"the entire North Polar ice cap will disappear in five years. Five years is the period of time during which it is now expected to disappear." (The polar ice caps have actually INCREASED since then, significantly).
United Nations Environmental Program, Director of New York office in 1989:
Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000
We're spending $360 billion dollars a year based on these people's predictions - several thousand dollars per family in the US.
I'm going to repeat once more, it is true that today it is warmer than it was 500 years ago, and much colder than it was 1,000 years ago. So yes, the climate changes in cycles, absolutely. Stanford, Berkeley, and Princeton have just ridiculously exaggerated the effect, while pitching for yet another $10 million grant to continue their work. Are these crazy "warnings" which never come true a bit of a sales a pitch for the grants they're asking for, perhaps?
its an analogy. sorry for thinking so abstractly. dumping coal tailings in a river is a regional pollution problem. dumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a global pollution problem. its called an cost externalizing. In the case of the river pollution there were multiple groups suing the polluters and litigation was becoming potentially very expensive. it was one of the causes of the federal government creating the clean water act. Regulation has been very effective at cleaning up the rivers. The poster I was responding to called it 'socialist authoritarian solutions'. I'm just saying that policy is effective sometimes. Its probably what will need to happed with polluting the atmosphere with co2 because private industry will not voluntarily address the problem.
Solving the question once and for all of the scientific validity of a very controversial topic: By voting on it!
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
Let them vote. Within 30 years, it will become apparent who was bought and paid for - and that stigma will be put front and center on all their historical Wikipedia entries.
They should really think about that.
... the Senate is set to vote that Pi is equal to 3.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
for a news source that presumably has a high percentage of technically minded and possibly even scientifically educated readers, I m astonished to see how any are commenting that they believe that global warming is a hoax. How illiterate can you be on this? Anyone who has fallen for this politically-intended line of nonsense should be included in this year's Darwin Awards (this includes any elected official who spouts such nonsense.) I choose the Darwin Award asan appropriate designation as this is "awarded" to people and groups that take actions (or fail to do so) that will assure thee demise of the genetics governing their obviously flawed thought processes. I shudder at what the rest of the world thinks of us when otherwise sensible people take such an extreme and I examined position on this critically important issue
I mentioned strawmen and you came up with the "but they all thought there was global cooling" bullshit? Can't you recognize crap put in by clueless journalists looking for "balance" so they can "sex up" the issue and pretend there is conflict?
You are so full of shit that it's leaking out.