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?"
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.
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.
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.
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
... 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
"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.