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Ice Loss In West Antarctica Is Speeding Up
An anonymous reader writes: A new study just published on Antarctic ice loss by Christopher Harig and Frederik Simons of Princeton confirm West Antarctica is losing mass fast. The study used satellite measurements to determine the rate of mass loss. The lead author of the study told The Guardian: "It is very important that we continue long term monitoring of how mass changes in ice sheets. For West Antarctica in particular this is important because of how it is thought to be more unstable, where the feedbacks can cause more and more ice loss from the land over time. These strong regional accelerations that we see are very robustly measured and imply that Antarctica may become a major contributor to sea level rise in the near future. This increase in the mass loss rate, in ten years, accelerations like that show that things are beginning to change on human time scales."
Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
There's a volcano under West Antarctica that might have something to do with it.
scientists trapped in the Antarctic ice are we going to have resue this time?
of climate change deniers.
Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not.
You're picking a fight before it's started!
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical.
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
So I'm on twitter and it seems I still follow slashdot. The tweet I see is this post. Now I remember why no one comes here anymore. It stopped being about interesting Open Source news, cool sci-fi info and other assorted "News for Nerds". It turn into a giant far left political hack site. It's a shame really.
newton62 (56617) Karma: Bad
Of course we are.
With all that ice gone, it will make exploiting the antarctic resources more viable.
Green just hate progress, money and jobs. /sacasm
I wanna see more melting! The sooner Florida is underwater the better!
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical.
Very few deniers are honestly skeptical.
that you keep giving us more money :)
I am sure that this was done by the same bunch of climatologists who got stuck in the ice last year. The same ice that they said would not be there 25 years ago. The same ice that they said was shrinking which was actuallT record-breaking larger than it has ever been before in recorded history. The same bunch that had to be rescued by nice breaking ship which also got stuck in the ice. Some people never learn and they'll be saying the same thing 35 years from now. something like this time is different this time it's going to really really happen. it doesn't and they get quiet for a season and then come back and claim it's really really going to happen this time around.
So what's you suggestion? Ban personal transportion?
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
I sort of agree, but then, do we have time to wait for the 'logical evolution of the science'? Most science is done by making observations that prove hypotheses. In this case there is a slight problem with this way of making science. Once the observations are indisputable, its a bit too late to change things.
That is why I back 100% the hypothesis that leads the human race to clean up their act and (I hope) create technology that ultimately leads to a Star Trek sort of socialist utopia.
Even if it costs current-day industrialists their last million in bonuses.
Your problem is calling everyone skeptical, even if only skeptical of details, a denier.
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
I sort of agree, but then, do we have time to wait for the 'logical evolution of the science'? Most science is done by making observations that prove hypotheses. In this case there is a slight problem with this way of making science. Once the observations are indisputable, its a bit too late to change things.
That is why I back 100% the hypothesis that leads the human race to clean up their act and (I hope) create technology that ultimately leads to a Star Trek sort of socialist utopia.
Even if it costs current-day industrialists their last million in bonuses.
Let's not be naive about our society. Star Trek as a model will never be in our grasp unless there is a total revolution, other wise our society if anything will evolve similar to that of the Ferengi.
We are ruled by a growing technocracy that is manipulated by avaricious oligarchs.
Very few deniers are honestly skeptical.
Citation needed...
a nuclear winter would easily fix this global warming thing. :)
though I would advise against a pre-emptive strike
It's hard to pick a fight after it's started.
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It's really as simple as that. There's too much at stake to ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
http://www.livescience.com/461...
Who knew. By god lets that stuff done away with before it triggers Yellowstone.
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical.
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
^ This, all this...
I wouldn't mind a rational, reasonable conversation on the topic, but instead you've got "the world is ending we must DO SOMETHING" screamers...
Well screw it, if the world is ending, we might as well enjoy ourselves... If it ISN'T ending, then perhaps we shouldn't derail our economy in the process of trying to improve the environment...
---
I'm all for making reasonable, steady progress towards solutions that actually will make a difference. Replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs seems to be a very cost effective way to reduce our power consumption.
Yet all we hear about are electric cars and solar power, neither of which make any economic sense.
Why spend money on something that has a payback period of more than 5 years when we have easier solutions right in front of us that have a payback period of as little as 1 year?
Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not.
What would you suggest? For the US to completely stop using fossil fuels?
Sorry, but that would have a negligible impact.
So, seriously, what do you suggest?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3077821/Record-Antarctic-sea-ice-logistic-problem-scientists.html
I am sure that this was done by the same bunch of climatologists who got stuck in the ice last year.
I'm just wondering, if you see a truck rolling down a road towards you, you're not sure if it will hit you and, you can't make eye contact with the driver, do you just trust that he is going to see you and everything will be ok or do you make a effort to stay out of the way? After all there is no evidence that the truck is going to hit you, so isn't it perfectly reasonable to just stand there and see if it does?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Follow the money trail.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
At least the deniers are skeptical.
I disagree. Climate science deniers are not the least bit skeptical of anything that conforms to their desired result. A true skeptic is more skeptical of things that appear to confirm their biases than of things that don't.
That isn't a citation...
Rather, it is an opinion...
http://www.livescience.com/46194-volcanoes-melt-antarctic-glaciers.html
What would you suggest? For the US to completely stop using fossil fuels?
So, seriously, what do you suggest?
Negligable?
You think 16.16% of total CO2 emissions is "negligable"?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I sort of agree, but then, do we have time to wait for the 'logical evolution of the science'? Most science is done by making observations that prove hypotheses. In this case there is a slight problem with this way of making science. Once the observations are indisputable, its a bit too late to change things.
I don't care whether you are pro or against climate change action, but at least you are being perfectly HONEST.
So that's right, it is about risk and how to deal with that risk. To me this analogy fits: you are on a fast road and there is limited visibility, you see some object on the road up ahead, and you know that if you swerve violently you might just swerve into some other car or a tree, or maybe just go off the road and bump and survive, or you could keep going and see whether the object turns out to be an old cardboard box or something less dangerous. The decision/problem is about how best to rationally handle the questions of the risks involved.
There are two common and really idiotic views on climate change:
(1) it is real and happening and undeniable and those who claim we aren't certain are asking for a 100% certainty whereas we are 99.9999% certain so to deny that is tantamount to questioning whether the world is flat or a sphere, and whilst it may be true that in some weird unpredictable way, climate change turns out to be benign, because anything is possible, the risk of planetary disaster, mass extinction, runaway greenhouse, etc. are simply too big and so we have to act, because by the time it happens, it'll be too late, so we MUST act
(2) there is a United Nations drive to create a grass roots political counter culture which will operate via NGOs as an alternative to national governments, for wealth redistribution from rich countries to poor countries, to halt population growth, to halt industrialisation, in some new mix of socialist world government, under the banner of "global justice" and "sustainability", and that movement is simply unelected, undemocratic, authoritarian, and nuts, and they are pushing climate change as "science" via the corrupt IPCC in order to beat everyone into accepting their new "reality"
Now I'm sure many people will think that (1) makes sense and (2) is the idiotic one, but here's what I think really makes sense:
The reason both views stink is because, they are both really about risk and the future, and nobody knows the future. I'm all for a world government, where any kid born anywhere gets the same great opportunities in life, but how do you get there? I'm all for protecting the environment, but there too there is always risk. For example, that TED talk by an ecologist who said that, back in the day, they knew, and all ecologists agreed, that to protect a grassland they had to change things, so they shot 10,000 elephants. And decades later they realised their model was totally wrong. THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES. Of course, people only act when they think they know the answer. Of course, decades of expertise can go into that answer. And it can still easily be wrong. To think otherwise is just overconfidence in a world of complex systems. More fool you.
Remain open minded, to both ideas of global governance and to ecological change and to environmental damage and so on, and to economies, to education, to all the other human systems, and remain open minded about all these things, and then when thinking about risks, INCLUDE the risk of your established and accepted expert theory being wrong, include those risks and weigh up all those risks. Yes, welcome a global equal society, but also be sceptical about how to get there, the risks involved, after all, the current system is a product of people's past efforts, and you are not the first generation to suddenly grow some compassion. Likewise, look for risks to the environment, to societies, and so on, and climate change is one risk, but not the only one. Weigh up all the risks.
I'm pretty sure both of these researchers were in still in grade school 25 years ago. Do you understand how the ship became trapped or the difference between land and sea ice? Having said that I'm very impressed with the variety of materials you've used in your straw man collage.
Uh... nobody actually is going to do anything. Or, well, did anything. It's a bit late at this point.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
are climate worryers moving away from florida?
why not?
how much does the sea rise if the entire west antarctic melts?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Look at tetraethyl lead, the lead industry, and the scientists who discovered in the 1940s the horrible things TEL does to children, then read on why it wasn't banned until 1973.
Look at smoking, the scientists who started figuring out all the awful shit it does to the body, and the tobacco industry that spent 25 years fighting a systematic FUD campaign (and personal character attacks against them).
Now scientists have spent decades fleshing out the basic idea that Arrhenius articulated about 120 years ago and it's becoming increasingly a sign of lunacy to claim he wasn't right... Yet just as smoking-causes-cancer denialism was the unbelievably stupid meme that Just Wouldn't Fucking Die because the tobacco industry kept funding it, and the leaded-gasoline-is-harmless denialism that was funded directly by the lead industry before that, now certain interests that want to burn and/or strip mine the word in the name of the Holy Lord's Next Quarterly Profit Report are funding a massive, systematic attack against any coherent action on climate change. And you people are falling for it. AGAIN.
Are we seriously expected to believe that 97% of the world's scientists are involved in some sort of massive scheme to... uh... steal grant money? Or that maybe damn near everyone who looks into what's going on realizes we really gotta do something about this crap?
"If the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt, this would contribute 4.8 m (16 ft) to global sea level."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
Obviously, even if this were to happen, it would take a considerable amount of time.
No, we should do absolutely nothing. In fact, we should accelerate toward the edge of that cliff.
More seriously though: yes, long term we do need to slash our use of fossil fuels to as close to zero as possible. Not easy, but it surely beats the alternative.
[...] And decades later they realised their model was totally wrong. THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES. Of course, people only act when they think they know the answer. Of course, decades of expertise can go into that answer. And it can still easily be wrong. To think otherwise is just overconfidence in a world of complex systems. More fool you.
You might want to look at Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong. Science can never give us philosophical certainty, and many scientific theories are incomplete (i.e. "wrong" in the strict sense). But that does not mean that all are equally wrong, or wrong enough to be useless. Newton was superseded by Einstein, but is still good enough for nearly all practical purposes.
Stephan
Fallout from the 90's Mount Pinatubo eruption caused a net cooling of 1F. Maybe Yellowstone could take one for the team.
Develop and industrialize at large scale a clean way ( solar ! ) to produce massive amounts of hydrogen, and a safe way to store it. Convert from fossil fuels to hydrogen. Now. Convert from coal to solar for electrical power generation, with hydrogen buffers and arrays of fuel cells as storage and back-up. Now. I am not a "help, the world is going to end" - screamer. I am simply stating the obvious.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
How does Antarctica have a west?
Why does it need to be only about the monetary value of ideas? LED bulbs cost a fortune only a couple of years ago, but their price dropped as adoption rose.
Everyone makes judgements on the value of intangibles all the time, and many people still value quality of life as high if not higher than money...except armchair economists for some reason.
Luckily some people are interested in the quality of life in the future, and have a desire to leave the world in a better state than they found it.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
Why spend money on something that has a payback period of more than 5 years, when we have easier solutions right in front of us that have a payback period of as little as 1 year?
Because the low hanging fruit isn't very plentiful. LED bulbs don't have much of an impact on overall energy consumption, for instance.
OK but I don't mean incomplete. Much of what we know is partially true, but useful nonetheless. I get that.
I'm saying that you have no guarantee ahead of time that your model won't turn out to be useless and harmful.
if the world is ending, we might as well enjoy ourselves... If it ISN'T ending, then perhaps we shouldn't derail our economy
Are those really the only two possibilities that occur to you?
No scientist claims the world is ending; that's a straw man from the denialist camp. What the scientists ARE telling us is that the coming climate changes (which can't now be prevented completely but CAN certainly be mitigated) will have significant costs - economic and humanitarian.
Even if you ignore the human costs (relocations, famine, refugees, conflict over dwindling local resources - mostly in poor countries), there's still the economic costs (increased storm damage, droughts, flooding, sea level rise) which been shown by numerous economic studies to far outweigh the costs of mitigation.
Yes, it will cost money to move our energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels. No, it won't derail the economy (the average estimate from the World Bank and many others is about 0.5-1% of GDP). But it will slow the onset of climate change, reduce the impact of changes in decades to come, and SAVE us hundreds of billions we'd otherwise need to spend adapting to the negative effects of dramatic climate change, not to mention other indirect benefits (like the surprisingly large health costs from fossil fuel pollution). Many studies show the investment in a clean, efficient energy infrastructure will actually save us money in its own right, independent of climate change effects.
Replacing lightbulbs is easy, low-hanging fruit, and there are numerous other efficiency gains we can make, but it's ultimately not enough. We don't have to cut our energy usage to the bone, we just have to invest in carbon-neutral energy generation - then we can easily support our lavish lifestyles with zero carbon cost, and save money in the process.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I'm saying that you have no guarantee ahead of time that your model won't turn out to be useless and harmful.
There are no guarantees. It's about risk assessment. Waiting for better models may be more harmful than using whatever we have now. Besides, fossil fuels are going to run out anyway, and we'll have to deal with the harmful consequences of finding replacements anyway. All we need to do is start a bit earlier.
Nope, deniers aren't skeptical. A skeptic even wonders if THEY are right, and are willing to change their mind in the face of evidence, instead of hunting for some third-hand anecdotal report that might possibly indicate a vague problem or issue with the evidence for. Then assumes it's true and the evidence for AGW being real is faked.
That's not skepticism. That's denial.
If the truck only exists as a figment of your imagination, then you're probably safe ( physically at least ).
Lalala. Can't hear you.
And by the way: there was lots of ice where I live!
So, let met get this straight. There are satellite measurements of the ice mass on antartica and they show the ice mass is melting.
And all you have to say is: there is enough ice. See those scientists are getting stuck in it. See? There you have it. Everything is fine!
What kind of leadership are people like you looking for? Someone that will give you a fresh diaper when you are shitting your pants because bad things are happening? Or someone who actually does something about it?
Once upon a time if you denied say the holocaust then it would put you in a very bad light because of mountains of evidence of something that has obviously happened. It was fact and to deny the series of factual events would be shameful at best.
We have climate change as a hot topic. The climate changes, fact. I don't know of any climate change so called "deniers" that deny the fact the climate changes.
The supposed denial is in the disagreement about how the climate changes. Some say the poles will melt and the world will be covered in sea water in X time. We argue about X time....we also argue about Y influence of humans in this mix and the Z rate at which some of these changes occur.
More things we argue about; such as the supposed infallible proof that this is not 'seasonal' on a geological time scale and how much of this is outside of the influence of humans.
Things that muddy the waters are inaccurate readings, flawed methodologies, the numerous times equipment malfunctioned and gave incorrect measurements etc.
I wish we had the ability to film ice loss 9000 years ago, would giant ice sheets falling scare everyone? if we had measurements to show one thing or another would we think the sky is falling?
Ice "loss"...reason to be concerned? -maybe. Is this not a normal cycle by which the ice sheet thins and shrinks over very long cycles of years? is it possible that something like this never happened before and yet not because of gas guzzling 4x4??
Please forgive me if I do not immediately stop using fossil fuels etc.
I get labelled with "denier" because I disagree with some assessments, theories and assertions.
So let me just say this one more time; I do not disagree that the climate is changing. How it is changing, at what rate and because of what is subject for debate amongst experts as well and even that is not a fool-proof indication because guess what you can have a large group of so called "experts" and they can all be wrong. Best make up your own mind and risk being an "expert opinion denier".
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
If the world isn't getting any hotter and carbon dioxide has no effect on climate, why is all the ice melting?
Well, from the article...
"Researchers have long known that volcanoes lurk under the ice of West Antarctica."
You're picking a fight before it's started!
Indeed he is. Fights over global warming and denialism have never happened before on the entire internet. I look forward to reading this new and refreshing thread.
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical. Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
For some reason that whole paragraph makes you sound like a denialist. I don't know if you are but you sure sound like one. For example jumping to the instant assumption that the author is prophesying the end of the world is a classic denialist trick to distract from actual discussion, and to discredit the science by trying to discredit an unrelated argument.
You then go and tout your "logical rationality", even though you jumped to wild conclusions about what the author read. For some reason the people least likely to use logic and rationality also shout most loudly about it.
So TL;DR, I've no idea if you're a denialist, but you sure read like one even without actually denying anything.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well tell you what, we've got a whole thread which will likely be long. If I see an honestly skpetical response, then I'll post it here. Feel free to do the same.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It takes decades for a "heat signal" to penetrate 1-2 miles of aerated ice. Any melting on the bottom of the glacier right now is from warming inceases of decades past. Frankly, being a "solarian", I expect to see some "freeze-your-ass-off" global cooling in 2020. Even if not, a net of 90 gigatons pa is a small fraction of a millimeter per year for global sea rise at peak rates of ice loss for processes that **are** cyclical.
Yes, risk assessment, that's reasonable and that's what I'm saying. Waiting for better models may be more harmful, and/or acting on existing models may be more harmful. So let's remove all the garbage about "deniers" and "marxists", all the feigned certainty one way or the other.
Fossil fuels "will" run out eventually, but is that in 10 years, 50 years, or 200 years? Climate is changing, but is it going to wipe out all grain harvests, change some rain patterns, or increase plant growth? Nuclear power is dirty, but is it manageable, is it expensive because of over-regulation, is it cleaner to build nuclear yet risking accidents, but providing for electric cars? Do wind arms actually produce enough energy to merit their use, or will do after enough subsidy to kickstart the system, or should we be thinking other things? Risk risk risk.
See one can't just acknowledge, oh yeah obviously there is risk... so therefore... this here model and solution is what we should do and anyone who disagrees is a denier. Nope. As I was praising the earlier poster, he was being honest.
Whatever we do there are risks, and start yeah, but start what? What if climate change is actually a fairly low risk in the grand scheme of things and meanwhile lack of cheap (coal fired) electricity is holding back Africa, and the underdevelopment of infrastructure, is making one of those global epidemics more likely? Something which could decimate humanity in a few years? Why is climate change touted as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue? When that's just a wild speculation about risk?
Which do you start?
I said nothing about coming doomsday. Further down on this page, I am explicitly stating as much, and am proposing a solution. For a problem that, yes, we do have.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Which side is west if it straddles the south pole?
" the doomsday is coming" - it is coming, no matter what we do as it has done over the billions of years this planet has had hot/cold cycles. Its just at what speed it arrives and the scientific consensus is that the human race is accelerating it. Its only another 1.75 billion or so years before the sun burns so hot its going to destroy the earth anyway. http://www.isciencetimes.com/a...
The deniers do not put forward any scientific arguments that contradict what is actually happening, most deniers are linked to the fossil fuel industry and a renewable agenda affects their pocket (unless they get on board). Being a sceptic is fine, it promotes discussion, being a denier doesn't. A denier is like a child sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "I can't hear you"
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Which trail? There is two trails.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Fossil fuels "will" run out eventually, but is that in 10 years, 50 years
Probably between 10 and 50 years is when we can expect shortages. That doesn't mean the reserves will run out, but maybe your local pump does.
Why is climate change touted as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue? When that's just a wild speculation about risk?
I don't think it's fair to summarize the current insights on global climate change as "wild speculation". We have very useful models that match pretty well with reality. Common sense dictates that we use those as a basis for policy, and we'll start with the things we need to do anyway.
Whoosh, that's the sound of you missing my point
Whatever we do there are risks, and start yeah, but start what? What if climate change is actually a fairly low risk in the grand scheme of things and meanwhile lack of cheap (coal fired) electricity is holding back Africa, and the underdevelopment of infrastructure, is making one of those global epidemics more likely? Something which could decimate humanity in a few years? Why is climate change touted as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue? When that's just a wild speculation about risk?
Which do you start?
We might, say, start by collecting an international body of experts and ask them to look into the issue. Maybe they could periodically write reports, maybe on the physical science side of the issue, but also on the impacts of the physical changes. Just a weird idea, of course, but if we had started early enough, we might have had a first overview by 1990! And if we don't quite trust those experts, we could e.g. ask some national science academies to evaluate the issue.If they all violently agree, we might start to consider actions.
As for Africa: Sure, Africa has done so well in the age of "burn it like there is no tomorrow", so continuing in the same direction is obviously the right thing to do. Or maybe this is the most cynical propaganda meme I've yet encountered.
Stephan
Translation: "I don't understand what's happening, but some people I listen to have told me it's all messed up, so I will say what they said". If you don't understand the difference between ice on land and sea ice, you really shouldn't be commenting on this subject.
Read the IPCC reports to answer all your questions. It really is that easy.
I wouldn't mind a rational, reasonable conversation on the topic, but instead you've got "its not happening so don't do anything" screamers...
"Well screw it, if the world is ending, we might as well enjoy ourselves..." - well, lets all be so totally selfish and not think of others - great for our children etc
"If it ISN'T ending, then perhaps we shouldn't derail our economy in the process of trying to improve the environment..." what economy is derailing, the banks did that. There is a new industry starting to replace the old. Things change and move on.
"Yet all we hear about are electric cars and solar power, neither of which make any economic sense." eh? new tech is ALWAYS expensive at the start, wind power is already cheaper than coal, solar is getting cheaper. http://www.theguardian.com/env...
"Why spend money on something that has a payback period of more than 5 years when we have easier solutions right in front of us that have a payback period of as little as 1 year?" - short term thinking is detrimental to long term solutions. the payback on things like solar is shortening all the time
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
"Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not."
[ironic]
Well, I used to be a denialist that thought there were nothing needed to do, because there was no problem.
But now, I'm convinced: there is a climate change and it is pushed forward by humankind.
Unfortunately, it's too late to avoid it, so I'll do nothing either.
[/ironic]
When the deniers ignore their own study (Berkeley Earth Report) because it doesn't confirm their original biases then they can no longer call themselves skeptics.
http://www.livescience.com/461... OMG global warming!
If the truck only exists as a figment of your imagination, then you're probably safe ( physically at least ).
Right. It is a representation created by the visual cortex, with no additional confirmation that there's an actual truck on the road. So, do you wait for impact to provide an extra tactile validation point?
A different analogy would have you in the middle of a group of people, occasionally hearing over the general din some intermittent sounds that resemble a honking horn, and having the people on the edge of the group tell everyone that there's a truck coming. Choose between (1) assume there's an incoming truck and try to persuade others to start moving away (the crowd's too packed for you to move otherwise) and (2) assume the people warning about an incoming truck are loonies, or want the road for themselves, and explain away the sounds as some sort of bird tweets.
For bonus points, explain why some people might have different reactions in the two analogies.
Someone has to say it:
121 Gigatons (of ice)? Great Scott!
There's a volcano under West Antarctica that might have something to do with it.
You do know that Anthony Watts is paid to lie and spew half truths on that site, right?
Climate change is not doomsday. It is just bad for certain areas on the planet. It will also limit the maximal number of people who can live of the ground. From 9 billions to 2-5 billions, depending on the outcome (have a look at the IPCC report).
BTW: The deniers are not skeptical. If they were, they would ask for evidence and evaluate it. Instead they call it a hoax without giving a real scientific answer to their statement. Even worse are people who also do not use scientific data and claim that the effects of climate change are not problematic. For example, Abbott in Australia just funded such person after stripping normal science funding in Australia.
Nope, that was the sound of you going "Whoosh".
And going "Whoosh! You missed my point!" isn't actually making one. It's telling ME to work out what point you may have had. Do your own point making, don't make me make your points for you so you can say "No, I didn't mean that".
We are 12,000 years removed from the last Ice Age. Melting glaciers is normal. It's all a big hullabaloo raised by people who want your money.
Can't all the Deniers and True Believers just agree to do nothing together. I'd hate to see a change in the status quo.
No scientist claims the world is ending
Unless you consider civilization being at risk, 50% of earths species destroyed, and an apocalypse to be 'the end of the world.' Then a scientist has told us the world is ending. If that's not close enough to "the end of the world", then that's it for species on our planet. The oceans could begin to boil.
So you're wrong there, you weren't paying attention. Some scientists are claiming the world is ending (unless we follow their plan).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Relax, the True Believers are doing just as much as the Deniers (nothing). The only difference is one side says one thing and the other side says the opposite and people just like to argue. Humans are truly just like Sneetches.
Not the same AC, but his point was explicitly stated, and you willfully ignored it: there are legitimate skeptics, but you and those like you lump the skeptics in with the deniers, deriding them for their unbelief in your dogma.
I find it funny that this is limited to Westant antartica. this implies nothing overall. Like many stories here Iately this gives a feeling of missing, misleading, or oversensationalized data.
Yes the climate is changing, but it does that the climate has shown a sine wave over and over. Yes, this includes carbon levels. And the world is not even at peak average temp yet.
now that does not mean we are not in a bad spot. Our Magnetic poles are in the process of swaping, our moon is further away than ever, antartica is covered in arisol gasses which are being re-released into our atmosphere, we are drawing out groundwater faster than it is being replenished, etc...
Right now climet change is more about fear mongering and politics than actualy helping. Sorry if I am apethetic towards partial statistics. If you really want to help then think ahead. buy products that help, and do the research. Example, buy non-recided paper that is not from old growth. This encourages larger tree farms, less bleaching chemicals (used on recycled paper), etc... Invest in battery improvement tech, so we can get away from fossle fules faster.
Most regulation is a waste of time and money. The fastest changes happen when we as a whole vote with our wallets. If you really care, dont complain, fix.
You're picking a fight before it's started!
I really wish that this was true, but I'm afraid the denial war is a constant and relentless presence. Only the bogus reason-of-the-month used to discredit the entire scientific community seems to change.
Any proof that requires purchase to see makes anyone skeptical. Well, the true thinkers anyways.
one of the two is 2 orders of magnitude bigger than the other
I'm going to worry about this right after I get done with my "halt the rising waters" campaign to stop the tides.
-Styopa
"Climate Change Deniers"
Seriously? What a stupid term! Are there really people out there who actually DENY that the climate is changing?
As I understand it, the contention is over WHAT is causing the climate to change, not whether or not it is changing.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
What the scientists ARE telling us is that the coming climate changes (which can't now be prevented completely but CAN certainly be mitigated)
I bet if the mitigation attempts are successful, the denialists will be going: You SEE??? I Told Ya!!!
I wouldn't mind a rational, reasonable conversation on the topic, but instead you've got "the world is ending we must DO SOMETHING" screamers...
Allow me to take a leaf from your book and say: Citation needed...
How exactly does the scientific community state that the world will end? Do they say that it will explode, like Krypton? Do they say that the oceans will boil away? If there is one thing that you can say about scientist it's that they always show their workings, so it should be easy for you to give an example of some paper that describes how the world is supposed to end.
But we both know that nobody has said that the world will actually end.
Replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs seems to be a very cost effective way to reduce our power consumption. Yet all we hear about are electric cars and solar power, neither of which make any economic sense.
Are you seriously saying that you have heard nothing about replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs? Seriously? That conversation has already been had. Go out and buy a light globe and tell us what choice you have now? Why would we still be hearing about that now when that is the one thing that has already been fixed?
And why should economic sense be of highest importance? Slavery makes economic sense, and yet we pay more for our goods so that the people who make them get paid because it is the right thing to do. Why can't we do the same thing so that we don't stuff up the environment?
There sure are. Just read the /. comments on anything climate-related. You ain't gonna believe your eyes.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
LED bulbs cost a fortune only a couple of years ago, but their price dropped as adoption rose.
And adoption rises as the products improve and the general consumer wants them and can afford them.
Miami Beach Florida is already having rising seas flooding in some streets. I ask you to consider the massive economic impact on the entire nation that the loss of Miami Beach would create. The investments in Miami Beach structures and land is enormous. A loss of Miami Beach would be enough to wipe out numerous insurance companies and banks with perhaps enough losses to totally crash the US economy. Consider that even way back in 1950 land on Miami Beach was valued in the hundreds of dollars per square foot. Most of Miami Beach is about 30 inches above sea level. A high tide is already enough to create some flooding. The area is also prone to hurricanes. Storm surges can reach 20 feet. Even a very minor storm could easily have a five foot surge. But storms also have huge waves so you might have a 30 ft. wave on top of the surge water. Plainly said a decent storm with rising seas could erase Miami Beach from the face of the Earth. Miami is only one example. But rising seas are a much more immediate threat to all of us than what we see in the news media. We can have a hell of a price to pay right now. For climate deniers we did not face this much of an issue fifty years ago. Right now people really should be very afraid.
I doubt that.
Except that we can't because by the time we've switched to carbon neutral methods, we'll be running out the the minerals we need to maintain our lifestyles. Only if we move to 100% recycling can we live the diverse lifestyles with all of the products we have now and it's unlikely that the whole world will ever be able to live the way people in the US are now.
Summary: The way we are living is completely unsustainable.
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Funnily many of the climate change deniers also own beachfront property. Perhaps it will be slightly harder to deny when their beach front property is under 10 feet of water.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Why is it that no one mentions the record highs of the artic ice cap?
The article said that while Western Antarctica, an already unstable area, is breaking up that there is more precipitation in Eastern Antarctica and that it is growing in size and adding more ice. The article did not state that Global Warming was doing anything. The article said that gravity may be having an effect. That is all.
Great! Now maybe those poor climate scientists can get their boat back that has been frozen in the ice for many months.
We don't have to cut our energy usage to the bone, we just have to invest in carbon-neutral energy generation - then we can easily support our lavish lifestyles with zero carbon cost, and save money in the process.
Where do you GET crazy ideas like this? Have you even seen what global warming alarmists are saying? The whole climate change thing is just a tool to destroy Western civilization. And no, that's not a typo or a joke, it's what they've said themselves. They're quite proud of it, too.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Yeah, right, but HIS "point" of that was stated to someone who said, and I quote, "Very few deniers are honestly skeptical.".
Which his response is either irrelevant, since it's contradicting a claim never made, or my response is totally deserved, not "making his point" and totally undeserving of a whoosh.
Because either he's saying about deniers, or he's saying about skeptics. Former: irrelevant to the post he responded to, latter: I'm not missing a thing, nor making his point, but am being accurate and pertinent.
Correlation is not causation, but we have no records of CO2 levels being this high and the planet simultaneously being habitable by our species. That's legitimate cause for concern. There's no historical data which suggests that we will survive this event. That doesn't mean we won't, but it's still cause for concern. We know things are different from how they have been in the past, and we know that the last time certain things we're seeing now were seen, the earth wouldn't support us. Indeed, more than 50% of the earth's species died last time the CO2 levels were higher than this.
Also, paywalls. Fuck your NYT articles in their assholes. If you want people to read your citations, post some that don't come from the NYT, or post links that dodge the paywalls.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What kind of leadership are people like you looking for? Someone that will give you a fresh diaper when you are shitting your pants because bad things are happening? Or someone who actually does something about it?
That's a perfect analogy because the someone who can do something about it is him, and you, and I. If we stop patronizing the worst exploiters, then they'll change their behavior. But we don't do that. We whine instead, in the aggregate.
The government can only change your diaper, or teach you not to shit yourself. But it would be nice if you learned not to shit yourself without the government's help.
Yes, the government is helping the corporations fuck our mom. But they can't do it without our help.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Considering that the current conditions are well outside the prediction envelopes of all of the models, despite the same team cooking both sets of books, I think the logical conclusion is that the current state of climate research is somewhere between phlogiston and N-rays on the wrongness scale.
I think a lot of us skeptics would be thrilled if they managed to catch up to Aristotle. That, at least, would put them on the right track towards Newton and Einstein.
See that "Preview" button?
Also, paywalls. Fuck your NYT articles in their assholes. If you want people to read your citations, post some that don't come from the NYT, or post links that dodge the paywalls.
Fuck you too, moron. Wrote an entire post without even knowing what you were replying to.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
they said would not be there 25 years ago
Here is what the IPCC actually said of sea ice 25 years ago: On the basis of current simulations, it is not possible to make reliable quantitative estimates or the changes in the sea ice extent and depth It should be noted that the models considered here neglect ice dynamics, leads, salinity effects, and changes in ocean circulation.
Don't suffer from single study syndrome. Look for a consensus rather than focusing on one paper or another. The IPCC is a great resource for understanding the consensus.
actuallT record-breaking larger than it has ever been before in recorded history
I think you are confusing sea ice area with continental ice volume. As the volume melts it deposits fresh water near the surface. Fresh water freezes more readily than salt water. So you can have the sea ice area increase even while overall volume decreases.
of climate change deniers.
Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not.
You probably have a really small car.
Climate change is normal - it's happened throughout history.
Warm weather will be nice - I'll save money on heating. Are you a shill for power companies?
The "ice" has melted before - it was good (comeonin). Dinosaurs aren't going to come back... and there won't be any volcanoes where I live.
I've got a multi-billion dollar plan to stop global warming if it really bothers you - it does require a hell of a lot of energy and toxic by-products (but we've proved overheating the kitchen doesn't warm the house or it's surrounds - so don't worry your little head about that. Oooh look - Snoop Dogge studies history, and, um, shiny things.)
The only risk greater than man made global warming is the risk that man will try to stop global warming. Sure we are influencing the climate and we should try to reduce that influence. On the other hand, I don't see any good from experimenting with intentional manipulation of the climate OR from crippling the poor's access to energy and standard of living in order to reduce that influence outweighing the possible negatives of a warmer climate.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
Is that what you call "catchups" and "after-the-facts"? (sigh, flicks another ash in the fish tank, and mutters I'll clean it next week the fish are fine.
Tell me, what volcano's under the ice have to do with climate deniers?
100% recycling is a relative term... Technically, anything that doesn't leave the gravity well of earth will get recycled in one way or another.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Are we seriously expected to believe that 97% of the world's scientists are involved in some sort of massive scheme to... uh... steal grant money?
That lines up nicely with the percentage of people who will do anything legal for money. The rest might be true believers or getting money from non-grant sources.
A lot of us won't do things that are legal if they aren't ethical.
Interesting part:
Antarctica is losing mass at 121 billion tons (gigatons) a year. The satellite method that these authors used actually measures the gravitational pull of the ice on two orbiting satellites. They figured out a way to get more accurate information from the pair of GRACE sats.
Clueless part:
one of the most challenging problems in climate science deals with how to measure the Earth’s system.
Actually measurement, although really hard, is just the first layer of the onion.
The next, harder one, is to make a model to connect all the measurements into a single, understandable system.
After that, figuring out what to do to fix any problem while still living in style is the really hard problem.
Denier: "I don't believe anything and will do nothing about it." True Believer: "You're all going to hell but I will also do nothing but insist that you're going to hell!"
Moron: "paints with a bloody big brush, and only in monochromatic colours" (that'd be you)
A "denier" doesn't necessary deny everything any more than a "believer" doesn't necessarily do the shit you claim. The chance of you correctly describing any given "denier" or "believer" are about the same as you shitting in a bucket if it was nailed to your bum - very unlikely given your propensity for getting things wrong.
Don't take that the wrong way - I value your enlightened insights.
No one in their right mind is denying "climate change." Some are just skeptical of assertions that:
a) There is a warming trend at present, and more importantly that
b) It is directly caused by identifiable human actions.
And you should be glad that there are skeptics, because a healthy dose of skepticism could stop us from doing something VERY stupid because we think we know what we're doing when we yet don't. There are already some fringe elements talking about efforts to *intentionally* change the climate to contradict the effects of global warming. They are unbothered by the fact that we're still not actually 100% sure yet what the fuck is going on, much less what unintended side effects could result from fucking with Mother Nature on such a large scale. As a mild skeptic myself, I'm much more comfortable with the idea of not spewing so much shit into the air (as a good general principle) than the idea that things are SO AWFUL that we have to build a giant fucking air-conditioner before WEZZA ALL GONNA DIE!!!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's a step in the right direction. It contributes towards thinking towards a solution. As opposed to standing around denying that there could be a problem or wailing that we're helpless to do anything about it. Or that as long as we have jobs we haven't (yet) offshored or automated out of existence, that we must preserve them even if it makes the world uninhabitable. Because it's OK to kill jobs as long as you don't have to improve the world to do it.
(2) there is a United Nations drive to create a grass roots political counter culture which will operate via NGOs as an alternative to national governments,...
There's a term for the form of sophism that tacks a bundle of bullshit onto something that appears honest. I can't think of it at the moment - but I'm certain whatever it is will be available at all good chemists.
Apropos of nothing - if I see smoke I suspect fire and evacuate and test with my eyes and nose rather than with my flesh. To each their own.
Watch out for those Black helicopters - those shape-shifting lizard things are what makes all the C02.
Prevent the next Ice Age! Burn more coal!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg
To recycle means to use again, one would argue that what you've described is not using the materials again so it is not recycling. The earth does not 'use' stuff.
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I'm saying that you have no guarantee ahead of time that your model won't turn out to be useless and harmful.
There are no guarantees. It's about risk assessment. Waiting for better models may be more harmful than using whatever we have now. Besides, fossil fuels are going to run out anyway, and we'll have to deal with the harmful consequences of finding replacements anyway. All we need to do is start a bit earlier.
What? But didn't Oliphant say "the greatest human failing is ability to extrapolate"? (sarcasm off)
A core principle of good risk assessment is "how much will it hurt if the worst happens" - "deniers" seem to believe that if the worst happens (they're wrong and should have stopped fiddling, washed their hands and rung the fire brigade) - they all die - in which (unlikely case) they can invent a time machine, go back, and fix things (coz there's an industrial solution - right?).
Some are just skeptical of assertions that:...
You mean, they are denying these assertions.
It's a step in the right direction. It contributes towards thinking towards a solution.
The step is far too small, and it carries the risk that people get complacent, because "we are taking steps".
Can someone explain how you'd reasonably define "West" in a continent that straddles the South pole?
Fuck you too, moron. Wrote an entire post without even knowing what you were replying to.
Paywalls shit on the web, and you're helping to shit on the web by pasting paywalled links, so fuck you. Learn to control your asshole, like we expect from any child. When you do that, you will deserve a more nuanced response than "fuck you and your paywalls".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now, how do you propose to raise the tens of trillions of dollars necessary to build this massive solar-hydrogen power generation and distribution infrastructure you're talking about?
Let me guess. Massive taxation and huge government subsidies for projects that are obviously not economically feasible at present? Maybe outright nationalization of the energy and transportation industries (because that always works so well)? Government imposed food and energy rationing? Limits on vehicles? Limits on home size and living space?
I don't give a shit about the evidence. I'd rather be burned alive than live under Warmunism.
Some are denying. Some are just skeptical.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
This trail would include the billions of dollars spent on research only IF it has the word "climate" in the titles.
So did you only read the first paragraph of the article you stated? Cause the second paragraph starts with
"That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough"
He was talking about the tar sands of Canada being mined to depletion. To which they are just starting now. To remove all the resources there would take, I'll ball park, a hundred years if they did NOTHING ELSE. And yeah his math still holds true. IF you burned all of that fossil fuel supply in the SHORT TERM, apocalypse WOULD be upon us. And that is how scientists are able to use math.
luckily for you, Canada has a more laid back population and like their hydro plants sprinkled with some nuclear and wind. It'll take em a while to dig up all the tundra with all the other economical options at their disposal. So you can sleep a night knowing that you will not wake up underwater tomorrow morning....
What the BULK of his OPINION PIECE on energy policy was that adding a dirtier (ie, more CO2) fossil fuel to an already identified problem will accelerate the OBSERVED PROBLEMS WE SEE today. Such as, you know, TFA about Antartica melting.
That's not science. That's the view of the real world when your head is out of the sand....
As for my "opinion"... We need to pay attention and collect as much data on the Earth/Climate as humanly possible. We are off to a good start but we need a higher resolution to know where and when LOCAL disasters will occur and ACT to mitigate them. This course of action will SAVE MONEY in the long run for everyone. Not just the dying men currently paying off the shills.
As for the policy impact on the global economy... Doing just a little something to remove the corrupt individuals running corporations and governments the world over, would cover the cost of research, development, and deployment of a global energy structure 10 times over.
Apparently the conspiracy is about the UN imposing world government. It's best to avoid listening to the nuts for too long, it's not only moon landing fake level unlikely but also very very boring.
sorry, I got angry and forgot my point...
No scientist is saying the world is ending TOMORROW. Which means you have time to get off your ass and do something productive.
Your original response didn't even relate to the non-paywalled stuff written in the post. LTR
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It is a fallacy that addressing AGW means limiting the poor's access to energy. There will be change no matter what, and change begets winners and losers, and the losers are the current crop of plutocrats who run the GOP rage machine, and this nonsense about addressing climate change making us collectively poorer is just one of many pratts.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This is just utterly mystifying! There are continuous claims of temperature rise and counterclaims ranging from cherry picking data to outright forgery. Etc etc etc the battle for hearts and minds ranges.
BUT this is very different. Now both sides are claiming to have real world facts showing a delta in measurements. Alarmists say they have data showing Antarctic ice disappearing while the other side claims to have data showing it is at near historic high levels. One side or the other is PROBABLY lying. Although we shouldn't completely discount the possibility that it hasn't changed at all.
Figures don't lie but liars figure.
Now, how do you propose to raise the tens of trillions of dollars necessary to build this massive solar-hydrogen power generation and distribution infrastructure you're talking about?
The same way you would have to do when oil runs out.
sorry, I got angry and forgot my point...
You'd be better getting less angry and doing more research.
No scientist is saying the world is ending TOMORROW.
Unless you consider being 'past the point of no return' being roughly the same, in which case scientists have said that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The stuff that's almost impossible to get to may as well not exist. That's why peak oil is from peak oil production, as in the stuff extracted in any given year instead of anything else.
You cannot be skeptical of the facts. You can only deny them.
Fair enough, but how do you react when a trainee accountant who doesn't even know how to do a macro tells you all your coding skills are worthless? That's the level of "climate debate" you are discussing.
There are plenty in the middle with our mouths shut actually getting Sh*t done. Come join us!
These guys, or NASA?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If you are in Antarctica, how can you tell which way is West?
I mean, "to the left, if facing North", seems a bit ambiguous.
Maybe "In the direction of Texas"?
Funny - now that the ARCTIC ice pack is increasing we don't here anything about that. In a few years when it reverses you won't hear a thing about the antarctic ice pack but OHHH the ARCTIC is melting.
Remember back in 2008 the Arctic ice pack was supposed to be gone by 2014. Ooops. There was more ice in the summer of 2014 than in 2008.
Things aren't as simple as you make them out to be.
99.99% of ALL the pundits/Slashdotters/columnists, etc. who weigh in on this are unqualified to offer an opinion.
The real scientists who study climate don't post on Slashdot, publish opinions in the paper, or chain themselves to this or that. They labor away in the labs creating data.
All others are just Face Painting Homers who pick a team based on the political philosophy and go from there, citing websites built by other Face Painting Homers and vomiting back up opinions.
It's not as if the rising temperatures are something just recently discovered or somehow recalculated into the past. It's something that has been observed by several generation of scientists now.
No, but you can be arrogant in assuming that you know for absolutely sure what the facts are. Many a fool has perished after thinking he knew for sure what he was doing.
Climate change to ever rising temperatures at least for Central Europe is thus well documented for centuries.
How far down is that from the medieval warm period ?
Or is that just a time period that you aren't concerned about ?
Everybody takes the long dirt nap. Even true believers in AGW.
Oh and damn slashdot for not letting posts be edited
How's that snowless winter prediction working out ?
http://www.independent.co.uk/e...
oh you aren't in the UK fair enough
It found a dramatic “step-like” drop in snowfall at the end of the 1980s which has never recovered, New Scientist magazine reported.... In some years the amount that fell was 60 per cent lower than was typical in the early 1980s, said Christoph Marty, from the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, who analysed the records.
”I don’t believe we will see the kind of snow conditions we have experienced in past decades,” he said.
-2008
There is the Swiss.
So when you say the climate models are very good you mean not at all ?
I dont even understand why "it will cost money" is even a consideration. Its laughable. When something costs money, it goes into the pockets of the people you are paying the money to, who turn around and spend it on something themselves. Overall there is no loss of money, it just changes hands, which is the purpose of money in the first place.
Sure if you want to talk about overall loss of labor that could be channeled into something else, climate change mitigation would affect that, but since the tech that would fix climate change is great to have for a dozen other reasons, I think its worth it even without the goal of stopping climate change.
"use" is also a relative term and dependent on time. Sure styrofoam in a landfill doesn't have a use now, but maybe in a few thousand years it will be a resource to be mined or a food source for bacteria to generate methane gas. One man's trash is another bacterium's food.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum
Oct. 7, 2014
On Sept. 19, 2014, the five-day average of Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 20 million square kilometers for the first time since 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The red line shows the average maximum extent from 1979-2014.
Credits: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/Cindy Starr
Sea ice surrounding Antarctica reached a new record high extent this year, covering more of the southern oceans than it has since scientists began a long-term satellite record to map sea ice extent in the late 1970s.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/go...
Need Mercedes parts ?
You make a fool of yourself, as the main cause of West Antarctic ice melting is volcanic activity. Look it up, then spew on slashdot.
I think it could take a very long time, but then again it could take far less than we would expect. The Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated in something like 3 weeks. Scientists at the time knew it was unstable and in trouble but nobody thought that much ice could breakup and melt so fast.
You mean the over half I pay for fossil fuel that is tax?
No, it's not, you are redefining it's meaning.
Eating is not using.
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This is really indicative of the downfall of "science". The way you deal with this is to make a precise prediction that turns out to be accurate and is difficult to explain otherwise. That proves to people you are onto something. THAT is how science deals with uncertainty. Once you have that you can still have people arguing about data quality and the whole consensus thing may happen. Doing it before is a huge mistake, but just one of many that have trickled in as the effort becomes more and more politicized.
Slashdot today:
Broad-brush assertion accusing "deniers" of dishonesty gets scored 5, Insightful.
Amazing!
There is an abundance of extremely long-lived, well scrutinized science focused solely on the answers to your questions. Mainly the quantity and extraction costs of fossil fuel reserves and the energy payback and economics of all energy conversion technologies are well studied from dozens of professional perspectives over several generations of scientists. The most conservative estimates lean one way, the optimistic estimates lean the other, but on the order of a generation, or 1/3 of anyone's life, the differences have been minor. Despite their specific results, credible researchers all over the world have uniformly found (for a couple decades) that overall economic harm is minimized or overall economic return is maximized by engaging change sooner rather than later, neglecting the (IMO stronger) arguments on the environment, ecology, equality, health, etc
Economic risks are important to recognize, especially the ones that cater toward our own selfishness. The risks of affecting change are vastly overstated due to the economic and power inertia of the status quo. The "risk" and "cost" necessary to achieve the status quo are conveniently neglected (aka along with any acknowledgement for what our lifestyles cost us), despite their overwhelming importance to global industry for at least 150 years and their vast magnitude compared to anything proposed in the past few decades (possibly with the exception of China). The risk associated with neglecting other geopolitical and economic appetites is completely neglected. All in all, if you think about the science, the economics, the history, and the agenda's of important stakeholders, the right choices are trivial and obvious. Recognizing and accepting that they do not fit personal interests is difficult. Narcissism, selfishness and the capacity for wanton ignorance and self-delusion readily interfere with progress.
Whether replacement energy conversion technologies become cost effective in 2005 or 2017 doesn't matter by 2030. The trend is our friend. The cumulative increase in certainty developed from continuous study of these issues has shown that in aggregate we know what we're doing. A 150 year scientific record is there to study. There are no game changers. High quality and easily gathered resources are used first. Subsequently extraction and processing costs rise. New techniques and processes are developed. They are hailed as miraculous and game changing, but in fact they are/were already incorporated into the record long ago. Minor forecast adjustments are made. Alternative solutions are proposed with fundamentally different development and operational profiles. They are hailed as miraculous and game changing. They are not, they will require endless study and refinement. If pursued, their manufacture will improve and costs decrease with scale and experience. Predictions come true. The slow march of progress is boring. Economics would sort it out eventually, but those not preoccupied by the past will be the first to take advantage of the future. Those who take the "risk" reap the reward. Then their interests will become the obstinate status quo of the future.
A rumor of an approaching truck that might be here in a week is spread by someone who wants you off the road. Do you move now or wait until you see the truck coming? Maybe the truck is going to stop to pick you up.
The latest IPCC report has backed away from the doom and gloom but its summary for policymakers hasn't.
So you believe every "denier" is bought to deny? Wow.
NEXT!
And (also obviously) this possible future melting has nothing to do with CO2 in the atmosphere, yet it is used to prop up the crumbling case for climate alarmism.
What's really funny about this is that the climate debate really picked up when people with actual statistics skills showed up and started looking around.
Essentially, you have it backwards. The professionals showed up and started talking about the Excel macro-level work they were finding.
Not that they needed to. When the model is wrong, it doesn't matter how skillfully it was written. It only takes an honest man to say what everyone can see.
See that "Preview" button?
Because this has very little to do with hard science and more to do with politics. This issue, just like racism, "the war on women", etc. are all about advancing the liberal / progressive agenda to advance their goals. I'm sure that my post will be modded down by the progressives and liberals here because it exposes them.
You make a fool of yourself, as the main cause of West Antarctic ice melting is volcanic activity. Look it up, then spew on slashdot.
Actually, we discussed previously how there was some volcanism causing melting, but it wasn't capable of being responsible for the bulk of it. Instead, the ice melting may be responsible for the volcanism, at least, that it's being expressed now.
Look it up, then spew on slashdot.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And when I'm standing ankle deep in sea water in the middle of Manhattan I'll post it here too.
The fact of the matter is that the climate change front largely depends on fear mongering. They constantly push a worst case scenario and when it doesn't come to fruition you wonder why people have moved on? Seriously? How about offering up models that aren't going on about how Sri Lanka is going to be covered in water by 2020 and maybe you'll get some credibility.
For as much as the movement may have hailed Al Gore as a voice of reason, the fact of the matter is that he's created more skeptics than Teh Faux Newws!!!!1111!! and the bible belt put together.
But don't worry. He's laughing all the way to the bank.
Oh, and how do you like it now that Obama has opened up Arctic drilling? I thought that was only considered by Big Oil and their paid-for Republican buddies?
Let the ad hominems begin!
https://nofrakkingconsensus.fi...
“The IPCC was not established – and is not controlled – by science academies. Rather, it is a child of one of the most politically driven bodies known to humanity, the United Nations."
"As a UN entity, the IPCC’s primary purpose isn’t to further scientific knowledge but to provide scientific justification for another UN entity – the 1992 treaty known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)."
"Evidence of this is in plain sight. At a 2008 event celebrating the IPCC’s 20th anniversary, chairman Pachauri told a group of IPCC insiders: “The UNFCCC is our main customer.”"
"Similarly a 2011 presentation by vice chair van Ypersele ends this way: “Conclusion: IPCC is eager to continue serving the UNFCCC process.”"
"An international treaty is a political instrument. This makes it impossible for any reasonable person to conclude that the IPCC is about science for science sake."
"This is science for politics sake.”
sorry, I got angry and forgot my point...
You'd be better getting less angry and doing more research.
I do plenty of research. I actually read the article you linked to. Which was all that was needed to debunk your original comment....
No scientist is saying the world is ending TOMORROW.
Unless you consider being 'past the point of no return' being roughly the same, in which case scientists have said that.
The 'End Of The World' and 'past the point of no return' can at no point mean anything even close to the same. Is it too late to save the status quo in Miami and New Orleans? Yes, they are flooding now and will continue to flood, more so, in my lifetime. Will there be major economic burdens due to food production in California dropping to record lows from a massive drought? yup, this summer is gonna suck over there and I might even feel it in my food budget.
Will my house that is 40mi inland and 600feet above sealevel that I just purchased be destroyed?. Nope, which means there is still hope for me and how I want to live and help my community sustain a comfortable living standard. And I'll do it by not being a burden on my neighbors or stealing what isn't mine. I'll have hard seasons and may loose a job now and again, but I'll adapt and survive. Cause I pay attention and research enough to know whats coming and where to go next. Its not that hard.
Works exactly as stated for Germany. The past 10 years I've seen snowfall on maybe three days during the whole winter and the snow won't stay for long. If I want to go for XC ski, I need to ascend to >800m AMSL and even then snow is hit and miss. I had +14 C in mid December and mid February this winter FFS!
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The 'End Of The World' and 'past the point of no return' can at no point mean anything even close to the same.
It would certainly depend on what point you're passing, don't you think?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
of climate change deniers.
Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not.
What exactly is a "climate change denier"? Is that someone who denies that the climate changes? Would you be so kind as to point to a specific example of someone who has actually said the climate hasn't changed, isn't changing and won't change? I certainly don't know of anyone who is that stupid.
(Although, it does seem that some people think the climate shouldn't change and that, because it is changing, that's a Bad Thing. But those aren't the skeptics.)
Or by "climate change denier" do you mean someone who doesn't believe in future predictions of disaster? If so, could you explain how someone "denies" a future prediction? One either believes a prediction or doesn't believe it but it hasn't happened so there is nothing to "deny" or "accept".
"Climate change" is a term that fell into vogue after focus group studies discovered that people would worry less about "climate change" than "global warming". Can we call you a "Global Warming Denialist" instead?
Don't suffer from single study syndrome.
Yeah! Learn to throw out studies you don't like and include the ones you do like to suit your agenda! And then champion the fact that the best study you can come up with is the one that says "Uh, I dunno."!
I don't care whether you are pro or against climate change action, but at least you are being perfectly HONEST.
So that's right, it is about risk and how to deal with that risk. To me this analogy fits: you are on a fast road and there is limited visibility, you see some object on the road up ahead, and you know that if you swerve violently you might just swerve into some other car or a tree, or maybe just go off the road and bump and survive, or you could keep going and see whether the object turns out to be an old cardboard box or something less dangerous. The decision/problem is about how best to rationally handle the questions of the risks involved.
Nice analogy. I know if it was me in this situation I would SLOW THE FUCK DOWN. Seems to me, that's what attempts to slow the amount of CO2 we are pumping into atmosphere are about.
So that's right, it is about risk and how to deal with that risk. To me this analogy fits: you are on a fast road and there is limited visibility, you see some object on the road up ahead, and you know that if you swerve violently you might just swerve into some other car or a tree, or maybe just go off the road and bump and survive, or you could keep going and see whether the object turns out to be an old cardboard box or something less dangerous. The decision/problem is about how best to rationally handle the questions of the risks involved.So that's right, it is about risk and how to deal with that risk. To me this analogy fits: you are on a fast road and there is limited visibility, you see some object on the road up ahead, and you know that if you swerve violently you might just swerve into some other car or a tree, or maybe just go off the road and bump and survive, or you could keep going and see whether the object turns out to be an old cardboard box or something less dangerous. The decision/problem is about how best to rationally handle the questions of the risks involved.
With your object in the road analogy here's the problem.
Climate scientists, having spotted the object, have pulled over to the side of the road, and stopped. They have been taking measurements for the past few *decades*, and the results indicate that the vaguely seen object up ahead is seriously bad luck for the cars on the road.
Climate change deniers insist that it's all a figment of their imagination, the road is perfectly clear, and want to keep driving down the road at top speed.
Meanwhile, there's an increased rate of severe accidents on the road, all of which are consistent with the climate scientists' measurements and claims.
Great information! And since it's been happening for several centuries, we can probably conclude it's not primarily due to man's use of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions, which really didn't kick into high gear until 70 years ago or so. It's most likely dominated by natural cycles.
There's a whole spectrum of opinion: Denier -> Skeptic -> Neutral -> Agreer -> Zealot. There is too much conflation of "Denier" (one who denies blindly and emphatically) and "Skeptic" (one who is scientifically knowledgeable not convinced by the available evidence) and too much input from "Zealots" (those who agree blindly and emphatically).
What exactly is a "climate change denier"?
It's another way of saying AGW denier. Not literally correct, but commonly used.
TIL 97% of the world's scientists are climate experts
It's okay, I own land in Arizona, future beachfront property!
Slashdot today:
Broad-brush assertion accusing "deniers" of dishonesty gets scored 5, Insightful.
Amazing!
Unfortunately Slashdot doesn't have an "Obvious But Still Important To Say" option, so Insightful will have to do.
In this case though I would agree that Informative is a better mod, since his statement isn't that insightful it is just correcting the previous post when he stated climate change deniers are skeptical. While they may be skeptical in the "skeptical science is the best way to gain knowledge" sense, they are not the good kind of skeptical that actually help the debate on what to do above climate change.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html shows an overall growing Antarctic ice cap. (Make sure you click on the Antarctic tab.) Looking at illustrated and graphed data, one can identify some western areas where the ice cap has receded, albeit only ~15% of the western coast by a rough eyeball guess; however, the eastern side has not remained largely stagnant as the article of this post states. It has grown slightly, as it has also done in the south. Areas of the north have grown yet more significantly. Also, the running mean between 1980 and 2015 reveals a steady increase in overall extent.
A discussion about climate change must take the nature of the change into the account. On the one hand, it is hard to deny that humans affect the climate. On the other hand, the Earth has undergone climate changes in the past (e.g., Medieval warming). Thus, from a historical perspective it seems that we just have to figure out how to deal with it. We can start by putting those who deny the change on an island that sits two feet above the sea level :-)
lack of cheap (coal fired) electricity is holding back Africa
Lack of cheap energy, yes, but that certainly wouldn't be coal in Africa because they don't have any really large easy-to-exploit deposits of it. They don't have a lot of sites appropriate for hydro power, but they get plenty of sun. They could import coal to burn give electricity today, or import solar panels to give electricity for the next two decades. Best would be to build their own solar panel fabs, but the investment is too risky for most companies.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
My kingdom for a mod point . . .
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Unfortunately, it's not just West Antarctica. There are areas on the eastern side that are of great concern, the rate of ice loss is up over 70% in 10 yrs and then there's Greenland and the overwhelming majority of land-based glaciers that are also melting.
Yes, it'll all take time but with every passing decade it seems to be speeding up.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
If you follow the science, the case for "alarmism" is stronger than ever.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
too much input from "Zealots" (those who agree blindly and emphatically).
Easily confused with the well-informed agreer, who also appears empathic, but is not blind.
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical.
Very few deniers are honestly skeptical.
As soon as you deny, you don't qualify as a skeptic. Ever.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Roy_Spencer.htm
When his claims don't match the existing evidence, you might want to stop holding him up as a paragon of science. Seriously, the guy has claimed that *joggers* are responsible for 10% of climate change.
Climate models produce ranges of expected temperature changes over time. So far, the actual temperature measurements have been inside the ranges predicted by the models. This indicates that the models are working to the degree that they are expected to.
I'm missing the claim of permanent, 'snowless winter'. There's talk in the article you linked about the fact that snowfall has *significantly* fallen off, and doesn't look to be recovering. The quote you include from New Scientist says the same thing.
Nice of you to set up the straw man right along side the evidence that it *is* a straw man.
Significantly reduced snow is *NOT* the same as 'no snow ever again!!!!!'.
When the deniers ignore their own study (Berkeley Earth Report) because it doesn't confirm their original biases then they can no longer call themselves skeptics.
Heck, Tony Wazzup ignores his very own study.
what % of antarctic ice is a gigaton ?
The measured net loss of 90 gton/yr, isn't that derived by subtracting two much much larger numbers, the gain/yr and the loss per year ?
thank you google
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/antarctic-ice-sheet-surface-mass-balance/
the yearly gain is on the order of 2,000 gigaton/yr, so a net loss of 90 is a difficult calculation to make
A skeptic accepts conclusions based on the available evidence.
A denier chooses evidence based on their accepted conclusion.
About the time the deniers bring a snowball into Congress to 'disprove' global warming, you can safely stop considering them skeptics.
Look at tetraethyl lead, the lead industry, and the scientists who discovered in the 1940s the horrible things TEL does to children, then read on why it wasn't banned until 1973.
Look at smoking, the scientists who started figuring out all the awful shit it does to the body, and the tobacco industry that spent 25 years fighting a systematic FUD campaign (and personal character attacks against them).
Now scientists have spent decades fleshing out the basic idea that Arrhenius articulated about 120 years ago and it's becoming increasingly a sign of lunacy to claim he wasn't right...
What was Arrhenius' estimated value for transient climate sensitivity to CO2 again?
There are many informed skeptics who understand the science, but don't believe we have enough information yet for drastic measures.
Yet just as smoking-causes-cancer denialism was the unbelievably stupid meme that Just Wouldn't Fucking Die because the tobacco industry kept funding it, and the leaded-gasoline-is-harmless denialism that was funded directly by the lead industry before that, now certain interests that want to burn and/or strip mine the word in the name of the Holy Lord's Next Quarterly Profit Report are funding a massive, systematic attack against any coherent action on climate change. And you people are falling for it. AGAIN.
What "coherent action on climate change" do you recommend, exactly? Not a single suggested mitigation will make a significant difference in the estimated (guesstimated) temperature by 2100. The one thing that would make a significant difference, if in fact there's a problem worth the effort, is a mass transition from coal to nuclear power worldwide (ESPECIALLY in China and India). However, apparently nuclear is anathema to the vast majority of climate alarmists and environmentalists, despite it being the safest power generation method in use by far.
Are we seriously expected to believe that 97% of the world's scientists are involved in some sort of massive scheme to... uh... steal grant money?
I think the majority of scientists involved are honest, if not doing a great job with the science. You should read Judith Curry's site for some rational discussion of the issue from a highly qualified climate scientist. As far as the way the science is being used to advocate social change, remember that the most effective lies contain a grain of truth...
Or that maybe damn near everyone who looks into what's going on realizes we really gotta do something about this crap?
Actually, that's not obvious at all. It is clear that more research is needed before taking drastic measures that will harm the poor around the world more than any other group. In the meantime, we should embark on win/win efforts such as a mass conversion from coal to nuclear energy. Coal power is bad from many perspectives, such as killing tens of thousands of people every year, increasing ocean acidification, and providing a rich source of organic mercury. Solar and wind are fine as long as they're cost-effective, but they aren't a good fit for base load power.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Wouldn't going clockwise around the south pole be the same as going west? which end is the west end?
ps - I know about the Greenwich meridian, I just think it's a weird convention.
TIL you are a fucking retard.
Which study was thrown out? None.
Unfortunately, there are many that will ignore ethics if they can skirt along the edge of legality and make some money or garner some power from it... There is a reason why ethics is being pushed more in colleges (at least at mine) to try to not only produce great engineers, but ethical ones too. When the leaders of our country (speaking as a US citizen here) have no issues bending ethics if it means their life is easier, better, or more profitable... it is hard for others to want to do the same. Sometimes I wonder if the ethical ones are a dieing bread or just don't get much visibility in the news.
Well, not starting wars half way around the world would go a *long* way toward paying off those "tens of trillions of dollars" you're so worried about. And the amazing thing is that they don't need to be raised all at once. You can phase in better sources of power, and phase *out* worse ones. Heck, you can even go from 'bad' to 'not as bad' to 'pretty good' to 'good' in *stages*!
Unfortunately, refusing to do *anything* until it can all be done at once just multiplies the end costs. After all, 'good, cheap, fast: pick two'.
A rumor of an approaching truck that might be here in a week is spread by someone who wants you off the road.
So why would anyone want you off the road? Because you are a paranoid, sitting on the street, screaming loudly "There are no trucks! Trucks don't exist!" while cupping your ears with your hands?
If you are really really worried about this, then start a crowd funding campaign to ship ice makers to Antarctica. Ignore the scoffers ranting on about selling freezers to Eskimos, after all, an environmentalist and his money are soon parted.
Maybe Shatner can crowd fund a pipeline to take the melted water and transport it to California.
So... I work in the field of computers, that gives me a huge amount of validity to my scientific opinion of climate change (or any number of other things that I haven't spent years learning about to understand the intimate intricacies of those topics)... If anything, my education has taught me that complex systems can be very hard to model, and any small change can easily throw these models off course. I do not have a vast understanding of climatology though it is easy enough to see that the climate is indeed changing. Wait, What??? Now let me explain, choose one of the classic periods (Jurrasic, Triassic, etc) and note that the evidence says the climate was doing X. It changed... done... Not trying to be a smart... but the climate will change (and this includes after we are long gone), period end of story. Next... Humans, Homo-Sapiens, Westerners, whomever are doing horrible things to the environment... Nah, I don't believe it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... (yes, I am linking to the first citation note, cause if you aren't actually looking at the references and just taking what the wiki says... well you probably should give up rites to actually reference things from here on out). Bottom line, whether we are changing the climate or it is changing of its own accord... there are far many other things we are doing to harm this blue marble. It is unfortunate that it may be more difficult for my children to walk in the woods and not find a plastic bottle sticking out of the dirt than when I was walking through the same woods when I was younger. (replace woods with beach, lake shore, or any number of other natural outdoorsie places). So, instead of bickering about he is poisoning the earth, or she is preaching doom, take a look outside and if you can honestly say you don't see where the environment is being harmed by us... then get off your chair and actually go out and breathe some air (noxious as it might be). You generally don't have to walk far to see some sign. Progress does not mean trash your environment, and protecting your environment doesn't mean living in grass yurts! There is a balance, but starting with not throwing your plastic bottle onto the beach instead of taking it back to a [Trash can or recycle can... can argue this later] is a start. And a final word, I prefer apocalypse by zombies vs pollution.
Here in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, I can say we had a snowless winter down in the lowlands, which is pretty unusual.
What's really unusual though, is there's no snow on the mountains bordering the lowlands. It didn't even snow much up there. The mountains in January looked like they normally do by about August. It was a pretty weird year. There's talk of drought worries now, since our water supply is snowfall runoff in the foothills.
They were willing to murder millions of people to achieve utopia and they still didn't get it.
LOL. Are you serious right now?
And that is why you fail.
So, some people that were smarter and more committed than us ended up being genocidal maniacs, and thus the economic theory they started out championing is bunk. Does anyone really need to blow holes in that logic?
Eating is not using.
From someone named MrL0G1C of all things. Thank you for the laugh
How so? Can you select where power generation comes from to your home?
Can you control the paper mills spewing toxic substances in your neighborhood?
Can you control your idiot neighbor who is proud of his truck spewing black smoke?
Sorry, government does not solve a lot of problems but this is definitely one of them. If you were even allowed to know who the absolute worst exploiters were you might have a choice of not buying from them. Chances on little to nothing that said organization doesn't interact in some way or another with something critical in your life. Need a desk for your office? That's some trees, are you selecting your desk based on where the wood came from and whether it was sustainably captured? Or are you looking at a brand name and have no clue who actually supplied the wood?
There are so many circumstances that are out of your control that I have no idea how you can say the individual is solely responsible by saying they can't do it without our help.
Sounds like you are very confused. There are a great many businesses that save thousands of dollars every month replacing their lighting with more efficient technologies.
Even in a typical residential home you're talking about saving about $4/month switching to a LED bulb. Now think about how many bulbs are in your house. Think about how often you have to replace that 60watt bulb.
Now, that is just a regular 60watt bulb, imagine a 1000watt halogen running all night as a security light, you can present the same amount of LED light in 10 to 20 watts. So you save the cost of the bulb in 2 to 3 months and then you have a bulb that will last several years.
The low hanging fruit is definitely worth taking. Other technologies like my variable speed pool pump has saved me enormously. It used to cost about $100/month to run my pool, it's down to about $20. That puts the ROI about a year down the road. Pump life warranted for 5 years and expected to last from 7 to 10 years. So the lifetime savings is quite enormous.
Follow the chemtrails.
Have you seen the size of those reports? Have you tried stay awake while reading them? It would be more appropriate to say: "It really is that hard."
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
You are assuming several things here. First of all you're assuming that anything can be done. Then there's the matter of should anything be done. I don't think you'll find many people who will deny that climate change is occurring. The argument has more to do with historical evidence and whether it points to change created by man or change that is naturally occurring. Because this issue has so much money, and politics wrapped up in it there is little to no chance of separating the science from the FUD due to the fact that the two are so hopelessly intermingled.
My gut tells me that we didn't create this place, and we probably won't be able to destroy it either. At least not by accident.
Ok. What are you going to do? Say the earth is warming and isn't going to cool off again by itself. What are you going to do to fix it? Let's shut down all the coal plants. Let's all stop driving cars and walk. Let's all plant a bunch of trees and pray. Do you honestly believe this would have any impact at all?
Let's not be naïve and realize that star trek was a tv show.
Growing Antarctic sea ice limiting access to continent http://www.smh.com.au/environm...
now certain interests that want to burn and/or strip mine the word in the name of the Holy Lord's Next Quarterly Profit Report are funding a massive, systematic attack against any coherent action on climate change. And you people are falling for it. AGAIN.
The secret Illuminati of ultra-rich religious control freaks have single-handedly doomed the planet because they conspired against climate change? Is this the same religious lobby that utterly failed their quest to stop the legalization of gay marriage? Perhaps they don't have as much power as you think they do.
There was a recent paper on cancer by Tomasetti and Vogelstein (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25554788) that claimed to present evidence that much of cancer is just due to unavoidable, innate errors during cell division (ie "chance"). They concluded that our efforts should be mainly focused on early detection rather than prevention (although this may help in a minority of cases).
I'm not even saying they are correct, I don't think anyone knows how many consecutive times cells divide in humans (it could range from only 60-100 to 30,000 in the same tissue by the time you are 80) because we have so little info on what the stem cells are actually doing. However, some of the letters to Science that resulted were ridiculous like that post. People saying "cancer incidence varies amongst different communities" and citing a 1,500 page document with no specifics (http://www.iarc.fr/en/publications/pdfs-online/epi/index.php).
It really makes you wonder if they are being honest.
You just discovered polar coordinates.
Rising seas will cut down on my 7 hr drive to the nearest beach.
You mean there's still ice out there? I thought it was all gone.
Trick? What trick? Doom and gloom is the default case for these discussions (See IPCC report "2.2.4 Risk of catastrophic or abrupt change"). We're already moving in a renewables direction. Since 2007, renewables have slowly been eating into fossil fuels and becoming more cost-effective with every passing year. Of their own momentum. As are hybrid/electric vehicles. Which is why there needs not be a discussion, unless the adoption rate isn't occurring fast enough. That very concept of "not fast enough" implies urgency, which implies "end of the world/catastrophic" type scenarios. It's not like it's a huge derailment of logic. Between the dialogue and the agenda, in light of what's already occurring in the sector, it's a reasonable conclusion.
Bah, who needs the Antarctic land ice anyway? Penguins? Screw em.
If anything, several people would actually enjoy having the beach move closer to their homes. Less driving when they wanna go for a swim
The latest IPCC report has backed away from the doom and gloom.
[Citation needed]
You are also starting from a premise that the IPCC report was ever about "doom and gloom", which it wasn't.
Overall there is no loss of money, it just changes hands
Read up on opportunity costs. Money isn't lost completely, but it could certainly be spent more productively.
if you want to talk about overall loss of labor that could be channeled into something else, climate change mitigation would affect that
Exactly. It's definitely true that e.g. renewable energy development would have many other knock-on benefits, but it's better not to have to adapt to dramatic climate change while we're doing it, any more than needing a World War to prompt us to invent radar.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
It only takes an honest man to say what everyone can see.
So off you go to IPCC and see what honest scientists are saying.
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Unsustainable over what term, though? There's plenty of most minerals around. Rare earths aren't particularly rare, and there's a lot more sources of most things if we spend a little more to develop them. And recycling pushes "peak minerals" out further. We're set for most things for the next few decades at least, centuries mostly, and millennia for a lot of common stuff.
In the longer term, we can greatly improve our recycling (nanotech molecular disassemblers combing our landfill, maybe), and our sources (there's literally astronomical amounts of useful minerals in the asteroids). I don't think we're in too much trouble there.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Projections in the media of damage and death from the potential impacts of climate change is what the average person hears about and is a useful motivator to convince them that trillions of taxpayer moneys must be spent. To mitigate against possible unspecific events in an uncertain location at an unknown time.
I am not surprised that your sensible, well-reasoned post was modded Troll by some idiot. The Klimate Kult, activists and well-meaning-but-emotionally-committed group-thinkers are always out in full force at Slashdot for every story related to this issue.
Oh yes, economists with undergraduate degrees and no publications versus applied mathematicians with years of experience. It is really funny that you think newbies are vastly superior.
The models (note the "s") have been modified and refined with time as data is collected.
Seriously? A PR company like the Heartland Institute is an honest man?
The real problem are ppl like you.
You KNOW that there is an issue.
You crack down on a nation that is at 15% of the CO2 and dropping.
Yet, you do not say squat about a group of nations that represent about 12% of all emissions.
Worse, you allow the nation that is at 33% of emissions, and growing, to continue growing it and claim that it is smart to do.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"some people never learn"
Like you, who missed the part about the land ice melting far quicker than the sea ice is forming.
Bonus question: know what's causing the extra sea ice?
Answer: the melting land ice.
You see, the land ice is fresh water.
It flows into the ocean, which is salt water.
It changes the local salinity of the sea water, lowering it, which has the effect of raising the temperate it is capable of freezing at.
Thus, MORE SEA ICE.
It is a wholly expected and predicted part of climate science.
So before you put words in peoples mouths, you'd do well to learn what they actually said.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Allow me to take a leaf from your book and say: Citation needed...
This entire forum, for one...
The endless posts from people who claim that anyone who drives anything other than a SmartCar or a Prius is an evil person who is destroying the world...
Are you seriously saying that you have heard nothing about replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs? Seriously?
Quote me the last Slashdot article that was focused on LED bulbs. Ok, you might find one.
I'll quote you a hundred more since then about electric cars and solar panels.
And why should economic sense be of highest importance?
Because without a good economy, many more people are hurt and killed due to a lack of basic life needs. Every dollar you spend on something that costs more than it needs to is a dollar that isn't going somewhere else.
Raising the price of fuel via a carbon tax may indeed have long term benefits to the environment, but it sure will hurt a lot of people in the short term. The well off can pay it, but the working poor will really feel it.
Slavery makes economic sense, and yet we pay more for our goods so that the people who make them get paid because it is the right thing to do. Why can't we do the same thing so that we don't stuff up the environment?
It took a VERY long time to change the view in that dept, in the order of THOUSANDS of years...
SJW are now trying to change people's views on economics and the environment within one lifetime.
Good luck with that... It takes multiple generations to make such changes happen, look at the almost 100 years between the civil war in the US vs. when the civil rights act was passed...
Even today it is still an issue and it won't be really cleaned up within our lifetimes, it will likely take another 100-200 years to remove race as a serious issue...
So the idea that we're going to toss money out the window when it comes to the environment? What color is the sky in that world?
Luckily some people are interested in the quality of life in the future, and have a desire to leave the world in a better state than they found it.
Be careful that you do not confuse what "is nice" with "what is".
Many of my posts deal with "what is".
I actually would be willing to spend more money and have a nicer environment, but I also understand the way the world really works.
If wishes were fishes we'd all eat for free, but it doesn't work that way.
Ah the troll is back to say "lets be reasonable"...while presenting only two extreme scenarios (hint: its not a given that curbing global warming requires tanking the economy. the notion is a myth, a scaretactic of its own).
plus, if your only choices are "fuck up the environment" and "fuck up the economy", then you're doing it wrong.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
wrong.
they are not skeptical.
that's the point:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/fut...
Skepticism is all about critical examination, evidence-based scientific inquiry, and the use of reason in examining controversial claims. Those who flatly deny the results of climate science do not partake in any of the above. They base their conclusions on a priori convictions. Theirs is an ideological conviction—the opposite of skepticism.
After hearing that the individuals in question did not accept the conclusions of climate change modelers at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other academic bodies, I asked them the simple question: “OK, what do your models predict?”
As you might expect, the response was silence.
If those who decry the claims of climate scientists cannot provide some sound empirical basis for their critiques of these claims and the data and models they are based on, then their denialism should be treated on the same footing as those who deny the results of evolutionary biology simply because they do not want to accept evolution.
To put climate deniers on the same footing as scientists, for whom skepticism is a central facet of their life work, is to do a great disservice to science, knowledge, and progress.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Because the low hanging fruit isn't very plentiful. LED bulbs don't have much of an impact on overall energy consumption, for instance.
I challenge you to do the math...
If every home and business in the US replaced every incandecent bulb with an LED bulb, how much total power would it save?
What percentage of our power consumption is that and how many coal power plants would we not need because of it?
Or to put it another way, how many solar plants would we not need to build because of it?
What would those solar plants cost? What would just giving away LED bulbs to everyone cost?
whats the going rate on these shills posts?
cant be much, considering how many you have to write each day.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Are those really the only two possibilities that occur to you?
No, those are the only two options I see presented from the AGW camp.
I'm perfectly happy to make reasonable and steady progress towards a better world. I'm actually not convinced it will make much difference mind you...
What the scientists ARE telling us is that the coming climate changes (which can't now be prevented completely but CAN certainly be mitigated) will have significant costs - economic and humanitarian.
They may very well...
But what isn't being discussed is this: Will it cost more to try and prevent something that appears to no longer be preventable, or would it be cheaper to adapt to the coming changes?
It is entirely possible that the outcome won't change regardless of what we do, and if so, we are just wasting our time on dreams and hopes.
If you're on the Titanic and it is sinking, forming a bucket brigade and hoping you can toss enough water out to keep it afloat is likely a fools errand. The ship is going to sink, it will sink, it is just a matter of time. Accepting that and moving on is actually in everyone's best interest.
The question becomes, how can you save as many people as possible in the 2 or 3 hours you have left? If you run around trying every little thing to save everyone, you might actually lose everyone because you're not focused on reality.
---
Can we cut CO2? Sure. Will it be enough? That is a more interesting question...
If we can't cut it by enough to change the outcome, why are we trying so hard? Perhaps we're better off accepting that we've lost that battle and focus on the way the world will change around us because of it?
Yes, it will cost money to move our energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels. No, it won't derail the economy (the average estimate from the World Bank and many others is about 0.5-1% of GDP).
Myself and a lot of other people think numbers from the World Bank are hogwash, they have an incentive to make it sound "not so bad", then it becomes rational escalation as the number grows and grows, people won't notice that. If they came out and said 10% tomorrow, everyone would scream and run away.
I could of course be wrong, my crystal ball is on the fritz, but I don't blindly trust the government, any government, to be honest about any of this, it is way too political.
We don't have to cut our energy usage to the bone, we just have to invest in carbon-neutral energy generation - then we can easily support our lavish lifestyles with zero carbon cost, and save money in the process.
That sounds really, really nice... but sounding nice doesn't make it true...
Tell me, what would it cost to replace all the fossil fuel in the US with solar and wind? And by all, I'm including the gas burned in cars. If we shut down every coal, oil, and natural gas power plant and replaced every gas car with an EV, what would that cost?
Summary: The way we are living is completely unsustainable.
Correction: The way we're living is unsustainable for 7 billion people.
It is probably totally sustainable for 350 million people. So if the people in the US were the only people on Earth, I suspect everything would be fine.
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I fully expect this to end in war, simply because at the end of the day, it is going to come down to one group of people trying to tell another group how to live, and that never ends well.
Well tell you what, we've got a whole thread which will likely be long. If I see an honestly skpetical response, then I'll post it here. Feel free to do the same.
I'm skeptical that the changes in the future will be nearly as bad as the doomsayers predict.
I think they are picking out the worst possible outcomes and spreading fear.
That being said... I also think that pollution sucks and we're stupid if we just make a mess, so going "green" is a good long term plan.
In the past, factories would just dump toxic waste into the rivers, today that is supposed to be illegal. (I say supposed to be, I'm sure it still happens, just less so).
I've said before, I'm happy to move at a slow and steady pace towards being more green. Things like raising the SEER rating required of new HVAC units, raising the required fuel economy of vehicles over time, etc. These things are in all our best interest.
But you can't demand too much, too soon, or you disrupt the system.
So what is "too much"? Now that is the really fun question... :)
plus, if your only choices are "fuck up the environment" and "fuck up the economy", then you're doing it wrong.
You assume that those AREN'T the only two choices...
What if they are?
Now if they are and you say "pick the environment", well... I can respect that... but at least be honest about it.
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It is also possible there is a middle ground, but there may not be. Not everything has a nice happy middle ground where all is well.
If you're flying from LA to Hawaii, you either have enough fuel or you don't. There is no middle ground.
When do you accept that the ocean is your landing field? Do you want to hit the water under control, ready for it, at a time of your choosing, or do you want to push and push and push, and go crashing into the ocean when the plane runs out of fuel?
---
It is quite possible that the alarmists are right, that we've passed the point of no return, that CO2 will continue to grow and that the climate will change more quickly than in the past, faster than we're used to.
Fine, so be it... What shall we do to try and adapt as best we can to the new world? It might be unavoidable.
"DO ABOUT IT?" I want to hear what you think you can do about it...
We can do a whale of a lot that severely affects industry, impoverishes millions more Americans and even others around the world if we can convince them to go along with the global warming religion, and cause death and destruction on a super-wide scale. But will it even slow the warming?
Of course not. The CO2 is in the atmosphere to stay for a really long time. Getting it to come down would mean leaving our oil, gas, coal, etc. in the ground, and that's just plain impossible if humanity is to survive. We need the energy from those fossil fuels to power our vehicles. There's no nuke plant or solar farm that's going to put a viable car down the road. A "viable" car is a CHEAP car that EVERYONE that can afford a car now can afford it also. There is no such animal now. There may never be such an animal, it depends on the invention of the "magic battery." The "magic battery" is cheap and small and cheap and energy dense and cheap and environmentally rugged and cheap and lightweight and cheap. There's no magic battery now and there may never be. It may be impossible. Yet we need vehicles and we need them to move to get people and goods from where they are to where they need to be.
And we need the energy to power our society, in the form of grid electricity. That has a slim hope of being 100% solar + wind + geothermal + nuclear + tidal + etc. that doesn't use fossil fuels. Someday. In the really distant future, at a really high price. It too will create millions in poverty because of the rise in the price of electricity. What's worse for your health than smoking? Living in poverty. It will take 7 - 10 years off your life. Yeah, we can "save the planet" if we're all ready to commit suicide, but short of that, we don't have a prayer of "doing something" about CO2 in the atmosphere. Carbon taxes will only enrich governments and impoverish citizens, but we still need to move goods and people to where they need to be, so we still need vehicles, so we still need oil. As long as we're burning oil, its still going to put CO2 into the atmosphere.
So, c'mon, other than continuously whining about "doing something" about AGW, what do you think you can do about it, really? Destroy industry and enrich governments and impoverish citizens? You can do that but it won't help "global warming" a damned bit.
Clearly, saying we should do SOMETHING means Shut.Down.Everything. and the true answer is to do nothing at all. Sadly, given humanity's track record on this sort of thing; rather than do a little now, we'll choose to spend a trillion dollars later to re-invent the tree as some kind of giant CO2 scrubber complex after it starts severely impacting the economic bottom line. Built by the companies who caused it in the first place and subsidized with taxpayer money, of course.
"Evidence of this is in plain sight. At a 2008 event celebrating the IPCC’s 20th anniversary, chairman Pachauri told a group of IPCC insiders: “The UNFCCC is our main customer.”"
Fun fact: most climate scientists were against (and drew the ire of "skeptics" world-wide of course) the appointment of Pachauri as chairman by pressure from President Dubya,
OK, so what is the conservative to optimistic understanding on nuclear energy? Should we be building a new generation of plants, and if so, how many?
You do realise that tirade is completely unnecessary - if their science is bad, point out the faults, and your job as a rational human being would be complete. As it is you can't, so you attack the organisation itself, conveniently absolving you of any hard work you had to do.
Gives you an idea of what the time-scales are:
A Forecast of When We'll Run Out of Each Metal - Visual Capitalist
China warns that its rare earth minerals are running out (Wired UK)
Society seems to have a lot of denialists, denial that we can ever run out any mineral with arguments like oh but the sea is 0.0003ppm of that mineral which means there is x tonnes of it left or the crust is 0.05% of a particular mineral so there is no problem. Of course these numbers are not particularly relevant, what is relevant is how 'clumped' these minerals are and mow much it costs to extract them, if the cost is too high then we will effectively have run out for all practical purposes.
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How so? Can you select where power generation comes from to your home?
Yes, and we've been able to do that for years..
Can you control the paper mills spewing toxic substances in your neighborhood?
I can choose to use paperless organizations. But most people won't even do that, because they don't care.
Can you control your idiot neighbor who is proud of his truck spewing black smoke?
Yes, I can call him in as a gross polluter every day.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The endless posts from people who claim that anyone who drives anything other than a SmartCar or a Prius is an evil person who is destroying the world...
That is a complete lie. I just did a search and found only one mention of the words SmartCar or Prius, and they were written by you.
Quote me the last Slashdot article that was focused on LED bulbs. Ok, you might find one.
I just said that the issues of replacing incandescent light bulbs is over which is why it needs longer needs any discussion. We also don't discuss this new color TV that we have had for decades because it is no longer news for nerds anymore. Don't try to make out like it is some conspiracy to bury the topic just because there are other technologies that have yet to prove themselves.
Because without a good economy, many more people are hurt and killed due to a lack of basic life needs
Now that sounds very alarmist. The idea that the economy will be so ruined by a carbon tax that people will die from lack of basic life needs is extreme and unsupported.
So the idea that we're going to toss money out the window when it comes to the environment? What color is the sky in that world?
Blue, and with a partially restored ozone layer too. That's right, there have been many instances where we have spent money to fix environmental problems.
You don't even realise that you're loudly broadcasting to everyone just how little you actually know about this subject. Staggering.
All of your questions have already been answered. You can feign honest interest in the subject, but when you are so ignorant of the findings of the field in question, your credibility takes a massive, massive hit.
So you are confusing the scientific findings with the voices on Slashdot? No wonder you are so misinformed about the world in which you live. It is truly amazing that you parade your wilful ignorance around as if it's something to be proud of.
Read the IPCC reports. Your argument would make a lot of sense if the reports don't exist, but as they do, you sound very unreasonable indeed.
There is a ridge of active volcanoes under the west antarctic that is the cause of the melt. It is not warmer temperature because temperatures have not warmed for close to 20 years. The sea ice around the antarctic is at record levels for the satellite era (1979+).
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 15 and over 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.
All the "human CO2 cause global warming" is based on models that don't work. 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/
57% of the cumulative human emissions of CO2 since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How can you say that human CO2 emissions (or cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?
Since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while human CO2 emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while human CO2 emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped.
So the question stands. How long will you "believe" in human CO2 causing global warming when reality is showing you that you are dead wrong?
That is a complete lie. I just did a search and found only one mention of the words SmartCar or Prius, and they were written by you.
Um, no it isn't, and that just shows how far away your world is from this one.
A normal intelligent person would have understood that I meant ALL of Slashdot, not this specific article.
Now that sounds very alarmist.
No, it is a well known truth. When the economy turns south, the poor are hit the hardest. This has nothing to do with the environment, it is basic economics.
It is truly amazing that you parade your wilful ignorance around as if it's something to be proud of.
I could say the same about you. Frankly, you speak with an elitist attitude that turns a lot of people off.
You're so convinced that you're right, you have decided to ignore everything else.
The irony is that you've posted the above more than once, it doesn't become more true the more you say it.
All of your questions have already been answered.
So in other words, you don't want to bother and don't have a reply that favors you, so you give that response.
Read the IPCC reports. Your argument would make a lot of sense if the reports don't exist, but as they do, you sound very unreasonable indeed.
Ahh, but there is the problem.
I simply don't believe the UN has my best interest at heart and I do not believe they are able to put out such a report in an unbiased fashion.
So those reports are tainted and not worth reading.
Would you accept climate reports from Exxon/Mobil? Neither would I, they are completely biased and can't see the situation objectively.
The UN can't either because the majority of the member states want money from the few rich nations, so all their "solutions" involve wealth transfer.
You appear to be getting some things confused.
The surface of the planet is warming up. We have models based on currently understood science that seem to give reasonable projections, at least so far. We can make some predictions as to what's likely to happen. That's the science.
What we should do is a political matter that should be informed by science. Whether or not we build more nuclear power plants (which I'm strongly in favor of) is a political matter that should be informed by science. Unfortunately, there's a lot of politicians and environmentalists that have their own strong (and often subsidized) opinions that take no account of the science, or positively deny it.
There's other things we can do to cut the amount of carbon dioxide entering the air that aren't going to hit poor people disproportionately. I understand the argument that we're not sure enough of what's happening to do anything drastic, and the argument that we want to keep up economic and technological growth so we can do something when we're more certain of what to do, but I would like to see the science at least accepted.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Good, don't do anything, you nitwit! The climate alarmists are getting extremely boring! Not a single one of their predictions have even remotely been correct and yet they continue on their politically motivated catastrophic-alarmist bandwagon. Just don't dare tax me for your ill-conceived world-domination plans... Tax yourself and your warmist buddies.
Replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs seems to be a very cost effective way to reduce our power consumption.
LED bulbs are the evul, don't you know that heating a bit of tungsten is the way God and Edison intended, and that all the alternatives are WRONG?
Yet all we hear about are electric cars and solar power, neither of which make any economic sense.
Maybe all YOU heard about is electric cars and solar power, but there's plenty of other discussion going on.
Heck, I remember when the Obama administration was getting a lot of flack for awarding Phillips some prize for their LED bulb, which performed excellently, but was too expensive at the time. How terrible, that meant the end of LEDs, back to the old standard.
Right? Right?
Not so much.
A "denier" does deny things unscientifically. This should be distinguished from the "skeptic", who for one reason or other hasn't concluded that global warming is happening or will be bad, but who can be reasoned with. Skeptics tend to join the scientific consensus (such as it is) over time, and deniers don't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You could be the honest man, if you wanted to be. Pick a model, and compare the prediction for 2014 with the "data" from 2014.
Note that this has already been done for various ensembles of models. You can see the chart for yourself, on page 3 of the paper that gives you badfeels.
See that "Preview" button?
Quote me the last Slashdot article that was focused on LED bulbs. Ok, you might find one.
http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=LED+Bulbs
More than one. You can say there's more on Electric Cars, but so what? There's more magazines on automobiles in general than there are on bulbs and fixtures.
One subject interests people a LOT more. So what?
Actually I could not because I'm not an expert in that field, just as you could not and just as an expert in that field probably could not do your job either.
Such should be obvious. Why are you subscribing to such a stupid anti-intellectual view? I can understand students, layabouts and losers going on about how expertise is overvalued, but why is someone who presumably uses their brain for a living falling for this shit?
I'd take any claims China makes about its rare earth quantities with a few tonnes of NaCl. They've been restricting their output to boost prices, and using "limited reserves" as an excuse - but they're certainly not the only source. There's plenty more reserves which are being opened up now that China's prices aren't so cheap.
The Visual Capitalist infographic is pretty, but is apparently based solely on current mines & sources, as far as I can tell. It mentions the existence of undeveloped and undiscovered reserves, but doesn't try to estimate depletion rates of those. While of course I wouldn't claim we'll "never run out", we can clearly go a lot further than the infographic shows before the price per unit extracted gets excessive - in most cases long enough to find alternate sources as I mentioned above (we've already started eyeing the asteroid belt).
Plus of course, few individual minerals are absolutely essential anyway. Most have alternatives that can be substituted, and demand for more than one mineral has waxed and waned as technology developed a use for it, then replaced it with something more effective. I looked up the USGS report on Antimony, for example, and it makes interesting reading.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You can't tell if a prediction came true or not? Not even when that prediction was blasted from every rooftop and television on the planet for 25 years?
I'm pro-science, but only when science is the method for deciding if an idea is good or not. I have no care for science-that-falls-out-of-the-mouths-of-authority.
The predictions failed. The models are wrong. Not inaccurate, wrong. Inaccurate would be if they were off by a few percent. Wrong is when they are off by x2 or x3 or x10. Science has spoken clearly here.
And my views are anti-intellectual? :(
See that "Preview" button?
"Although previous reports suggest slight recent continental warming, our spatial analysis of Antarctic meteorological data demonstrates a net cooling on the Antarctic continent between 1966 and 2000" https://notalotofpeopleknowtha...
Very surprised to see all the critics here who have NEVER ONCE BEEN TO ANTARTICA...Even more surprised to see just how sure of yourselves you are... Prooving your all a bunch of morons that will buy any propoganda any government or special interest has in mind... Deny that...
You appear to be getting some things confused.
The surface of the planet is warming up. We have models based on currently understood science that seem to give reasonable projections, at least so far. We can make some predictions as to what's likely to happen. That's the science.
The surface of the planet has been warming up for centuries, since the Little Ice Age. For the vast majority of that time, it had nothing to do with CO2. One of the major criticism of climate alarmism is that natural variability is massively downplayed.
The models don't appear to be giving "reasonable projections" at the moment. Remember the hiatus, which has been acknowledged by the IPCC. Those "predictions" won't be worth much until the models better correspond to reality, and have been validated in some meaningful way. They are far from first principles models.
What we should do is a political matter that should be informed by science. Whether or not we build more nuclear power plants (which I'm strongly in favor of) is a political matter that should be informed by science. Unfortunately, there's a lot of politicians and environmentalists that have their own strong (and often subsidized) opinions that take no account of the science, or positively deny it.
I don't have much of a quibble with that, except that what we should do should also be informed by desirable outcomes in general. For instance, LED light bulbs are clearly a win, as they save money while presenting no discernible downside except higher initial investment.
I'm glad to see you support nuclear power, keep it up!
There's other things we can do to cut the amount of carbon dioxide entering the air that aren't going to hit poor people disproportionately. I understand the argument that we're not sure enough of what's happening to do anything drastic, and the argument that we want to keep up economic and technological growth so we can do something when we're more certain of what to do, but I would like to see the science at least accepted.
The basic science is accepted by virtually everyone - CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas. The science that attempts to inform policy includes other controversial facets such as water vapor amplification. If the expected peak concentration of CO2 (550-600 PPM) will not cause problematic heating, there is no need for expensive, drastic action. Whether CO2 related warming will be problematic is still absolutely in dispute. Recent estimates for climate sensitivity to CO2 have been trending downwards.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Sure because we can grow food by hand and live in mud huts.
Computers contain about 60+ different elements.
The infographic won't be far wrong because we are using rare minerals at an ever increasing rate, and look at it, there's hardly anything forecast to last until the end of the century.
This paper gives an idea of what the loss of various minerals will mean to us:
On the materials basis of modern society
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Clearly not. When you are backing inexperienced economists and sudoko puzzle writers as your "experts" versus people who have carried out research on a topic such a statement becomes nothing but misleading empty words.
It goes far beyond that. The view you have been infected with promotes the mediocre layman and confidence trickster well above the practitioner.
Apply some empathy and see how the attacks on scientists would relate to an attack on you by someone without even a high school level understanding of what you do for a living. That may prepare you for this view spreading into your field as it already has with biologists, climate scientists and medical practitioners who have so many people telling them that everything they do is worthless.
Sure because we can grow food by hand and live in mud huts.
Back to only two possibilities again, status quo or mud huts? The world really isn't that black & white.
Computers contain about 60+ different elements.
The great majority of which can be substituted with alternate elements that have a similar effect. For example, the gold on edge connectors could be replaced with any of the corrosion-resistant noble metals - silver, iridium, platinum, rhodium, titanium etc.
The infographic ignores undeveloped and undiscovered reserves, as I've said, so is no real guide at all. Extrapolating its claims to include data it does not show is pure speculation.
The linked study was informative, thanks. Interesting to see that many substitutions are indeed possible while for some, no practical alternative has been found yet. But bear in mind, for many of these critical materials, we simply haven't looked for an alternative yet, and some will likely be found when supply gets expensive enough to justify it.
For the remaining materials, as the study itself says, we can instead develop "new and transformative technologies, many of which are under active investigation: advanced composite materials, bulk metallic glasses, and structural biological materials, to name a few."
It's not unreasonable to expect that, given all the above alternatives and coupled with the future sources of improved recycling and asteroid mining, materials supply will likely be little more than speedbumps along the road of progress - as it has been through cycles of supply and demand for all history. I see little reason to give in to pessimism at this early stage.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Where do you live?
Industrial fossil burning started in Europe around 1710, when Thomas Newcomen built his first steam engines (while Thomas Savery had it patented in 1698 already, Newcomen's construction was of practical usability and was widely used).
In the mid-19th century, Western and Central Europe was fully industrialized, and coal was the main energy source. The retreat of the glaciers was noticeable around 1900, and has accelerated since then.
For an overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Science is a tool that we use. The concept of "wrong" doesn't apply to it.
To use science, we compare an idea to reality by making a prediction. If the prediction doesn't come out, the idea is wrong.
You may notice that the credentials of the people that support the idea are not a factor. The Royal Society took "Nullius in verba" for their motto. It means "on the word of no one", an explicit rejection of authority, and a reminder to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.
My field is operational. It is tested against reality daily. When I get things wrong, which happens, everyone knows. There are no boogeymen to blame it on, and no one would doubt the plain evidence of their own eyes if I started saying that it was just laymen and conmen telling them that things were broken while I, the expert, say that things are fine.
See that "Preview" button?
That's what the current state of science denial is all about. Blatant lies and pretending stuff never happened, all in the the same spirit as the "San Francisco fire" because talk of an earthquake would scare off investors.
Just how much money is there in monitoring how ice sheet change in mass?
And how much money is there in the industries that lead to increases in CO2?
You put forth that money can lead to unethical and immoral behaviour...
Im going to suggest it might be found in other places than scams to fund ice sheet mass change monitoring...
emt 377 emt 4
of climate change deniers.
Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not.
What exactly is a "climate change denier"? Is that someone who denies that the climate changes? Would you be so kind as to point to a specific example of someone who has actually said the climate hasn't changed, isn't changing and won't change? I certainly don't know of anyone who is that stupid. (Although, it does seem that some people think the climate shouldn't change and that, because it is changing, that's a Bad Thing. But those aren't the skeptics.) Or by "climate change denier" do you mean someone who doesn't believe in future predictions of disaster? If so, could you explain how someone "denies" a future prediction? One either believes a prediction or doesn't believe it but it hasn't happened so there is nothing to "deny" or "accept".
"Climate change denial is a denial or dismissal of the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, or its connection to human behavior," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There. Boy, you sure got some strong opinions for somebody who doesn't even know the definition of the subject under discussion.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Nope, deniers aren't skeptical. A skeptic even wonders if THEY are right, and are willing to change their mind in the face of evidence, instead of hunting for some third-hand anecdotal report that might possibly indicate a vague problem or issue with the evidence for. Then assumes it's true and the evidence for AGW being real is faked.
That's not skepticism. That's denial.
The distinction of denialists is that there is nothing that can, could, or would convince them to change their minds. Some of the more obtuse ones will cite this as a badge of pride; "There is nothing that will convince me that AGW is real". If you press denialists, asking "What piece of information is missing? What data would cause you to change your mind re the reality of AGW?" they will dodge the subject, giving an abstract answer like "convincing proof!" or "scientific proof!" or ask for something impossible, like a controlled study of planetary climates holding all factors except CO2 constant, or similar. Ideally, of course, this is determined a priori; the evidence required to establish probability is defined, the experiment is done to find that evidence, if it exists then the hypothesis is considered valid, otherwise it is considered insufficiently proved. Although this is more honored in the breach in reality, at least scientists will be able to tell you what evidence would convince them regarding any hypothesis, even if they're still just piling up observations. Every scientist knows that it's always possible to look at any amount of evidence for anything and say "Nope, not sufficiently convincing." even if everybody else on earth is convinced; so that point of view is not respected at all.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Read the IPCC reports to answer all your questions. It really is that easy.
To your average denialist, the IPCC report is like a reverse Bible. Whereas the Bible is true, which is proved by the fact that it says it's true, and that must therefore be true; on the other handm the IPCC report is a lie, and therefore they don't have to read it to see what's in that might be a lie, because it's a lie.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Oh, the climate models are quite good for the region I live in. Austria collects weather and climate data since more than 250 years already, so we have a pretty good timeline of climate conditions since the 18th century. If I remember correctly, yearly weather reports started in 1736, very important for a society depending heavily on agriculture. And tell you what: Average yearly temperatures have risen two degrees Celsius since the start of the weather records. And that includes the Year Without a Summer 1816 (probably caused by the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815).
It's not as if the rising temperatures are something just recently discovered or somehow recalculated into the past. It's something that has been observed by several generation of scientists now.
Even more fundamental than that; earth's temperature is 30 degrees warmer than would be predicted by our black body radiation balance and our albedo; compare to the moon, for instance. Which is right about what CO2 absorbance in the atmosphere would predict; as was calculated by Svante Arrhenius over a century ago, at the birth of greenhouse gas theory. Those who believe that this effect will stop right at this temperature, despite added CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, have a lot of explaining to do.
Despite the argument that the onus is on AGW believers to provide proof, in fact any well established mechanism is not subject to this law. The onus to provide proof is not on those who believe if they turn on the light, the room will become brighter; the onus is on those who are 'skeptical' of that to explain why it would not. And providing examples of other things that provide illumination rather than the electric lights does not in the slightest count as such evidence.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The only risk greater than man made global warming is the risk that man will try to stop global warming. Sure we are influencing the climate and we should try to reduce that influence. On the other hand, I don't see any good from experimenting with intentional manipulation of the climate OR from crippling the poor's access to energy and standard of living in order to reduce that influence outweighing the possible negatives of a warmer climate.
the third world poor aren't burning a lot of diesel or gasoline. their burning of sheep dung or whatever doesn't come from fossil fuels and doesn't result in a net increase of atmospheric CO2.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I wouldn't mind a rational, reasonable conversation on the topic, but instead you've got "its not happening so don't do anything" screamers... "Well screw it, if the world is ending, we might as well enjoy ourselves..." - well, lets all be so totally selfish and not think of others - great for our children etc "If it ISN'T ending, then perhaps we shouldn't derail our economy in the process of trying to improve the environment..." what economy is derailing, the banks did that. There is a new industry starting to replace the old. Things change and move on. "Yet all we hear about are electric cars and solar power, neither of which make any economic sense." eh? new tech is ALWAYS expensive at the start, wind power is already cheaper than coal, solar is getting cheaper. http://www.theguardian.com/env... "Why spend money on something that has a payback period of more than 5 years when we have easier solutions right in front of us that have a payback period of as little as 1 year?" - short term thinking is detrimental to long term solutions. the payback on things like solar is shortening all the time
150 years ago, radicals attempted to do away with the major source of energy in southern US against the frantic resistance of those living there, who were terrified that ending slavery was just a pipe dream as there was clearly no economically viable replacement. those who rode the slavery horse until its death did in fact fare poorly, but on the whole, other forms of energy were found and the south did not in fact become a third world subsistence economy after all.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
When the deniers ignore their own study (Berkeley Earth Report) because it doesn't confirm their original biases then they can no longer call themselves skeptics.
Heck, the deniers deny the existence of deniers.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.