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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amazing. Science is now defined as "far left political hackery".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
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.
An amazingly schizophrenic site
When they are "explaining" they say things like what you posted
When they report the facts they say things like this.
http://www.livescience.com/374...
And when you look at the overall Antarctic ice graph
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-i...
It seems to be growing despite volcanoes under western Antarctica.
So indeed who knew ?
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?
Amazing. Science is now defined as "far left political hackery".
Yep that was just after Al Gore became an inventor and climate scientist.
"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.
It seems to be growing despite volcanoes under western Antarctica.
That's sea ice. It shows up in the winter when temperatures are cold enough to freeze the ocean. It disappears again in the summer. Yes, the maximum winter area of sea ice is growing, but that's expected.
The article is about loss of Antarctic land ice and ice shelves.
[...] 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
Yes, the maximum winter area of sea ice is growing, but that's expected
Except it's not expected
“All the climate models say it should be going down and it’s actually going up, and it’s making news,” said Shroeve, adding that the trend is expected to give ammunition to those seeking to discredit climate science. - See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2014/09/22...
Must be nice to have faith. I have to get by on reason.
Anybody who posts a link to livescience.com and purports it to be science is a shill, a fool, or both.
(It's not hard to follow the money trail, folks.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
How does Antarctica have a west?
Oh hey why not. Post it. I would love to see this money trail, creating biased reports one way or the other. Little tired of the STFU and Tinfoil hat brigades around here.
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
You are correct about the models. It was not expected. Either way, Antarctic sea ice growth is not very important. It doesn't chance the sea level, for instance.
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.
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?
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.
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?
It takes decades for a "heat signal" to penetrate 1-2 miles of aerated ice
That's not the only mechanism. A bigger and faster mechanism is the melting of the ice shelves from the bottom up because they are sitting in warmer water. The ice shelves are currently slowing down the glacial transport. Without that, the glaciers would be going much faster.
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
So, do you have any actual arguments, besides the assumption that a large group of experts are all wrong ?
" 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)
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)
Then brush up on your education - you are expecting people to take you seriously when you clearly don't even understand what you're complaining about.
"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.
Sorry I am educated as an engineer then applied mathematician, not a forensic accountant.
He wants to make a claim let him back it up.
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.
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."
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.
Indeed. We need MUCH MORE melding. Antarctica should return to the lush forrested state it had in the mid cretaceous.
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
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.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
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?
Oh Italics
MY GOD MAN playing with fonts doesn't make your point.
Of course it did mine but I doubt you understand it.
http://www.worldclimatereport....
And there is total ice.
Please proceed to fold this into your psychosis about the world ending. BTW did you actually bother to read the earlier links or just dismiss them as being threatening to your reality ?
No you created a link to the site.
You might just as well created a link to the yellow pages.
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.
MY GOD MAN playing with fonts doesn't make your point.
Huh? I was quoting youn in the fashion which was popular here in the distant past. But feel free to go on an off topic rant about your strange biases. You can look up any of my posts, and you will see I always quote like that.
And there is total ice.
First: Ah but you didn't link to that now did you.
Second: that's ice EXTENT measured in km^2, not total ice which would be measured in km^3
Units: they are your friend.
Please proceed to fold this into your psychosis about the world ending
Oh is this one of the threads where you start making up random shit about me because you don't like the points I'm making?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
We're not talking about Antarctic sea ice. We're talking about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is a totally different thing.
Do try to keep up.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We're not talking about Antarctic sea ice. We're talking about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is a totally different thing.
Right. That's what I said to GP who posted the sea ice graph. Do try to keep up.
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.'"
Please forgive me if I do not immediately stop using fossil fuels etc.
Sure. But I won't forgive you if you don't work in some way to change that behavior. Mostly I just rant online to raise awareness of how BP and DuPont are preventing GE Capital from selling us Butanol, a 1:1 replacement for gasoline in cars which already are prepared for ethanol - all flex-fuel vehicles, that's a lot of chevys. Plus any other gas car with new seals and flex lines.
Well, the companies are called Butamax and Gevo, but it's really BP and DuPont who need to be swept off the face of the earth right now. We knew that already, though. BP is beyond any doubt really and truly evil, ditto DuPont. Hell, DuPont was even part of the force behind criminalizing hemp, it's really like some wacky conspiracy theory except every word is true
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And there is total ice.
No, that's another sea ice graph.
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.
We are 12,000 years removed from the last Ice Age
And those effects stopped about 8000 years ago. Since then, it is been very slowly getting cooler again.
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.
The point is that the "climate change" fear mongers are using labels to disparage their critics rather than resting on the weight of whatever "logical arguments" and evidence that they apparently have.
Same BS we saw with the terrorist fear mongers. If you didn't believe in the Patriot Act and war, you were unpatriotic and hated the USA and were letting the terrorists win and blah, blah, blah.
If the warmunists have such overwhelming evidence in their favor, why do they need to stifle dissent with a label that has such obvious baggage?
Go proselytize somewhere else
You're almost a self parody. Anytime anyone points out a flaw in your argument you launch into shrill screaming and shrieking that they are prophesying the end of the world and therefore their arguments are invalid.
Lie down elsewhere and beg someone else to drag your sorry ass across the line.
huh?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
(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.
If the warmunists have such overwhelming evidence in their favor, why do they need to stifle dissent with a label that has such obvious baggage?
If people deliberately ignore that evidence, they deserve that label.
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.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
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".
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.
Please so fr you have presented nothing to back up what you say, and you keep pulling shit out your ass.
So you are claiming Antarctica now has bald spots ?
Some are denying. Some are just skeptical.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
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.
Please so fr you have presented nothing to back up what you say, and you keep pulling shit out your ass.
Lol, you actually want me to provide a citation to show that km^3 measures total ice (i.e. volume) not km^2?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
These guys, or NASA?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
No, the land is pretty much permanently covered by ice, and since the land area is fixed, any changes in ice area must be from the sea ice only.
Also note that your graph is called "ant-sea-ice_fig.JPG", and that it appears on this page http://www.worldclimatereport.... titled "Another IPCC Error: Antarctic Sea Ice Increase Underestimated by 50%" So, clearly they're talking about the sea ice changes.
The ice loss that this article is talking about is a reduced thickness of the land ice. That's not something you can see on a 2D picture from a satellite.
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"?
So lets see you have
CO2 not causing the ICE loss in western antarctica
IPCC not predicting anything close to the changes actually happening.
And finally to ICE area in the region going up ?
Oh the north pole still isn't ice free.
You were trying to say something here or just nit pick ?
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.
They labor away in the labs creating data.
Most of them don't even do that.
You were trying to say something here or just nit pick ?
I was trying to say that you're an idiot.
Well while that would be more than you have done so far, it's not particularly relevant now is it ?
Perhaps you might like to try for something that supports your position
Gee, and who was the GGP who brought up sea ice in the first place? He sure seems confused.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Climate change to ever rising temperatures at least for Central Europe is thus well documented for centuries.
Well you managed to prove one of us an idiot.
By longitude.
Have gnu, will travel.
Try clicking the link next time.
If you have trouble remember use the left mouse button twice in rapid succession
This is the one that brought up sea ice. I agree he's confused.
http://science.slashdot.org/co...
Thanks. I couldn't have done it without your input, though.
Having watched you here, I am sure you are input proof.
"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?
Perhaps you might like to try for something that supports your position
My position is that your position is unsupported. So far I have debunked your evidence because you're providing ice area measurements to support your claim that the total volume of ice has increased.
The only claim I've made is that yoou're a total moron and I've provided iron clad evidence to back it up: your utter confusion between basic units is my evidence.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
Yes, sea ice extent has been mentioned several times. That's the stuff that freezes on the sea surface every winter, and melts every summer. It's not very important, and it's not what this article is about.
This article is about total ice volume, and how it's declining year over year.
Don't confuse the agenda driven, have sensitivity for other's religions. Also don't mention the volcanic activity that is the prime cause for Western Antarctic melting, they want to hear about greenhouse gas and the sins of mankind in increasing human health, life and quality of life by fossil fuel use.
No, it's not, you are redefining it's meaning.
Eating is not using.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Slashdot today:
Broad-brush assertion accusing "deniers" of dishonesty gets scored 5, Insightful.
Amazing!
Do you have an support for your claim that this volcanic activity is the prime cause for (recent) Western Antarctic melting, rather than just a small additional factor ?
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.
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.
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.'"
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.”
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?
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.
The side which is in the western hemisphere. If you had asked "Which way is north if it straddles the south pole", then you could say "pick any direction from the south pole, and that's north"...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
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.
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
You do know that Anthony Watts is paid to lie and spew half truths on that site, right?
I'm pretty sure your cited source could be described the same way. Sad. Who to believe. http://www.groupsnoop.org/Cent...
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.
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!!!!!'.
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
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.
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
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)
Growing Antarctic sea ice limiting access to continent http://www.smh.com.au/environm...
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 more accurate term would be climate science deniers. That's what I mean when I use the term "denier".
You just discovered polar coordinates.
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.
After that, figuring out what to do to fix any problem while still living in style is the really hard problem.
I'm afraid there is no fixing the collapse of the much of the West Antarctic ice sheet. It's probably already reached the point of inevitability.
If all of the ice on Antarctica melted the sea level rise would be over 150 feet. Sea level has increased at a rate over 3 mm/year since the 1990s.
The Antarctic sea ice is not increasing because it's getting colder. Observations show that it is not.
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?
you got two choices: listening to experts who say the the science is THIS, or listening to non experts who say its not.
you're claiming that they are equally valid.
since that is your position, i suggest you see your mechanic next time you need medical attention, and bring your car to your doctor.
since after all, expert opinion isnt relevant, and they are both equally valid.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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?
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.
---
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.
does that change the fact that Watts receives funding from the oil industry and their front groups from true to false?
and why you people seem to think that if you can challenge the challengers, everything is even, and cancels out.
you dont get to ignore that watts is a paid shill because the group pointing out his bias has a bias of their own.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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... :)
no, you get by on bullshit and ignorance.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Oh for fuck sake.
the name of the fucking file is "http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/ant-sea-ice_fig.JPG"
its antarctic SEA ICE extent.
JFC you're an idiot.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
he pointed out that your dont seem to understand that the land ice doesnt expand in area, and in measured in volume typically.
this would be because land masses dont physically expand.
hence the sea ice (re: icebergs) is what expanded in area.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
That's sea ice.
Not land ice.
The land ice is melting.
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.
Amazing how that works.
And, it is a wholly expected and predicted part of climate science in the southern hemisphere.
Not that any of this matters, since you're just here to troll anyway.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I don't know of any climate change so called "deniers" that deny the fact the climate changes.
Now they deny even being deniers.
Meet Senator James Inhofe: http://www.newrepublic.com/art...
You may have heard of him. He now heads the Senate committee overseeing climate science.
He has gone on record as saying that "it's not happening". Most recently just a couple months ago when he brought a snowball to the Senate floor as his proof.
His other variation on the theme is to say it's happening, but God's doing it, not humans: "Man can’t change climate. [...] My point is, God's still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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.
---
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.
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
According to this, you are currently in Stage 2: "We don't know"
(on the page each line is a link to the rebuttal information)
We don’t know why it’s happening
Models don’t work
We cannot trust unproven computer models
The models don’t have clouds
If aerosols are blocking the sun, the south should warm faster
Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high
Prediction is impossible
We can’t even predict the weather next week
Chaotic systems are not predictable
We can’t be sure
Hansen has been wrong before
If we can’t understand the past, how can we understand the present?
The scientists aren’t even sure
They predicted global cooling in the 1970s
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
do they not teach about hemispheres in AC school?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
8 inches in the past century.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
rs79, crashmariks other sock puppet with the same claims, and the same inability to distinguish between sea ice and land ice.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
"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.
Nice to see you again as well.
Your excellent use of facts and logic leaves me stunned.
I get it, that there is more ice in the area doesn't mean there is more ice.
One article in Newsweek 40 years ago.
Do you get tired of being easily proven wrong ?
Claims 1974: “ when metereologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age. Telltale signs are everywhere–from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice int eh waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data fro the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadia Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.”
Later in the article, “Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth’s surface could tip teh climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.”
http://content.time.com/time/m...
It's exceptionally easy find these predictions, even though most of the publications were pre internet and never made it onto the net.
I have to ask though, just what made you think that because you could only find one that's all there is, and with your attitude no one would call you on it ?
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.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
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.
You don't get it, though, otherwise you would not be proudly telling everyone you don't understand.
None of that means anything, as you don't know the difference between sea ice and land ice. Your understanding of this topic is laughable, yet that's not stopping you from vomiting forth more nonsense with every keystroke.
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.
does that change the fact that Watts receives funding from the oil industry and their front groups from true to false?
Where did I say that?
and why you people seem to think that if you can challenge the challengers, everything is even, and cancels out.
Where did I say that?
you dont get to ignore that watts is a paid shill because the group pointing out his bias has a bias of their own.
Where did I say that?
What I did point out is that the citation comes from a highly biased source, and that it's difficult to know who to believe.
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.
Talk when the environmental alarmists actually get a prediction or a policy decision right.
Now go away and find another way to save the world.
Puts me a couple laps ahead in a thread where people don't think so they can look cool.
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?
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...
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
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
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.