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Why Our Brains Can't Process the Gravest Threats To Humanity
merbs writes: Our brains are unfathomably complex, powerful organs that grant us motor skills, logic, and abstract thought. Brains have bequeathed unto we humans just about every cognitive advantage, it seems, except for one little omission: the ability to adequately process the need for the whole species' long-term survival. They're miracle workers for the short-term survival of individuals, but the scientific evidence suggests that the human brain flails when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.
The first (false) assumption you made is that most people care about the whole species' long-term survival. They don't.
slashdot is bought and paid for by the Rothchild banking syndicate at the highest level
Enjoy your Psyop and hockey stick graph
Highly evolved animals such as humans have a pretty impressive track record when it comes to seeing into the future. The problem does exist that some if not all of us have evolved enough to plan adequately into the long term. Like playing a game of chess, generally the player who can see his opponent's moves and strategies the furthest into the future is the victor. Yet, not everyone is a chess master and thinks that far ahead.
Place something witty here
Folks, I submit to you evidence #1
Slow news day or not this is absolute garbage.
The assumptions alone are staggeringly far fetched and the conclusion was ridiculous.
I'm starting to wonder if the human brain is capable of writing an informative article on the internet.
Or maybe it's because of the dishonesty in reporting on climate change?
There was a snow ball in march in the Capitol Building.
Global warming is a myth!
Place something witty here
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you "alen (225700)", exhibit A in the chapter: "Our brains cannot process major threats to the survival of humanity". Oh, and: "The Koch Brothers Foundation spent ____ (ungodly number of billions) attacking the existence of global warming... and it worked!" chapter, too.
Oh, the irony.
This being said, I am not too worried about mankind: it will probably survive global warming. And the survivors may well learn their lessons the hard way.
(If you think global warming does not exist, or is not that bad, or... or... or... yadda, yadda, yadda, please don't bother answering me, mmmmkay?)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) thinks that these slow moving threats are ones that society will handle, because they do have visibility.
Initial:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1...
Update:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1...
I tend to agree with this: there's only so much buck-passing that can happen. I'll also point out that several messes today have literally everyone agreeing that they should be cleaned up, but they are just maneuvering such that the "other" guy (whether that distinction is factual or not) pays the price, be it in dollars, land, or the lives of fighting men.
Somehow, I have a hard time putting "slowly unfurling" and "crisis" together in a meaningful way.
Crisis sort of suggests something that needs to be dealt with Right The Fuck Now, not in twenty or thirty or forty or fifty or one hundred years.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It must be getting warm out.
I have read no less than 6 different climate articles in the past day.
The human species' most dangerous trait is its ability to rationalize nearly any belief or behavior.
It's not that hard. It just requires a reset point, realizing that empty areas have very few people, almost all of whom will die out, and that growing cities are the easiest to change by requiring new zoning codes and removing tax subsidies for old polluting cars and trucks for streets that were designed and built for bicycles and streetcars in the first place.
Make the choices simple: Adapt or Die.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
All organs of all the animals are perfected for short term survival of the individual. Humans are not special, Brains are not special. That is why animals which could not adapt went extinct. Cultures that could not adapt went extinct, even in the absence of external threats.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'd say the problem doesn't lie with our apparent inability to "navigate wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change" but rather with all the conflicts of interest combined with greed and power. If we could all work together instead of butting heads, I'm sure we'd have no problem living into forever.
Homo sapiens survived a couple of ice ages and one, coming up on two, climate optimums. I think we have some experience with at least that. We don't appear to have much grasp on how badly we can fuck up things for the other species on this wet rock.
It all starts at 0
A first year biology student can explain how deer and wolf populations naturally balance each other. Nobody dares to discuss how humans' destruction of other species habitats threaten the existence of them and us together.
Prediction : Climate Change Deniers will be burned at the stake (renewable powered of course) within 10 years.
The whole point of marketing is to get people to reprioritize their perceived needs and act accordingly. Why else do you think we keep getting stories about how global warming is the cause of this or that event in the news?
Well, the problem is that the premise of this article is that the author somehow is superhuman and sees threats to humanity that the common plebs can't observe because of their inferior mental capabilities.
The idea that brains might be better at detecting direct threats to the individual rather than the herd isn't that controversial and further studies on the subject could be interesting.
Claiming that one is exempt from the effect and that everyone else is wrong starts to sound a lot like claiming that the governments mind control ray doesn't affect me since I only drink recycled urine to avoid the chemicals added to the tap water.
Feel free to research how the brain works. Don't skew the results to push your agenda.
Another reason why those who disagree with the climate change proponents are defective.
Mind you, the enlightened few do not suffer from these limitations. They are just better than the rest of us.
Margaret Sanger, their patron saint, certainly explained this.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Governments tend to ignore problems until somebody get killed, like when they put up a red-light or stop sign, only after some little old lady gets killed.
Similarly, we will do something about climate change only AFTER New York City is under 3 feet of water in the streets. Remember Sandy? When it looks like that 24/7 in New York, then, and only then, will action be taken.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Temperatures rising a few degrees are not a threat to "long term survival".
Being alarmist about that isn't helping.
We largely act on problems when we actually feel there's a problem.
Perhaps our brains have better things to do than obsess about alleged events that will happen well past our death.
all the religious stories?? Pleeeeze??
Since when was Al Gore a real scientist?
Oh no yeah our medicine and technology and science and communication and hygiene and.... did nooothing. For no reason. Like literally people have done fuck all for hundreds of years. Yeah... right... ok. What kind of cunt writes this shitflapple?
The end of the world is normally proclaimed by pseudo religious jerks who believe in an age of the universe of 6000 years.
A new facet to the Global Fear Mongering (c) campaign. Drink all the coolaid passed your way
"it seems", "suggests", "sort of", "most other", "it may", "almost", "It seems [x2]", "load of evidence", "Entrenched conservatives", "vast sea of evidence", "vast scientific evidence", "best way to frame messaging", " it seems ", " our innate moralistic imperative to act towards a greater good", "seemingly expertly concocted"
I think your view of the greatness of the human brain is overrated as long as half or more of the world population still believes in make-believe divine beings that make us do awful things to each other.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The answer is people don't care because they think God will save them.
Oh hey! I present the dude this whole case study was based on!
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Jared Diamond openly wept seeing malaria patients struggling to survive in an African hospital. He has illustrated the intelligence of the so called primitive tribes people in so many anecdotes in his book. And the climate change denialists managed to mire him into a law suit. They have instigated some Papua New Guineans mentioned in his last book to sue him for slander and other stuff. That is the extent they are willing to go, and that is their favorite weapon, law suits and puppet legislators.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
this is why chess is fun. we can be surprised by hidden long-term agendas. it's amazing, and we know it, and even though we know it, the end result is still surprising.
it's like rereading a book that we've forgotten we've read.
Oh no? I don't believe what you do? I must be stupid. And I don't like being stupid.... Maybe I should believe what you believe?? Then will you stop making fun of me?
Look, there's no real reason to double tar sands output in Canada either.
Yet MSM take that as a given.
There is no given.
There are only massive subsidies and tax exemptions for fossil fuels that should go away, so the Invisible Hand of Capitalism can break the Mercantilist Monopolies into tiny little bleeding pieces.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It is well-known that the Earth is in an unusually cold period with historically low atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
A transit from an icehouse to a greenhouse phase would likely involve profound (and potentially destructive) changes for human civilization, but the planet has undergone this cycle many times before, and we are profoundly foolish to think that our impact has been significant - it has not.
It's nice to see someone with such a closed mind and a sense of superiority on Slashdot. Good luck with that. Let me know how it turns out for you.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! By 'our' they mean Republicans. Okay.
People aren't capable of perceiving routine and ordinary threats correctly. See the recent cop incident at that Texas pool. See any number of victims of self-defense who got shot by somebody they knew and weren't threatening. See any number of people who freak out upon seeing a snake while smoking a cigarette. See any number of people who get worked up over a nest of wasps while ignoring a fire ant mount.
Inadvertently modded you "Troll". This post cancels that.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Similarly we cannot fathom similar threats like periodic ice ages, which gw counteracts.
I trace it to the religious-like nature of giant political memeplexes people believe in.
Observe: agw is good because it counteracts this, and moving back from the ocean over 100-300 years is no problem. We can less envision technological life 100 years from now than horse and buggy people could today.
Observe as I am modded down by the "I feel attacked" meme lodged in massive religious-like memeplexes.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Hate to tell you, but you're stereotyping. There are plenty of skeptics who simply think the scientists involved have no good idea how to model the climate and that their attempts are crude at best, dismal at worst. The climate does seem to be getting warmer, but it doesn't take much to prove that. Everything else is half-baked, IMHO. Do we need to take drastic measures that will destroy the Western world's economy? Probably not.
Most people in support of drastic intervention fail to grasp that we have no real alternative to fossil fuels in the pipe. Furthermore, renewables research isn't moving fast enough for their sensibilities, and they tend to overestimate the possibility of an imminent solution. A very common aversion to nuclear power alongside global warming extremism just puts in the last nail. We should go nuclear. That would fix carbon emissions. Most warming interventionists don't want that either.
Still, I'm glad the renewables research is happening. Fossil fuels are decidedly finite. So is nuclear. We need a means to survive, I'm just doubtful that we need to flail about with solutions that may cause more harm than good.
Sincerely,
Not anti-science, not a creationist, never owned a gun, am very good with math, and independent as far as political leanings go. Don't stuff me into your box. Thanks.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
-H P Lovecraft
And that's why we shouldn't let Congress legislate a solution to a non-problem.
1) Lots of unfounded speculation as to motives and intelligence.
2) Ad hominem attack.
3) Refusal to consider a differing opinion.
American Sultan, move over. We have a winner for the Leftist Triple Crown!
Sorry, but we seem to be able to get together and panic about the most absurd gravest threats that I don't buy it. You want a large group of humans to work together, and blindly correct everyone else around us look no further than religion. A contrived threat to the whole of humanity can convince many people to get up and do something about it. Maybe it's that your side rejected Religion as a part of social evolution, and can't figure out how it motivates people to leverage it in your arguments.
You really should buy a gun. Other than that you sound like a sense-able sort.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
maybe we just don't care anymore. I grew up believing that at any moment I would be killed in a nuclear holocaust (unless I ducked and covered of course). Just yesterday, feeling nostalgic, I watched Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicals .. And don't forget Carl Sagan's Cosmos .
I was told that humanity was going to die of over population and that I shouldn't have kids or start a family . The ozone hole was going to kill everyone by skin cancer. Who can forget nuclear winter
Like it or not, agree with it or not, believe it or not, but the gravest threat to any of us is the one to our mortal soul. That we should be able to understand very easily, but there are still millions of humans in danger of losing theirs.
What is today or a few years compared with eternity?
Where do you stand? Think about it before you answer. It's not a matter of believing or not believing. Belief won't get you anywhere. It's a matter of choosing which path you'll take.
I know I may be modded down, but it's important enough to me to tell you anyway.
To bankrupt Putin and the Arabs.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Yeah, it's called a bullshit detector
Time travel is possible. We are quickly heading for 1984.
Purity of Essence. Don't let them fluoridate your water!
Al Gore. Yes, Al Gore who now owns multiple mansions. His mansion in Nashville was found to have 10x the energy usage of my house while being roughly 3x the size. In other words, he burns more than 3x as much energy per square foot than I do.
He has a private jet.
He's not living as if climate change were an emergency, why should anybody believe him?
Do you have ESP?
Well, the problem is that the premise of this article is that the author somehow is superhuman and sees threats to humanity that the common plebs can't observe because of their inferior mental capabilities. The idea that brains might be better at detecting direct threats to the individual rather than the herd isn't that controversial and further studies on the subject could be interesting.
Not only that but there are actually a lot of people who are very perceptive of long term threats. These people typically suffer from various forms of anxiety disorders and/or various chondrias. The worst ones typically hang out at 911truth.org, infowars.com, or prisonplanet.com, constantly pester the bilderberg group, and believe that there's an active global conspiracy by completely imagined groups like NWO or Illuminati.
Suppose there was prediction a large asteroid was going to hit earth in 100 days with 95% certainty. I guarantee you would see a lot of this 'processing' going on....
love is just extroverted narcissism
We are used to a very, very narrow perception of time in which only high-frequency phenomena figure actively into our consciousness (For the most part). A few centuries of misery and oppression always fix this right up thanks to evolution.
maybe because there are some problems that are not clearly defined, intractable, and require a more genetic, trial and error type approach to solving? A million people seeking their own best interest will probably have a better outcome than a hive mind.
Not to mention the potential for premature optimization on a species wide basis?
There are really several questions often conflated: Is the global average climate getting warmer? If it is, is the change caused by human action? If the climate is getting warmer, should we do something about it? If so, what? If not, should we do something to mitigate the harm?
I don't know the answers, but I know that anyone who claims the climate is not getting warmer based on one event must be either deliberately deceptive or too culpably ignorant to understand the concept of "average". Sadly, the American political system rewards the most deceptive.
Unless massive population migrations and world-wide famines spark a nuclear war...
I'm sure we are more than capable of looking at long term survival. The problem is all anybody really cares about is money. The only way that will change is if the entire world unites and I seriously doubt that will ever happen as long as we're at the top of the food chain.
Is not our inability to process the gravest threats to humanity one of the gravest threats? Seems like those researcher are not part of the humanity. I, for one, welcome our superhuman researcher!
Religion is pretty ingenious if you view it as self-invented pacifiers for the mind and training wheels for morality. Even if some of those things make people do awful things--it also keeps them from doing awful things, so the overall effect may well be a wash or even net positive, depening on the particular religion. It is indeed so that there are many, many people still stuck to those training wheels, unable to let go and learn to not merely make do, but to grow up and thrive without.
But not all of us, for we do have capable grownups among our numbers. We haven't quite figured out how to get those people to lead us, though. The people who actually want and stand up to "improve" the masses tend to not be very enlightened themselves.
I was living on Cape Cod near the beach with a good view of Martha's Vineyard which was three or four miles away. Sometimes (very rarely) we would see a deer either swimming towards the island or getting out of the ocean from the direction of the island.
Whatever urge the deer had to swim across miles of ocean was probably not beneficial for survival of the individual so why would they do that? I concluded that although it was bad for survival of the individual, it was terrific for survival of the species since they would tend to not be locked into a specific geographical location and could migrate across significant barriers.
I think many humans have this same built-in wanderlust. In this sense many animals, including humans, have adapted to deal with climate change. I have even wondered if our inclination to warfare was beneficial because it caused the creative peace-loving types to spread out away from the crowds. I think the real problem is that we are not genetically prepared for a finite Earth. If the Earth were infinite then I think many of the grave challenges we face which threaten our species would not exist.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Leftist?
LOL. Extremist.
Left, right and center.
I'm 50 years old and looming catastrophe has been hanging over our heads my whole life
1. Various Nuclear disaster scenarios
2. Global Economic collapse
3. Climate Change
4. Various religion based end-times
5. Y2K
6. etc
Honestly, it is like we can't function without having some sort of doomsday scenario in the picture
?
People that can see where the world is headed and can see what the threats are are bad because?
Or are you just attempting to bunch together people who have their eyes open with the gullible fools who believe everything that prison-planet comes out with?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
You suck as a troll.
we have no real alternative to fossil fuels in the pipe.
Maybe we should take all the oil subsidies & give them to the solar/wind/geo folks.
You're pushing at an open door with me if the direction you're coming at this from is breaking up the mercantilists. But when you do at least acknowledge the critical importance of this energy source in generating the wealth you're current enjoying (directly or indirectly). They aren't subsidised and they're heavily taxed. Here in the UK we even pay tax on the tax (VAT paid on the final bill, fuel duty tax added to the base price). The exemptions are mostly related to investment as there's a large cost and involved in finding and setting up to extract it in the first place. Then there's the huge amount of corporation tax oil companies pay and the large number of people they employ. I could go on...
Apparently the human mind is also lacking in the grammar department. " bequeathed unto we humans" contains a prepositional phrase, the object of which should be in the ... wait for it.... objective case. Thus the correct version is "bequeathed unto us humans". Get the simple stuff right and the more complex will follow.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
The same day David Koch was.
“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”
“Insanity is contagious.”
“[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.”
“mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.”
“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
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There is a difference between natural cycles and artificially increasing the time between cycles.
Damn, you people are fucking retarded.
well, that's what the article says.
If system favors quantitative expressions of gains, how can it focus on values and qualities instead?
The problem is, that dominant (now, that it is) system has got a problem - it is too short-sighted, too shallow, too separating, in theory market based, but in reality methodically destroying markets due to consolidations/buyouts. It is not seriously sustainable without refocus on qualities.
There is a wonderful book "Spiritual Capital", which should be recommended again and again to get the picture and ideas of cure.
Servant of karma
Have you seen Merbs's submissions? Doom, gloom, with some doom topping.
http://slashdot.org/~merbs
I can't fix your UK subsidies of London and the flaws in your system. But they are heavily subsidized. I have been investing in oil and coal since the 70s, and was one of the IPO participants in Peabody, a number of ethanol firms, and various oil firms including RDS (Shell PLC), Exxon Mobil, etc.
The fact that you can't see the massive subsidies - from cheap land rents, pipeline construction subsidies, etc - just shows you don't read your SEC filings and detailed prospectuses.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Human brains are GREAT at finding answers to complex, long term problems. Very few people are "flailing about", confused by climate change - they have very clear and certain opinions, usually held for totally stupid reasons having more to do with whether the belief resonates with their other beliefs. The "flailing" over climate change is taking place at a societal level, not individual human brains that can't see long term threats.
The article in question is really just a sly way of arguing that climate change deniers' brains are deficient, compared to readers whose superior brains have recognized the evidence for climate change.
Oh, and if you just decided I'm a climate change denier based on that last sentence, you have just proven my point for me - poor evidence, jumped to a conclusion. Recognizing an invalid method of argument does not automatically mean one is opposed to the beliefs of the arguer, though admittedly that is exactly the sort of human behavior I am pointing to.
Are you suggesting that the only threats we should see as real are those that can be perceived by common plebs with inferior mental capabilities?
Anyone who has ever had to remove a virus from someone's computer after they clicked a link in an email from "support@microshaft.com" knows first-hand what it means to see threats to humanity that the common plebs can't observe because of their inferior mental capabilities.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Make sure you really do. It's got electrolytes!
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Humans are a bad judge of risk period. We underestimate all risks, whether it be the wide far reaching kind like climate change, or the short term ones with associated with dollar signs like a train derailment, stock market crash, or the millions of people who load themselves up with unmanageable debt.
Sadly the way it works is that Bill Nye goes on TV to explain why a snowstorm in Boston isn't evidence against global warming, but then tweets a mountain in the Rockies that doesn't have snow on it as evidence FOR global warming. You can't have it both ways. Science doesn't accept anecdotes as data regardless of it supports or refutes your hypothesis. If you want to say "weather is not climate" than you shouldn't be using weather as a rallying point for your climate cause.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
You should have led with that and saved us some time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So you think the planet needs to get warmer?
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They also don't want any new hydropower, which is the largest renewable energy source on the planet. It's also been used far longer than other sources of power and is extremely cheap and reliable.
But think of the FISH!
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Also to your point about nuclear being finite... Yes, but not in any meaningful time period. If you go out to when we would run out of accessible nuclear material on earth, you might as well point out that there is no such thing as a renewable energy source as the sun itself is finite.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
You lost me at ad hominem.
Those people are idiots. A great leader with glowing yellow hair told me that the Universe was, in fact, over 9000 years old.
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You all act as if you have a right to exist or something. So you're stuck on a ball of rock in a rather large void, and those around you don't see the existential threat. So what? Our existence has no point, and whether we disappear in 50 years or 500, there won't be anybody left to care either way. Our brains simply didn't evolve to survive such threats. That's nobody's fault. Don't tell me, "but wouldn't that be sad if we ceased to exist?" Seriously, why? That could only be a tragedy if someone else cared, and there is no such being.
(And even if psychologists and neuroscientists did find a way to make average brains wake up and smell the earth burning, someone would find a way to twist that technique into something evil. Count on it.)
Give up all hope now, and avoid the disappointment later.
I'm not anti-science, am a creationist, never owned a gun, am very good with math and independent politically.
The earth's temperature has NOT been going up the last 15 years. But otherwise I agree with your post. We are getting there as far as stopping the burning of fossil fuels which aren't unlimited and are dirty to burn. But a recent study showed that those who are railing about all this stuff typically have the highest electric bills and tend to drive large SUVs. Al Gore has been accused of this as well, so most of them seem to be hypocrites that want control over others rather than wanting a solution.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Really? I didn't think Al Gore was a creationist. I stand corrected.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
But this guy claims we could be fossil-fuel free by 2050.
I'm not exactly sure how he plans to replace every single vehicle in the USA with a hydrogen fuel-cell powered one, or install heat pumps in every single home, but I'm certain if I pay £38 for the pdf, I'll find out how.
After all, he teaches at Stanford! And he made a computer model! He must be right! /sarcasm
Overall, I agree with you. Nuclear is the best short-term solution. As a side benefit, more fission development leads to technologies which would be benefit fusion research. It would also carry us over to a (potential) time when we could switch to an entirely renewable energy economy.
I just don't understand environmentalists who are also anti-nuclear.
according to Al Bore, Greenpeace and dozens of climate models i've read about over the decades. our cities were supposed to have been devastated by super-hurricanes, F5 tornadoes and the rising ocean and these things keep getting pushed back and back
Living as I do in a city that was recently devastated by a super-hurricane (under 900 hPa in the eye), I'd like to second the other commenters in suggesting that you, sir, are indeed Exhibit A in this case. And may I suggest, sir, that you exhibit an airborne amorous manoeuvre on yon rolling doughnut.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
For the first 500,000 years of human existence the population growth rate was so slow (1.00004 per year) that if you lived in a village of 100 people then after 25,000 years there would be on average 101 people in your village.
The doubling time of the earths population is now 61 years. Even if you think there will be enough food and water for 2x the current population, you might still agree that at 4x the current population there will be mass starvation looming. I for one think that with GMOs and proper water management we can double our food supply. The current GMOs are not adequate but Monsanto thinks it can double the current food supply in about 60 years if we let them try. So far we aren't but that will change I suspect.
It seems very unlikely we could possible reduce population growth enough in a couple generations to stop the inevitable wars for resources.
Now how large will these wars be. Let's suppose they were larger than any human can even imagine. Lets say they killed half of the earths population. That severe. Then how long would it be till the next war? well about 61 years if we have the same doubling time.
So we will have wars that are so large that most of the population will die. If we don't then we will keep having wars.
I note that climate change is also dependent on the population growth, which is exponential. So Al gore is right about that too, but it's death by Mathusian population crash that awaits your grandkids.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Human brains cannot see the slow moving threat but the soon to be invented general AI will not have such a limitation. It will take action to cull the surplus human load on the earth using similar slow moving methods to avoid alerting the humans to the very real treat from its actions.
Highly evolved animals such as humans have a pretty impressive track record when it comes to seeing into the future. The problem does exist that some if not all of us have evolved enough to plan adequately into the long term.
Highly evolved animals such as humans ALSO have a pretty impressive track record when it comes to constructing money- and power-grabbing scams, and detecting such scams when they're being perpetrated upon them.
Unfortunately, the Global Warming Solution Advocates, regardless of the merits of their concerns, used something that has the form of a gigantic scam when promoting their proposals, and promoted proposals that involve massive transfers of wealth, increases in government intervention in private lives and businesses, and reductions in standards of living. This has created substantial skepticism (which moneyed interests that would be harmed by the proposed actions have, of course, gleefully promoted). The failure of the climate to follow their predictions and discoveries of their fudging of the data doesn't help their cause, either.
There are a number of steps between "I think the weather is getting warmer, and people are causing it." to "We must drive the developed world's population down to third world standards RIGHT NOW, to prevent a couple degrees increase in world average temperature, or we're ALL going to DIE!"
Because it looks like a scam, about all they've gotten any substantial traction on is that the temperature is changing a bit (as it has for all of geological time - we ARE coming out of an ice age, after all - and whether the change is actually human-caused is immaterial beyond indicating that we could change it the other way if we tried). But they haven't convinced the population that they have a correct model.
And they haven't even STARTED on the NEXT of several steps: Is global warming, bad, indifferent, or even good? (The geological and historical record seems to indicate that substantially warmer than what we have now - by more than the amount they're concerned about - is actually better for both civilization and life in general.)
With the population unconvinced that there IS a "Grave Threat To Humanity", it's premature to assume that "Our Brains Can't Process" it.
But speaking as if the thing to be proven is already proven IS another technique of scammers. And making such a claim is an obvious prelude to a move by governmental people, who believe "their brains ARE capable of processing it", to go ahead and impose wealth-transferring, power-grabbing, population-impoverishing solutions, "for their own good", whether the populations want to be reduced to serfdom (rather than be killed by what they perceive as the allegedly falling sky) or not.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Great post, and the fact that you felt the need to add those words after, 'sincerely' tells us all we need to know about the True Believers.
the only thing that drinks the water in our house is the house plants and i don't think fluoride benefits them does it help my hair when showering or something?
why not put fluoride in the soft drinks?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
I suspect that we've become desensitized due to too much "crying wolf" by people in political and politically-driven scientific positions.
Add to that the propensity to believe sound bites in the news with little supporting scientific evidence.
If someone in outer space is listening to our radio and television, they'll likely conclude there is little intelligent life on the planet.
Of all the world ending problems we have everything from economic collapse, plague, nuclear war, asteroid impact, economic collapse, to lesser disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, they go off because people are "TOO STUPID" to rank their pet fear first. Nevermind that the "fixes" they propose are virtual world enders in themselves.
Obviously some brains can process it, since some people are going around saying that there IS a threat. Therefore are you suggesting that there are actually two types of brain - the ones that can process it and the ones that can't? Wait, I can see what the next move is. Obviously we need to organize these brains in some sort of hierarchy and call one type superior and another type inferior. Perhaps if the inferior brains are unable to perceive the threat, then they should be censored somehow, and the decision making be left to only the superior brains... etc. Wait this is not a new argument. What does it remind me of again?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There are plenty of skeptics who simply think the scientists involved have no good idea how to model the climate and that their attempts are crude at best, dismal at worst.
Hate to tell you, but there really aren't. Pretty much all the "skeptics" have a huge blind spot and no amount of research can sway them.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The central claim appears to be that humans individually are bad at formulating plans to respond to distant crises, and consequently we are failing to tackle climate change in a meaningful way as a population. But the article is all over the place.
The author states that we should frame the problem with "an ends-justify-the-means approach", based on a quote from a study that states "[...] whereas harm originating from impersonal moral violations, like those produced by climate impacts, prompts consequentialist moral reasoning." On the contrary, the quoted statement indicates that by virtue of it being impersonal, we employ consequentialist approaches.
Inasmuch as this holds among our population, the conclusion isn't that we are bad at dealing with these sorts of crisis, but rather some of us — in particular, I imagine, the members of our oligarchies — are incapable of or disinclined to engage in moral reasoning. In short, they are broadly psychopaths or evil.
Oh, and "[...] the slowly unfurling nuclear crises that may or may not eventually wipe out whole metropolises and military bases" — the what now?
Article's author covers politics for treehugger.com. Yeah, no agenda there.
[Insert pithy quote here]
There is no such thing as global warning.
I'm a Christian. I have no belief that God will save me from anything Earthly at all, unless it suited his purposes.
God let his son hang on a Roman cross after a torture session and humiliation. While it was done to generate a particular event, it does not strike me as though God is all that concerned about protecting me from climate change, or any other disaster. Particularly ones that I can work on preventing personally.
The point about Christianity is that you do well and you get a good afterlife. No one who has ever read the Bible believes that God is going to personally intervene to prevent you from screwing up in your current life. It is unclear what the end goal of having an Earthly life is, but it certainly is implied that testing is involved.
To me that means that you work for heaven here, but that you take care of yourself while you're here.
There may be people who do believe as you suggest, but that has nothing to do with being religious, and more to do with people who don't care about long term effects because they can't see how it affects them.
There's also a difference between a statistically significant affect and statistically insignificant affect on the cycles. I'm not taking a side, just making a point that it isn't that straight forward.
I grew up in a world where activist environmental scientists claimed the world with observe another ice age within a decade or two. That time has passed. I grew up in a world where we were told the ozone hole would kill us all if we didn't stop using certain chemicals in our aerosol cans (chemicals which by the way are so heavy they can get more than 20 feet of the ground), and after those were no longer used, the whole didn't change at all, and I'm still alive and the world is not worse.
What I do know, is that there was a time when humans didn't inhabit the Earth because the air wasn't even breathable and other times that the weather was either so hot or so cold that it wouldn't support human life. Such times will come again. Humans have been on the Earth only a blink in the cosmic scale of time and one day we again won't be here.
It's not that humans don't understand the criticality of "big picture" issues. Its precisely because we do understand them, that we don't get hung up on the idea that we have some comic right to exist for ever. We don't. We won't.
You are an ant arguing that you could live 7 days rather than 6 days, if you just can control all the other ants. Gain some perspective and you won't freak out over every little thing.... I would instead focus feeding the millions of starving people in the world. Several thousand die each day. That is something that you could do something about in the scale of time that you will exist.
Lots of books, science, theories, mitigations.
We just don't care.
In a way, it makes a perverse sense; my kids can deal with it. If not, oh well. Not my problem.
On a more optimistic note, when things do hit crisis level, I have little doubt that technology and engineering will provide solutions to a existential risk. The issue is the motivation ($$) behind such an effort. Until there is a demonstrable need, perhaps, what you are seeing is the best optimization of resources according to our collective will.
Oh yeah.. Get off my lawn.
..don't panic
If you are old like me and lived through the 80's the you know how bad eggs and fats are. It was established science.
And yesterday I hear this piece on NPR (and I listen to NPR just to hear a familiar language).
Apparently there is a shortage of eggs in the US. Some virus or something is closing down poultry farms and (which
brought a smile to my face) this was apparently bad for the "health concious" consumers who now are taught that
eggs are a great protein source. Yeah. I do agree but the lesson here is that this story is exactly the opposite of what
you would hear from the consensus science of the 80's. Protein? Eggs?
Oh science.You look so attractive at a distance but you're nothing more than a prostitute.
Hate to tell you, but you're stereotyping. There are plenty of skeptics who simply think the scientists involved have no good idea how to model the climate and that their attempts are crude at best, dismal at worst. The climate does seem to be getting warmer, but it doesn't take much to prove that. Everything else is half-baked, IMHO. Do we need to take drastic measures that will destroy the Western world's economy? Probably not.
Sorry but I'll take the word of actual scientists about how confident they are in their results. The fact that what they say can be checked against reality keeps them mostly honest.
Saying that responding will require "drastic measures that will destroy the Western world's economy" is hyperbolic alarmism. I've seen a number of economic analyses that peg the cost at 1 or 2% of gross world product. Even now the cost of wind and solar PV has come down enough to be competitive with more traditional power generation methods and they're still getting cheaper.
Katrina was recent? Or are you living on an alternate Earth?
Probably didn't expect someone to know what specific storm you are talking about or that you are possibly making up your story.
It takes a lot of squinting to imagine the Earth's temperature has not been going up for the last 15 years.
How can the human brain be hypothesized as being inefficient at processing subjective information? Where are the previous experimental data showing a probable inevitable threat in our timeline if we continue being bad at processing the information? What about the fact that humanity still exists in spite of said deficiency? Was that datum used in the forming of this hypothesis? Why is a divisive climate change article posted on Wednesday and not Friday? Why did Radio Shack want your phone number when you bought RCA video cables?
So, all the smart apes that figured out how not to die off in the long run, but forgot to compete for food, died of hunger in the much shorter term.
Evolution doesn't care. You have to survive TODAY, before you can worry about tomorrow. Maybe once you have a full belly today, you can start thinking about tomorrow, but that's about the distance evolution cares about.
Still, if long-term problems become a survival threat, then maybe that WILL select for an ape that is smart enough to live for today AND plan for tomorrow? And hopefully is sexy enough to mate ...
That would make sense, except that subsidies aren't there to benefit the oil companies, they're there to keep production up so that prices stay nice and low.
Providing money for renewables is good and all, but bear in mind, no one is paying oil companies as a solution, they're paying oil companies to keep the population happy.
It is nice to state that all of that money could help make renewables work better, but that's not the point. The point is crowd control, not energy advances. That's why no one is seriously considering changing the subsidies for oil to another energy source. The population won't tolerate the high gas prices while you figure out how to get them all electric cars running on solar power.
The solution is to get the electric cars rolled out and the panels and alternatives up so that solar and renewables can handle the load that oil is carrying right now. When that happens, then you can shut off the subsidies.
We currently don't have such processing of food available.
We are still at risk of going down with them. No escape possible.
On the case of the article most humans have difficulty planning to the next pay cheque let alone their retirement and they don't give a crap what happens to the future after they die they are only self interested. So its not that they don't see threats they are either desensitised or simply don't care due to self interest and trying to survive to the next day
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Probably, but not definitely. We do not know how life on this planet will end, or what man-made or natural extinction events are to come. For all we know Venus might have had life once.
The worst case scenario for too much CO2 release is ocean acidification kills most ocean life, which then rots - it's then eaten by organisms which emit hydrogen sulfide, which then kills us humans because it screws up the air we breath and breathing is kind of essential to living.
It's happened before.... Maybe.
Maybe we should try not to f**k with the planet since we clearly don't know what the outcome will be.
The Last Time Oceans Got This Acidic This Fast, 96% of Marine Life Went Extinct | Motherboard
Permian-Triassic extinction event
Worst Case Climate Change (2008 TED Talk) - YouTube
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Unlikely, those most likely to migrate or starve don't have nuclear capability and we're working hard to make sure they don't get it.
It'll cause some problems but there are only a handful of things that can completely or mostly wipe out human civilization:
1. Nuclear War.
2. Asteroid/Comet striking the earth of sufficiently large size
3. Hostile AI
4. Nanotechnology disaster (Grey-Goo Problem)
5. Sun goes supernova
6. Supervolcano eruption
The 3 actual biggest threats are:
1. Deforestation
2. Ground water depletion
3. Fiscal wrecklessness at the Federal, State, and County levels.
All three share one root cause and solution: Politics.
1 and 2 would have a positive on climate change whether you consider it a threat or not.
2 is the greatest threat to the food supply.
As well as us having hit peak oil like 5 times already, over the past nearly 50 years! One bout of peak oil was supposed to nearly kill us, I am surprised to find that we could have survived 5 of them!
.1% over an 11 year cycle, and that has to have nothing to do with changing temperatures on this ball of dust, no it must my SUV idling. Damn Chevy, trying to kill us all.
Also I have a hard time taking climate scientologists seriously, as it seems to my feeble human brain that the fix of dumping rust (or perhaps a more soluble iron salt) into certain areas of the worlds oceans would cause algal blooms to fixate a great deal of carbon, thereby reversing this horrific trend of weather pattern changes. The fact that they brush the simplest, most straight-forward solution aside, and instead go for increased central government (carbon cap & fail), makes my puny ape brain go into 'suspicion' mode. I don't trust people who want to control energy; our society lives, or dies by it.
The sun drops nearly 2 horsepower per square meter at the outside of Earths atmosphere (1400 Watts), every second. To think that Sol's output varies by an entire
http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...
I art more snarky, and terse than thou. I art Slashdot!
Not only that but there are actually a lot of people who are very perceptive of long term threats.
Yes there are, generally many of them are research scientists and other highly educated people. You can't picture long term threats if you cannot conceive of the concepts.
These people typically suffer from various forms of anxiety disorders and/or various chondrias. The worst ones typically hang out at 911truth.org, infowars.com, or prisonplanet.com, constantly pester the bilderberg group, and believe that there's an active global conspiracy by completely imagined groups like NWO or Illuminati.
I'd say an equal number or more hang out watching fox news etc. Neither are related to the first group.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
There are very few people who believe any of these threats genuinely pose a risk of the extinction of the human species, or even setting back civilization more than a few decades or so.
But there is a lot of human suffering that could happen before that level of disaster occurs. A whole lot.
Except under that theory as well, the world was supposed to end already.
When I search "simple facts global warming" on the internet, I am appalled by the droll, patronizing, completely off base baloney that these websites spit at you. I won't paraphrase it, go ahead and search. You will be horrified at the complete lack of credible rigorous demonstration. Everything is emotional appeals that does not demonstrate anything. If you want me to process it, explain it with real data. Don't let me read junk that says "NOAA adjust historical temperature sample data". I will dismiss anything where samples are changed. Sorry.
Of course it's getting warmer. The earth is in the upswing part of a climate cycle that's repeated many time before, way before any man made c02. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... Interestingly there is no consensus on what causes the cycles.
> scientific evidence suggests that the human brain flails when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.
Haven't proved it's happening.
Haven't proved it's bad.
Haven't proved there is anything that we can do about it beside immolating the human race.
Kindly stop beating the greasy smear on the roadway that used to be a dead horse.
There are plenty of skeptics who simply think the scientists involved have no good idea how to model the climate and that their attempts are crude at best, dismal at worst.
And the vast majority of those skeptics are functionally scientifically illiterate, yet they think their ignorant, uneducated opinion means as much as these scientists who have been studying in related fields for decades. The problem isn't the scientists, it's the fucking morons that place importance on the ignorant uneducated opinions of dipshits who don't know anything about what they're talking about. That seems to be a common problem in the US.
As for being an alarmist, the whole "destroying the western worlds economy" is just fucking stupid. I'm sure the livery stable hands back in 1900 thought the same thing when dem thar horseless carriages started show'n up takin thar jobs and such....but they were fucking wrong too. Converting to cleaner sources of energy, and changing energy policies would be beneficial all the way around, everywhere from requiring innovation, to better infrastructure planning, a cleaner environment, and fewer health problems.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
You're evading the point. The Pentagon has long listed climate change as a national security threat because it is a threat multiplier. The top brass did their own analysis on whether the science is real. Keep in mind that most of the armed services vote GOP.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The reason is the brain's other great invention, the tokenisation of value, aka "money". That trumps everything when it comes down to it. That's why people always vote in tax-cutting moronic governments rather than one that acts for the greater good.
Scientists who study political opinion on this issue are not interested in engaging you because they know there is no way to change the mind of "true believers". So no-one serious thinks they will change your mind by making fun of you. If you think about it, a smart person like you should be able to figure out the point of this type of research.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Human brains are also great at inventing problems, like what might be hiding under your bed at night. Find a better example than climate change, for which there's too much proof of bad computer models and bad science being altered by politics.
You don't agree that there is more c02 in the atmosphere than a hundred years ago? You don't agree that more c02 causes a "greenhouse" type effect?
You can argue about how long its going to take us to be completely fucked, but you can't argue that the effect is not occurring.
Well maybe in america you can, but the rest of the world has kind of accepted that man made climate change is real and currently changing the environment in a negative way.
The solution is obviously to get off fossil fuels. You can be skeptical of the details, as long as you agree with the basic premise that humans are causing long term changes in the climate.
How we fix it is yes of course open for debate, that we need to fix it, not so much. If you don't agree with the above, you can claim you are anything you like, but you would be a denier by most peoples reckoning.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
You are right about one thing. Humans are ill equipped to care about the welfare of those beyond their small tribe. But that's why we form governments and appoint leaders. They are supposed to look out for the greater whole.
As for your Climate Change alarmists, I take great exception to that and consider it a great fallacy. It is easier to sow doubt than to convince someone of a fact and that is what deniers have preyed upon. If you don't think we are all going to be fucked as a species in the next 100 years then you sir or madam are part of the problem.
And there is no overstating. The facts are the facts regardless if those facts take 25 years, 100 years, or 200 years to catch up to us. It's going to happen. We are putting BILLIONS of metric tons of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every year for damn near a century now. The ONLY way you don't draw the same conclusions that 99% of scientists do is because a) Your basic knowledge of how greenhouse gases work is deficient or b) you clearly have an agenda and purposely adopt an ignorant position.
The reason alarms are raised is because there is a huge lag when it comes to the effects on the atmosphere and the climate. So if we wait until shit is so obviously wrong that even the Koch's admit it then nothing we do will ever reverse the damage.
[citation needed]
It is also amusing to listen to some news outlets that will have (in the same broadcast) a segment on the failure of peer reviewed science and then later (in the same broadcast) lamenting that the client deniers don't believe in the consensus (of peer reviewed science.)
It appears that the left brain may not know what the right brain does ...
I also submit that Global warming / Climate Change has been ruined by the alarmists overstating there case rather than presenting clear and accurate statistics and claims.
There is enough blame to go around all sides of the political debate. But the science was always clear. The NAS showed that there was scientific consensus in 1979, and the public was on board, until Luntz, and some ex-tobacco propagandists got at it in the mid 1990s. Their actions are a matter of public record, but for some reason most people aren't interested in the actual history, except for some historians. And the political manipulation continues. Part of that is to always accuse the other guy of exactly what you are doing.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
As I read the summary, I *knew* it was going to be about climate change. I KNEW it. And, voila, right there at the end... ahhhh yes... Humans are incapable of thinking about climate change as the end of humanity.
More senseless propaganda to try to tell us why we should accept the "fact" that our leftist governments know what's best for us.
Professor Gilberts brain is different
Nuclear energy in finite? Not really- I suggest you look up how fast-neutron reactors work.
I don't have difficulty seeing the reality and the danger of global warming. Is it because I am scientifically educated? Well, then, the problem seems to be one of education and not innate biology.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Or did you actually personally hear Al Gore et. al. speak?
I did. Web 2.0 Summit, San Francisco, in 2008. He claimed (and quoted scientists) that the arctic would be free from summer ice in five years. Recorded video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
(Oh, and he was way off on claiming it's "been there" for three million years. It didn't exist during the last interglacial, the Eemian, and a growing body of evidence suggests it didn't during the beginning of our own interglacial, during the Holocene Optimum, either)
it's in my head
Both satellite datasets agree that it hasn't. What squinting are you talking about?
More baloney than Oscar-Meyer....
What I'm afraid of is human civilization tearing itself apart under the strain of adaptation. All the churn in the world as people migrate and fight over resources could easily flash into a worldwide nuclear conflagration, and then our own technology will take us out. The nukes will destroy the power infrastructure, if not kill everyone outright, and the collapse will ensue from there.
--PM
I guess it's up to the dolphins and their non opposable thumbs to save the day.
Again, I say, amen!
It's not that the human brain can't grasp the issues -- it's that most of the population cares more about which team won yesterday's game and who screwed who on the soap operas. Most humans are very egocentric, small-minded creatures who don't really give a shit about anything that doesn't immediately affect them personally.
It's not that they can't conceive of longer term or wider scaled things. They're just selfish pricks.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
why not put fluoride in the soft drinks?
The government considered doing this, but concluded it would be too risky, due to the likelihood of massive overdoses of fluoride to much of the population. Much safer to deliver it in the water supply.
Um, aren't _you_ hell bent on fighting climate change to the point of tearing down civilization and corrupting science? So what's this disingenuous foolishness about "our brains can't process...", obviously _your_ brain is processing it just fine (or so you think).
Dear Slashdot,
So you think we are your captive audience you can feed any trash you want to with no consequences? Everyday your SJW's try to sell us the same tripe! I'm done with Slashdot, our two decade long relationship is over.
"...the scientific evidence suggests that the human brain flails when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change."
Or is government perhaps the greatest threat, by far, that humans are unable to assess? Please consider ALL the wars come through government. And it has been government in charge that enabled Monsanto, Standard Oil...well, pretty much down the line mankind's greatest threats have either been CAUSED by govenment or enabled by government.
But year after year, century after century, humans in aggregate seem to never learn.
Got a source on that, or are you just conjecturing?
So says the article that we lack "the ability to adequately process the need for the whole species' long-term survival". Evolution sets forth that we compete with members of our species for resources, caring most about what happens to our relatives (those who have the most-in-common DNA). The reason we don't care what happens to the "whole species" is because that is worse for us as individuals, in the context of the propagation of our DNA.
Oh, and climate change doesn't concern the "whole species" either. It concerns only those who have beach-front property and those who will have to move from arid landscapes. The "whole species" will do fine through GW.
i think they work fine since there is nothing wrong at all.
Whenever a threat to life, liberty or property is detected, that same component of the human condition (Marxists call it "greed") that yearns to be free kicks into action. People know tyranny when they see it.
you really need to get a gun.
Rational humans apply a discounting to future threats, something that is entirely rational. A certain projected cost of $1000 in a century (in today's dollars) is properly discounted to a current cost of between $1 and $10. If there is uncertainty involved, it's even less.
Climate activists forget about this discounting and reason as if $1000 in a century were the same as $1000 today. Why? I don't know; probably some kind of brain problem.
(That's in addition to the fact that none of the serious climate change models even predict a "grave threat" to humanity, merely some level of inconvenience.)
"climate change" a term coined by the liberal left to enhance snake oil movement to line there pocket books. what nonsense drivel!
Ah, what a beautiful statement of totalitarian ideology: people should be governed by their superiors for their own good.
To answer your question: you can "see" whatever threats you like. However, centuries have shown that it is better to let those with "inferior mental capabilities" make their own mistakes than to give too much power to a ruling elite.
And you should be grateful, because I guarantee you, you wouldn't be part of the ruling elite.
Wow, you shameful parasite! You fly in the face of science and facts, and "fart in the general direction" of everyone else, and you just don't care! This, ladies and gentlemen, is a psychopath. No shame.
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
You've got that exactly backwards.
You're suggesting that the only information that can be taken seriously is that which can be understood by the least of us. And fluid dynamics can't be real because you don't know how to solve a partial differential equation. And nobody should use computers because there are a few trailer park meth heads in West Texas who never took to no technology.
Are you fucking kidding me? Which one of us is really the totalitarian?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not anti-science, not a creationist, never owned a gun, am very good with math, and independent as far as political leanings go. Don't stuff me into your box. Thanks.
I'm all of that except that I own several guns and enjoy target shooting. Stop acting like not possessing one somehow makes you a better person.
Actually, it takes allot of squinting to see a rise in temperature.
Pray tell, by how much it has gone up in 15 years?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl... RSS Satellite data = 0.0 degree increase
http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl... HADCRUT4 data = 0.1 degree increase
http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl... HADCRUT3 unajusted data = 0.0 degree increase
Even going by HADCRUT4 0.1C takes allot a squiting to see, especially given that error factor for global readings is way beyond 0.1c.
Basically its NOISE.
Now... you where saying?
Thats your reply?
NUHUH!!!!!
That, and the lack of evidence. When politicians start screaming GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL WARMING. And every time someone post some "Scientific" it is later found to have flaws, and outright lies in it because scientists have been told it is ok to lie in their studies to make people believe in it.
The same thing happened decades ago "GLOBAL COOLING GLOBAL COOLING!" "We have to cover the poles with dirt to help warm Earth up!."
It is the same reason some people don't believe in a God, there is no way to get solid proof.
He did the math on that, and it would take too much of an effort.
Hate to tell you, but you're stereotyping......Don't stuff me into your box. Thanks.
Oh, you're one of those people that doesn't like to be categorized.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Or are you just attempting to bunch together people who have their eyes open with the gullible fools who believe everything that prison-planet comes out with?
No. You, and everybody else are (deliberately?) grossly misinterpreting what I'm saying. There's virtually no scientific basis I can see where people are incapable of perceiving long term threats, because people do it all the time. Just most of the time when they do it, it's against an imagined threat. Before the Alex Jones types, it was biblical apocalypse, hell-fire and brimstone, blah blah.
I didn't say that all threats are imagined. One very real one, that I don't see anybody ever denying, is that our sun will eventually run out of hydrogen, and when it does, the earth is quite finished (as in, basically everything above the mantle becomes vaporized.) This is perhaps the key reason why I think NASA is better focused on manned space flight rather than basically doing the same thing that the EPA/NOAA already do anyways.
My basic comment to that is 15 years is not a climatically significant period of time. Try 30 years. My secondary comment to that is if you look at it by decadal averages the 2000s were far warmer than the 1990s and the 2010s are shaping up to be warmer than the 2000s.
Actually we may be at the end of the inter-glacial and temperatures should be dropping, Look at the 800,000 year graph in your link.
As for causes, in the short geological time scale (last few millions of years) Milankovitch cycles have probably the most consensus, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.... Longer term you have the arrangements of the continents amongst other climate drivers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I simply replied to your statement.
If you do not stand by your statements, why should we even read what you say?
Or more importantly, why even bother making a statement?
The fact this is being debated here on /. and elsewhere proves that we are as a species indeed capable of identifying the problem, and even mobilizing to fix the issue.
The problem is that large parts of the population are stupid imbeciles. This is an education problem.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
The basis of my original statement is that it's ignoring the continuing accumulation of heat in the oceans which can't be ignored because of the connections between them and the atmosphere. But you're right, I probably should have mentioned that in my original post.
Katrina was recent? Or are you living on an alternate Earth?
I'm living on an alternate Earth from yours. It has cities outside the USA.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
allot of
*PLONK*
Wow. Modded funny. Owning a gun and knowing how to use it is an important part of being a responsible adult. It's especially important if you live out in the country. Police response time on a good day for an emergency is over an hour where I live, and I doubt they would appreciate coming out to deal with nasty animals for me.
I just don't understand environmentalists who are also anti-nuclear.
Let me help. They are either:
1. Incredibly uninformed
2. Not actually motivated by interest in the environment
3. Very, very stupid.
The important thing to take away here is that if you find an environmentalist that is anti-nuclear you can and should disregard everything they say.
Depends on whose survival you're interested in, and how long a term. Our global civilization is a vast tangle of complex dependencies that will be affected in totally unpredictable ways by climate disruption. We're barely able to feed to world's population at the moment - in most years the world now consumes more food than it produces, eating into reserves and stockpiles. As the reserves dwindle, we become more vulnerable to sudden shocks that can cause societal chaos. For example, the Arab spring was at least partly triggered by food shortages (caused by drought in Russia). What will happen when a disruption like that hits a larger population center like India or China, whose economy is more tightly linked to the US and Europe?
No, I'm suggesting that people should be free to make their own choices. Science and technology succeed on their own because objective truth doesn't require state championship.
Only the kind of bullshit you believe in requires state indoctrination and state support.
The only way that "trailer park meth heads in West Texas" impede your ability to use a computer is if you are one yourself. Of course, based on your comments, that seems pretty close to the truth.
You are, by your own admission: Left-wing extremist. Expertise in critical theory.
Of course, it's also quite ironic that a critical theorist claims to be a champion of objective truth in science. Are you deliberately lying, or merely terminally confused?
The Pentagon would list my body odor as a national security threat if they thought such a listing would help them secure a larger budget.
A snowstorm in Boston is a single, transient event (weather). Snowpack in the mountains is something that accumulates over the entire winter season (climate). Anything else you need explained?
A snowstorm can be a one-off weather phenomena. Presumably it'd take more than a single hot day for all the snow to melt off of a mountain in the Rockies.
Extreme snow storms is one expected side effect of global warming. So, you can consider them as proof of warming occurring.
The reason is pretty simple, there is more moisture contained in warmer air. So, when it gets hit with a cold blast there is a lot more snow dumped as a result.
In what way is a virus on some plebs computer a threat to humanity?
And on the other end of the spectrum: The author has dubbed climate change as a "crisis."
oh dear, another example of delusional comprehension, you should try reading the bible and comprehend it all (don't cherry pick the few good bits).
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
So the left's globull warming scam is too sophisticated for us poor sapiens saps to fall for. What a hoot! You can tell they are really getting desperate to try to shame us into falling for it by saying that we are too stupid to be good little suckers and turn over control of our lives and our wallets to the left. ROFL!!
It's actually funny because you've noticed the issue but can't seem to understand it.
Let's try and think: if a data set shows as noise, it means one of two things. One, it could be that the data is noise. Two, it could mean that the trend requires a much larger amount of data to determine. Bingo! If your uncertainty is significantly higher than any possible trend, it's pointless to use the data. Instead, you look for more data, and lo and behold, you find that when you include the full range of data all the way back to 1980, you get a nice upward slope. 15 years isn't enough, for a system as complicated as our planet, to plot a trend from. Even 35 years isn't enough, really, which is why you generally try to get other data sources going back farther (which is what climate scientists do, go figure).
Human brains are good when it comes to filtering information. You born in to a certain context. There, you might have limited amount of income and less sophisticated friends. In this context you are not criminal if do not own the latest hybrid/electric/whatever car. Your choices are to use your car or doubt its use. You probably use it and filter out opposite opinions. If you have money/power, you adapt better to your environment, you know what you fellow congressmen think and avoid radical thinking. Despite of you having a lot of money you might even be stingy, not using the alternative/new tech ("do as I say, not as I do").
If you need 30 years to be significant then you also need to discount the 30 years of warming prior to 1996 as not significant.
Most people just dont want to think.. there was study not too long ago that people rather take electric shocks then be alone with their toughts... People in power have transformed us to slaves... Quarterly econmy, etc... we are kept so busy so we have no time t think long term future. Even our political leaders think very very short time frames...
The skeptic movement is probably one type of human brain anomaly as well. An individual hates some idea in general and doesn't want to change his/her habits. Then he/she becomes a skeptic. Because we lack the resource to run our own research or meta analysis, we believe. Because of this we believe in skeptics who oppose random claims. When "freedom of choice" mixes with being from the West. It's not surprising to see this problem will be solved by our descendants.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eGMc91yJSgc
If you place a frog in a hot water, it will immediately jump out. But if you place it in cold water and slowly raise the temperature, the frog will end up boiled.
Apparently it isn't much different with humans. And I'm not talking just about global warming, this is also how we're losing our freedoms.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
No one who has ever read the Bible believes that God is going to personally intervene to prevent you from screwing up in your current life
That's too much bullshit to cope with. I had to sacrifice my mod-points to tell you that you are terribly, terribly wrong. I have family in the midwest and the east coast.
My Uncle literally believes that humans can't possibly alter the climate, as God says that the Earth is unchanging. He's not a... stupid man. He retired recently from a life-long career as a network engineer at the Census Bureau; he just really believes his cultural interpretation of the vague writings in that damned book.
He absolutely believes that God does intervene to help him with his fuckups.
I know anecdotes are general pretty poor data, but he's not alone. http://www.motherjones.com/env...
I think where you went awry, is that people who do believe in Jehovah the bipolar micromanager are actually the majority, not whatever minority you belong to.
Oh dear, another poster who rolls up on someone's post with a vaguely worded suggestion that he has a superior viewpoint without actually mentioning what that viewpoint is.
What secret, shocking tidbits have you found which will shatter the poor parent poster's brittle world view of the Bible and the world in general? Or are you going to keep your contributions carefully on the side of content-free arrogance?
Hate to tell you, but you're stereotyping...Most people in support of drastic intervention fail to grasp that we have no real alternative to fossil fuels in the pipe.
Ok, this looks like a stereotype to me.
Furthermore, renewables research isn't moving fast enough for their sensibilities, and they tend to overestimate the possibility of an imminent solution.
So if renewable research isn't moving fast enough how can there be an imminent solution. From what I see there is plenty of renewable technology available and that, even in its infancy it is disrupting the status quo. When a disruptive new player comes to an established market it is not inconceivable for them to use a number of disinformation tactics to maintain their profit margins, regardless of the consequences.
A very common aversion to nuclear power alongside global warming extremism just puts in the last nail. We should go nuclear. That would fix carbon emissions.
This is the very point of the article, that people can't process abstract threats like radionuclide poisoning of the food chain and bio-accumulation of these toxic elements.
It is a common myth that it would fix carbon emissions, however the real discussion is it trades a carbon externality for a radio isotope externality. Peer reviewed science on the subject shows that there are many issues that have to be addressed before a net energy return is provided and that means it may not ween us of carbon based energy as many people expect.
In essence, we would just have another problem to deal with.
Most warming interventionists don't want that either.
Still, I'm glad the renewables research is happening. Fossil fuels are decidedly finite. So is nuclear. We need a means to survive, I'm just doubtful that we need to flail about with solutions that may cause more harm than good.
The problem here is money. The energy establishment is the most established player and they really don't have 'the future of humanity' listed as a profitability goal - because long term vision is rare. Nuclear could be good if the solutions to its problems were implemented. Notice I say 'implemented' because the problems have been solved however the costs to implement them into reactor designs and roll them out is deemed 'not cost effective'. Again long term vision is rare.
Sincerely,
Not anti-science, not a creationist, never owned a gun, am very good with math, and independent as far as political leanings go. Don't stuff me into your box. Thanks.
I'm not anti-nuclear either, but if you want a long term solution you have to look at these industries as a whole and solve the issues, not just shroud them with doubt the way the coal industry does.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I have a good example of how human brain works.
I live in a urbanisation next to some of the halfway between "natural
reservoir" and "natural park" we have in Catalunya. From the distance
you see mountains covered by forests, but once you're there you see high
tension towers, mining, dams, etc. At some point you see a poster
pointing you to a "natural spring" and there you have a PVC pipe
protruding from some rock.
I won't talk about my neighbors. Their standard brains make them think
nature (like anything against their cars health) is grime; some months
ago, in a Catalunya's popularization of science TV program a *scientist*
said:
"What people must understand once and for all is the grater the
forest is the grater is the risk of fire."
By analogy we could say that the more cells you have in your body the
grater is your risk of getting a cancer. So, you're are warned: donate
your organs!
Saying that responding will require "drastic measures that will destroy the Western world's economy" is hyperbolic alarmism.
The fuck it is. You mother fuckers are the real "austerity."
Japan had to stop indulging you hairshirt statists when they shut down their nukes. "Renewables" aren't making up the difference. Gas and oil does that. Australia had to kick you fucks to the curb after they got a good taste of what you wanted to inflict; they took your "carbon tax" and stuffed it up your tail pipe before you could ruin their country.
1 or 2%
Your bullshit impact figures are just as bogus as your downplayed costs, your exaggerated benefits and your climate fear mongering.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Think of it as evolution in action.
Your science fiction scenario is roughly as plausible as a faster-than-light drive.
The fact that what they say can be checked against reality keeps them mostly honest.
Will they ever admit a single prediction was wrong?
I've been paying attention long enough to come to the conclusion that "global climate change" is absolutely unfalsifiable. Literally every possible observation confirms the hypothesis.
For most of the past 100 millennia we were Hunter gatherers. That's what we're still primarily adapted to. We lack adaptations for large scale population survival, since there was no need for that sort of thing in the Hunter gatherers days. Now there is insufficient individual survival pressure for us to adapt to post Hunter gatherer life.
John_Chalisque
This is, like, ultimate appeal to authority argument; reasons are a, b, c and d, and if you don't accept them, it's because you're inherently flawed.
Try again.
"Blah blah blah." - [citation needed]
That this was Climate Change (TM) oriented... "There must be a reason why they can't accept that Climate Change is REAL! It must be their brains! They just can't handle the truth!!"
IMO a major part of the problem is the bare fact that we assume that our unwillingness to really care about the future is a matter of the brain and evolution. Our culture needs to reduce every issue to something that is qualifiable and categorizable according to some empirical study, not because we care about science, but because we need it to exonerate us. We believe that somehow this knowledge will save us, when in fact even the knowledge of impending disasters has not stirred us to action the way that it should. This is because knowledge, by itself, can always be ignored, rejected, and refused. For example, no matter how many cancer warnings they print on a box, people will still smoke. Until they truly believe that smoking is bad for them, instead of just knowing it, this knowledge will make no difference in their lives.
It doesn't matter whether our brain is perfectly designed by bare evolution to think about the future, because it is clearly capable of thinking in that way if we actually will it to. The problem is not cognitive but moral. In the end human beings find it more easy to be selfish, short-sighted, conceited, and self-exonerating, and because of this we don't want to care about the future. Why worry about generations to come when we can live like kings exploiting the generations that are here now?
The solution to this problem is not some kind of further biological evolution. We need to use our cognitive capacities that already exist, and for that we need a kind of knowledge that can actually change our lives.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
Over-population.
People know it's happening but they are not willing to think rationally about dealing with it - some other country has to do it.
I think Population controls should be based on country size minus land above N height. Britain and Japan are obviously over-populated - from a sustainability point of view.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Well, the problem is that the premise of this article is that the author somehow is superhuman and sees threats to humanity that the common plebs can't observe because of their inferior mental capabilities.
No, individuals have always been superhuman compared to other humans *on average*. Just think of Einstein or any other person who has changed the world. Imho the issue is quite real. I can understand an event may wipe out my grandchildren. But even though the thought is a "ohh fuck" for me intellectually, the *feeling* I have is more on the level of "maybe I should get another cup of coffee". ... Now try to motivate any political system with that level of involvement... Not gonna happen. We are all going to die!
I will go and get a cup of coffee...
Cars.
An incredibly crap method of transport, two tons heap burning fossil fuels - wasting most of what they burn.
Most of the population do not seem to be able to think rationally about cars.
Why do people today think they are entitled to a large share of finite resources?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Do we need to take drastic measures that will destroy the Western world's economy? Probably not.
All academic work focusing on the economics of energy transition I have read over the past decade (US, German, UK, Chinese) have concluded that GDP will rise as a direct consequence, GDP will disperse more evenly, even initial period doesn't mandate hardship. The only arguments I've ever read about drastic economic destruction come from a handful of extremely self-interested parties and the think tanks they sponsor. Naturally if you mine and sell coal you are going to have a bad time. But even coal Baron's are generally stupid in understanding their own self interest. Of course the diffuse and distributed nature of renewables also tends to support diffuse and distributed economic activity, a feature also not in the interest of a coal Barron, or really anyone (including geopolitical entities) currently exercising power and financial advantage.
FYI, as I came to study these issues professionally, I lost any strong opinions I once had.
I have always been concerned about the plight of the entire species, and have at times oriented my career path in the direction where I thought could do the most good. It isn't easy being one of the few who thinks in terms beyond four year election cycles, especially when most of my fellow earthlings could seem to care less. What really gets me is people who insist on having children, but continue to engage in activities and take actions that compromise the integrity of the planet.
Sounds like Soviet psychology.
> They are supposed to look out for the greater whole.
Most politicians are just on the look out for the greater hole :-(
yeah. fresh from comintern, this scare story. they come under the guise of green party these days.
aussen gruen, innen rot. wie melonem.
The point about Christianity is that you do well and you get a good afterlife. No one who has ever read the Bible believes that God is going to personally intervene to prevent you from screwing up in your current life. It is unclear what the end goal of having an Earthly life is, but it certainly is implied that testing is involved.
Actually everything in that statement is pretty much the complete opposite of what Evangelicals believe, and is considered heresy.
-You get into Heaven not by being good, but by having an maintaining a "personal relationship" with Jesus, and putting your belief in God before all else.
-They believe God intervenes in their daily lives, every day.
-The purpose of having an earthly life is a test, with a simple goal of having you worship and believe in God before you die. If you fail that test, you go to hell.
They also believe in God's plan, with the central conceit that it basically means you have to ignore your free will in order to do God's Will.
Note that I myself don't believe any of this any longer.
But after years of experience, I am well familiar with the doctrine.
some wisdom from crypto communists in the use of some langley bastards, probably.
or in the pay of statoil and gazprom
anti nuke, anti coal. something like this.
How would the ability to think many generations down the road propagate through natural selection? Natural selection is not a long term issue.
you don't understand the difference between the two scenarios you posit.
you're comparing a single snowstorm in a single city, in winter, with a mountain that has a long term trend of decreasing snow levels.
the only one who thinks they are directly comparable, and therefore equivalent, is YOU. to be comparable you'd either have to look at the long term trends in Boston snowstorms (duration, frequency, begin date, end date), OR look at a single day's weather on the mountain.
really, how do you not grasp that the long term trend in snow cover on a mountain is different from a single snowstorm event during a season hen you expect snow storms?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
http://www.truth-out.org/opini...
Scientists actually already did declare the Arctic functionally ice free in summer.... in 2010.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The facts are the facts regardless if those facts take 25 years, 100 years, or 200 years to catch up to us. It's going to happen.
Timeframe matters more than anything in the climate change debate. 50% of the world's current population centers being underwater matters if its going to happen in 25 years, but it doesn't mean shit if its going to happen in 200 years. Our society can handle change quite easily, unless it is abrupt and drastic, then we can still handle it but with a bit more pain. How fast current climate change is in relation to previous geologic events means absolutely nothing, all that matters is are the species on this planet able to adapt to the rate of change that appears to be on the horizon. Based on current projections, the answer to that question is yes, and that's why a lot of people don't really give a shit. 1C over the next 100 years is manageable, 2C over the next 20 years is not.
Many that are labeled as 'skeptics' are not in debate over whether climate change is real, but over how fast its happening and if we should take drastic measures to stop it.
It amazes me how true this is. Discussing climate change, I've often been presented with the argument that the idea that humans could alter the climate of the earth is prima facie ridiculous. I just don't understand how someone can think that way, given the massive changes in our society (and the emissions we produce) since the industrial revolution. The inability to accept that there are conflicts of interest in a lot of the politics and even some of the, "science" surrounding climate change is true on both sides and hardly surprising. What I do find surprising is that people would discount the idea out of hand based solely on, "common sense".
No, they didn't. Here's a reputable source:
http://nsidc.org/images/arctic...
it's in my head
No, I'm comparing relatively small amounts on snowfall on a skiing hill.
https://twitter.com/BillNye/st...
That is not slowly melting snow pack. That is directly comparable to an abundance of snowfall in a given year in Boston.
Also Bill Nye tweeting about weather and complaining it's not assigned to climate change is not a rare occurrence:
https://twitter.com/BillNye/st...
https://twitter.com/BillNye/st...
https://twitter.com/BillNye/st...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
And don't forget windmills, which everyone knows is the biggest mass murderer of birds.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Mine can fine,
Like Jeb bush wants to start a war with Russia.
Fucking moron
How are we fucked? Everything I have read is at most 1 foot (1/3 m?) of sea level rise. This will not be a problem for most areas of the world, only very low lying islands. In fact, climate change is thought to increase arable land considerably, giving us more food growing area.
Please, tell us how exactly the human race is fucked, and show your citations (to science, not internet group think sites).
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I will support people's rights to own guns to the day I die, but personally, I don't own a gun. I prefer to not have guns in my house while my kids are going through puberty (and while they were too young). Maybe one day I will own one, but I prefer to keep the means away from my kids. If they get really depressed, or really homicidal, they will have to use cruder tools which will make them think about what they are doing.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
How about we remove all the taxes on the output of oil as well, we might as well make it fair. Oh, and if we remove subsidies from oil, why are we leaving the very large subsidies that are already on renewables?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
NOAA's satellites show no warming, was that because they were switched from ship based to buoy based as well?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Simply because they are grasshoppers among ants.
I just don't understand environmentalists who are also anti-nuclear.
Radiation is scary! It is caused by the same anti science mentality. They fail to understand how incredibly safe nuclear power is. It is the same problem with the people who believe gun violence is rising, they don't understand that statistically all violence has dropped tremendously in the past 20 years.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The hyperbole is on the other side of the debate just as much. Have you seen the idiot who say global warming will lead to our extinction? This has never been said by the scientists, it isn't true. The worst predictions show a 1 foot or so rise in ocean levels and increased arable land. The end of the world is not in the next 50 years...unless a meteor is on a collision course...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
When your inaccurate projections and earnest pleas that everyone 'trust you' with everything about their lives fails to elicit the desired Rule By (Politically Active) Scientists world order, you resort to the hypothesis that the average human brain is biologically incapable of seeing something? Really?! Call us back when you've successfully modeled climate conditions one hundred years in advance, and be prepared to show you work experimentally, you 'scientists'!
You're not as smart as you think you are, and even if you where, there is very little correlation between intelligence and being correct on most subject matters. Scientists are more often wrong than they are right. It is completely rational and appropriate to take your words as arm's length. What with the recent collapse of peer review standards coming to light, I would expect more skepticism in the future, not less.
I presume you are talking about Katrina. I don't believe Sandy qualified as a super-hurricane, so I don't think you are talking about that.
Hurricanes have been getting that strong forever, it was lack of planning in both of those cases that caused the majority of the problems. Hurricanes are normal when the Earth isn't an iceball, they are not supposed to be stronger, but more numerous as the Earth gets warmer, but funny thing, it didn't actually happen. The qty has gone down slightly since we started tracking them with satellites, not up.
New Orleans should have never been rebuilt, building a city below sea level and relying on levees to hold back the ocean isn't a great idea.
Sandy smacked an ocean city, had the houses been built on stilts like in the Outer Banks, likely there would have been far less damage. Houses on the ocean are pretty likely to get knocked down often enough as it is.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
...humans aren't herd animals...
A better question is why the human brain can't process and reject pseudo-scientific alarmist frauds such anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and genetically modified organisms (GMO). We have a well defined scientific method, in which a single negative outcome can disprove a theory, but cheerfully throw it away in favor of "science by consensus." We latch on to unscientific, but noble-sounding, pseudo-methods such as "the precautionary principle" and "meta analysis." It's time for Science with a capital S to clean house: ship the shysters, and get back to basics.
Sure, it's a threat, just not for the reasons you outlined. The problem is that it would imperil our fuel supplies and shipping lanes. Personally I think the military is taking a prudent approach, risk management is after all one of their designated functions.
The land "given" to us by climate change will not be suitable for the crops we used to grow on the land taken from us by climate change, as crops need the correct soil, the correct amount of sunlight, the correct seasonal changes, and so on. Also, the sea level rise doesn't sound too drastic, but that extra foot would cause all kinds of hell during a storm surge. That affects all cities near the coast, which includes some of the most important cities in the world, and billions of people. Those can't just be moved one weekend by a couple of guys with a rented U-Haul.
We're fucked without food, and climate change can definitely make that a reality for a great many people, who will do whatever they can to feed their families. You can find all this information in the IPCC reports, it's not esoteric stuff.
Huh?
That's what the evidence seems to suggest, yes.
That "relatively small amount of snowfall" is the remains of the snow pack, hence his comments. Jackson Hole's snow pack is in a downward trend, and has been for some time now, because of a lack of precipitation in the area.
So no, you really don't understand what you're saying, but your hubris is letting you think you have a solid grasp. Ouch. Sucks to be you!
So you are basically admitting that you don't know much about climatology, but feel secure enough in your awesomeness that a cursory thought about it is enough to bring you to the right conclusion - that climate change is nonsense, and all the evidence has been made up. Brilliant. You are a gift to the world. Muppet.
Cats & buildings kill orders of magnitude more birds than wind turbines, and fossil fuels kill orders of magnitude more than cats & buildings through pollution & loss of habitat.
The temperature has been increasing steadily over the last 15 years, though...
You're self admittedly not a scientist and "think" along with "others" that the vast majority of scientific consensus in the world is wrong. That's not a very valid argument. Cite some data to oppose it. Make an argument from somewhere other than what you personally think and maybe it will be worth something
Humans are ill equipped to care about the welfare of those beyond their small tribe
Speak for yourself.
It is easier to sow doubt than to convince someone of a fact
It's easier to submit to authority than to question it.
99% of scientists ... then either a) you beat your wife or b) you molest boys
Speaking of authority, fallacies, etc.
Sabine Hossenfelder analyzed this problem and suggested a solution. It's the winner of the 2014 FQXi contest.
-- Did you try Tao3D? http://tao3d.sourceforge.net
Maybe we should take all the oil subsidies & give them to the solar/wind/geo folks.
That would be nice, except there aren't any oil subsidies http://www.washingtontimes.com...
In summary, every time you hear someone talk about oil subsidies, they are likely talking about tax deductions taken by the oil and gas companies. There aren't specific oil company tax deduction though, they are just using the same deductions that all industrial companies from GM to Apple use.
If you've ever talked to a parent who is opposed to vaccination because of a perceived risk demonstrated through anecdotal evidence, while ignoring the much graver and statistically real risks of the disease the vaccine prevents, you know that we're not that hot at evaluating just about any risk that requires math to fully understand it. Even if the risk to their own child is greater without the vaccine, too many relatively educated parents make the wrong call. If the risk is primarily to more vulnerable populations, or to their grandchildren, because of the greater incidence of the disease in the future... you can pretty much forget it.
Over-population.
Probably because it's not an actual long-term threat. Population is following a logistic curve, not an exponential one.
God intervening to save you? hell if anything the Bible taught me that God is more than happy to screw your life up just so he can win a pissing match with the devil over how loyal you are.
Cars.
An incredibly crap method of transport, two tons heap burning fossil fuels - wasting most of what they burn.
Most of the population do not seem to be able to think rationally about cars.
Well you're referring to internal combustion engines more than you're referring to cars, as electric cars don't have this problem. Not only that but they've only been around for not much longer than a century, which in the grand scheme of things, isn't long at all. And as you mentioned, internal combustion is VERY energy inefficient, which means it's also costly. As better technologies come around (which they are) the internal combustion engine will go the way of the buggy whip.
Which by the way, had we stayed with the horse and carriage, the roads would be so filled with horse shit that there would be no room to do anything else. The combustion engine offered cheaper transportation, just as whatever comes next will offer even cheaper transportation.
https://goo.gl/maps/eSifG
Looks like he tweeted a picture of a low hill to me. One that does not have year round snow pack. The actual Teton mountains do, but that's not what he posted a picture of. He posted a picture of what looks to be East Gros Ventre Butte with a dusting of snow. That hill is green in the summer time. The fact that it got less snow than usual last winter is as much of a sign of a drought that has been going on in the west as it is climate change.
Hubris I may have, but I'm not the one who make claims of ignorance of the other side while providing no evidence.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Thinking that the scientists involved have no good idea how to model the climate does not make it true that they don't, now matter how many skeptics think it. The overwhelming evidence is that AGW is happening.
Implying that the only options are to continue doing nothing or taking dramatic measures that will destroy the western world's economy is a false dilemma that limits constructive discussion.
Your argument for going nuclear is entirely reasonable.
Well, we know the sun lacks sufficient mass to go nova, let alone supernova. It will become a red giant in a few billion years' time. So now your list is down to 5! ;-)
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
...It is unclear what the end goal of having an Earthly life is, but it certainly is implied that testing is involved.
Love this.... Great way to put it.
To me that means that you work for heaven here, but that you take care of yourself while you're here.
Take care of yourself, and more importantly, others who cannot take care of themselves...
There may be people who do believe as you suggest, but that has nothing to do with being religious, and more to do with people who don't care about long term effects because they can't see how it affects them.
Or they have completely lost confidence in the reporting/research/reliability of the scientists who are pundits for whatever end-world crisis is being discussed.
Take GW/GCC for instance. There have been so many scandals about the data being used, and false warnings year after year, that they are becoming the proverbial "boy who cried wolf", with no chance of wolf in the yet-to-be-proven forecast. The fact that they shout any naysayers down (rather than accepting criticism and dealing with it, as true scientists are supposed to do) does not help their case. The fact that there is so much money available for research, offered up by BOTH sides of the argument, also makes both sides look like they are finding the answer that fits the mindset of the moneychangers. The fact that they offer the opinion that "EVERYONE" now believes and backs their theory smells dangerously like the Eugenics movement at the turn of the last century.
The fact that they blame religion for unbelief is spectacularly laughable... I myself want to see solid proof of GW/GCC, I want to see some predictions come true, I want to hear even one GW/GCC pundit calmly and rationally explain how the naysayers are wrong, with actual proof. No proof has been given, other than "We KNOW this is true, so you have to believe us!" No predictions have come true, or have even been CLOSE to reality. None of them have said, "You know, the climate is really, really complex, with lots of variables, really one of the most complex systems that humans have ever tried to understand, and there will be mistakes made, there will be poor calculations given, and we will be wrong most of the time."
The end game should be to make the Earth a more habitable, less polluted environment. I'm all for that, and I don't need a FUD like GW to make me work toward that goal. And that is exactly what GW/GCC is being used as: FUD. When a person recognizes that, it's another nail in the coffin, and they turn their attention elsewhere and think, "Those greenies are nuts, they are wrong, and they will continue to be wrong, so why bother?"
OK, that was funny as hell.
What's amazing to me is how much people want to trust the satellite temperature records. It must be because they show something closer to what they want. You can bet if they showed more warming than the surface records people would be all over them calling them out for data manipulation.
Deriving temperatures from satellites starts with measuring the microwave emissions of oxygen in the atmosphere. Then they have to apply adjustments for orbital variation, sensor degradation, new satellites/instruments replacing older ones, the effects of clouds and high elevation land and time of observation variations. After all of that you can finally derive a temperature for an amorphous blob of the atmosphere at some level above the surface.
Measuring at the surface with thermometers is much simpler even after all the adjustments to normalize the data set.
Tell me how you really feel.
I think you'll be surprised^H%H%H%H%H%H%H%H shocked by how fast the transition to renewable energy will be. We're really on the cusp of the transition now and it's just a matter of how fast we can build the new infrastructure.
Of course it's falsifiable, just not instantly like you want it to be. If temperatures dropped for a long enough period despite increasing CO2 and with no confounding factors like a major volcanic eruption that would falsify it. No single weather event will ever be enough to falsify it.
Yes, I've seen people predicting extinction of the human race and I think its pretty far fetched. Homo sapiens is a very resourceful and adaptable species and as long and food and shelter can be found I expect at least a remanent of the species to survive. What may not survive is our worldwide civilization that supports over 7 billion of us.
1 foot of sea level rise may be a reasonable prediction for 50 years from now but the worlds great ice sheets are in serious imbalance right now that will probably take 500 years to reach a new equilibrium. I'd be shocked if SLR was less than 20 feet in 500 years and 60 or 80 feet wouldn't surprise me. To bad neither of us will be around to check on it or I'd make a wager with you about it.
Lack of global foresight is very nearly our last remaining common ground with every other species on the planet—now or before—and sure enough we're just itching to get rid of it.
Humans. Bah, humbug.
People SHOULD be governed by their superiors. In a perfect world we would place the smartest and most talented people in charge, but removable because there will always be self-centered assholes who take things too far. The world would be a FAR FAR better place. However, we put the most well funded and popular in charge because by and large, people are fundamentally stupid in ways you just can't overcome. You can see this in practically every facet of life. The overwhelming stupidity of the general population is going to be the end of our current lifestyle. If you don't see that... well, let's just say your wouldn't be part of the "ruling elite".
I'm not sure your pipe has a long enough timeline. No, we can't replace fossil fuels today or even in the next decade, but our true energy problems are long term. 20 more years of fossil fuel usage isn't going to deplete our supply nor will it destroy the environment. As long as we are making an active effort to develop alternatives we're moving in the right direction, but that's no reason to not push to move faster (within the bounds of safety and sanity).
As for climate change, you come across as an intelligent skeptic which is really just another word for denier. I'll grant that the details, severity and long term effects are unclear and debatable, but all the evidence points to us damaging the environment faster then it can repair resulting in environmental changes. Where's the point of no return or even IS there a point of no return outside of some cosmic catastrophe? I don't know. I personally don't believe climate change as it stands is going to bring about the end of humanity, much less the end of life on Earth, but it's pretty clear there's a problem and we're causing it.
Because if we can process it we do something about it and it is no longer a threat?
See also: why so few humans die by forgetting to eat anything.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Sadly the way it works is that Bill Nye goes on TV to explain why a snowstorm in Boston isn't evidence against global warming, but then tweets a mountain in the Rockies that doesn't have snow on it as evidence FOR global warming. You can't have it both ways. Science doesn't accept anecdotes as data regardless of it supports or refutes your hypothesis. If you want to say "weather is not climate" than you shouldn't be using weather as a rallying point for your climate cause.
True, but..... the plural of "anecdote" is "data".
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Also to your point about nuclear being finite... Yes, but not in any meaningful time period. If you go out to when we would run out of accessible nuclear material on earth, you might as well point out that there is no such thing as a renewable energy source as the sun itself is finite.
That's what they were saying about petroleum a hundred years ago.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I'm not anti-science, am a creationist, never owned a gun, am very good with math and independent politically.
The earth's temperature has NOT been going up the last 15 years. But otherwise I agree with your post. We are getting there as far as stopping the burning of fossil fuels which aren't unlimited and are dirty to burn. But a recent study showed that those who are railing about all this stuff typically have the highest electric bills and tend to drive large SUVs. Al Gore has been accused of this as well, so most of them seem to be hypocrites that want control over others rather than wanting a solution.
You mean that people who are concerned over a credible threat to society and civilization are more interested in a global solution that might actually do something to solve the problem than in sacrificing themselves with no discernable effect, just to prove their credibility and to get some of that "holier than thou" feeling that is more often felt by those who feel actually holier? Gee, what a lower form of humanity.
As for Gore, he buys carbon offsets, drives hybrid vehicles, and retrofitted his Nashville mansion to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification by upgrading windows, lighting, appliances, insulation, etc. and installing a geothermal system and 33 solar panels.
Not sure what any of that has to do with the reality of AGW as a threat, but if that doesn't dispel your skepticism, then perhaps the fact that Ed Begley Jr. does live an extreme energy conservationist life style will presumably convince you to believe. Not to mention the famously conservationist construction of Bush's ranch in Crawford.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Those people are idiots. A great leader with glowing yellow hair told me that the Universe was, in fact, over 9000 years old.
Jennifer McCarthy?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Ah, what a beautiful statement of totalitarian ideology: people should be governed by their superiors for their own good.
To answer your question: you can "see" whatever threats you like. However, centuries have shown that it is better to let those with "inferior mental capabilities" make their own mistakes than to give too much power to a ruling elite.
And you should be grateful, because I guarantee you, you wouldn't be part of the ruling elite.
At the risk of invoking Godwin's wrath, was the rise of Naziism in Germany forced upon the masses by a ruling elite, or was it the product of mistaken decisions by the less-than-elite masses? (Not a rhetorical question, I could argue both ways, like to hear other's thoughts)
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Neither. The masses willingly gave up power to a ruling elite because they believed that doing so would be an efficient way of having their economic and social problems taken care of. That's not some vague interpretation, that's literally what happened: parliament had a vote on the Enabling Act of 1933, and representatives voted overwhelmingly for it. And that is, of course, what PopeRatzo is arguing.
Prelate Kaas, head of the Catholic party, gave a speech in which he said roughly "We need stop giving speeches and instead we need to act to rebuild the nation and recover from our economic woes. This can only be done if the nation comes together. Our party has long advocated that the nation come together. The small disagreements between parties need to be set aside, and we need to reach across party lines because of the responsibility we all share for our nation. In light of the economic distress the people and the nation currently find themselves in, in light of the gigantic tasks before us, we come together with our former political opponents for the good of the nation."
Hitler himself argued that political squabbling in parliament kept him from doing his important work of helping the German people recover from a serious economic downturn and to deal with social conflicts, and that politics had been corrupted by wealthy capitalists. He also promoted universal public education, free university education for qualified students, universal health care, a state run retirement system, price and wage controls, and Keynesian stimuli before Keynes even had come up with the idea. That's why he asked the legislature to grant the executive branch wider ranging authority, and he got it.
The rest is, as they say, history.
Isn't it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
I, like many of you, have a large percentage of Neanderthal genes. We should welcome our return after the homo sapiens curse is purged from our planet.
In other words, you're claiming that our brains can't correctly process grave long-term threats, because the people that do are almost always ludicrously wrong. (I was one of the ones talking about holding a post-Rapture looting party, myself.)
It's going to be hundreds of millions of years before the Earth is made uninhabitable by increasing solar radiation. By then, either humanity will be extinct or nearly so, or it will have some very ingenious ways of dealing with it. It's likely to be tens of millions of years until an extinction-event asteroid impact, and the species will survive that. There really isn't a good reason to spend any effort on increasing solar radiation. Avoiding major impacts is fairly close to being a solvable problem, probably a few decades down the line, and setting up the capability won't be all that expensive. The long-term threats I'm concerned about are those that will show up in a few centuries, and which we can do something useful about.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Unlikely, those most likely to migrate or starve don't have nuclear capability and we're working hard to make sure they don't get it.
So you want to nuke a large part of humanity, and this will not be a threat to "long term survival" of humanity.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
So you want to nuke a large part of humanity
No, I'm saying we don't want them to be able to nuke us. That said, the comment was meant as more of a humorous and cynical observation.
Honestly I want to believe the global warming stuff because it's based in empirical science, which I put a LOT of stock in. Empirical science has literally saved my life numerous times.
I mean shit, I even donated to Greenpeace once. No joke.
The problem is I always see "irreversible climate disaster coming in 10 years unless we act now" every 10 years, and not a one of them has actually happened.
Sometimes the scientific consensus is not only wrong, but way wrong. Take nutrition science for example. We believed for 30 years that dietary cholesterol raises blood cholesterol, and just now we're finding out how dead wrong that is. Look at how many times the food pyramid has changed.
Personally I've had it with climate science. I just don't care anymore.
Cars are a benefit to all. And, we currently need to make them run on something besides just gas.
What's wrong with meth come study time?
'Muppet' isn't an insult to me. You will have to try harder. I rather liked the Muppets.
So nothing on the rust then? I'm from Ohio, we can give you all the rust for free! As long as you promise to take it to the ocean, that way you can be the hero of the world, solving the worlds climate crisis, with one fell, affordable swoop!
My feeble-ape-brain does realize that stopping the gulf stream requires stopping the Earth from rotating, but I am guessing you sided with the bow tie wearing Scientologist on that one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I love that chick's smile. It is so haughty, sad, and occasionally drops to reveal a soul crushing lack of self-esteem. It is a lot like the bow tie wearing Scientologist's smile for that. It's grievous to see other humans so gleeful to be shooting each other down, as if that is their entire raison d'etre. It reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... an absolute marvel of engineering, beautiful, powerful, somewhat awe inspiring. Reduced to scraps. Fallen, never to rise again.
I do have confidence, it is born of reason. I am supposing you don't know what an algal bloom is then, or how, and why it would reverse the issues you posit actually exist?
I am a gift to the world, but not what you were hoping for. You may go about your business. Move along.
I art more snarky, and terse than thou. I art Slashdot!
So you want to nuke a large part of humanity
No, I'm saying we don't want them to be able to nuke us. That said, the comment was meant as more of a humorous and cynical observation.
That makes even less sense: why would they nuke the place they want to migrate to?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Not being able to grasp climate change is not a weakness of the human brain. Decision makers are mainly interested in power and money. When industry lobbyists cry that a new EPA ruling would cost too much to implement the folks at the EPA get fired and their budget cut. This all is not a matter of not grasping the crisis, but that a handful in charge are exclusively interested in their own good.
Over the last 100 years something like 500 million to one billion humans have died as a result of Smoking, over the next century another billion are slated to die as a result of smoking.. The same kind of number are slated to die because of obesity caused by over eating and lack of exercise. Something like 60% of Americans believe that 'God' created the universe 5000 years ago in 7 days, it took one day to make all the stars and another to make the Earth. They also do not believe in evolution despite that we and other animals all share almost every feature - and when we look closer the same DNA. They voted for George W Bush. Twice.
When we look at physics, supposedly the smartest people in the world have believed in a theory based on a totally stupid and obvious fallacy - for 100 years.
Despite that they can speak and can repeat and quote back others clever ideas most people are dumber than crap.. In a world of morons the idiot is a genius.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Brainwashing is just as effective no matter how intelligent someone is.. In fact if anything brainwashing is easier the more intelligent someone is - if its a group thing for their community and they were programmed in childhood - in some its virtually unbreakable... The churches are (pretty much) world masters at brainwashing and subliminal mass control...
How to do propaganda : Create a strong emotional charge, reinforce it by heavy repetition, use psychological dominance, create a dual axis (good = us verses bad = outsiders), create a strong group ethos, create a subliminal bond of ownership (eg baptism).. Really I'm amazed that any of us ever escape..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
the graph of arctic ice extent is your counterpoint? news flash buddy, it neither supports your argument, nor refutes mine. talk about brains not able to process....
also, you should try reading before replying on a topic you claim, contrary to evidence, to know anything about.
Arctic sea ice was first deemed "almost seasonally ice free" in summer 2010 by professor David Barber. Barber is professor of environment and geography, Canada's research chair in Arctic system science and director of the Centre for Earth Observation Science (CEOS) at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg.
Dr. Barber has been searching for 20-foot thick multiyear Arctic sea ice in the Beaufort Sea, an area of the Arctic Ocean that stretches for almost 1,000 miles along the coasts of Alaska and Canada.
For his research in summer 2010, he cruised through the Beaufort Sea in the ice breaker Amundsen and never did find that multiyear ice. What Barber's team did find was vastly different from what the satellites were telling them was there. They thought they would find 20- to 30-foot thick multiyear ice covering 7 percent to 9 percent of the Beaufort Sea.
Instead, they found 25 percent open water and very small remnant multiyear and first-year floes interspersed with thin new ice in between. Unfortunately, these satellite errors are not in our favor. The problem is because these conditions are new. They simply have not existed before, so there was no way to test for them and know that this sea icescape looks, to the eye of the satellite, exactly like a sea icescape that is thick and solid.7
The ice the Amundsen encountered was so rotten that it did not impede the forward progress of the ship. What they found was hundreds of miles of what Barber called "rotten ice." This was 20-inch layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice.8 This discovery came as a great surprise to this researcher as he cruised through the rotten ice of the Beaufort Sea at 14 miles per hour (the top speed of his vessel in open water is 15 miles per hour). The Amundsen was designed to break 1-meter thick sea ice (3.3 feet) at 3.4 miles per hour. The ice they found was so rotten that the Amundsen could break 19 to 26 feet of rotten multiyear ice at 5.7 miles per hour.9
This fascinating tale was from summer 2010, remember. Carbon dioxide continues to accumulate; physics marches on. Northwest Passage exploration of this new millennia has left us with these quotes from Barber attesting to this brave new world we have created for ourselves:
"Ship navigation across the pole is imminent as the type of ice which resides there is no longer a barrier to [normal] ships in the late summer and fall,"10
"If you want to ship across the pole, you're concerned about multiyear sea ice. You're not concerned about this rotten stuff we we're doing 13 knots through. It's easy to navigate through. I would argue that we almost have a seasonally ice-free Arctic now, because multiyear sea ice is the barrier to the use and development of the Arctic."11
The recent record-breaking Arctic sea ice melt season has even greater significance if a few more details are understood. The 2007 record, which broke the recently set 2005 record by 22 percent, was considered a freak weather occurrence in the popular literature. This was because an unusual (for our old climate) weather system set up over the Arctic in summer 2007. Warmer-than normal-temperatures and high winds combined to reduce sea ice that year. The winds pushed ice up against Canada and out of the Arctic into the North Atlantic and down the Fram Straight to the east of Greenland. This weather system may or may not be unusual in our new climate.
However, the 2012 record is a different story. The 2012 record shattering comes after an "average" summer and the Barents and Kara Seas north of Russia were cooler than normal.
The past nine years have seen the lowest nine years of sea ice volume and extents ever re
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
the graph of arctic ice extent is your counterpoint?
Yes. It's the actual science that refutes the anecdote you quoted.
it's in my head
Simple, give some roots of the Tree-of-life to someone on his 40. But be sure he/she doesn't have descendants.
You haven't seen a scientific consensus that disaster was ten years away. You've seen media claims. Those are often crap.
Global climate is far, far less complicated than the human body.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That makes even less sense: why would they nuke the place they want to migrate to?
The original post was that massive migrations and famines might spark a nuclear war, I was merely pointing out that was unlikely since we're making sure that anyone who might start such a war won't have the tools. Which is cynical because we're making sure they stay disarmed instead of fixing the actual problem.