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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.
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
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"
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.
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.
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
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
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'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.
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
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.
Yes, but those transitions usually take place within thousands or tens of thousands of years. A timespan that makes it possible for plant and animal life to adapt.
We are provoking that kind of change within a century.
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'
Climate change "deniers" is a misnomer. Everyone with a lick of sense knows we're in a rising temperature period. We're coming out of an ice age. We all know the climate changes, and may change for the warmer. Remember this next time you use a politically calculated term that doesn't describe most of the people involved.
Sigh.....I honestly don't know how you people operate on a day to day basis.
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!
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
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.
"Historically" is a funny word to use in that context. In fact, it's purposefully misleading. "Historically" generally refers to times when humans were around, but you're talking hundreds of millions of years ago. The Earth was still forming, humans--primates-- hadn't even evolved. So why would that be our baseline for the historical norm? It isn't.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Unless massive population migrations and world-wide famines spark a nuclear war...
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
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.
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 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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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
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.
1. Wake up
2. Turn off brain
3. Eat
4. Work
5. Eat
6. Work
7. Eat
8. Sleep
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Yes, the word the GP was looking for is "geologically." On a geologic time scale, humans are insignificant. That being said, rather than believe the guy who wrote this article I'm in more of the Scott Adams Law of Slow-Moving Disasters.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
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?
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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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...
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.
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!
Yes, but those transitions usually take place within thousands or tens of thousands of years.
Not so. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...
The central Greenland ice core record (GRIP and GISP2) has a near annual resolution across the entire glacial to Holocene transition, and reveals episodes of very rapid change. The return to the cold conditions of the Younger Dryas from the incipient inter-glacial warming 13,000 years ago took place within a few decades or less (Alley et al., 1993). The warming phase, that took place about 11,500 years ago, at the end of the Younger Dryas was also very abrupt and central Greenland temperatures increased by 7C or more in a few decades (Johnsen et al., 1992; Grootes et al., 1993; Severinghaus et al., 1998). Most of the changes in wind-blown materials and some other climate indicators were accomplished in a few years (Alley et al., 1993; Taylor et al., 1993; Hammer et al., 1997). Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al., 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al., 1987), e.g. requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al., 1996). Fluctuations in ice conductivity indicate that atmospheric circulation was reorganised extremely rapidly (Taylor et al., 1993). A similar, correlated sequence of abrupt deglacial events also occurred in the tropical and temperate North Atlantic (Bard et al., 1987; Hughen et al., 1996) and in Western Europe (von Grafenstein et al., 1999).
The inception of deglacial warming about 14.5 ky BP was also very rapid, leading to the Bölling-Alleröd warm period in less than twenty years (Severinghaus and Brook, 1999). Almost synchronously, major vegetation changes occurred in Europe and North America with a rise in African lake levels (Gasse and van Campo, 1994). There was also a pronounced warming of the North Atlantic and North Pacific (Koç and Janssen, 1994; Sarnthein et al., 1994; Kotilainen and Shackleton, 1995; Thunnell and Mortyn, 1995; Wansaard, 1996; Watts et al., 1996; Webb et al., 1998).
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.
7.5. Watch reality TV
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]
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.
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?
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.
Just because this big rock we're on can survive doesn't mean we will. Climate Change will happen. We'll adapt or die. The rock will keep spinning. So... the "its happened before" argument is irrelevant... we know we've caused the recent one by increasing CO2 by 40% and measured its affects.
What's hard to predict - and trust - are other people's future projections. We don't trust politicians. Too many scientists have too many private grants (indirect bribes). TV doesn't have anything factual on it any more. The only thing we can really trust - and affect - is what's right in front of us.
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.
That's part of step 2.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
The first (false) assumption you made is that most people care about the whole species' long-term survival. They don't.
You have to be a robot for that.
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.
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
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
we are profoundly foolish to think that our impact has been significant - it has not.
Worldwide fossil fuel usage, which is has grown approximately 44% in the last decade, is more than 41 million tons per day. Human dry biomass is only about 100 billion tons. In other words, if all humans were dried out to be burned as fuel, we would supply our own energy needs for about 2.5 days (if we paradoxically had energy needs after being dried out to use as fuel). Total annual production of plant and animal biomass is estimated at about 275 million tons per day. At the rate fossil fuel use is increasing we could be at that point of burning more fossil fuel than that in just over 50 years. That seems like naive curve fitting, except that it seems to work perfectly well historically and we have no reason to believe that increasing population and industrialization won't lead us to that point. Any events that would prevent that from happening other than a wholesale switch to alternative sources would pretty much have to be horrible tragedies.
The amount of oxygen required for burning fossil fuels varies from as little as twice the mass in oxygen required for methane to as much as 14 times the mass. Let's just settle on 4 times the mass. So, we can say that the fossil fuel burned in a day at present uses about 164 Million tons of oxygen per day. There are about 1 quadrillion tons of oxygen in the atmosphere. So at just the present rate, that's 0.0000164% of the oxygen in the atmosphere a day, or .00596% a year, or .0596 a decade or .1197% over twenty years, or .2993% over fifty years. Except that, if usage does continue to grow at current rates, in fifty years, the usage rate will be high enough that it would be 2% of the atmosphere over the next fifty years after that if usage levels remain steady.
Of course, the oxygen in the atmosphere isn't static. It's constantly being replenished. About 1.37 billion tons of it is made every day on Earth. So, using 164 million tons of it a day for combusting fossil fuels, we're only using 11.9% of daily production. Not a problem! And if we actually reach that 50 year projection, we'll only be using 80% of the oxygen produced in a day (at least at current levels, the vastly increased C02 would increase oxygen production from plants a little, but wouldn't affect the total that much). Surely Not a problem. It's not over 100% after all. Even then, we wouldn't actually start dying en masse of asphyxiation for a good 1000 years or more, so who really cares, right?!
Ok. After that little exercise, I feel a lot better and I have to concede to you that someone would have to be a truly profound fool... in fact, a total moron, to think that we couldn't, uh, I mean could, have any impact on the atmosphere.
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.
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
Yes, but those transitions usually take place within thousands or tens of thousands of years.
Wrong. Why do you believe something with absolutely no scientific support?
Until a few decades ago it was generally thought that all large-scale global and regional climate changes occurred gradually over a timescale of many centuries or millennia, scarcely perceptible during a human lifetime. The tendency of climate to change relatively suddenly has been one of the most suprising outcomes of the study of earth history, specifically the last 150,000 years (e.g., Taylor et al., 1993). Some and possibly most large climate changes (involving, for example, a regional change in mean annual temperature of several degrees celsius) occurred at most on a timescale of a few centuries, sometimes decades, and perhaps even just a few years. The decadal-timescale transitions would presumably have been quite noticeable to humans living at such times, and may have created difficulties or opportunities (e.g., the possibility of crossing exposed land bridges, before sea level could rise)
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projec...
it's in my head
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
More baloney than Oscar-Meyer....
1. Wake up 2. Turn off brain 3. Eat 4. Work 5. Eat 6. Work 7. Eat 8. Sleep
If you can believe that the world is 6000 years old, you can believe anything.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
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.
The proper term is "Climate science deniers".
For sure it cannot be ruled out that a natural disaster like a supervolcano or large asteroid impact, which have certainly occurred in the past, will have drastic effects on temperature within a short timespan. This would be equally disastrous for us and in no way invalidates the argument that we are causing one of these disasters now by non-natural means.
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.
Of course there are natural effects that can also cause drastic climate shifts within a short timeframe, such as volcanic activity under Greenland or large asteroid impact. This will certainly have occurred in the past to produce the kind of effects described in the link you provided.
That would not be good for us either and doesn't change the fact that we are actively causing one of these alarming shifts right now.
Basically your argument is like saying: "Yeah, fracking can cause earthquakes, but we have determined that earthquakes have happened naturally in the past, so it's perfectly normal and acceptable"
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.
such as volcanic activity under Greenland or large asteroid impact.
Except volcanoes don't warm the climate up and there was no large asteroid impact in that period either.
Basically your argument is like saying: "Yeah, fracking can cause earthquakes, but we have determined that earthquakes have happened naturally in the past, so it's perfectly normal and acceptable"
Speaking of which, when you find yourself in a hole, my advice is stop digging. We have records of climate events far more savage than anything predicted by science, in the very recent geological past. Yes the climate is warming up, the question is how much of that are we responsible for.
Either way I expect fossil fuels to be entirely phased out by 2100 (a process which started long before the recent resolution on the matter) so everyone chill out, basically.
The rapid climate transitions mentioned in the research I linked have nothing to do with super volcanos or large asteroid impacts.
Why is it important for you to deny science when it doesn't fit your preconceived notions?
it's in my head
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.
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.)
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.
He havent measured any effects, except that the temperatures have slightly warmed over a century.
Any other effects are conjecture so far.
You shouldnt trust politicians, you are right there. Except... politicians are the ones pushing this fallacy, not the other way around.
You want to talk about "bribes"? How about those same politicians control the biggest grant giving entity... government.
I do trust whats in front of me. And what I and the real science sees, is a large divergence from climate models. The observational data is showing us there is nothing to be alarmed about.
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!!!!!
Human dry biomass is only about 100 billion tons. In other words, if all humans were dried out to be burned as fuel, we would supply our own energy needs for about 2.5 days (if we paradoxically had energy needs after being dried out to use as fuel).
So the average human has a dry mass of 14.3 tons... that means a wet mass of 22 tons... seems a tad high. Oh wait, is shit considered biomass?
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...
They just reject the findings of said "climate" scientists.
Exactly. And when asked to come up with science of their own all they can do is pick around the edges of what the real climate scientists have said without getting very far.
Climate science (as well as meteorology)is fundamentally based on physics with a bit of geology thrown in. Lots of other sciences have their pieces to add such as astronomy, oceanography, cryology, biology, etc.
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.
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.
Whoops. A few errors in there. In the first paragraph, human dry biomass should be listed as 100 million tons, not 100 billion tons. The 2.5 days to burn the equivalent in fossil fuels is correct, I just wrote billion instead of million.
For the fossil fuel numbers I completely forgot about the hydrogen in methane. It takes 4 times its mass in oxygen to burn methane rather than 2 times. There's also pure hydrogen in natural gas, and that takes 8 times its mass in oxygen to burn, but it's a smaller amount by mass as are all the other gases in there, so 4 times is a good approximate number. It takes approximately 3 times its mass in oxygen to burn coal, which is mainly carbon. The various fuels made from oil vary, but seem to fall around 3.5 to 4 times the mass in oxygen required to burn them. The actual proportions of coal, oil and natural gas vary. At the moment natural gas usage is on its way up, but each typically represents about a third of usage. So, 3.5 times the mass in oxygen is probably a better number than 4. So that's more like 143 million tons of oxygen burned per day. Anyway, my initial figures were from 2012, so the actual usage now is probably closer to my original number, so I won't bother adjusting the approximate 50 year rate. This whole thing is just to give an idea of the level at which we actually do affect the atmosphere.
In the end, we're still using approximately 10 percent of the actual oxygen produced on the planet for burning fossil fuels. That's the significant number. As for the potential increase over the coming decades, rather than just projecting the growth curve, let's look at it from the perspective of human population and growing use of resources in developing nations. The US, with 5% of the world population, uses about 6 million tons per day of fossil fuels. If the other 95% used it at the same rate, usage would be at 120 million tons per day right now. Population growth estimates vary but, depending on your age, it may be possible that you'll see a doubling of population in your lifetime. So 240 million tons of fossil fuel per day isn't completely insane. So, we're looking at potentially using 840 million tons of oxygen per day to burn fossil fuels, which works out to about 60% of the available oxygen produced by the planet.
Of course, it's not like we actually have the full 100% to work with. That 100% is the budget for all aerobic organisms to respire and for all other oxygen consuming processes to use. Heck, a lot of our other polluting may end up significantly damaging how much oxygen actually is produced. We might finally discover, too late, that the acidifying the oceans, filling them with heavy metals and oils and plastics and other toxic waste eventually reaches the point where our oxygen factories just up and die and get edged out of their niche by more tolerant non-photosynthetic organisms. Even if the total produced doesn't go down, we may discover that using more than half of our oxygen production to burn fossil fuels may well put us overbudget. Of course, there's about 2000 years worth banked in the atmosphere, but once you're overbudget, your bank account, big as it may be, will slowly run dry. And, after only a thousand years or so, breathing might get a little difficult when the concentrations go down.
But, no, one would have to be "profoundly foolish" to think that we could make a significant difference to any part of the planet. After all, it's so big and we're so little. Frankly, the post that I was replying to goes a long, long way towards proving the hypothesis of the article. It probably does a better job than the article itself.
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?
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?
In other words, an immeasurable number of human beings, who just haven't started forming a placenta yet, die every day, unknown and un-mourned of natural causes. How many? We don't know by this accounting. Certainly at least several times the birthrate. So approximately 409+ million children last year. So, I see that you care a lot about children, but the number of abortions are clearly statistical noise compared to the nearly 6 billion children that have died this century pre-in-utero by your own accounting. What is your plan to save those children?
Nope. That was a typo, it should have been "million". The math on the 2.5 days is consistent, I just mistyped. I just posted a lengthy correction of that and some other numbers that were off. The upshot is that we use fossil fuels at a phenomenal rate. We also use a surprisingly large percentage of the world's oxygen production on burning fossil fuels. Enough to make any claims that we're insignificant to the state of the atmosphere ridiculous.
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.
And on the other end of the spectrum: The author has dubbed climate change as a "crisis."
Previous global warming episodes were generally very beneficial for mammals. See PETM - Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum.
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.
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.
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 know the guy you were responding to was wrong.
Your citations are even good.
But certainly you don't think these were non-causally linked random events caused by God sneezing or some shit, right?
All kinds of horrible shit has happened to this planet over time to wipe out massive portions of its population, toss its climate way out of its regular cycle, and generally really make the place a shitty place to be for anyone expecting stability.
The problem is that the only current traumatic event the planet seems to be going through at the moment to cause this particular geologically rapid climate shift is an acute infection of industrialized ostrich-human hybrid civilization. If we can't find something else to explain it, it seems safer to assume that the gigatons of carbon we're pulling from outside of the carbon cycle and injecting into the goddamn gaseous portion of it might possibly be related, rather than assuming it's just a random fucking coincidence.
The problem is that the only current traumatic event the planet seems to be going through at the moment to cause this particular geologically rapid climate shift is an acute infection of industrialized ostrich-human hybrid civilization.
Your weak link here is the assumption that science is in any way clear about what caused relatively recent drastic climate adjustments. Which leads us inevitably to the conclusion that we can't really go making any definitive statements about the comparitively placid warming we're currently experiencing.
It's much ado about not a whole lot anyway, fossil fuels are being scaled back to nothing and will be out of mass usage in a couple of generations, and no economies need be wrecked in the process either.
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!
Your weak link here is the assumption that science is in any way clear about what caused relatively recent drastic climate adjustments. Which leads us inevitably to the conclusion that we can't really go making any definitive statements about the comparitively placid warming we're currently experiencing.
Poppycock. Sure, it's no slam dunk, but forensic experts often determine the trajectory of a bullet without ever seeing it, either. I suppose you're going to argue that CFCs weren't causing ozone depletion, as well. After all, the actual full causal link there is pretty hypothetical.
And placid? Sure, compared to the leading hypothesis for the Younger Dryas ending and such, I guess it's placid. For human civilization, we may look back on it and find it to be not very placid at all.
It's much ado about not a whole lot anyway, fossil fuels are being scaled back to nothing and will be out of mass usage in a couple of generations, and no economies need be wrecked in the process either.
Yes, they are. Only by our efforts. You point to our success as evidence that we should stop? Like it won't flip? There's still a *lot* of coal left.
Think of it as evolution in action.
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
Poppycock.
Dry fact sadly. The reality is that the information I linked to above comes as a major shock to many anthropogenic global warming proponents when it should already be widely known, one fellow I was discussing it with lately proudly declared that we're going through the quickest global warming in 45 million years while earnestly claiming the imprimatur of science. Ask yourself why that might be the case.
For human civilization, we may look back on it and find it to be not very placid at all.
The problem is people who regard this notion as a good thing and refer to human civilisation as an infection.
Yes, they are. Only by our efforts. You point to our success as evidence that we should stop? Like it won't flip? There's still a *lot* of coal left.
Who do you refer to when you say "our"?
Funny you ask that question. I think the consensus established by the scientific community and accepted all over the world, slowly but surely even in the U.S., is that humans are causing climate change and it isn't very good for us.
These scientists are much smarter than me and know the facts and important factors much better than me, and they are in the majority. If 80% of scientists say we are causing climate change and 20% say we are not, I trust what the 80% have to say. What else is the sensible thing to do?
These 80% also say consequences of inaction are disastrous. Even if they are wrong, would it be wise to ignore the warnings and take the risk? I think not.
The point is that, if you assume you can model and predict the climate, and point to CO2, as a driver, like clockwork, then you may entirely miss the graver, more serious, more catastrophic, more disastrous scenario where climate goes and changes more drastically, more quickly, and entirely of its own accord. Would you feel better in the famines if people say, oh well, you know, we were modelling for man made CO2, but we completely missed this other thing, because we were so trying to get people to act on the man made problem, that we overstated our confidence and ignored the possibility that, the climate would shift more extremely, all on its own. Will that feel better? Or will you say, but wait, people knew the climate made extreme shifts in the past, so why did you overlook that? Why not plan for a sudden extreme shift, as that is the biggest threat? And I think there you'll find that people tend to have this notion that the climate and humanity can be managed into a less-consumerist, less greedy and more sustainable economy, and that's what they are interested in, and why not, fair trade sounds good, reduction in nationalism and borders sounds good, but don't let that deny the bigger threat that climate can and will suddenly change on its own. And what are you going to do, in terms of support for policies and technologies, to provide humanity with backup systems? Build more wind farms? I think not.
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]
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.
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.
> They are supposed to look out for the greater whole.
Most politicians are just on the look out for the greater hole :-(
[W]e havent measured any effects, except that the temperatures have slightly warmed over a century.
Actually we have a lot more than just thermometers reading higher numbers.
There are many lines of evidence, all interlocking and leading to the same conclusion.
A single image with most of those lines of evidence:
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
And you also stated pretty much the exact opposite of what the real science and observed data suggests.
And that my friend is the literal definition of "denial".
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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?
I thought you guys believed in the immortal soul of man. You know, an eternity burning in Hell if you didn't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour? Or an eternity in Heaven eating grapes and playing the lyre if you did?
Perhaps deep down you're really a Hindu like your pseudonym "reboot", and you're continually reborn to try one more lifetime to get it right? Will this life be the one?
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
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.
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?
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?
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?
Your questions have been answered already. That you still ask them is strange.
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...
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.
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?
Ah, the old Zeroth Law of Robotics: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
So the AI won't melt its positronic brain when it deduces that by eliminating sufficient #'s of humans, it actually saves humanity! They're here to save us from ourselves by killing us. Brilliant!
All hail our positronic savior AI overlords!
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
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.
Dry fact sadly. The reality is that the information I linked to above comes as a major shock to many anthropogenic global warming proponents when it should already be widely known, one fellow I was discussing it with lately proudly declared that we're going through the quickest global warming in 45 million years while earnestly claiming the imprimatur of science. Ask yourself why that might be the case.
Erm. Ignorance by people on my side of the debate certainly doesn't debunk my side of the debate. Since the information you pulled was from a panel that can most certainly be characterized as an "anthropogenic global warming proponent," I think that makes your paragraph entirely circuitous.
The problem is people who regard this notion as a good thing and refer to human civilisation as an infection.
Only when it behaves as such. The Earth is our host. If we seek to alter its ecosphere uncontrolled, then we most certainly are an infection. If we seek equilibrium and stability, we're not.
Who do you refer to when you say "our"?
I refer to any of the people who are not included in the group of people who believe that we should pull every fucking ounce of carbon sequestered in the dirt and inject it wholesale into the extant cycle. You'd think the opposed group of people would be small, as that viewpoint is shamelessly reckless and narrow, but it's not. Legislatively speaking, it's quite massive. Moneyed interests and all that.
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.
I think that makes your paragraph entirely circuitous.
Give that a little thought.
If we seek to alter its ecosphere uncontrolled, then we most certainly are an infection.
By that bizarre logic the earth itself is an infection.
If we seek equilibrium and stability, we're not.
Given that the earth has never had a stable climate, your notions are entirely alien to nature itself.
I refer to any of the people who are not included in the group of people who believe that we should pull every fucking ounce of carbon sequestered in the dirt and inject it wholesale into the extant cycle.
No, you refer to watermelons, the leftist interpretation of environmentalism - which has very firm roots among the monied classes of the 19th century, to say nothing of conservationism whose earliest manifestations can be tracked back a full thousand years earlier. Much like social welfare systems and every other ostensible social good Marxists have latched onto since Karl hoisted the first of many, many alcoholic beverages, this stuff has been around for a very long time.
You'd think you people would learn, I mean Russia has wound up somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan and China's busily returning to its imperial roots, complete with caste system. What you do is create reactions which eventually end up consuming any gains you might have made, a process which will inevitably end up being replicated even in the enlightened and much reviled (by the left) west.
Leftists believe me to be a conservative reationary, conservatives call me a progressive swine, I'm quite content to watch all of you idiots get hoisted by your own petards.
Have a good un.
Give that a little thought.
Done. Still stands. Your argument is vindicated because you argued with someone who disagreed with you, and used information from their side against them. They lost, but you sure as hell didn't win.
By that bizarre logic the earth itself is an infection.
That's so non sequitur I'm unsure how to respond to it. An infection upon what? The solar system? For the destabilizing influence it has upon it? The Universe? Help me.
Given that the earth has never had a stable climate, your notions are entirely alien to nature itself.
This is nonsense. The glacial/interglacial oscillation of the current ice age is quite stable. The fact that catastrophes have occurred to destabilize it on 2-3 occasions in the last million or so years does not unstable make.
No, you refer to watermelons, the leftist interpretation of environmentalism - which has very firm roots among the monied classes of the 19th century, to say nothing of conservationism whose earliest manifestations can be tracked back a full thousand years earlier. Much like social welfare systems and every other ostensible social good Marxists have latched onto since Karl hoisted the first of many, many alcoholic beverages, this stuff has been around for a very long time. You'd think you people would learn, I mean Russia has wound up somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan and China's busily returning to its imperial roots, complete with caste system. What you do is create reactions which eventually end up consuming any gains you might have made, a process which will inevitably end up being replicated even in the enlightened and much reviled (by the left) west. Leftists believe me to be a conservative reationary, conservatives call me a progressive swine, I'm quite content to watch all of you idiots get hoisted by your own petards.
It's funny that you make it political. Your colors are showing :)
I'm no leftist. I would classify myself as socially liberal, for sure, however, I'm as capitalist as the next guy.
Both leftists and conservatives should call you what you are- A person who thinks only in partisanship. The very problems of the world for you can't be seen as anything but right-wing or left-wing.
I don't care who Big Oil votes for today. Their loyalty lies only in the price of their commodity. They have no ideology beyond that. But they and their blind supporters (which admittedly do tend to be conservative, however, that's simply because that's who the conservative football team is playing for right now. It could change next election.) are the opposing side I referred to.
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.
Climate change "deniers" is a misnomer. Everyone with a lick of sense knows we're in a rising temperature period. We're coming out of an ice age. We all know the climate changes, and may change for the warmer. Remember this next time you use a politically calculated term that doesn't describe most of the people involved.
So all those folks over there on the http://news.slashdot.org/story... arguing that the "warming" is fake and just caused by the "adjustments" to the raw data don't really exist. Or they do exist but they don't have a lick of sense, but you're sure not going to go over and argue with them.
In a normal world, "it's not warming it never was warming", "the warming is caused by the sun", "we can't stop the warming because we can't give up on fossil carbon" and all the other fringe sects would be seen as fringe sects arguing against each other, and not add up to some sort of credible amalgam of theory that represented a realistic alternative to AGW.
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.
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.
Well, thanks for telling us. I'll inform the IPCC.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
They lost, but you sure as hell didn't win.
If you say so.
I'm unsure how to respond to it.
Yes I appreciate these might be difficult questions to answer,
This is nonsense. The glacial/interglacial oscillation of the current ice age is quite stable.
Ahahaha did you even bother to read the linked text? That zipping noise was your credibility exiting stage left. You're a moron.
It's funny that you make it political. Your colors are showing :)
Spoken like a true with us or against us dyed in the wool partisan leftist.
I'm no leftist.
So you lack self awareness on top of everything else.
Both leftists and conservatives should call you what you are- A person who thinks only in partisanship.
I'm not the one peddling partisan politics here friend.
I don't care who Big Oil votes for today.
Yeah you do. Your previous comments clearly indicate that you do. I'm sure the children of future generations will have choice words for you, not that you'll be around to hear them. Which is of course your severance clause.
The "the climate has gone through rapid change before therefore AGW is bogus" argument is parallel to "grizzlies have been known to be prone to sudden unprovoked violent attacks on humans before, so there is really no additional risk if you go ahead and kick one"
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.
As I said, I'm no expert, but there seems to be conclusive evidence that CO2 is a driver of climate change. And it goes without saying that we are indeed pumping incredible amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. It's good to keep an eye out for other causes, but one of the causes is right here in our hands to do something about.
And what are you going to do, in terms of support for policies and technologies, to provide humanity with backup systems? Build more wind farms? I think not.
Why not? Good thing about wind farms is not only that it doesn't pump CO2 into the atmosphere, but also that it doesn't require resources that we will run out of at some point. That's why we call them renewable energy sources. So not only are you helping the environment -if you believe it does- you are also researching and preparing for a future without cheap, abundant energy coming out of the ground. What's wrong with that?
It depends on the volcano. Short term the ash might cover up the sun. Mid and long term they are releasing a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere. Also, there are underwater volcanos that can release a lot of magma and hot steam into the sea. I think it's pretty obvious how that might warm up things in it's vicinity quite a bit.
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
And, during this period, Earth warmed at about 2C/millennium, if you bother to follow that link and read down the page.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The section you're tellingly not quoting is as follows:
The rate of temperature change during the recovery phase from the last glacial maximum provides a benchmark against which to assess warming rates in the late 20th century. Available data indicate an average warming rate of about 2C/millennium between about 20 and 10 ky BP in Greenland, with lower rates for other regions. Speleothem data from New Zealand, and positions of mountain glacier moraine termini suggest warming rates of 2C/millennium from 15 to 13 ky BP (Salinger and McGlone, 1989). Speleothem data for South Africa suggest a warming rate of 1.5C/millennium (Partridge, 1997) over the same time period. On the other hand, very rapid warming at the start of the Bölling-Alleröd period, or at the end of the Younger Dryas may have occurred at rates as large as 10C/50 years for a significant part of the Northern Hemisphere.
Emphasis mine. When temperatures spike up by twenty two degrees and then down by twenty degrees, on average there's been a two degree change in temperature over the period, which is what you appear to imagine happened in a smooth gradient over the last twenty thousand years. They were even nice enough to break it into different eras for you - note for example that the disastrous Dryas stadials all occurred within the cited ten thousand year average temperature change.
That this needs to be explained gives me the sads.
The last 150 years haven't been a period of unique climatological equilibrium, they've been part of a warming process that's been jumping and stuttering along for the past twenty millennia, following in the footsteps of other warming periods which are followed by cooling periods, all of which had exactly zero to do with humanity.
I hope I don't need to explain the implications of this observation, especially vis the scientific validity of comparisons being made between barely a century of intense observations and ten thousand years of evidence being averaged out.
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.
'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!
I haven't heard the idea of seeding algal blooms with iron salts in the ocean in order to fix carbon being disproved.
I don't in general trust politicians as they tend to break more than they fix (usually due to either greed, or oversimplification).
I haven't heard of any good proposed solutions:
Carbon Cap & Fail is more central control (theft & waste), and disastrous for it.
Everyone biking isn't going to happen.
Everyone riding the bus shouldn't happen.
In general it seems to be alot more media to the tune of 'the world's on fire', and no decent solutions, let alone decent proposals.
On the other hand that is assuming all the facts are accurate, and that the assumptions based on them are correct. I don't believe that we understand this planet well enough to determine the cause yet, and probably not within my life time:
How accurate is the next days weather forecast, to a single degree? Let alone a week out, or a year...
'Climatology' is a rather young science.
Physics is rather mature (by our standards). Do you believe in the conservation of momentum? It actually doesn't hold. This has been proven by three separate groups, over the last few years, yet we still believe in this 'conservation of momentum': http://www.nasaspaceflight.com...
In all seriousness, my point is that the world is far more complicated than we would like to believe. We only feel we understand a topic when it is comfortable to us, and that comfort is our understanding (fear of the unknown), but it is ALWAYS a gross oversimplification. We are always wrong, about everything, all of the time. The question is 'how wrong are we?'. The question is not 'are we right?'. We are never accurate enough to be called right, only, hopefully 'good enough' for the task at hand.
I don't see anything in this other than more central government control, and media buzzwords. What of the algal blooms? I am not arguing we should geo-engineer the planet, but I haven't seen that (the only viable idea) defeated by anyone, on its merits,
Regardless we shouldn't ruin ourselves in a blind frenzy to 'save the planet' (or centralize control, which is the same thing). Either way I support more research dollars for things like Thorium reactors, and solar power, as they may be the solution anyway, and the could only help.
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
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.
Get a globe. Really. Now, look at how big Greenland is. I've never argued that local variations can't happen fast, just that global variations aren't that fast. Find a quote that says that global temperatures varied at that speed and come back.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Get a globe. Really.
Really. Really? Really now. So when a large landmass warms up by more than enough to melt quite a large proportion of its copious freshwater ice coverage and dumps that into the north Atlantic, it's not going to have any effect on the rest of the world?
I'm done. Find someone else to tie your shoelaces, simpleton.