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Global Warming Has Made the Weather Better For Most In US -- For Now (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article on LA Times: Since Americans first heard the term global warming in the 1970s, the weather has actually improved for most people living in the U.S.. But it won't always be that way, according to a new study. Research shows Americans typically -- and perhaps unsurprisingly -- like warmer winters and dislike hot, humid summers. And they reveal their weather preferences by moving to areas with conditions they like best. A new study in the journal Nature has found that 80% of the U.S. population lives in counties experiencing more pleasant weather than they did 40 years ago. "Virtually all Americans are now experiencing the much milder winters that they typically prefer, and these mild winters have not been offset by markedly more uncomfortable summers or other negative changes," writes Patrick Egan, a political scientist at New York University, and Megan Mullin, professor of environmental politics at Duke University. However, if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, 88% of the current population will live in areas where the weather is less pleasant than it was before. The paper does not predict how changing weather patterns will influence migration patterns over the coming century.
No, no one is saying that, you stupid troll.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Prognostications that tell me what I'll like in the future are annoying. Now it's my turn. Canadians will like becoming one of the world's largest providers of agriculture. So, there.
so the crappy pre-global warming weather we had is what we need to go back to? back when i was in the army all the guys i knew from the midwest talked about their normal winters of -20 with the wind chill
Just curious... But why do you expect a country boy (or girl) from Iowa to care about someone on the other side of the planet?
Serious question... Because you're asking that person to change their lifestyle and pay more money, to help people they don't know and will never meet.
how did people live in central asia and siberia thousands of years ago if it's supposed to be a frozen tundra? how did the mongols cross it along with the huns? maybe this is normal weather?
It's what Russia has been saying for years: "Warming? In Russia? How is that bad? It's usually f8cking cold here!"
Table-ized A.I.
Man's influence on global warming comes from pollution. The lion's share of pollution does not come from first-world consumer waste. It overwhelmingly comes from third-world industrial waste. The third world countries are struggling to compete in the global market, and can't afford environmentally-friendly production technologies. So, rather than starve to death, they pollute. A lot.
I could link sources, but I don't have any on hand and am too lazy to search for them. If you are actually interested, you can google it yourself.
So anyway, there really is no reason why someone living in Iowa should care...they aren't the problem.
Why is it that altruism should only go one way? Why is it us who should show altruism and not the other ones?
I read something a while back that 20th century weather was a "statistical fluke" and humanity will never experience another period of stable weather. Oh, well. I'm moving to the hills in the next 20 years to avoid raising sea levels in California.
No, no one is saying that, you stupid troll.
It's not the best way of saying it, but the essense of it, I believe, is correct. The average person (pedants: as defined for the entire population, not just Slashdotters, so hush your mouth!) doesn't grok 'climate science' any better than they understand 'rocket science' enough to fabricate and launch a satellite into geosynchronous orbit, so when someone talks about 'global warming', what do they do? They look outside the window at what's going on, or maybe look at the weather forecast; the average person is not the most forward-looking person you'll ever meet, they're more concerned about tomorrow, or next week, or maybe as far as next month, but 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now? Usually, not so much. If the weather has been nice where they are, they're not going to get very disturbed by the abstract ideas of some news report that says in 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now, things won't be pleasant, and similarly, they find it difficult to get too upset by the fact that people they don't know in some country they'd be hard-pressed to find on a map is experiencing what is for them bizarre and destructive weather patterns. If you want to see the majority of U.S. citizens being forefront-of-their-thoughts concerned about 'global warming', you'll likely have to wait until they're being seriously inconvenienced by it, which of course will be way, way too late to do anything about it. Which is why scientists and others who do understand the implications of global warming keep amplifying their reports on it -- which of course just causes the deniers of global warming to amplify their claims that they're just spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Then the religious types chime in to muddy the intellectual waters even further, confusing the faithful with passages from the Bible that aren't even necessarily relevant.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
They deliver that oil out of the goodness of their hearts? No? Well you're just a fuckwit than.
Trade is for mutual benefit. Our it wouldn't happen.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
For the most part weather is the western world has been getting better for residential living...
Without humans it would actually had been much colder albeit there would be more species still in existence.
Weather is not static, nor is the earths atmosphere which bleeds off into outer space.
Lets stop talking about anthropomorphic climate change and actually make it fact by actively managing it and taking responsibility.
Come the next ice age we will need to burn all that oil and coal currently in the ground.
Its going to get really interesting when certain regions get temperatures over 38C and 100% humidity.
The Persian Gulf area will be uninhabitable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/science/intolerable-heat-may-hit-the-middle-east-by-the-end-of-the-century.html
It's because you cherry-pick your facts and you don't permit the possibility that facts are additive, not exclusive.
Well it has been recognized for a while. That Global Climate change will have areas which benefit from it and those that will not.
For the most part, and why it is hard to call people to action, is that we as humans are rather adaptable to climates, so while our long term environmental food cycles and water cycles are affecting a lot of life in the world. We as humans are not so affected. Attempts in the past to try to exaggerate the effects on humans (Images of NYC flooded so you can only see the top of the statue of liberty) May mobilize some, but it also turns a lot of people away, as these potent images, which turn out to be false, discredits the more realistic problem.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I haven't cherry picked a single thing. I've seen global warming advocated cherry pick around the evaporation data. It's not convenient because the results are in stark contradiction with several global warming claims. Oh it's flat from 1950 to 2010 so it can't show any global warming, all while totally ignoring that it did go up and follow the last solar cycle along with the Rain following the same solar cycle pattern. But no I must be cherry picking by Including data and you can't be cherry picking by excluding data.
I live in Canada, and the weather has indeed been getting better for me. As far as I'm concerned, we've terraformed the earth to make it more habitable here and I'm not really upset by it at all.
"They" do not think it. You think it. Stop projecting.
"His name was James Damore."
Let say we should all reduce our emissions to 4 tons/person/year.
That would still be much too high, we need to get it lower than that to really stop the CO2 rise.
That means the typical American must cut 80% of their emissions.
That is true, and that has zero chance of happening any time soon. You might *want* it to happen, but various forces are at work, largely political and economic, that will prevent it from happening within our lifetime.
If the weather has been nice where they are, they're not going to get very disturbed by the abstract ideas of some news report that says in 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now, things won't be pleasant, and similarly, they find it difficult to get too upset by the fact that people they don't know in some country they'd be hard-pressed to find on a map is experiencing what is for them bizarre and destructive weather patterns.
Quoted for truth...
The average person out in the world simply doesn't pay this nearly as much attention as people who post on message boards about it. Even my wife, who has to listen to me talk about this from time to time, doesn't really care all that much.
Oh sure, if you say "do you care about the Earth's environment for your children", she'll say "yes, of course, we should keep it clean". Then if you follow up and say, "So are you ok to give up your nice big truck and get a small car, and watch clothes by hand, and have no air conditioning?", she will say: "Are you nuts? No!"
If you were to push her on it, she'll probably say something like, "Even if I give all that up, nothing will change and other nations will keep polluting".
Grok is actually a pretty useful term. The fact that it was fabricated by a novelist is no good reason to shun it. It's a meaningfully distinctive term.
Most people don't actually grok this stuff. They just repeat what others have said. It's total appeal to authority nonsense like quoting lines out of the Bible. It's even less sophisticated than that actually.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Askng, as one poster does, why someone in Iowa should pay to fight climate change to help someone they've never met, or will never meet, on the other side of the world is both amazingly ignorant and stupid.
Where do some of your food, or a lot of your clothes, car parts, computers and computer parts come from? So yes, it *directly* affects you.
The Iowa person will just shrug their shoulders and say, "good, that means jobs will come back to the US again."
You calling them ignorant isn't going to win them to your side, it will just cause them to dig their heals in further.
You should also consider that there is more than one way to skin a cat. What if that Iowa person say, "you know, if we have too many people on the planet, perhaps we should get rid of half of them, that'll solve the problem. lets start with the half on the other side of the planet".
You'd call that horrible, he/she may simply not care that much. He/she also lives in a state and a country that has politicians who want to be reelected, and also has half the world's nuclear weapons. Remind me again how much you want to "solve" this problem? I imagine removing 2/3 of the world's population would go a long way towards that.
Be careful what you wish for...
Moral authority is best achieved through leadership by example.
Americans in particular are better paid, get to keep more of what they make, and have more effective disposable income. They also have choices that citizens of other industrialized nations simply don't have.
If you spent 20% of your income on charity, you would still be ahead of Europeans.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Because the "good side" isn't permanent, and once the more severe effects, like rain belts shifting, you're going to see the "bad side".
Beyond that, in many areas, mild winters are really fucking bad. Where I live, that means much lower snow pack, which means major water restrictions and wildfire season coming earlier and earlier every year.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Both China and the US could tell the rest of the world to f*ck off and do pretty well. We're large countries with a lot of useful land and ample natural resources. People like to fixate on the US as an industrial power but we really never stopped being an agricultural one. That's what ultimately matters in the end.
The Iowa farm boy can likely adapt to what comes. It's the urban city dwellers that will suffer first and worst.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Appeal to authority is completely fine, as long as it's true authority.
This is why "Global Warning" is now called "Climate Change".
The term "Climate Change" has been pretty common for several decades now. The IPCC, for example, was founded in 1988.
No, what I am saying is that heavy polluters (such as the Americans) should be forced to reduce their emissions
Ahh yes, your "one world government"...
Who exactly is going to force Americans to do this? You and what Army?
You might think that response is flip, but I challenge you to walk among average Americans, as a foreigner, and tell them that you think Americans should be "forced" by someone else to do anything.
You'll quickly get reminded that we have the most powerful military in the world, and if you'd like a demonstration, you're welcome to try.
while the low polluters (such as the Africans) should be forced not to raise theirs too much.
Raise? You really haven't done the math, have you? They can't raise, they need to cut. Everyone needs to cut. The whole planet, on average, needs to cut 80% of the CO2 output by 2050, or we're in a pile of trouble.
The irony is that I fully get that, I just don't think it is going to happen. To cut world-wide by 80% would require the US to cut by 90%, we'd go to war to prevent it.
Of course, I am not against trade, so the African should have a right to lease his emission rights to the highest bidder.
Right, again we find the real interest... wealth transfer... What you REALLY want is money, which is why COP21 didn't really accomplish anything, because the poor nations won't shut up about money.
Since people won't act on their own lets hit their pocketbook. Add massive taxes on energy. See how much motivation people have to buy a more appropriate car, appliance, house...
All that would do is crush the economy, put millions out of work, destroy home values, and cause endless other problems.
People replace cars, on average, every 11 years. Some every 3 years, others drive them 20+ years.
But houses get replaced far less often. My home was built in 2001, it is 3,800 sqft. It likely will be standing in the year 2100. You can't say "buy a more appropriate house" when someone else just has to buy mine.
Unless you plan to tear them all down, but that isn't realistic.
The truth is, the changes had to happen 30 years ago... Today, it is far too late to stop, you won't cut CO2 in the time we have left to do it in to stop global temps from running way past levels that the experts say is safe.
We simply will have to adapt to the world that comes.
because random anonymous slashdot posters from around the world represent the majority of americans.
I never said that. I was replying to operagost who said "no one is saying that", which is obviously not true.
except they are saying that behind the curtain (not the USA) it's horrible. Don't believe it. Just like the Great Pacific garbage patch, which the media always shows photos of trash in water, but it doesn't exist. They then say it is tiny undetectable particles of plastic. Great Invisible Pacific garbage patch, yeah don't believe it. It is all a play for power over us.
I'm guessing from your username that that would be the Jolly Green Giant?
other countries don't have the same problem with climate deniers/skeptics/whatever:
http://www.nytimes.com/interac...
...while the low polluters (such as the Africans) should be forced not to raise theirs too much.
So you want to prevent Third World populations from advancing to 20th-century (never mind 21st-century) levels of technology/industry/medicine and living standards by force?
Strange definition of "altruism" you have there.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
And the fourth Reich would have Washington DC as its capital. The US would be on the wrong side unlike in the first two WW.
Maybe... but I wasn't saying what is "good" or "bad", I was saying what was...
So let's start with 20% or even 10% if you prefer.
Sure, but those drops won't have a major impact on the outcome.
Frankly, I suspect a 20% drop will happen almost by default, just due to people buying more efficient stuff over time. The problem of course is that over the next 35 years, how much will the US population grow? 10%? That wipes out half of the 20% drop.
Just don't ever blame the Chinese until they reach that point too.
This is not democracy, and it isn't "playground fairness". We can blame the Chinese all we want, and they can ignore us. :)
And they are either wrong or selfish.
That is an opinion, a point of view...
Consider for a minute that if push came to shove, many Americans would say, "ok, if the world can't support everyone, perhaps it is time for some of them to go".
Rather than cut our own way of life, if we removed 2/3 of the people in the world, that helps solve the problem too.
Note: I'm not endorsing such a plan, nor saying it is a good one. I'm simply saying there is more than one way to solve a problem.
I hope you'll help me so that they change their minds.
My mind was only changed in the past year, and I'm at least somewhat smarter than the average person, or at least better off. The climate scientists did a REALLY crappy job of shouting about the problem 30 years ago. I think we're WAY past the point where it can be stopped.
Let me toss a point your way. Have you considered that it might cost less to adapt to the changing world than to try and prevent it from happening?
Yes, I know, some people will say, "why not do both". Well, sometimes you can't, if you split your efforts, sometimes both sides fail.
Now who has the "perfect solution fallacy" :)
You clearly don't seem to get what it means. Invading the UK is not a perfect solution, not even an imperfect one.
You'd start a trade war, and if you're not careful, a real one.
From my point of view, polluters already started the war by exporting their greenhouse gases to other countries.
The changes that have to be made to REALLY make a difference would be unacceptable, even in Europe.
Again, you are using the same fallacy. Even a reduction of 10% is better than not doing anything.
I'm not quite sure you understand what a 80% cut in energy consumption would really mean, but you are more or less asking everyone to go back 200 years in time.
Look, let me tell you this straight. You are an idiot if you think the only two possible outcomes are either a 80% cut or the status quo (a big increase over the next decades).
Also, even if I were asking for a 80% cut, I am not asking it to everyone, only to the big polluters.
But it really isn't the middle ground... That implies that the person from Iowa owes an "equal life" to the person in India or Africa,
You're thinking that somehow resources should be divided equally, that the person in Iowa who lives in a 2,000 sqft house, has 2 cars, 3 kids, a job, etc. should somehow worry about the person far, far away.
I don't think you're being realistic with that thinking.
It's not about equal life or equal resources. However, the person in Iowa is polluting the air of the African. That means the Iowan owes the African. Wether you like it or not.
Fair enough, but why exactly is that the person in Iowa's problem? To be honest, the people in Africa aren't really living in the 21st century anyway, not most of them (some are of course). Look at the tribal warfare, the endless slaughter... When they decide to drop all of that, they might find they can build themselves a civilization and won't need our help. We did it hundreds of years ago, what's holding them back?
Let's just hope they don't, isn't it? Otherwise, they'd send us their pollution too and it would be even worse.
Your thinking in the end is nothing more than racism. The African don't deserve to pollute and live just like we do. If we lower our emissions, they should lower theirs too.
True, but it wouldn't accomplish anything either...
Nothing? You must be kidding. Capping the CO2 at current levels would accomplish a lot. It would be far better than the current trend, which is a big raise worldwide, which could be even bigger (thanks to countries in Europe making some effort).
The problem is, your "solution" solves nothing, but costs us money.
Are you denying the consequences of global warming?
Because it is our money, not theirs. They didn't earn it, we did. If they want money, they can go earn it themselves.
And why wouldn't that logic apply to pollution? It's your CO2, keep it in your country. Sending your CO2 abroad is just as bad as stealing their money.
We can't even get a small gas tax increase passed, and most people agree it needs to be done.
By "we" I assume you mean the US. Other developed countries already tax gas far more.
We don't currently have the technology to produce the energy necessary to maintain a 21st century 1st-World living standard and technology level at the emission reduction levels that have been put forth as necessary to have a significant and meaningful impact.
This means the US population would face reductions in medicine, food, technology products/services and transportation, all of which would affect the poorest the worst, costing avoidable widespread death & suffering, and you would be telling Africans they are not allowed to advance these things for the lives of their own people beyond *just here*...and no more.
Based on models that can't even reproduce historic climate changes of the past with any reliability.
Yeah. Good luck with that. Better wear a helmet.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.