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Climate Change Could Cross Key Threshold in a Decade, Scientists Say (reuters.com)

The planet could pass a key target on world temperature rise in about a decade, prompting accelerating loss of glaciers, steep declines in water availability, worsening land conflicts and deepening poverty, scientists said this week. But the planet is already two-thirds of the way to that lower and safer goal, and could begin to pass it in about a decade, according to Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre. Reuters reports: With world emissions unlikely to slow quickly enough to hit that target, it will probably be necessary to remove some carbon pollution from the atmosphere to stabilize the planet, scientists said. That could happen by planting forests or by capturing and then pumping underground emissions from power plants. But other changes -- such as reducing food waste and creating more sustainable diets, with less beef and fewer imported greenhouse vegetables -- could also play a big role in meeting the goal, without so many risks, he said.

357 comments

  1. Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And the decade before that too, come to think of it.

    1. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong, you're just another oblivious denialist trying to pretend details don't matter - again.

    2. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Gr8Apes · · Score: 0, Troll

      Let me show you Venus, perhaps you'd like to visit?

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    3. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by hey! · · Score: 1

      Yep, and as we all know global warming stopped in 1998.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    4. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the fuck is wrong with you. You think global warming is going to make earth like Venus? Really? Did your mother drop you as a child. Because there is utterly no fucking science behind "be warned ye sinners, or ye be like Venus one day". NO FUCKING SCIENCE AT ALL.

      So would you global warming religo nut bars fuck off.

    5. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Venus is much closer to the sun. Of course it's warmer. Unless you're suggesting there was once a technological race on Venus and the current state of things is the inevitable result?

    6. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 4, Informative

      We actually have had more major hurricanes this year (more than 12 to date) than prior years, and the year isn't over.

      Hit the refresh on NOAA dot gov.

      We;ll name the next one after you, farmboi.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    7. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What fascinates me with the Slash crowd is that this is the same place where people earnestly demand "We The Species" prepare non-existent space defenses against the Death Asteroid, but somehow, the planet we're on right now doesn't deserve defending...

    8. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The planet could pass a key target on world temperature rise in about a decade, prompting accelerating loss of glaciers, steep declines in water availability, worsening land conflicts and deepening poverty.

      The above is a 100% accurate statement. The below statement is also 100% accurate:
      "The planet could pass a key target on world temperature drops in about a decade, prompting massive increases in wealth for everyone, plenty of food and peace for all mankind."
      or even:
      "The planet could pass a key target on world temperature rise in about a decade, prompting massive increases in wealth for everyone, plenty of food and peace for all mankind."

      In other words, neither statement says anything but that a possibility, no matter how likely or unlikely exists. Which make them meaningless in terms of a scientific conclusion.

      Wake me up again when scientists say, "If we don't drop our carbon consumption tomorrow, we're all going to die. Therefore, wanting to live, as of today I'm no longer going to consume any more carbon than I absolutely need to live" and have actual data to back it up. 'Cause that's about how drastic it'd have to be for people to believe after all the false alarms and cries of wolf not matched by personal action nor actual empirical results. After you're wrong repeatedly in your models, the rest of us will need to see some actually predict something accurately for a while before thinking you're on to something.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    9. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We actually have had more major hurricanes this year (more than 12 to date) than prior years, and the year isn't over.

      Hit the refresh on NOAA dot gov.

      We;ll name the next one after you, farmboi.

      So, one year of hurricanes is evidence of global warming, but 11 years of no hurricanes is to be ignored?

      I guess you be a cherry-picking farmboi religious-type closed-minded, so-smug-in-how-much-you-try-to-prove-you-CARE-(but still can't get laid) alarmist, YEE HAA!

    10. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Meanwhile http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...

      I did not read your link, but when the headline is a fucking lie , there's no need to.

    11. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1, Troll

      No, I read the scientific research online, n00b

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    12. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      why not err on the side of caution though and try to make changes? because it's inconvenient?

    13. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Informative

      11 years without a major hurricane strike. I was pretty sure the east coast and at least NYC were supposed to be under water by now

      Parts of the East Coast are under water.

      http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/...

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    14. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, I read the scientific research online, n00b

      And by "scientific research", you mean Pornhub and Breitbart.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    15. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not err on the side of caution and be religious? You don't know there isn't an afterlife, and better safe than sorry!

      To rebut your logic: the costs are too high and there is no reason to needlessly shackle yourself when nobody else is.

    16. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's everything the US needs to do to solve our share of climate change, in 5 easy lines:
      1. Aggressively tax coal. Start out light at first, but ramp up the rate significantly as years pass until 10 years later it is twice as expensive as anything else.
      2. Remove all government subsidies and insurance for coal companies.
      3. Plow Moon-Shot level resources into battery technology research.
      4. Build a smart grid with properly-redundant HVDC transmission links.
      5. Adjust taxes such that Semi-Trucks pay their proportionate share of road wear and tear, rather than enjoying similar rates to passenger cars. They do 20,000 times the damage to roads that cars do, the expense of operating them should reflect that.

    17. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The expectation is in another few billion years it will look like Mars, right before it becomes a near sol object.

    18. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by danthemanvsqz · · Score: 0

      Mercury is closer to the Sun than Venus but Venus is still hotter because of the greenhouse effect.

    19. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by haruchai · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Meanwhile
      http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...

      11 years without a major hurricane strike. I was pretty sure the east coast and at least NYC were supposed to be under water by now

      http://www.salon.com/2001/10/2...

      Oops

      Under the right conditions, a "major hurricane" isn't required. Have we already forgotten Hurricane Sandy, the disaster which led a respected Republican to embrace a Kenyan?
      http://www.thegatewaypundit.co...
      Hurricane strikes are largely luck or the lack of it.

      Also, try not to be US-centric - it's called GLOBAL warming; there has been some impressive typhoons in the past few years, including one that was 1/2 the size of India - or 2.5 times the size of Texas. That was Haiyan aka Super Typhoon Yolanda which killed 10,000 Filipinos.

      There's also some dispute as to whether or not we'll see more superstorms as wind shear may be exacerbated by a warming world and that should reduce the number of hurricanes.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    20. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by haruchai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "the costs are too high"
      The costs are always too high.
      Same excuse was used against smokestack scrubbers, pollution cleanup, healthcare, social security, you name it.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    21. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Interesting

      no, peer reviewed scientific journals on ScienceDirect. Most alumni of research colleges and universities can access that, and a larger quantity of such research is available to the general public if it's federally funded in part. You can usually read the published articles, whereas research students staff and faculty can read the not yet published research.

      Adapt. The future owes you nothing. Science has no agenda.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    22. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 4, Informative

      Venus is much closer to the sun. Of course it's warmer.

      Mercury is even closer to the sun than Venus, yet Venus is hotter than Mercury (at the equator) by about 120K. Insolation is not the only factor determining surface temperature.

      --

      Stephan

    23. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are you coming up with that approximate number? I'm coming up with 8, not "more than 12". Also, if it's > 12, how many is it? 13? 14?

    24. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by bidule · · Score: 1

      Yet another "100% accurate statement":
      "If you don't wear a seatbelt, you could die tomorrow."

      Think before you moderate random trash.

      --
      ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
    25. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      You should know by now that religious zealous like Christian Evangelicals, Islamic Wahabis and Global Warmists don't really respond well to rants about science. They feels what they feels, and just expect everyone else to toe their line -- or else...!

    26. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by cayenne8 · · Score: 0

      Under the right conditions, a "major hurricane" isn't required. Have we already forgotten Hurricane Sandy, the disaster which led a respected Republican to embrace a Kenyan?

      I still have a problem calling a Cat 1 (did they ever reclassify it as 2?) Hurricane a "Superstorm". I mean, Andrew? Yeah, that was a super storm. Katrina? I suppose it could qualify although it was likely a Cat 3 when it hit....but a Cat 1 barely maybe Cat 2?

      Nah..that's not what I'd call a super storm....

      I hear "Sandy"...and I keep flashing back to John Travolta in the movie Grease....hehehehe...

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    27. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 1

      Jesus, I fucking hate you guys.

    28. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Venus is much closer to the sun. Of course it's warmer.

      Mercury is even closer to the sun than Venus, yet Venus is hotter than Mercury (at the equator) by about 120K. Insolation is not the only factor determining surface temperature.

      The key words to understand this phenomenon are: black body, temperature.

    29. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      no reason to needlessly shackle yourself when nobody else is.

      I for one like breathing clean fresh nice smelling air free of diesel even when China is buried under a cloud of smog.

      If you want to say fuck climate change, then by all means say fuck climate change. ... But that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to stop polluting.

    30. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      the costs are only high when 1 group puts it in, and others do not.
      That is the REAL issue.
      We need ALL NATIONS to drop their emissions TOGETHER.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    31. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I was just teasing. I have no doubt that you read those journals online.

      Me, I just get my opinions from the newsletter that comes with my monthly check from George Soros.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    32. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by losfromla · · Score: 1

      I like this and would like to add a minor but important point.
      6. Disallow electric utility companies from limiting solar capacity through contractual means (SCE limits my production to my historical usage when I install solar panels through Solar City).

      --
      Only I can judge you.
    33. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yep there's ocean drive (hint it's named ocean drive because it's next to the ocean) flooding. Damn it looks like Atlantis.

      So, you're saying that the live webcams set up by the Miami Beach Department of Tourism doesn't show any flooding? Well, I must have gotten some bad information about the flooding in Miami Beach then. I guess the photos on weather.com and the Miami Herald were just photoshopped.

      https://weather.com/science/en...

      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09...

      http://www.miamiherald.com/art...

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    34. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's plenty of science that does have an agenda and peer reviewed journals have been proven to be mostly a joke in the last few years as their numbers explode.

      It's a farce to suggest that the science is settled on practically anything these days because an enormous number of studies are not reproducible and, perhaps worse, most people don't even care to attempt to reproduce them, including in peer reviewed journals.

      The only reason that global warming is so alarming is because the scientific community has absolutely no idea what is causing it, if it is indeed happening, and people are literally changing data to make it suit their narrative, which is what is spreading the anti-climate change opinions.

      You may not agree with the positions that this blog poster makes, but he makes some pretty critical points about climate change: http://realclimatescience.com/2016/10/noaa-fraud-in-the-upper-midwest/ . You cannot change the data to suit your needs; that's not science. If it's believed to be invalid data, then say so and throw it out. You cannot say, "it's bad, but let me fix it all just right so it gives me the answer that I was looking for".

      One thing that always baffles me is that everyone adores scientists, as long as they agree with them. But ignore scientists for a moment and think about your own coworkers. How many of them would you trust do your own work with your name on it? Safely speaking, it's less than half of them in general. Scientists are just like everyone else: they're people with a job. Some of them are good at it but, frankly, most of them are decent-at-best at it -- just like every other job.

    35. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The same thing is happening in parts of South Carolina: the beaches are eroding (with the water moving it somewhere else) and the water is moving deeper inland. It has little to do with the waters rising.

    36. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      weather is not climate.

    37. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Crashmarik · · Score: 0

      No what I am saying is anywhere you go to look there's no flooding.

      But Hey I just live there.

    38. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Here's some more East Coast Underwater for you to claim you don't believe is happening:

      http://www.pri.org/stories/201...

      Due to rising sea levels.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    39. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      You're an idiot

      https://www.google.com/maps/pl...

      That's an island off the Mississippi Delta. They have been coming and going since before homo sapiens was a species.

    40. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by dadelbunts · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Uhm, it floods on Indian Creek around 30th street with just high tide, not even when raining.

    41. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      B.S. I drive past there all the time haven't had to get the car outfitted with pontoons yet.

    42. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're another eager warmist certain that you don't have to know what certainty in climate science actually means.

    43. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Tofewtoes · · Score: 2

      "the costs are too high" The costs are always too high. Same excuse was used against smokestack scrubbers, pollution cleanup, healthcare, social security, you name it.

      The costs WERE too high. Why the hell do you think plants were sent to mexico and china? Labor costs after counting for shipping aren't that much lower. They left because of clean air and safety regulations.

    44. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

      Never forget, in years where hurricane activity is low, we hear "weather isn't climate! It doesn't mean anything!" Yet in years with lots of hurricane activity "see? See? SEE? We told you global warming is real! This proves it!"

      If it rains too little it's due to climate change. If it rains too much it's due to climate change. If it rains just right "we told you weather isn't climate! It means nothing!"

      You can't have it both ways guys. Obviously doesn't stop you from trying though.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    45. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 2

      We need ALL NATIONS to drop their emissions TOGETHER.

      And that's the humorous part. When it's the UN clamoring for the US to cut emissions, everybody's piling on the bandwagon saying it's a good idea, no a GREAT idea!

      When they're asked to curb their own emissions, suddenly it's a really, really bad idea.

      It's almost like it's not about climate change or emissions or anything real and only about taking the US economy down several pegs so other nations can take advantage of it.

      Nah, that's just crazy talk.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    46. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Skepticism in catastrophic claims does not imply anti-conservationism, that's a connection made and sustained by zealotry.

    47. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 0

      But that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to stop polluting.

      Please, find me someone who's desperately screaming "yes, I want polluted air, land, and water! I want to see wildlife drowning in crude oil! I want barren deserts instead of forests! I want the seas to rise and inundate the coasts! I want weather Armageddon!"

      No reasonable person is opposing curbs on pollution. That is a strawman. Reasonable people ARE, however, opposing needless, pointless, EXPENSIVE curbs that do little or nothing to improve things but do much to line the pockets of "climate change" proponents like Al Gore and his "carbon credits" crowd.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    48. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 2

      If you dig into this deeply enough, you'll see the utility very likely contributed a great deal of money to one or more elected officials responsible for approving such behavior.

      Find who it is. Vote them out. Doesn't matter if there's a D or an R (or even an I) in front of their name. Vote the fuckers out. Corruption is what allows such things. Companies who deal in it are symptoms of the problem but not the problem itself. Blaming the company for gaming the system is like blaming bacteria for rapidly growing in a nutrient-rich solution. Find the corrupt bastard who's feeding the colony and cut them out of the situation. Every will self-correct afterwards.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    49. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      That's an island off the Mississippi Delta. They have been coming and going since before homo sapiens was a species.

      Tangiers Island is in the Chesapeake Bay, on the Virginia side, nowhere near the Mississippi Delta.

      The article talks about two places being drowned by climate change, which you would know if actually reading an article wasn't your kryptonite.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    50. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by khallow · · Score: 1

      Same excuse was used against smokestack scrubbers, pollution cleanup, healthcare, social security, you name it.

      Being right about one (smokestack scrubbers) out of four ain't bad. The obvious rebuttals to your other three (US-centric of course) is that Superfund is a disaster both in terms of cost and abuse of the law which demonstrates that the cost of pollution clean up can indeed be too high. You might have heard that US health care is like 50% higher cost than the runner up. Too high? Youbetcha.

      And of course, social security pays more out than it gets. That's a Cost Too High.

      I have to wonder when three of your examples really are costs that are too high.

    51. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      Tangiers Island is in the Chesapeake Bay, on the Virginia side, nowhere near the Mississippi Delta.

      http://www.pri.org/stories/201...

      On Isle de Jean Charles on the Louisiana Gulf coast,

      You might have read up on this if anything that contradicted your position didn't send you into convulsions trigglypuff.

    52. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      You might have read up on this if anything that contradicted your position didn't send you into convulsions trigglypuff.

      From the article:

      "But it's not just happening in far-away places like Bangladesh or the Maldives. It's happening right here in the US.

      On Tangier Island, Virginia, in the southern Chesapeake Bay, residents are facing the inundation of a place some local families have called home since the 1600s."

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    53. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah biggest scam and heist ever created.
        lot of people getting wealthy off this. these criminals need to be in jail.

    54. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what is climate? if I dig in my backyard deep enough I'll find seashells. if I go to antartica and dig deep enough I can find plant fossils.

    55. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      total BS article written by a left wing nut.

    56. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      I know you are a complete ignoramus when it concerns anything that happens that isn't consistent with global warming destroying everyone's life

      But Islands have sunk into the sea before AGW was a dream in Al Gore's eye

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      What's more Islands in the Chesapeake have been disappearing since the 1850s

      http://www.chesapeakequarterly...

      Only a complete moron would scream Global Warming about any of this.

    57. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because their has never been a model that predicted a correct outcome.

    58. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And my home town, where we used to ride boats down the streets at least once a year, hasn't flooded since the 1970's, despite a heady increase in annual precipitation. Besides, Miami was supposed to be under water period, long before 2010. All of these doomsday predictions get a little boring after you've been through a hundred or so of them. But since you seem to insist, forget having fun, and continue chicken littleing your days away.

    59. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now Louisiana is not a global warming issue. Their coasts have been receding steadily for thousands of years. I thought everybody knew that? I guess it's only natural that warmers would try to claim it though. The Pharoah used to run some pretty fancy SUVs back in 2500 BC.

    60. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like my cheep electric rates thank you very much. coal and nuclear are currently the only viable ways. unfortunately my socialist pal the markets will dictate that direction. consumers will demand cheaper rates.

    61. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      everyone knows resort beaches like in south Florida are all man made right?

    62. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only a complete moron would argue that if global warming isn't the cause of all islands disappearing, it can't possible be the cause of any. And if you actually looked at your second link:

      The islands apparently were eroded away, a process accelerated by storms and sea level rise.

      There's plenty of other examples.

    63. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are a moron who will be dead before any of these things turn out to be major, major problems. Good for your selfish entitled Republican asshole.

    64. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by sciengin · · Score: 1

      Except that those devices provided a tangible and immediate advantage of not poisoning the area around them.
      C02 by comparison is harmless, beneficial for vegetation even.
      Sure there is the offhand chance that in several centuries (and not decades as the fearmongers would like you to believe) the earth will be significantly hotter than today. So what?
      While I am not denying that humans are most likely responsible for it, I deny that this is something world-endingly bad. In fact historically the earth had been far, far hotter than today, with no particular drawbacks for its inhabitants at that time.

    65. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was a story on here a few days ago that stated we have passed the point of no return. I agree that the climate is changing but these guys need to stick to one story.

    66. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an idiot

      It is that serious. This isn't some fix it at the last moment deal, because waiting that long there will be no fix available.

      GHGs impact the temperate for decades, centuries. They don't fade away in the short term. They stick around and as long as emissions continue it'll only get worse.

      People will be saying the same shit if the ice caps melt "Pssh. My house is fine. Let me know when things are serious"

    67. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      You seem to get it the wrong way.

      The US are the only nation that first bluntly refused to cut emissions and then slowly started to do so but still is in denial. If you had not changed to electric power by gas plants: because of cheap gas you still would be polluter number one!

      All other nations are working hard on cutting down emissions since 25 years. Except a few developing nations that try to catch up with the west first (and still have per capita significantly less emissions than the US).

      Face it: the USA are the polluter of the planet, in all regards. And you somehow want to deny that by pin pointing single cases of worth pollution.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    68. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      You seem to be an idiot.

      Sure there is the offhand chance that in several centuries (and not decades as the fearmongers would like you to believe) the earth will be significantly hotter than today. So what?
      The earth is already significantly hotter than, 15, 20, 30 or 40 years ago.
      Pick your number. Winter temperature right now around my place +5 / -5 degrees. 30 years ago: -10 / -30 degrees. Just a very small difference ... that is CELSIUS btw. in case you have trouble to grasp how huge that difference is.

      In fact historically the earth had been far, far hotter than today, with no particular drawbacks for its inhabitants at that time.
      And at that time no human lived on the planet. So what exactly do you want to say? You don't care if mankind gets extinct? I would not care either if it was a slow death of lack of reproduction because of "what ever". But looking at Somalia and Sudan, I doubt it is a nice option to simply say: puh ... they kill each other until the rest can survive on the remaining food ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    69. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by dwillden · · Score: 1

      Before you start jacking up the cost of coal power, you better have a replacement online, a stable source available 24/7 regardless of weather. That means a lot more Nuclear. Not one plant in 20 years.

      --
      I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
    70. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      What is an "Global Warmists"?

      A new kind of Church?

      Your country must really be fucked up that stuff like that gets a "church license".

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    71. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I keep hearing that "Weather is not climate!" I always thought that climate was "generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years."

      So while a single weather event is not climate, weather is climate.

      Add to that the fact that weather is a chaotic system and many other forcing factors of climate are chaotic systems, you should come to the conclusion that climate is a chaotic system and as such can not be predicted with any real accuracy over a long period of time.

    72. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are trying to be reasonable rather than a zealot which is appreciated, but saying global warming could reduce hurricanes is what some people might call confirmation bias or what I'd call "whatever happens after the fact I will change my previous prediction to match what actually happened in order to support my religious beliefs". Having grown up in an apocalyptic religion I recognized long ago the psychological effects of the latest end of the world, we are sinning and must atone, apocalyptic religious cult called global warming. That's really the biggest difference between believers and deniers -- deniers doing deny climate is always changing; rather they clearly see the religious zealotry involved in the believers that is way out of proportion to reality. It's no different than watching any cult going bonkers over some end of the world prediction and just shaking your head as they go off the deep end.

    73. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by haruchai · · Score: 1

      The costs are too high because of greed, which many believe are still good.
      It says a lot about America when the example you agree with - scrubbers- is one that industry fought so hard against and delayed implementing for so very long.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    74. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Offhand chance? Just the small temp rise we've seen since the 50s has had significant impact.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    75. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the superstorm reference is exactly because it wasn't a hurricane where most of the damage was done, instead it was a confluence of storms.

    76. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Adapt. The future owes you nothing. Science has no agenda.

      Science has no agenda but scientists and the funders of science certainly do.

    77. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep you've proved you don't know what the word major means
      Catagory 3 or above.

      Sandy Cat 2.

      Actually "Hurricane Sandy had been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone by the time it made landfall in New Jersey on Oct. 29, 2012".

    78. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Venus is much closer to the sun. Of course it's warmer.

      Mercury is even closer to the sun than Venus, yet Venus is hotter than Mercury (at the equator) by about 120K. Insolation is not the only factor determining surface temperature.

      The key words to understand this phenomenon are: black body, temperature.

      Yes, black body radiation, aka thermal radiation, mostly in the infra red, in the absorbtion band of a certain common atmospheric chemical...

    79. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is an "Global Warmists"? A new kind of Church?

      Yes. Duh.

    80. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by sciengin · · Score: 1

      We have currently had an increase between 1-2.5C per century. Your numbers are comically overblown.

      And no, mankind will not go extinct, on the contrary, many places now too cold for farming will become better suited to it, even if we were talking about thos outlandish numbers you quoted.

      Back when earth was hotter there were still plenty of mamals that thrived, thus there will be no trouble for humans after a short adaption period.

    81. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by sciengin · · Score: 1

      No, according to scientists (and not the climate change denying kind) the climate change will make an impact in the future if it continues like that.
      So far what we have seen (I assume you mean Hurricanes and Typhoons) is still well within the expected margin of error for perfectly normal weather.
      Everything else is nonsense by fearmongers.

    82. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Muros · · Score: 1

      The only reason that global warming is so alarming is because the scientific community has absolutely no idea what is causing it

      Yes they do.

      if it is indeed happening

      Yes it is

      You may not agree with the positions that this blog poster makes, but he makes some pretty critical points about climate change: http://realclimatescience.com/... . You cannot change the data to suit your needs; that's not science.

      There is very little data in that post. There is a graph, which he claims is erroneous, with a link to the data. Then a graph that he claims is the true state of affairs, with... wait for it... no link to any data.

      Scientists are just like everyone else: they're people with a job. Some of them are good at it but, frankly, most of them are decent-at-best at it -- just like every other job.

      And when the top people in your particular field, having studied the information at hand, arrive at the same conclusion, do you immediately accuse them of collusion in a global plot to deceive everyone?

    83. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      You've taken a position on science for entirely political reasons. Childish as fuck.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    84. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      There's plenty of science that does have an agenda and peer reviewed journals have been proven to be mostly a joke

      Ah yes. Let me guess. Science that shows climate change = agenda?

      No climate change = no agena?

      The nakedness of the motivated reasoning on here is shocking. I've said this before but I don't care: denialists are now exactly as credible as creationists.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    85. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by rwise2112 · · Score: 1

      why not err on the side of caution though and try to make changes? because it's inconvenient?

      What if we build a better world fro nothing?

      --

      "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
    86. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but defending against the death asteroid involves both space and giant lasers (or nukes, or antimatter bombs, or ...),
      and besides we all love blowing stuff up

    87. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by khallow · · Score: 1

      The costs are too high because of greed, which many believe are still good.

      Like the people who put $1 into Medicare and expect to get $3 of services out? Or is it only the ebil corporations who can be greedy?

      But personally, I don't think it's relevant whether three of your four examples actually did cost too much because of "greed" or some other cause. Someone said that they would cost too much and lo, they did. Maybe when someone says "the costs are too high", they'll be right again because of "greed".

      It says a lot about America when the example you agree with - scrubbers- is one that industry fought so hard against and delayed implementing for so very long.

      Not at all. Different interests are a fact of every society and culture, and aren't magically unique to the US.

    88. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by khallow · · Score: 1

      You've taken a position on science for entirely political reasons. Childish as fuck.

      Pure projection. One of the many anti-scientific games played here is equating carbon dioxide emissions with pollution of the historical sort (more usually done to spin the yarn that the US is the most polluting country on Earth, er, per capita). But you would have to continue to crank out CO2 at current rates for something like a millennium to get similar air quality health consequences to the non-CO2 pollution of current China.

      But somehow it's "entirely political" and "childish as fuck" to point out the error in that.

    89. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

      Then you dont drive past there all the time. It routinely floods at morning high tide. A year or so ago they had 5-6 pumps all across it and were raising the wall to the canal by about a foot. Did you miss that construction too with all the driving you do there?

    90. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not at all. Different interests are a fact of every society and culture, and aren't magically unique to the US.

      Indeed. What is rather unique to the US is, however, is what it does about conflicts of interests. Other cultures frown upon conflict. They would rather curb individual freedoms so society has "harmony" and people "work together" to some "greater common good".

      American culture is the opposite. America celebrates the individual. America celebrates competition and conflicts of interests. America cares more about that people are free to have conflicts than the consequences of those conflicts (like costs)

      And that is why despite how America is really no different that other societies in having conflicts of interests, Americans end up having to pay more for health care (and many other things).

      It's not some evil government plot. It's not that the system is rigged. It's your culture.

    91. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Atheist, materialistic, dogmatic "science" has A WHOLE LOT to gain. Money and "peer reviewed" power being a couple of things that come immediately to mind.

    92. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A man who builds his house on sand...

    93. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      What the fuck is wrong with you. You think global warming is going to make earth like Venus? Really? Did your mother drop you as a child. Because there is utterly no fucking science behind "be warned ye sinners, or ye be like Venus one day". NO FUCKING SCIENCE AT ALL.

      So would you global warming religo nut bars fuck off.

      I love global warming. When I was a child here in Montreal, we had cold and permenant snow by the second week of November, and we had the last snow sometime in mid April. Now, 70 years later, I can attest that our first permenant snowfall arrives within 5 days of Christmas (either way), and by end March, it is gone.

      Our summers are longer, and warmer. My home heating is down in quantity of fuel used, though the charge for fuel is way up.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    94. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Desiring to feed my family nutritious food and paying the mortgage and buying electricity and fueling my car so I can go to work is my choice. Forcing me to pay high costs so that I cannot afford to pay for those aforementioned things is not a choice. High costs are not avoided out of greed, they are avoided out of survival and necessity. Compelling me to survive on the tit of the government is not contributing to my liberty or my freedom. But my dignity is not really a concern of yours, now is it? As long as we are all miserable together, then tyranny is a ok, right?

    95. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Organisms don't "get" extinct. They become extinct. Take for example, the dodo bird. The dodo bird became extinct because it did not defend itself. The dodo bird was a progressive, liberal minded organism that did not did not concern itself with cunning cats, dogmatic dogs, rat bastards or glutinous humans wanting a free lunch. And it became extinct. Many more examples I could provide.

    96. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by khallow · · Score: 1

      And that is why despite how America is really no different that other societies in having conflicts of interests, Americans end up having to pay more for health care (and many other things).

      I must admit to being a bit mystified about why you think there is a connection here between US competitiveness and socialist programs which explicitly short circuit that competitiveness. Is the US also unique for people blaming the system when they intentionally break it?

    97. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      Well then you need to inform the boatshow that's going to be there shortly. You know the one that gums up traffic all around the area.

    98. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      The increase you talk about is average for the globe regardless of season.
      My numbers are accurate. They are winter temperatures in germany.
      We have no winters anymore since decades ... go figure.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    99. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

      “2006: Expect Another Big Hurricane Year Says NOAA”—headline, MongaBay.com, May 22, 2006

      “NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration press release, May 23, 2007

      “NOAA Increases Expectancy for Above-Normal 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, gCaptain.com, Aug. 7, 2008

      “Forecasters: 2009 to Bring ‘Above Average’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CNN.com, Dec. 10, 2008

      “NOAA: 2010 Hurricane Season May Set Records”—headline, Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Fla.), May 28, 2010

      “NOAA Predicts Increased Storm Activity in 2011 Hurricane Season”—headline, BDO Consulting press release, Aug. 18, 2011

      “2012 Hurricane Forecast Update: More Storms Expected”—headline, LiveScience.com, Aug. 9, 2012

      “NOAA Predicts Active 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, NOAA press release, May 23, 2013

      “A Space-Based View of 2015’s ‘Hyperactive’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CityLab.com, June 19, 2015

      “The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Might Be the Strongest in Years”—headline, CBSNews.com, Aug. 11, 2016

      drum roll please....

      “NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major Hurricane Strike”—headline, CNSNews.com, Oct. 24, 2016

      And you AGW proponents wonder why people don't take your "the sky is falling!" rhetoric seriously.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    100. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

      “2006: Expect Another Big Hurricane Year Says NOAA”—headline, MongaBay.com, May 22, 2006

      “NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration press release, May 23, 2007

      “NOAA Increases Expectancy for Above-Normal 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, gCaptain.com, Aug. 7, 2008

      “Forecasters: 2009 to Bring ‘Above Average’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CNN.com, Dec. 10, 2008

      “NOAA: 2010 Hurricane Season May Set Records”—headline, Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Fla.), May 28, 2010

      “NOAA Predicts Increased Storm Activity in 2011 Hurricane Season”—headline, BDO Consulting press release, Aug. 18, 2011

      “2012 Hurricane Forecast Update: More Storms Expected”—headline, LiveScience.com, Aug. 9, 2012

      “NOAA Predicts Active 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, NOAA press release, May 23, 2013

      “A Space-Based View of 2015’s ‘Hyperactive’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CityLab.com, June 19, 2015

      “The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Might Be the Strongest in Years”—headline, CBSNews.com, Aug. 11, 2016

      “NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major Hurricane Strike”—headline, CNSNews.com, Oct. 24, 2016

      And you AGW proponents wonder why people don't take your "the sky is falling!" rhetoric seriously.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    101. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well then you need to inform the boatshow that's going to be there shortly. You know the one that gums up traffic all around the area.

      Boats floating on a street aren't a "boat show"

    102. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [citation needed]

      Hah, who am I kidding. Deniers love to say "according to scientists" but they never cite actual studies.

    103. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right: mankind won't go extinct. This is obvious hyperbole but sadly gets taken literally too often, by both sides.

      You're wrong: there will absolutely be huge trouble for humans, even if by "short adaption period" you mean a few centuries. You think adaption is free? It'll cost us many trillions. You think developing countries can afford that? It'll hit them hardest.

    104. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think nuclear plants are available 24/7? Historically, they've managed less than 62% of that. Coal is even worse, at under 45%. Yet we've managed OK with those.

      Regardless of what type or mix of generation we choose, it obviously needs redundancy and wide distribution - which itself smooths out the variability of renewables too. The IEA has no problem with the energy security of renewables.

    105. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know you are a complete ignoramus when it concerns anything that happens that isn't consistent with global warming destroying everyone's life

      But Islands have sunk into the sea before AGW was a dream in Al Gore's eye

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      So first you claim there wasn't a major hurricane in years, and then you point to a reason apart from Global Warming why a island may just sink: a major hurricane. Are you some kind of moron?

    106. Re:Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by dadelbunts · · Score: 2

      Why would i need to inform them of something they know. Hence them trying to build up the retaining wall. Are you actually this daft or being willfully ignorant.

    107. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      opposing needless, pointless, EXPENSIVE curbs

      I'm sorry I can't hear you over the sound of the new coal fired power station that started up next to where I work this year.

      You say we should reduce pollution but then likewise calling it needless, and pointless?

      I take it that's not a cigarette you're smoking.

    108. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      which is why I want to see America tax all goods/service based on the location of the worst sub-part and do it with emissions / $ GDP.
      By putting a slowly increasing tax on the parts from bad emitters, while rewarding nations like Sweden who is VERY LOW emissions / $GDP, we get nations to either clean up, or for businesses to quit getting parts from those nations that pollute heavily.
      This also has the advantage of getting nations to quit manipulating their money against the $.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    109. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      Why not? Because I feel bad for all the poor people who will have to go hungry and not be able to have a nice life because of the destruction of wealth and prevention of economic improvement your "changes" will cause compared to the baseline compounding economics involved.

      Even if true (and the scientific support just isn't there for it), the future will be much wealthier, more knowledgeable and better able to deal with any related fallout.

      You're erring on the side of alarmism, not caution. Caution is to not upend the world's economy for decades based on alarmist speculation.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    110. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by sciengin · · Score: 1

      No winters since decades??
      I guess I must have imagined a ton of snowstorms, blizzards and even resulting widescale losses of electricity in the last couple of years.
      Maybe you live in an equatorial country, not that I am judging...

    111. Re: Pretty sure I read this story last decade. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      What is so difficult in reading the location I'm talking about? I gave it pretty clearly ;D

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  2. Whoops - Stick to tech news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Keep the conspiracy theories to the tabloids.

  3. ManBearPig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look, there he is! I'm super-duper serial, guys!

  4. Climate change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We sure do get a lot of these "Climate change may/will/has crossed that line already/tomorrow/next week/next year/next decade"

    1. Re:Climate change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I predict it will rain next week*.

      * I reserve the rights to revise and extend my predictions in perpetuity.

    2. Re:Climate change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gotta keep the propaganda machine running 24/7 bro!

  5. msmash could suck the shit out of Al Gore's ass. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Experts say if that happened, it would be bad. Al just smiles.

  6. enough, OK?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    stop predicting, and stop revising predictions.

    we get it. something's going to happen, and by then you will have predicted it.

    and stop telling us that while every cold year did not refute anything, the hot ones are, in fact, confirming.

    1. Re: enough, OK?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There haven't been any cool years in a long time, on a global scale.

    2. Re: enough, OK?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is starting to take on the qualities of Earthquake predictions.

    3. Re:enough, OK?! by CaptainLard · · Score: 1

      Ok, but in the mean time how about you learn the concepts of "averaging" and "scale".

    4. Re: enough, OK?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Something less than 20% of the earth's surface is actually monitored for temperature.

    5. Re:enough, OK?! by bigfoottoo · · Score: 2

      New Scientist, Oct. 8 - 14, had a great article on cracking natural gas into hydrogen gas and carbon black. Researchers in Spain bubbled natural gas through a column of molten tin at about 1000C. Hydrogen came off the top while carbon black floated to the surface of the tin. Had a reaction efficiency of about 80%. Would be best to use the hydrogen in a hybrid vehicle - batteries would be charged by a combined cycle "engine". This engine would be a solid oxide fuel cell followed by a supercritical CO2 turbine. Could get power efficiencies in the range of 70%. This would give excellent fuel mileage from a cheap fuel. Disposing of the carbon black would be a problem, but this a minor irritant compared to emitting carbon dioxide. The exhaust from the engine would be water vapor only. A crash program probably could get us converted to this tech in 10 to 15 years. Then, the fear of climate change would become just a memory. But, considering how disfunctional our governmental institutions are, transitioning to this clean technology has a snowball's chance in hell of happening. We're doomed.

    6. Re: enough, OK?! by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      The predictions of pretty much every climate model from 20 years ago have been wildly pessimistic though.

      Was there significant warming last century? Yes. Are climate scientists any good at predicting the climate lately? No.

    7. Re: enough, OK?! by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Luckily most of it is covered by water which is pretty good at evening things out.

    8. Re: enough, OK?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Projections of climate change are done relative to a particular co2 emissions projection. RCP8.5 is close to the one we've been following and the climate has been changing at a rate close to the central projections based on combining projections from several climate models.

  7. Re:Ten years, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hmm.. Thought according to Algore this was supposed to happen in January of 2016.

    Meh.

    What's another 10 years?

  8. Re:Ten years, you say? by alvinrod · · Score: 2

    It's a shame that clean and cheap nuclear fusion is always 20 years away. At least the AI singularity is always 50 years away though.

  9. "Scientists said this week" by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 0, Troll

    Whose Scientists? Theirs or Ours?

  10. Re:Ten years, you say? by fred6666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Define "this". What was supposed to happen in January 2016? Some key metrics already happened. 2015 was the hottest year on record. Some other key metrics will also happen in the next 10 years.

    Only idiots think that make climate change a hoax.

  11. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Joce640k · · Score: 1

    The Jurassic period. O2 in atmosphere was 130% modern levels.

    Perfect! Let's go back there...

    --
    No sig today...
  12. Re:Ten years, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Same year as the year of the Linux Desktop (tm)

  13. Limit the birth rate? by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 0

    How about taking steps to cut the birth rate in key polluters like China and India with populations which are already insanely huge? If we're thinking about cutting things related to / causing climate change, certainly that's one of the most effective moves that could be made.

    1. Re:Limit the birth rate? by jcr · · Score: 1

      Just what "steps" have you got in mind, sparky?

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Limit the birth rate? by fred6666 · · Score: 3, Funny

      You mean like forcing families in China to have only one child? I wonder why nobody ever thought about it...

    3. Re:Limit the birth rate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This argument just needs to die. It's not going to happen unless we're talking about some sci-fi book/movie. China does this, but they are a communist country too, so their people gave up their choice in any matter what so ever just simply by being born in the country.

      So, unless every single person who brings up the "reduce population" argument comes to the table fully prepared to remove first their immediate family and then themselves from the gene pool, just stop.

      You're not going to do this, so why ask anyone else to do this?

    4. Re:Limit the birth rate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      just help poor people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkSO9pOVpRM

    5. Re:Limit the birth rate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great idea if you want a bunch of old people being taken care of by a shrinking work force. Population control should be on lifespan limits. Oddly, no one is for that.

    6. Re:Limit the birth rate? by sycodon · · Score: 1

      I think they went with that decades ago...something about the Cultural Revolution? Reduced the population by 60 million.

      You want more, is that it?

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    7. Re:Limit the birth rate? by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Lets say we just keep shoveling food aid at the third world and they keep procreating. What will you do when their populations become unsustainable where they are? Do you then propose to spread them out all over the rest of the world? With the inevitable ethnic strive that will cause because the native population will have vast advantages economically and will be resented for it, while the third world immigrants take over control of the nations through the ballot box.

      Do you see good things coming from this? Your way leads to a world drowning in blood.

      Unless the singularity comes to save us first, which I kinda doubt.

    8. Re:Limit the birth rate? by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      It's nothing about 850 strategic nuclear warheads can't solve.

  14. Re: Ten years, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually... That came this year with the Ubuntu layer in Windows 10.

  15. Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised... by jnaujok · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...in 2006 by Al Gore? "...unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return", Gore said.

    ...in 1999, by James Hansen, telling us that the 2000's would rival the 1930's for the highest ever... of course, then we went into a "hiatus" of global warming. Original article.

    ...in 2006, by this group, saying, Extinction is OUR choice, unless... .... within the next 8 years we have STOPPED using fossil fuels, PLANTED millions of trees, ended logging, and PREPARED our cities and agriculture for the inevitable sea rise. OTHERWISE OUR CHILDREN MAY NOT SURVIVE!

    ...in 2006, by the Independent?

    ...in late 2006, by Mother Jones?

    ..in 2004, by James Hansen? Article

    Or maybe just google all this from 10+ years ago, telling us we'd all be dead in 10 years. google.com

    Let's stop with the hysteria and stick to facts. I'm not against cutting CO2 emissions, I am against needless panic mongering.

    --
    Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
  16. Re: Ten years, you say? by fred6666 · · Score: 1

    which has all of Ubuntu... except the "Linux" part.

  17. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    @jnaujok - look at the years. They are all election years. This isn't about physical/environmental science, it is about the science of social engineering aka votes.

  18. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I'm not quite sure what your point is. Indeed, the Jurassic did have higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels than today, and correspondingly, had higher average temperatures.

    The place I live, in the interior of North America, was also underwater, since the polar ice caps didn't exist then.

    As for biodiversity-- the Jurassic period lasted for 56 million years. Which part of the Jurassic are you referring to?

  19. I once read by clonehappy · · Score: 4, Informative

    And I dont remember where, that any prediction that gives a sufficiently large amount of time before it is to be affirmed (5 years?) will be forgotten by enough people or vague enough in anyone's memory that it doesn't have to be based on facts at all.

    1. Re:I once read by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      unless you are Fox "News", Breitbart, or Rush L. and the prediction was wrong.

  20. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank you. You said it all perfectly. I hope your post gets bumped to 5 Informative.

  21. Climate porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love climate porn.

    1. Re:Climate porn by erapert · · Score: 1

      That's so hot.

    2. Re:Climate porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I need to take a cold shower just thinking about it.

  22. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by sinij · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This would be very valid criticism of a theoretical climate model that would predict that it would get there and stay there. Instead, all recognized models suggest that we get there quickly and keep going.

    A car analogy. You see a sign "end of the road, cliff drop ahead". You step on the accelerator and say to your passengers "No worries, I walked past this sign and there is no cliff there right away". Do you have enough time to brake? Who knows, but I'd want you to pull over so I could get out right away. Unfortunately, we are all in the same car.

  23. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is not "hiatus." Get your head out of your ass. http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-...

  24. Global means global by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and stop telling us that while every cold year did not refute anything, the hot ones are, in fact, confirming.

    No single year that's colder than average in one particular place is significant, nor one that's hotter than average in one particular place. The important feature about global warming (or, if you prefer, global climate change) is the global part.

    A year that's warmer than average averaged across the whole Earth is indicative... but not conclusive.

    A whole sequence of years that are all unusually warm, averaged across the whole Earth, however: that is significant.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Global means global by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Are a whole sequence of historical years, that are being continuously 'revised' cooler significant?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:Global means global by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2010, first half: 2009 was the warmest year on record!
      2010, second half: We're revising the 2009 numbers.
      2011, first half: 2010 was the warmest year on record!
      2011, second half: We're revising the 2010 numbers.
      2012, first half: 2011 was the warmest year on record!
      2012: second half: We're chicken little, proclaiming the sky falling again!

    3. Re:Global means global by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

      I'm not sure what you think you're talking about, but, yes, many recent years have been the warmest on record.
      If you want graphs, they're available many places. Try, for example, looking here:
      http://berkeleyearth.org/summa...

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  25. Re: Ten years, you say? by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    Well except the linux part
    and the actually using it to do anything part.

  26. All about the money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Climate change is all about the money (raising taxes, creating new taxes, etc.).

    1. Re:All about the money... by erapert · · Score: 1

      Agreed. See jnaujok's post above and the AC comment below it (the one about election years).

    2. Re:All about the money... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, continually dumping shit into the atmosphere is all about money too. Of course coal-generated energy will be the cheapest there is if you don't have to fully account for the waste products billowing out of the stacks...

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  27. Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 0, Troll

    I remember when I used to come to Slashdot for the comments, but now it's full of science-denying idiots. Oh well, back to Hacker News. :)

    1. Re:Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll show you my science if you show me yours.

      Oops, too late, there went my last fuck. (waves goodbye)

    2. Re:Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      It's not just science denying idiots. It's Microsoft fanboys too.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    3. Re:Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by erapert · · Score: 0

      now it's full of science-denying idiots

      Yes because any old blog article, or rambling by a famous person, or FUD from a "research institute" that has "100% pure science (not from concentrate)" stamped on it is totally and absolutely perfect Truth, right? How could anyone, you know, doubt Science? HAVE FAITH IN THE 92% OF SCIENTISTS WHO AGREE! REPENT OF THY EVIL CO2 EMISSIONS! BUY CARBON CREDITS AND ALL SHALL BE FORGIVEN!

      Isn't skepticism the very vital essence of science?

    4. Re:Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're with her, aren't you?

    5. Re:Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Isn't skepticism the very vital essence of science?

      Yes, but there is an enormous difference between skepticism and denialism.

      Skeptics form the "loyal opposition" in the field of science. They seek to uncover flaws and errors in the results of other studies, with the aim of improving science. Just like the scientists they challenge in good faith, they are prepared to accept that they may be wrong.

      Denialists seek to destroy science, not improve it. They follow a pattern of rejection of any scientific result that disagrees with their world-view, no matter what the cost to logic and reality. And they never accept that they may be wrong. In short, denialists are not scientists.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    6. Re:Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by MachineShedFred · · Score: 0

      Don't forget that believing in this science is good, but SCIENCE IS EVIL when it comes to NUCLEAR POWER and GMO FOODS! Fuck THAT science!

      Brought to you by cherry-picking facts and information that align with your own narrow-minded beliefs, and hand-waiving everything else away.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    7. Re:Slashdot Is Full of Idiots Now by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      That website where the groupthink moderates one into oblivion for expressing an opinion or sharing a joke?

      Try browsing here at +2.

  28. Re:Ten years, you say? by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    Same year as the year of the Linux Desktop (tm)

    Yep - will occur in 10 years since systemd came along.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  29. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's not the particular temp that's bad, it's the change. Like how so many people live on coast lines. A rise in sea levels wouldn't be bad if we didn't live in those areas. Similarly, we plant crops in certain places because the climate supports growing them there. The effects of a 3 degree temp change for the globe depends on if that change happens in 10,000 years, 1000 years or 100 years.

  30. Re: Ten years, you say? by erapert · · Score: 1

    So... Year of GNU on the desktop?

  31. Re:Ten years, you say? by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 1

    Yep, funny how it is always 10 years out, and how 90% of what they are talking about are man fighting over resources. If we start to not have enough rainfall, we build aqueducts, or desalinization plants or both. If we need more land, we go the way of the Dutch and build seawalls (more than 50% of Netherlands is under sea level). This is far more efficient and effective than fighting with each other.

    We have the technology and the ability to cope with these minor issues effectively. Unless you are worried about the savages who live to kill each other and rape at every opportunity. Not sure that the 70% of the world that is civilized and modern should really care that the savages may murder each other a little faster than before, or not reproduce as effectively or be forced to modernize and civilize. We should certainly not jeopardize the best quality of human life (longest life span, lowest violence rates, highest equality of sexes and races, best sanitation and highest levels of freedom in known history) for the savages.

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  32. Re:Ten years, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2015 was unequivocally *not* "the hottest year on record", unless you accept a p value that is equivalent to a coin flip, and ignore the doctoring of the climate data.

  33. Re:Fruits and vegetables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure, 400 yrs ago nobody knew what a micronutrient was, but they knew plenty about aggression, amirite? And today we know that every animal cell you consume is itself a microaggression. Howz that cheezburgr taste now?

  34. Re:Fruits and vegetables by PPH · · Score: 1

    Those fruits and vegetables don't just grow themselves. We need to undertake massive programs of fertilization and insecticide spreading to get enough of the specialized vegetable matter that humans can consume. On the other hand, we can graze cattle and other ruminants on wild grasses*. And then consume the resulting protein.

    *Of which we have plenty, artificial shortages aside. As a bonus, we can feed the BLM employees to the pigs.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  35. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Gr8Apes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're missing a main point - we can't magically undo 150 years of CO2 creation when we decide the effects are noticeable. There will be a time when actions are taken to reduce the effects, but that won't stop the effects from increasing for the foreseeable future. Will it cause our extinction? Doubtful. Will it cause extinctions and much harm? It's already happening. Even with the asteroid 65M years ago, it wasn't a dino free world the next day. The extinctions took several 1000s of years, IIRC, and then another 1.5 million or so before the biosphere started seriously diversifying again. So, to put that in perspective, recorded history only barely covers 5000 years.

    If scientists came and told the average couch potato that unless they stopped driving their gas-guzzler today, their great great great grandchildren might be living in an arid desert barely scratching out a living and dying of thirst, I'm sure exactly 0% would stop driving their gas guzzlers. The average couch potato can barely conceive of issues next week, much less several generations away. Look what it took to get chloro-flouro-carbons out of use.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  36. Population control by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This argument just needs to die. It's not going to happen unless we're talking about some sci-fi book/movie. China does this, but they are a communist country too, so their people gave up their choice in any matter what so ever just simply by being born in the country.

    To the contrary. You do not need to "give up choice" to limit population. Demographic studies have demonstrated that there are three things that have been shown to reduce population growth.
    1. Prosperity. Demographics shows that affluent people, on the whole, have fewer children than poor people. You want to reduce population growth in poor countries? Address the poverty.
    2. Education. Demographics shows that educating people reduces the birth rate. Most effectively, educating girls (who in many countries with high population growth have no access to education at all)-- but in general: population growth rate decreases with education.
    3. Access to birth control techniques. This actually surprised the demographers, who hadn't predicted it, but the data is pretty firm. Independent of the first two factors, simply give people access to means of control over their own reproduction... and they, in general, have fewer children.

    So, that's it: how to save the world: bring people out of poverty, give them education, and give them access to birth control.

    You don't need the totalitarian bullshit.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Population control by Kohath · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You don't need the totalitarian bullshit.

      But the totalitarian bullshit is the principal goal.

    2. Re:Population control by javilon · · Score: 1

      Sorry to be politically incorrect, but you forget religion.

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    3. Re:Population control by johannesg · · Score: 1

      And what happens when there is even a hint of a declining population? That's right: politicians have a major panic attack and open the flood gates to immigration from the poorest excuses for countries, bringing in tens of millions of illiterate savages "to keep our economies growing".

      This is not some right-wing conspiracy theory, this is reality in Europe today. The EU plans to 'refresh' the population by inviting another 50-60 million African and Middle Eastern muslims. Instead of considering our shrinking population to be a blessing - less stress on the environment, our resources, the space around us, etc. - they are trying to fill the empty seats, as if someone who in almost half the cases hasn't even received enough education to be able to read or write, and who is a member of the most violent religious movement we know, could ever be a productive member of a modern Western society.

      But hey, it's ok. We'll just leave our houses cold and dark to "save the planet" while they do it...

      http://langleveeuropa.nl/2016/...

    4. Re:Population control by strikethree · · Score: 1

      *sigh* If only that were true. No. The reason birth rates slow down in "advanced" societies is because of cultural programming.

      The females are driven to only accept males that fit within certain cultural standards. This is less than 10% of all men.

      The males are put in an economic hardship in relation to females. Men have to pay for women to exist if they ever get married or have children. Men also have the higher burden of child support. For example, I have to pay twice the amount of child support that my ex-wife does; despite the fact that the children live with me.

      In short, the reason why there are fewer births in more advanced nations is because women can't find a partner and men can't afford it. Cultural programming.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    5. Re:Population control by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      Haha! Modded *both* 'offtopic' AND 'troll!

      That tells me I was a little too accurate in my assessment for the Church of AGW's liking!

      Too funny!

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  37. It doesn't matter by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 2

    It really doesn't matter if this is true or not. Either way, it won't be fixed in time. The bottom line reality is that Russia, China, Brazil and India simply don't care. China does care a little but only a little. None of them are going to reduce emissions if it harms economic growth. They've all been clear that they think it's unfair that the more developed countries who got there faster got to pollute all they wanted to with no consequence in the past. So everybody should really hope that the climate change folks are mistaken because this is simply not solvable with those 4 at a minimum being unwilling to do anything about it.

    1. Re:It doesn't matter by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      The west wouldn't care either if it were playing catch-up, or if it were still heavily industrial.

      We care because we have the luxury of being able to care, and because it hurts us less for the world to go green.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:It doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The bottom line reality is that Russia, China, Brazil and India simply don't care.

      I beg your pardon, but Brazilian cars are fueled by a huge, country-wide, 8:1 EROI sugar-cane ethanol, and electricity is generated by hydro and Nuclear. Deforestation was cut by 30% in the last 5 years. Brazil is a global clean energy player, and an example of environmentally correct policies. So, please take Brazil out of your list [and try to act the same as them do - furthermore, some research wouldn't be a disadvantage for you].

    3. Re:It doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      On top of that, Brazilian population has stopped increasing. Fertility rate is around 2.0 [that's bellow the USA, and is a very first world demographic profile]. Citing Brazil couldn't be a more unfortunate move.

    4. Re:It doesn't matter by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      China? The country with CO2 emissions of 7.6t/capita in 2014, the country which threw major breaks on CO2 emissions compared to any pre 2012 period? The country which is happily building nuclear power, reducing coal import, and which has less than half the emissions per capita of USA? Is that the China you're talking about?

      India? They're ranked 43rd in CO2 emissions per capita. It's nice of you to blame them for all of the world's problems (the USA is number 6 by the way, immediately behind the dirty shits that generate power just by pumping crude oil into furnaces and belching black smog in the air in the process. Congratulations!) Their rise has been tiny and gentle in comparison to the USA's

      I'm a bit more curious though about Russia, a country who's emission have reduced since 1990 by a larger factor than that of the USA.

      And Brazil... a country with 1/10th of the total emissions of the USA despite having 2/3rds of the people, who account less than 1% of CO2, and who's CO2 emissions also haven't increased by any appreciable amount in the past 5 years.

      Yes clearly all the countries you listed are the problem. Not the well established western countries which happily spew a shitton of CO2 into the air and continue to do so. It must be all those developing countries who somehow are demonstrating that they can develop without the meteoric rise in emissions of the USA and Europe. /slow clap.

    5. Re:It doesn't matter by dbIII · · Score: 2

      China does care a little but only a little

      China has spent more on windmills and pollution controls in the last few years than the rest of the world put together. Of course with the pollution controls they are playing catchup with a very long way to go before they get decent air and water quality.
      India and Brazil are not standing still either. Russia is Russia and oil oligarchs have probably more say in things than their equivalents in the USA.

  38. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by ravenshrike · · Score: 3, Insightful

    *sigh* There are no serious AGW primary forcing computer models that wouldn't have us hitting his special target temperature even if we had cut all emissions in 1985. CO2, methane, everything. Which means disingenuous shitbirds like you have exactly four choices. Either seriously advocate the eradication of between 50-95% of the human race as well as an accompanying drop in living standard depending on just how much of humanity you want to keep around, advocate for chemically geoengineering the Earths atmosphere to drop temps, advocate creating a giant solar shield, or accelerate development through incentives for absorbing and sequestering CO2 into various long term storage mediums. Pussyfooting around like a bitch saying that any sort of Kyoto Accords will do jack fucking shit to seriously mitigate AGW temp rise is, while amusing, utterly pathetic.

  39. We crossed the point of no return long ago by scatbomb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Look, the "point of no return" is completely arbitrary - how much CO2 do you want in the atmosphere? However much we put in there, it will remain for 10's of thousands of years. Today is a point of no return. So is tomorrow. So is the day after, and so on. The only thing that's been changing is how much CO2 is up there and will remain up there. In other words, this isn't evidence against the greenhouse effect (which is well-understood, tested, and resoundingly supported by the vast majority of scientists in the field). This is evidence that humans tend to move goalposts when they blow past a deadline. There is right now little doubt that the Earth's environment has been altered and will continue to be altered by the elevated CO2. People will die, cities will flood, animals will go extinct. This will all almost certainly happen, the only thing that remains to be seen is the extent to which we increase CO2 levels before switching to renewable energy sources and the extent to which our environment changes as a result of the greenhouse effect. Make no mistake, we have long-since crossed the line of no return and are moving further into dangerous territory with each passing day.

  40. Been there, done that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let me show you Earth, perhaps you'd like to learn something of reality? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  41. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Where the fuck did "Republican" come into this?

    You do know there are Republicans that agree with the science, right? And there are also Republicans that are skeptical of AGW, but still think that blowing gigatons of industrial emissions into the air is still a bad thing, and that something should be done about that regardless of AGW, right?

    Go fuck your own face, you partisan hack.

  42. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, those same "recognized models" you're relying on also predicted Katrina like hurricanes on a regular basis. 11 years later, we've had the longest stretch of no major hurricanes in recorded history and the lowest levels of cyclonic activity ever recorded.

    A car analogy. You see a sign "end of the road, cliff drop ahead in 10 feet". You look down the road and as far as you can see it's straight and level. You slam on the break and say to your passengers, "Oh my God, we nearly died! Everybody out and let's sit on the side of the road and consider how lucky we are."

  43. Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What most people don't get is that CO2 takes about 100 years to cycle out of the atmosphere. And about 20 years to impact the cycles.

    The climate change you see today is from what we did from 1900 to 1990. It's already baked in. The changes we do today affect 2035 to 2135.

    However, planting trees or algae farms which we then store and don't use has an impact immeadiately.

    Seaweed is actually a great carbon store.

    In terms of immeadiate impacts, the best you can do is:

    1. stop eating beef, unless it's free range beefalo or beef in non-pastoral settings (yes, cow farts do impact the climate, but it's what they eat especially that matters). Side effect: healthier for you in terms of heart risk and diet, bonus points.

    2. stop flying on old inefficient airplanes except for turboprops. Use high speed rail where it exists, or boats.

    3. replace all your old inefficient money wasting appliances with new high efficient energy star appliances. As a personal example, I cut my utility bill in HALF by doing this, and the new stuff is WAY QUIETER and uses less hot water. And my clothes wear out half as fast. massive cost savings here. Fridge, washer, dryer.

    4. get a hybrid or plug in car or truck. In Canada they have 2017 model plug in trucks. Same goes for business. Saves TONS OF DOLLARS on fuel and maintenance. Plus, if you buy high end cars, the added electric power makes your car a speed demon! Ultra fast!

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      What most people don't get is that CO2 takes about 100 years to cycle out of the atmosphere. And about 20 years to impact the cycles. The climate change you see today is from what we did from 1900 to 1990. It's already baked in. The changes we do today affect 2035 to 2135.

      I think you're a little confused.....although the CO2 might persist in the atmosphere for a century, the affects of CO2 being released into the atmosphere are seen immediately (at least, as soon as the sun is shining). It takes a little while longer for the things like the ocean to warm up in response (exactly how long is unknown, but on the order of years, not decades).

      So the lag time is a few years, not a century.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > planting trees or algae farms which we then store and don't use has an impact immeadiately.

      The Earth's lush flora is already growing by gigatons due to the extra plant food (CO2) humanity has dug up.

      It's true; plants are still starved for CO2 and ~800 ppm would be better; but why should would we spend money to make the Earth any greener than we already have?

    3. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Wrong. C02 persists in the lower atmosphere for around 100 years. You might be thinking of the upper troposhere, and the interactions of the shorter lived N02 and methane, which have shorter atmospheric lifespans.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    4. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm sure the last human being will die happily, knowing that the plants are doing so well. Maybe that was humanity's intended purpose: to evolve, burn all the stored CO2, and die off. Maybe the plants had it planned all along? They are manipulating us! We think we can just eat them, but really, it is THEM eating US!

    5. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Uh, did you even read what I wrote? Read it again, because you missed the crucial point: CO2 that enters the atmosphere affects the temperature as soon as the sun starts shining. It doesn't have 100 year lag.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

      No, that's like thinking that your full tank of gas is immediately burnt after you fill it. The effects of the mass of your gas are added to vehicle weight over the duration of the gas tank being used. You start off with a full mass and it gets used up over the lifespan of the tank of gas, at the end of which it's a mostly empty (theoretical) tank of gas (actually, tanks are designed with a 10 percent reserve, so it goes from 110 percent to 10 percent).

      The C02 you release does go in the atmosphere immediately, but the effect is over a 100 year period (as was proved more than 100 years ago). N02 has a 10-20 year lifespan. Methane is also a short duration gas, like N02, but both have other side effects. Think of it as a slowly deflating bubble of C02 - at the end of 100 years it's empty, but 50 years on it's only half empty. All the C02 in the atmosphere is from the last 100 years. We add a small fraction today (say 2016), but the prior 100 years is all there, on average. Thus we get the effects of the Arctic melting permafrost impacting us now, and for the time it takes to cycle it out.

      it's like adding more and more blankets as you get hot. stop putting on more blankets. the blankets are slowly removed, but you'll still get hotter, since you have too many blankets on.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    7. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      I just got some popcorn. Very much looking forward to hearing how these gasses know when their time is up.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    8. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The CO2 acts immediately when it is in the atmosphere. It continues to act as long as it is in the atmosphere. There is no delay between when it enters the atmosphere and when it starts acting.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by Gussington · · Score: 2

      the best you can do is:

      1. stop eating beef..

      You just lost me....

    10. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by dbIII · · Score: 1

      As for 1 it's starting to look like in a few decades most of the world (including Texas) can forget about beef whether we like it or not. It's a land use issue with increasing volumes of food required not a climate one.
      Bacon is in far less danger.

    11. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus I hate having to spend on my mod points on the constant trolling by the same fucking people every time. -1 for redundancy. You already said this, saying it again does not contribute.

    12. Re: Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no thank you. costs too much.

    13. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by scatbomb · · Score: 1

      I have no idea where everyone seems to be getting this idea that CO2 will persist for 100 years and then vanish, but it is totally wrong. CO2 will persist in the atmosphere for as long as it takes to be sequestered, which is more like 10's of thousands of years or perhaps even millions of years unless we can find a method of sequestration that is significantly faster than Earth's natural sequestration mechanisms. Biomass exchanges carbon with the atmosphere a lot, but it doesn't result in a net impact in carbon being circulated in the biosphere since dead biomass gives off CO2 back to the atmosphere and the net amount of biomass won't increase appreciably (especially as we continue to deforest the planet). The Earth sequesters CO2 through geological processes like subduction of plate tectonics which takes A VERY LONG TIME. Certainly more than 100 years. So could somebody please explain why they think atmospheric CO2 will decrease within 100 years? I don't believe it for one second.

    14. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by scatbomb · · Score: 1

      What most people don't get is that CO2 takes about 100 years to cycle out of the atmosphere. And about 20 years to impact the cycles.

      Not sure where you got this 100 year figure, but I'd think critically about that if I were you. CO2 is a very stable molecule. Plants are not good at sequestering CO2 since they die, rot, and emit CO2 and other greenhouse gasses (unless biochar or another carbonization method is employed). The biosphere exchanges carbon with the atmosphere, but the amount in circulation doesn't change quickly. Formation of CaCO3, Oil, coal, and some other carbon-containing inorganic materials subtracts from the carbon being exchanged between atmosphere and biomass , but these are accumulated in the crust by geological process involving plate tectonics, so they are extremely slow. I think conservatively (and a quick google search confirms) that it will take 1000's of years (perhaps 10's or 100's of thousands) of years for CO2 to return to a level closer to where we started before the industrial revolution unless we intervene somehow. Assuming we eventually quit *adding* to the CO2 in the atmosphere.

    15. Re:Problem is effects now are from 20 years ago by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Not sure where you got this 100 year figure, but I'd think critically about that if I were you. CO2 is a very stable molecule. Plants are not good at sequestering CO2 since they die, rot, and emit CO2 and other greenhouse gasses (unless biochar or another carbonization method is employed). The biosphere exchanges carbon with the atmosphere, but the amount in circulation doesn't change quickly. Formation of CaCO3, Oil, coal, and some other carbon-containing inorganic materials subtracts from the carbon being exchanged between atmosphere and biomass , but these are accumulated in the crust by geological process involving plate tectonics, so they are extremely slow. I think conservatively (and a quick google search confirms) that it will take 1000's of years (perhaps 10's or 100's of thousands) of years for CO2 to return to a level closer to where we started before the industrial revolution unless we intervene somehow. Assuming we eventually quit *adding* to the CO2 in the atmosphere.

      Recent 2015 textbook for ENVIR 450

      Effectively, assuming new creation, effect is 100 years, NO2 is 10-20, methane circa 10.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  44. Smell my Rothschild Reuters owned vagina! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  45. key MANMADE threshold by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's not talk about CO2 ppm, or anything like that, let's compare against a negotiated, arbitrary, manmade number.

    This is why you climate people fail.

  46. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the heck. We have gone through five previous cycles of warming and cooling. We're currently at the tail end of the just the latest cycle. Whatever in the world makes you think that we're going to just magically "keep going"? The planet just doesn't do that, sorry. What it does is ADAPT. Increase CO2, and you get more plants. More plants and you get more O2. See? It's a coupled system, it's simply is not, and never has been linear.

  47. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rather than talking in the terms of unbound mathematical models, how about we talk in terms of physics?

    The greenhouse effect is a limitation on the energy re-emitted through blackbody radiation. Different gasses inhibit different frequency ranges, and atmospheric water is a big factor of why we even can have liquid water in this orbital position. All objects with thermal energy release blackbody radiation in the same method, as the object's temperature increases, the range of frequencies increases, starting at extremely low frequencies and adding higher frequencies as temperature increases.
    The majority of earth's greenhouse effect is atmospheric water, which is responsible for nearly 300K of energy retention. CO2 is a very small band, it might be capable of blocking another 10K of blackbody radiation wavelengths, but probably much closer to 3. That's at total saturation, 10K aggressive estimate of maximum possible impact.
    To get a cliff or a runaway inferno, you need something to pick up the greenhouse shielding after CO2, which is currently a big, wide band of clear until the next bit of atmospheric radiation absorption way past the comfortable temperature ranges.

  48. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every year is an election year. It's just a matter of how big the election is.

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  49. Vegitarian diet not an option by tomhath · · Score: 1

    sustainable diets, with less beef

    Give it up Vegans, cattle eat grass. Grass is very sustainable.

    1. Re:Vegitarian diet not an option by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Actually, chicken and fish have about 1/20th the impact that grass-fed cattle do. Or just use beefalo, which is about 1/10th the impact and is way tastier.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:Vegitarian diet not an option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Grass is sustainable.
      Cattle eat Grass, thus Cattle is sustainable.
      Bears eat Cattle if they get the chance, thus Bears are sustainable.
      Maggots eat Bears, thus flies are sustainable.
      Small birds eat flies, thus small birds are sustainable.
      Eagles eat small birds, thus Eagles are sustainable.
      Tl;dr: We should eat (Bald) Eagles.

  50. Dan as Jimmy said it best by paiute · · Score: 1

    My fellow Americans, we're screwed, blued, and tattooed.

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  51. Red Lines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The Left has an issue for Red Lines...they keep drawing them and no one cares.

    I thought it was already over since we passed 400ppm.

  52. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    It's not that animals and plants can't live in warmer temperatures and higher CO2 levels. They clearly can.

    The problem is, animals and plants are adapted to the current climate. A sudden shift will cause many species to go extinct. It takes many millions of years to build back biodiversity. Humans will probably be extinct before biodiversity returns to pre-industrial levels.

    Also, parts of the world that are currently arable will become barren; and some parts that are currently barren will become arable. There could potentially be food shortages and distribution problems until we adapt. Certainly, we can and shall adapt, but how many people will suffer in the interim.

    We can relocate people from islands and coastal areas, but at what cost? Monetary costs? Emotional costs? cultural costs?

    Storms and extreme weather events will become more frequent. Not ideal for civilization, people will die. We will adapt, but again at what cost. So yes, there may have been more biodiversity during the Jurassic (I haven't checked to compare), but I assure you, there won't be more biodiversity any time soon. Many species will die before new ones are born.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  53. AGW Disaster and Nuclear Fusion by sycodon · · Score: 1

    Always 20 years away.

    Going for popcorn to watch my Karma get trashed now.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:AGW Disaster and Nuclear Fusion by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I should have bookmarked it, but there's a graph of funding into fusion research that shows why. In the last thirty years we've put in the equivalent to less than five years worth of work compared with the peak of fusion research when that "20 years" suggestion was made.

  54. Moving goal posts by Karmashock · · Score: 3, Insightful

    New York City was supposed to be under water by now. Same people are saying the same thing. Time appears to be very subjective to these people. Any prediction or statement involving time should be taken lightly.

    We've already crossed past arbitrary points of no return and whenever it happens... goal post is moved.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/20...

    We're constantly being treated to this and when the prediction doesn't happen... no apology... no admission... nothing. Just a goal post move.

    Will they admit in 50 years what they haven't admitted over 20? Will they admit over 100 what they won't over 50?

    I suspect that only death by old age is going to resolve this because some people are going to keep this shit up to their graves.

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    1. Re:Moving goal posts by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 0

      It was underwater. Or don't you remember the last storm. The one that flooded all the subways, cut off power to half the city, and destroyed Rockaway?

      N00b.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:Moving goal posts by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      That is weather. Not climate. Tsk tsk.

    3. Re:Moving goal posts by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 0

      The energy of that storm was, from our own calculations, about 50/50 normal cyclical energy and human added climate change energy.

      Future storms will be even higher levels of human created energy.

      Heat doesn't just disappear. Although some ME and CE colleagues here at the UW have a cool example of transforming low grade heat into electricity to charge your cell phones in Africa and disaster zones (and also for hiking) check out their kickstarter

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    4. Re:Moving goal posts by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      You're moving the goal post in your refutation of goal post moving.

      Its disgusting. Have enough self respect to have some integrity.

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    5. Re:Moving goal posts by Maow · · Score: 1

      It was underwater. Or don't you remember the last storm. The one that flooded all the subways, cut off power to half the city, and destroyed Rockaway?

      N00b.

      Well, he points to Al Gore on the topic of climate change, so "N00b" is being pretty generous of you.

      And I'd like a link to an IPCC report that predicted NYC would be under water by now. Eventually, without massive infrastructure to prevent it, sure.

      Slashdot sucks donkey balls on political issues these days and, unfortunately, climate science has been politicized by the deniers.

    6. Re:Moving goal posts by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      So the IPCC is the prime source of evidence we should go with and other sources are not acceptable?

      Okay. Prepare to dance.

      https://www.theguardian.com/en...

      They based their "research" on an interview in a climbing magazine.

      it is also ironic that you'd say something about politics in the same breath that you're advocating the IPCC. Much of the IPCC is not authored by scientists. Its a political organization via the UN not a scientific organization. You'd know that if you knew anything. But you don't.

      You're another tool that repeats the same stupid shit with no understanding of what he's talking about.

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

      You're getting caught in a lie or a scandal or a fraud practically daily. And despite that all we get out of you is the same pretension to a functioning brain stem.

      Keep in mind, you're the one that started the ad hominem game by talking about deniers and politics. If you want to talk issues, I'll crush you with facts. You likely don't have anything besides some cartoonish illustrations or some PDF links you didn't read.

      But if you want to play the ad hominem game... then flame on.
      https://youtu.be/Ae04r1EQOKk?t...

      What people like you get away with is shifting between an unjustified pretense of intellectual or moral superiority into fallacious ad hominem without pausing to back up anything. It works on people that don't know what this is...

      If you want to make a stab at being rational or justifying any of that comical pretense you walk around with... try me. Otherwise... Burn.

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    7. Re:Moving goal posts by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      New York City was supposed to be under water by now.
      Who claimed that? And who was so stupid to believe it?

      Basing your arguments on idiocies does not make your point right.

      I also can come up with: according to the apocalypse everything should be .... bla. But as it is not bla we certainly can do yuppie. Did that make sense? Nope? Neither did your post.

      --
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    8. Re:Moving goal posts by Karmashock · · Score: 1
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    9. Re:Moving goal posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no mention of such a claim in the wikipedia entry you linked to. Perhaps if you keep moving the goal posts you will eventually hit something by accident, but so far you have missed every time. You might want to consider instead getting into a discussion on a topic that you are knowledgeable on, or - gasp! - actually reading up on the topic before planting your foot so squarely into your own mouth and exposing your ignorance in such a fashion.

    10. Re:Moving goal posts by Karmashock · · Score: 0

      I didn't say there was one, shit for brains. I was making it clear who I was referring to.

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    11. Re:Moving goal posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So then your argument - if we were to be so generous as to call it one - boils down to:

      • "Here is a statement I like to attack"
      • "Here is the name of a person I don't like"

      Now that you admit there is no connection between those two elements, why do you bring them up? Are you aiming for a Chewbacca Defense here?

    12. Re:Moving goal posts by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      I doubt that.

      Glancing over the wikipedia article he seems quite a sound scientist.

      Perhaps he was wrong quoted in media.

      No serious scientist ever claimed that the sea level already could have risen a meter. That is absurd. Regardless how quickly the temperature would have risen. The ice needs some time to melt. That is a no brainer.

      So no idea why people like you use phrases like "New York City was supposed to be under water by now.
      " to discredit the AGW scientists when it is obvious for anyone that such a thing is impossible.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    13. Re:Moving goal posts by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      You've spent more time whining that it would have taken to just type the man's name in and the claim. It would have come right up.

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    14. Re:Moving goal posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that it doesn't, or you would have provided a link to it by now. Why do you expect that you will somehow come out victorious from this argument when you have zero facts and your only apparent skill is in attempting to waste other people's time?

  55. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The place I live, in the interior of North America, was also underwater, since the polar ice caps didn't exist then.

    Your continent was Laurasia, and it used to be a freaking desert.

  56. Re:Ten years, you say? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 0

    Only idiots think that make climate change a hoax.

    I agree...

    2015 was unequivocally *not* "the hottest year on record", unless you accept a p value that is equivalent to a coin flip, and ignore the doctoring of the climate data.

    ... found one!

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  57. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

    It's not the absolute numbers that are the problem. It's the speed that we are reaching them. If we were adding CO2 to the atmosphere at a much slower rate (say 100 times slower) then civilization and nature would have a much easier time to adapt to the changes.

    Using a car analogy how fast do you want to stop from going 60 mph? Over a 1/4 mile or by using a brick wall. We're currently using the brick wall method when it comes to climate change.

  58. Damned greenhouse vegetables! by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 1

    Oh, wait...

  59. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What would it take to reconsider? i mean that seriously, what world weather event would be strange enough to decide maybe global warming is real and requires a response? How about a summer high temp of 125 F in Kansas?

    Or 150+F in Death Valley or some other desert?

    Global warming predicts higher humidity and more intense rainfalls. It also predicts higher daytime and nighttime temperatures.

    I'll agree that the timing of GW predictions could be off. But if AGW is real and we keep on as usual, we should cross any serious 'extreme' you set today within our lifetimes.

    if we ever do cross that threshold, then we can get beyond the debate over whether this is even happening or not.

  60. what are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    New York City was supposed to be under water by now. Same people are saying the same thing. Time appears to be very subjective to these people. Any prediction or statement involving time should be taken lightly.

    We've already crossed past arbitrary points of no return and whenever it happens... goal post is moved.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/20...

    Your source does not discuss New York - or any other place - being underwater in any amount of time. It mentions a point of no return but does not detail a specific consequence that happens when that point is passed. Do you have a source that supports your hyperbolic claim?
     
     

    I suspect that only death by old age

    Very highly unlikely as nobody has died in the US of old age since the 1950s.

    1. Re:what are you talking about? by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      James hanson made the claim in 1988 I think... the deadline came and went.

      Any prediction can be right so long as you retcon out all predictions that don't come true or infinitely advance the date of fruition beyond the next day.

      Tell you what, chump... On what day if the thing hasn't happened would you admit you were deluded?

      Lock yourself down to something. If you don't... then you're as much as admitting that you don't have confidence in the predictions either rendering the defense of them at best a sad deceit.

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    2. Re:what are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      James hanson made the claim in 1988 I think... the deadline came and went.

      If you've been thinking, I would not want to see how awful you do in discussion when you are not thinking. Do you have a source for this or why this "James hanson" guy is important? The top wikipedia results for "James Hanson" are a dead British politician (who was an industrialist and a former member of the British Conservative Party) and a rugby player; I suspect neither is who you are "thinking" of. Perhaps you meant "James Hansen"?

      I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself by providing a link to this prediction so we can discuss what was actually said, rather than what you think was said.
       
       

      On what day if the thing hasn't happened would you admit you were deluded?

      Well, we have set numerous mean annual temperature records in recent years. In fact, more of the past 10 years have gone down as being in the top 20 ever recorded for mean annual temperature than have not. That was predicted by many of the models that were developed earlier.

      And if you're asking someone else to do it, then you really ought to man up and do the same. At what point will the warming trend be significant enough for you to admit that indeed climate change is happening? Or will you keep your head in the sand until the day you are 6 feet under?

    3. Re:what are you talking about? by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Don't talk to me until you've consumed at least 20 pounds of broken glass.

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    4. Re:what are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In what world is it justified for the AC to be punished after you misspelled the name of the scientist you were trying to ostracise, and you failed to provide a source for your wild-assed claim about global warming? You should be accepting of the AC having more knowledge on the matter than you (which admittedly doesn't take much) and seeking to improve yourself. Instead, you are attacking the person for their knowledge.

    5. Re:what are you talking about? by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Autism is not a rebuttal.

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    6. Re:what are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who is talking about autism here? Why are you calling it up in your own defense? You made a claim earlier that you could not support with facts, and it has been placed out for all to see. You could still attempt to support your argument by finding an actual case of someone making the prediction you claim was made that did not come to fruition, or you can continue launching baseless personal attacks on the ACs that are pointing out some of the problems with your arguments.

      The choice is yours. How fitting that the captcha is "avoids" - as in karmashock avoids the discussion once he is faced with the fact that his argument is not rooted in reality.

  61. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 1

    Great. Let's return to that. The entire central United States was a relatively shallow sea, since there were none of those pesky ice caps and glaciers. What is now Florida was well under water, which in my mind is a good thing. Of course the end of the Jurassic wasn't the end of life. It was followed by the Cretaceous, with most of the well known dinosaurs. And, the end of the Cretaceous wasn't the end of life either. The point is that life goes on. However, which life might be important. If your particular species goes extinct, you might consider that bad. Your little screed demonstrates a fie ignorance of paleontology, geology, and climatology. Perhaps a bit more study of basic sources would help.

    --
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  62. Allman Brothers go all scientist on us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So Richard Betts is not playing "Blue Sky" anymore?

  63. Re:Fruits and vegetables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eat PUSSY!

    Good for what ale's ya.

  64. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's more. In 1989, we only had ten years to fix the problem.

    There are some people who are climate deniers, who say that humans can't affect the climate. Those people are fools.

    There are other people who refuse to believe that there is plenty of propaganda going on. Those people are also fools.

    --
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  65. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're thinking of absorption and emission in ways that are correct but incomplete. The idea that water absorbs all the available infrared radiation was debunked almost 100 years ago. So yes, there is no potential for a runaway warming event, but that is also not what is being claimed. What we're looking at is merely the potential end of civilization, not the end of life on Earth.

    Now the fact that you have not accounted for is that higher partial pressures of CO2 push the edge of the CO2-rich region (which extends far above the hydrosphere) further into space. I am sure you know enough atmospheric physics to figure out why this causes warming.

    As the Sun becomes brighter, eventually we will boil off the oceans and get into a runaway warming scenario. There has been at least one prominent climatologist who has speculated about runaway warming as a result of fossil CO2, but it's not really credible. Nobody else is talking about runaway warming; it's a red herring.

  66. False Argument (Re:Limit the birth rate?) by cybersquid · · Score: 1
    I suspect "personal genocide" and "do nothing" are not the only options.
    Not saying I know how to accomplish this.
    • Maybe major religions could encourage the use of birth control and smaller families?
    • Maybe financial incentives for folks who have fewer kids?
    • Something?
    • Just not "nothing"?
  67. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by hey! · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The "hiatus" in global warming was produced by choosing 1998 as the baseline year. Why was 1998 a good year to use as a baseline? Because it was, by far, the hottest year on record when it happened, shattering the previous record (1997) by 0.13C.

    Now this is a news for nerds site, so I don't have to explain why cherrypicking an outlier as your baseline is dishonest. People who swallowed that are either dishonest or mathematical ignoramuses.

    I will go out on a limb right now and say that since El Niño has passed an next year will be less warm, sometime around 2020 we'll be hearing "No significant warming since 2016."

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  68. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tell it like it is!! Sadly, the Malthusians behind this crap have always advocated for population culling. They are just never willing to start with themselves.

    Just imagine how much better the world would be if all the Alarmist's checked out! Please, take one of the team

  69. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IAACS (I am a climate scientist), and the actions we take NOW do, and will, matter for the future to come. From a science perspective, cutting emissions can have a significant impact on the global temperature anomaly. There is the hope that by meeting these international agreements, we can collectively stop the temperature rise before more dire positive feedback mechanisms begin to occur.

    The most obvious example of a positive feedback mechanism would be "Snowball Earth", where-in the albedo of the planet is increased due to ice coverage. A higher albedo means more reflected radiation from the sun, cooling the planet, which encourages the growth of ice....etc etc. The opposite feedback is true right now of Arctic ice. Less ice = more sunlight = less ice, etc etc.

    There are hundreds of these mechanisms at play in the climate, and we haven't discovered all of them. Of the ones we have discovered, there are some Very Unfortunate Mechanisms that activate right around 2 degrees Celcius. Unfortunate in the sense of negative impact on humanity. When I sit in on science talks, and read scientific articles, and chat with fellow scientists, they are very aware of the difficulty of change for a global economy. The optimistic view is that we can meet a 1 or 1.5 degree celcius change with significant cooperation among governments, corporations, and people. No one is advocating for eradicating populations, and not many are in favor of geoengineering.

    So to respond to your assertion, yes, there are AGW primary forcing computer models that predict us mitigating climate change. In fact, the average of all the serious computer models agrees that mitigation can work.

    Finally, one of the primary problems in global change is the lack of individuals and groups willing to take responsibility. Your attitude of "it's already over don't bother" is what we have to fight. It's not over, and it won't be for some 200 years.

  70. The 'veganism' conspiracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Dietary recommendations to make everyone eat a vegan diet has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with immasculating men, robbing them of their aggression and initiative, and making them docile and malleable -- essentially turning them into women. Furthermore eating a vegetarian diet is not actually healthy; it is more or less impossible to get enough high-quality, complete protein every day. Over long periods of time, eating a strict vegetarian diet, people begin to suffer from malnutrition because of amino acid deficiencies, the most notable effect of which is a progressive cognitive deficit; your thoughts become clouded, unclear, and your memory deteriorates. This coupled with the fact that on a vegetarian diet you inevitably end up eating too much carbohydrates, and the end result is fat, weak, low testosterone males, with no leadership ability, no ambition, no ability to be aggressive (even when it's appropriate and warranted to be so). Face it: It's a conspiracy to make the world peaceful by destroying one of the two genders. No good will come of this! Humans are omnivores, plain and simple, and science does itself a disservice by failing to acknowledge this plain and simple FACT.

    Bottom line: We need meat. Don't listen to vegan rhetoric, keep eating meat, and keep demanding meat!

  71. Re:Ten years, you say? by pipingguy · · Score: 0

    It's NOT a hoax; it's a scam.

  72. Re:Ten years, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "2015" isn't a climate.

    Climate is 30 year periods, for example 1985-2015.

    Why not compare it to the previous 30 period - including times when there weren't satellites?

    And if someone doesn't have the patience to match predictions to outcomes, but instead just futzes with computers all day begging for money, I don't see how that's science.

  73. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by scatbomb · · Score: 1

    The problem isn't necessarily where we are headed (warmer climate, higher ocean). You have to think about we are now, where we will soon be, and how rapidly the change is occurring. Having certain places underwater isn't nearly as problematic if they submerged over millennia, since creatures have a chance to migrate away, evolve to better suit the changing conditions, etc. Similarly, having warmer weather wouldn't be such an issue if the transition occurred over millenia. As it is, the weather patterns are changing faster than plants and animals (and humans) can adapt. For example, trees are literally unable to migrate to cooler climates except by spreading their seeds a few feet North or South per decade or so. Life can adapt to slow changes very well, but this is different. We are putting enormous pressure on the biosphere by compressing a geological timescale event into a couple centuries. To be clear, I completely agree with you that life on Earth would be fine with 3C warmer weather -- but not if it changes by 3C in 100 or 200 years. Here's a couple examples of what's going on during this period of rapid warming. Coral reefs are bleaching at an unprecedented rate, and we could lose 70% of them by 2050. The oceans have become 30% more acidic since the industrial revolution, which is taking a heavy toll on shellfish: oyster seed production in the pacific northwest has declined 80% between 2005 and 2009. We've seen an increase in severe weather such as hurricanes and flooding. There's more to come.

  74. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    The Jurassic period. O2 in atmosphere was 130% modern levels. CO2 was at 1950ppm, 5-7 times modern levels.

    And humans didn't live in the Jurassic Period. So your point is, "global warming is fine for dinosaurs".

    Noted.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  75. Dire predictions by Alomex · · Score: 1

    I believe in general in Global Warming, however I've always been very uncomfortable with the dire tone of the weather predictions and the certainty in which they are stated. Here's how I would say it:

    1. Fact: We are producing increasingly more CO2 since the 1800s

    2. Fact: In a closed unchanging system this would create global warming.

    3. Fact: We know of no mechanism that would remove that much C02 from the atmosphere, however, we are a bit uncertain about how much exactly will be extracted by natural processes.

    4. Left unchecked and without counter measures, all manner of bad things could happen (famine, flooding of low level areas), however one would expect that countermeasures for these will be taken, such as dutch style sea walls around all low lying coastal cities in the world.

    5. Some of our computer models predict awful scenarios such as storms, however our computer models are highly imprecise even under unchanging conditions, and all the more so in a world with changing temperatures. They are our best guess of what would happen, but the degree of uncertainty is pretty high.

    6. There is no such thing as point of no return. This is not a nuclear chain reaction that cannot be stopped.

    7. It is difficult to predict what will be the impact of some lands turning into deserts while others become feasible land for agriculture.

    8. It is equally difficult to predict how wildlife will adapt to this. Will they migrate? become extinct?

    9. Surprisingly and contrary to what we would expect we do not see a linear direct correlation between CO2 and the earth's temperature. Modeling this correlation remains one of the big open questions of science today (a similar thing happened with fluorocarbons where initially the chemical processes involved were not very well understood. the persons who resolved this conundrum eventually won the nobel prize of chemistry).

  76. Let China and others continue emissions growth by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Seriously, we need to fix this.
    we need to punish the west, who emits less than 1/3 of emissions, and make them drop theirs.
    At the same time, we need to allow the rest of the world to grow MUCH faster than the west can drop theirs.
    And then we need to blame the west for all this.

    Oh wait, that is what the far left CURRENTLY DOES.

    Until the far left gets done giving China blow jobs, this will only get worse.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:Let China and others continue emissions growth by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      "The west" is very far left from my point of view.
      But no idea what you actually mean with "the west" and "the far left".

      Fact is that the western industrialized nations are responsible for ~75% of CO2 emissions. Not 1/3rd as you claim.

      Do you remember the year when China surpassed the USA in CO2 emissions? No? Are you even certain that China produces more CO2 than the US? More than "the west"? More than the "far left"?

      Then you should perhaps not post in discussions like this?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  77. *COULD* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not a single prediction made about Climate Change has come to pass. Is anyone going to remember THIS prediction in 10 years? Probably not.

  78. Re:Ten years, you say? by martinX · · Score: 1

    Same as the latest cure for cancer. "Although today's research results are promising, scientists estimate we could be 10 years away from a cure."

    --
    When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
  79. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, you go fuck yourself you both sided libertarian retard. Conservatives and libertarians (another kind of conservative) OWN this you lying psychopath and we need to make you PAY for your fucking evil habits.

    Yeah, you'll 'make us pay' by starving and freezing yourselves to death in the dark.

    You'll show *us*, boy!

    Bwaahahaha!

  80. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    . Humans will probably be extinct before biodiversity returns to pre-industrial levels.

    We have humans living in outer-fucking-space and the bottom of the fucking ocean! And you think a couple of degree warmer temperatures is going to wipe us out? You AGW nutters need to get a grip. You're like PETA but even more cuckoo insano.

  81. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by hey! · · Score: 4, Informative

    Of course, the problem with focusing exclusively on the costs of trying to stop or (more realistically) slow climate change implicitly assumes that inaction won't cost us anything. In fact we're looking at costs either way. We're in a minimax kind of situation: how do we minimize the maximum costs?

    There's also another wrinkle to this, which is that costs (and indeed profits -- every misfortune profits someone) aren't distributed evenly. The key determinant of how much you have to pay for or profit from climate change is how mobile your capital is. If you're a Bengladeshi subsistence farmer you're going to take +2C right on the chin. If you're a Wall Street bank you take your investments out of farms which are going to lose productivity in the next ten years or so shift to underwriting the opening of new farms in newly favorable places. In other words you make money going and coming. Likewise if you own multiple homes your risk from local changes is spread out. If the lion's share of your nest egg is in a house that is in the new 20 year floodplain or in the range of a newly endemic zoonosis, you're screwed.

    So even if you can't avoid +2C without climate engineering (which might not be such a bad thing), getting there in ten years instead of twenty or thirty makes a huge difference. And beyond 2C, there are other benchmarks beyond that we don't want to hit in a hurry.

    This is not a black-and-white situation: that we had our chance to do something and now there is nothing we can do. We had our chance to avoid this situation and now we're talking about how much time we'll have to adapt.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  82. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    You can't win against these people because it's all a lefty plot to deprive them of their God given right to get 3mpg in their 12 litre penis extensions. Time to move to rocket science so the intelligent ones can move to another world and let these idiots get on with it.

  83. Re:Fruits and vegetables by Megol · · Score: 1

    People eating meat can get deficiencies, where did you get the idea they don't? Your statements about fibers are also wrong as shown by research. Maybe you confuse problem with fibers with eating fibers with too little fluid intake which can indeed lead to constipation - but that is well known.

  84. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by mi · · Score: 0, Troll

    This would be very valid criticism of a theoretical climate model that would predict that it would get there and stay there.

    There is simply no valid climate model. Period. The entire discipline is in shambles as most of the adherents — either clueless politics-driven enthusiasts, or crooks grabbing taxpayers' money.

    Try it yourself — cite successful predictions made by "Climate Science" over the last 30 years, that have come true... Rules are simple:

    • Each citation is to include two links — one to the prediction being made, the other — to its confirmation within, say, 20% of the predicted value (if quantifiable).
    • The prediction must be somewhat useful — predicting, that it will get "hotter or colder", for example, is not acceptable.
    • The two links must be at least several years apart. Lauding a prediction after it came true does not count — otherwise I too would like to claim some government money for recording numerous predictions 5 years ago (one for each possible cm of snow on Oct 31, 2016) and publishing only the successful ones today.

    Could you list even 2 or 3 such entries? I doubt it — many have tried...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  85. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Worse, sadly. He'll make us pay by electing Hillary Clinton, who'll tax us to reward him...

  86. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 1

    >>No, you go fuck yourself you both sided libertarian retard. Conservatives and libertarians (another kind of conservative) OWN this you lying psychopath and we need to make you PAY for your fucking evil habits.

    Please tell me this was a parody of the Global-Warmist-as-Medieval-Inquisitor variety. If not, then you're really starting to scare us...

  87. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by ravenshrike · · Score: 0

    Except according to their own fucking models bullshit like the Kyoto Accords does not shift things along a 10/20/30 year scale, it's on a 10/12/15 at best, and probably not even that. My point is quite simple, either put up or shut up. Until the last 5 years or so, plans for attempting serious CO2 sequestration management never even crossed the lips of the vast majority of climate 'scientists'. Instead it was all get rich quick "Carbon Credit" schemes and relatively minor draw downs in CO2 output.

  88. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Jurassic period. O2 in atmosphere was 130% modern levels. CO2 was at 1950ppm, 5-7 times modern levels. The temperature was a whole 3 DEGREES C over modern times!

    The Jurassic period was really quite long, and long ago. Long enough for solar evolution to be significant. At the beginning of the Jurassic, the sun was about 2% fainter than now, at the end about 1.5% fainter. That is about 26W/sqm on the solar constant, or about 4.6 W/sqm of radiative forcing if corrected for albedo and averaged over the whole surface of the Earth. 5 times modern CO2 is about a radiative forcing of ln(5)*5.35, or 8.6W/sqm. So just the change in the sun cuts the effect into half, leaving 4W/sqm, which our current climate models translate into 3.2K of temperature difference. So even without taking other effects (minor orbital variations, configuration of the continents) into account, your claim agrees quite nicely with our current theoretical results. Of course, the sun is unlikely to get significantly fainter or stronger over the the next few thousand years, so there will be no free lunch from that angle. If we go back up to 5 times current CO2, we can expect about 7K of temperature increase.

    And who wants more CO2 @1950 ppm, you know, to make all those plants and trees convert that CO2 into a higher O2!

    Since our increase of CO2 produced by burning fossil carbon with atmospheric oxygen, at best we'll get back the O2 we sucked from the atmosphere. Not that a significant quick increase would be advantageous - it would play havoc with the biosphere and massively increase the risk of and by fires.

    --

    Stephan

  89. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is simply no valid climate model. Period.

    Because you say so, with the standard total lack of evidence. Got it.

    All I need to cite to disprove you are the long-predicted trends in land temperatures, ocean levels, ocean heat content, and global ice loss. See the early IPCC reports vs up-to-date observed trends - all fall comfortably within the best- and worst-case predictions, except sea levels which I believe have exceeded the worst case.

    Now the rules for you: see if you can find reputable peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate conclusively otherwise. They must use a full range of data, not cherrypicked from a convenient period. Wild speculation from the usual denial blogs is right out.

    Good luck! You might learn something along the way!

  90. Re:Ten years, you say? by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

    Wow, -2 within a minute ... that's special.

  91. Have Your Credit Card Ready! You MUST ACT NOW!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doomsday is always just a decade or so away; but somehow when the time comes, it's still a decade away. According to the propaganda in the 90s, the glaciers are supposed to be gone, the sea level should be a foot or so above where it is, and tornadoes and hurricanes should be ravaging the landscape. What happened to it all? Well, it's still a decade away, because not enough suckers voted to turn over control of their lives and their wallets to the left. Until that happens doomsday will remain a decade away. It will never be too late to give in and bend over.

    If this sounds familiar, it is. All you need to do is turn on one of those late night infomercials on TV and you will see and hear the exact same pitch: This opportunity won't last; it's your last chance; have your credit card ready because you must act now!!

  92. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not too good at reading, are you?

  93. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sure if climate scientists were in charge of things they would "put up". But they're not; politicians are, and politicians naturally worry more about being b lamed for action more than being blamed for inacdtion. They'd rather be forced to spend a trillion dollars than choose to spend a hundred billion.

    But even if you are willing to take the hit as a politician, you can't do it alone. You need to bring other politicians around, and the public around as well. If you can't take effective steps right away, you take what you can. This gets people working on CO2 reduction technologies and businesses, and builds a constituency for more steps. It's like stopping a cattle stampede. You can't make the entire herd stop and change direction at once, you get the lead cows heading in a slightly different direction.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  94. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, there are hundreds of unknowns that you willingly admit you do not know. Yet the models which cannot incorporate these unknowns, because they are unknown, are correct?

    Is that what you are saying?

    If so, I've got a unknown item in my possession that, if you simply give me $10,000, will guarantee you a larger penis (or breasts if you are of the fairer sex), all the money you will ever need, the adoration of millions and a lifetime of perfect happiness.

    How do I know it works? I modeled it! Even though the model doesn't know how the item works, the model output shows that the item does all that I claim.

    Wanna buy it?

  95. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    I'm willing to start with them. Yes the world is getting hotter. Yes man is contributing and most likely is the driving force behind it. No there's no stopping it without unbelievably drastic measures that will not be accepted by almost anybody. The best chance for stopping it is a world war where 97 percent of the population is destroyed. A nuclear winter would do wonders for global warming. The climate guys would get all those glaciers back with a vengeance.

  96. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

    Who cares about a single year ... the climate models overestimated warming by nearly 2x for the average for the last two decades and 4x for the last 15 years.

  97. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    Fine points. Someone needs to come up with a plan for reasonable goals and try to mitigate damage and plan for changes in sea level. The problem is there is so much money involved and a lot of people plan to profit big time on the situation. Cap and Trade which is a favorite of these people is set up to profit from it. As with all things the working poor stand to take it up the ass. The funny thing is, while these people largely lack education and sophistication they aren't stupid. They know when someone pisses on their leg it's not raining.

  98. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    "Both parties are populated by people who believe the other party is entirely populated by insane people."

    They're both right.

  99. HA HA HA by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    Give it up! In the 90's, we have a decade, or the Earth will fall into the abyss. Earth's polar ice is melting. We're all doomed! Ice is thicker than ever. Hey you stupid scientist...try turning your attention to THE SUN! It's what controls the weather on earth, not the puny humans. lDIOTS...

  100. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So stop using electricity and do your part. Be a leader. Just don't be like the leaders we have who fly everywhere and burn everything they can

  101. Sept 22nd article? How about this month's news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey /., what is with the one month old repetitive "news", instead why not report of something newsworthy and recent like this: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10...

    Yes, that's right, huge fraud in the "global warming" research field.

  102. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Gussington · · Score: 1

    *sigh* There are no serious AGW primary forcing computer models that wouldn't have us hitting his special target temperature even if we had cut all emissions in 1985. CO2, methane, everything. Which means disingenuous shitbirds like you have exactly four choices. Either seriously advocate the eradication of between 50-95% of the human race as well as an accompanying drop in living standard depending on just how much of humanity you want to keep around, advocate for chemically geoengineering the Earths atmosphere to drop temps, advocate creating a giant solar shield, or accelerate development through incentives for absorbing and sequestering CO2 into various long term storage mediums. Pussyfooting around like a bitch saying that any sort of Kyoto Accords will do jack fucking shit to seriously mitigate AGW temp rise is, while amusing, utterly pathetic.

    You forgot the most likely one, just move somewhere where AGW will result in an improvement. Because even if AGW results is fucking some parts of the world, it will also result in making some parts nicer (warmer, more CO2, more plants etc).

  103. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Gussington · · Score: 2

    I'm willing to start with them. Yes the world is getting hotter. Yes man is contributing and most likely is the driving force behind it. No there's no stopping it without unbelievably drastic measures that will not be accepted by almost anybody. The best chance for stopping it is a world war...

    Why do we have to stop it, isn't adapting easier? We can grow food in the desert now, there is no real need to panic.

  104. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Yes, just like those bullshit coders have more than one language to code in - C, C++, python, perl and a whole lot of things instead of programming in Apple Integer BASIC like God intended.
    Looks stupid doesn't it?
    Maybe you should listen to the experts coder boy instead of expecting everything to be more simple than setting a clock.

  105. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Instead it was all get rich quick "Carbon Credit" schemes

    The problem there is economists, mostly from the USA, heard about climate science and decided to make a quick buck out of the misfortune of others. Don't blame the guys who model the climate for that.

  106. Plain silly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is plainly silly that global warming is responsible for poverty.

    Where is Chicken little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf when they are needed.

  107. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How stupid are you?

  108. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by hey! · · Score: 1

    Who cares about a single year ...

    The people who argued that there was a global warming "hiatus" after 1998, evidently. That is assuming they aren't liars.

    the climate models overestimated warming by nearly 2x for the average for the last two decades and 4x for the last 15 years

    Which models are you speaking of? NASA's global instrumental record data is actually quite close to the IPCC 1990 FAR model runs that correspond to the actual greenhouse emissions. You have to allow for for La Niña (2000, 2001, 2008, 2010-2012) and El Niño (1997-1998, 2014-2016), of course which deviate below and above the model predictions.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  109. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Yeah, maybe I should say something like, "both parties are populated by people who believe they are sane"

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  110. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by huckamania · · Score: 1

    If only there was a thing that used CO2 from the atmosphere. What a wonderful thing that would be. A thing that would be so beautiful to see.

    Imagine if that thing thrived under CO2, that would be crazy cool. As long as it didn't cost more to manufacture than economics dictate. If it could some how or way generate something useful, then we would probably have a way of maybe mitigating CO2. People would probably want at least one of those things.

    Even if it didn't generate something useful, it would still be kinda cool. If it could maybe drop solidified CO2 onto the ground every year or so, we could collect those things and bury them or maybe pile it up. A huge pile of something. At least it wouldn't be in the atmosphere trapping upwelling IR.

    If it could generate oxygen part of the time, but that's too silly to consider.

  111. Still cannot find AGW fingerprint by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just to let everybody know, its 2016 and we've still yet to physically prove that carbon dixoide + water vapour ends up with the NOAA's prediction that they feedback into each other and therefore man made global warming ("just look at venus!")

    This is the most recent study into the man made global warming hot spot over the equator.
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/22/study-tropical-hotspot-fingerprint-of-global-warming-doesnt-exist-in-the-real-world-data/

    They have yet to detect what is written in the Nobel Peace prize winning work from UN-IPCC and Hadly CRU mentioned above. So 97% confidence with zero percent proof equals what again?

    This AGW is just another conspiracy people take seriously.

  112. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by huckamania · · Score: 1

    And they will be right. Do you not understand the difference between warm and warming? If I have a fever, I am warm. When my temperature goes from 98 to 102, I am warming.

    From 1997 to 1998 there is no warming. The 'warming' in 2016 is insignificant. It is as straight of a horizontal line between the two points as you can make on a graph. If the temperature doesn't reach 1998 or 2016 levels until the next El Nino, then there will still have been no warming.

    So, show us a model with a straight line from 1998 to 2016 and, here's a thought, get rid of the ones that don't.

  113. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you people are fucking sick in the head advocating mass genocide. get help! seriously.

  114. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    Idiot that can't read. Nowhere did I advocate mass genocide. Nowhere. I did mention I was fine with the Malthusians that advocated the genocide being offed but even that was meant tongue in cheek as it were. I was pointing out what it would take to stop it. The point being it's not going to stop so we'll just have to deal with it as best we can. Of course, if the people running around screaming the sky is falling were to get their worst case scenario where we have global famine then that war I spoke of is inevitable. Starving people are vicious in the extreme.

  115. Re:Ten years, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hottest year according to whom and measured by what technique in comparison to what other years where it was measured by whom using what technique?

    You don't know, so shut up.

  116. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    6 of one, half dozen of the other.

  117. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please explain;
    1) why did the earth enter the last ice age
    2) why did the earth come out of the ice age
    Hint: you note that albedo should keep the earth cold forever, obviously that is not what happened)
    3) what was the co2 level millions of years ago when the big dinosaurs ruled the earth?
    (Hint it was 10x was 10x what it is today)
    4) why didn't the Dino earth turn into Venus with run away heating?
    5) how much more plant life was on the earth then compared to now
    6) what was the oxygen level

    You are not a scientist. You are a priest of the newest religion based on pseudo science, like the Scientology clowns, except Battlefield Earth made for a better Z grade scifi movie than the crap your faith pushes.

  118. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by hey! · · Score: 2

    From 1997 to 1998 there is no warming..

    Year to year warming is dominated by statistical noise, which is what I suspect you are trying to say when you say that there was no warming between 1997 and 1998; however for what it is worth 1998 was significantly warmer than 1997, so by your definition there is "warming".

    The 'warming' in 2016 is insignificant. It is as straight of a horizontal line between the two points as you can make on a graph

    If you choose two points you will always get a straight line. If the end point is 2016 and the start point is any prior year in the instrumental record, the slope will be upward.

    If the temperature doesn't reach 1998 or 2016 levels until the next El Nino, then there will still have been no warming.

    This is what logicians call "equivocation", which is making up your own definition of a term to make your argument true. What most people understand "global warming" to be is an underlying upward trend in temperature created by increases in greenhouse gases. This is overlaid on both year-to-year variability and of course ENSO. Comparing an El Niño year to a La Niña or non-ENSO year is an apples-to-oranges comparison. If you want to compare individual years to determine whether there's an underlying warming trend, then you need to compare El Niño years to prior El Niño years, etc. Or you an take a moving average with a window that's large enough to average out any ENSO events.

    If you take a ten year moving average, in the last 40 years that ten year average has dropped three times: in 1975, 1993, and 2008; remained the same as the prior year once: in 2000; and has increased 36 times. If there were no underlying warming trend then the ten year moving average would be equally likely to go up or down in successive years; in fact it's ten times more likely to go up than down. 2008 by the way was an anomaly in not only was it an unusually strong La Niña, it was a rare ten year period with *four* La Niña years in it. If you take a twenty year moving average the last time that average went down was 1965.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  119. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In answer to your first points, Milankovitch cycles. Various orbital anomalies cause insulation to change, which is amplified by changes in albedo that result, and resulting changes in CO2. The insolation changes are ultimately more powerful.

  120. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good for reptiles not mammals.

  121. Re: DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We were in a cooling phase over most of the last 8000 years. The warming phase occurred coming out of the glacial phase which was a long time ago.

  122. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by huckamania · · Score: 1

    "If there were no underlying warming trend then the ten year moving average would be equally likely to go up or down in successive years; in fact it's ten times more likely to go up than down."

    Except we're not talking about a warming trend, we're talking about runaway man-made global warming. If it is man-made than it should, as the models predict, continue to go up. Man hasn't taken a hiatus, so unless the models are wrong, you got some explaining to do.

    "If you choose two points you will always get a straight line. If the end point is 2016 and the start point is any prior year in the instrumental record, the slope will be upward."

    A horizontal line means that there was no warming. Moving back to 1997 or even further doesn't produce a warming rate, or upward slope, that correlates with the CO2, man-made hypothesis.

    Still waiting on that model that shows a peak and trough between 1998 and 2016 and the next one you seem to agree is going to happen.

  123. slope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Communism depends on overpopulation to keep up the illusion of economic growth, so the only factor that will save us is off the table.

  124. Re: Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Last year the extent to which plants have been stimulated by additional CO2 (and this varies by photosynthetic pathway) was calculated. It was determined to be sufficient to off knock a few percent of the increase in CO2. To fully eliminate the increase contributed by the USA would take a planting program ten times the current one, every year, forever. The problem becomes the fact that this is not sustainable.

  125. Re: Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you plot a line that is a fit from 1980 to 1997, extend it, then display temperatures through to 2015 then the temperatures of the last decade fall on that line, or very close to it.

    There is no hiatus unless you plot a line from the outlier year of 1998, but that flies in the face of 150 or more years of understanding of modelling trends.

  126. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

    NASA researchers agreed with the hiatus ... no fear though, they found a way to make the model fit the data.

    https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/...

    "We conclude that use of the latest
    information on external influences on the
    climate system and adjusting for internal
    variability associated with ENSO can almost
    completely reconcile the trends in global
    mean surface temperature in CMIP5 models
    and observations."

  127. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    If only those things wouldn't take a huge amount of good soil and water. If only the 'solidified CO2' wouldn't be burned a few years later.

  128. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    El Ninhos and La Ninjas have no effect on global temperature.

    They are local phenomena, albeit quit big ones. And both have no effect at all on global average temperature. They not even have an effect on average temperature in the areas where they occur. Both phenomena are just spots of hot water and cold water in the Pacific. One year distributed like this and the other year distributed like that.

    There are excellent maps you can google for (e.g. Australian weather and climate institutes) which show the various distribution patterns.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  129. Re:Ten years, you say? by fred6666 · · Score: 1

    The 10 hottest years are all in the 2000-2010s, save maybe 1 (1998). It's starting to sound like a trend.

  130. Re:Ten years, you say? by fred6666 · · Score: 1

    so you are denying the data?

  131. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Take a look at the plot on the page you linked - specifically, at the grayed-out annual mean temperature - and you'll see that there was a clear hiatus: after 1998, there wasn't another equally hot year until 2007, and not a significantly hotter year until 2015. The black line, showing the five-year average, levels off in 2003, and doesn't start rising again until 2011.

    Look, I'm pretty sure global warming is a real thing, but when you tell someone

    There is not [sic] "hiatus." Get your head out of your ass.

    and then link evidence showing that there *was* a hiatus ... you're not exactly making a meaningful contribution to the discussion.

  132. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by PPalmgren · · Score: 1

    The cliff analogy often used is disingenuous. It looks at historical geologic timescales and sees how AGW compares to them, which is like dropping off a cliff. However, if you want to relate to people you have to put things into a perspective they understand, which is the human timescale, and if you wanted to do an analogy with that perspective it'd simply be like rolling down a hill. AGW needs to affect individuals on a year and decade timescale, not century timescale, for them to care and make changes because humans are shortsighted. If you can not distill direct effects that relate to an individual's direct and immediate future then they will oft dismiss it as fearmongering. The vast majority of the population doesn't give a shit if the earth temps rise by two degrees in 100 years because it won't effect how they live their lives in a significant manner, when the changes proposed would drastically alter how they currently go about their lives. A true 'tragedy of the commons'

  133. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You prefer 'Pause' ? Take out the spin and what you have is decades of CO2 increase without corresponding increases in global average temperatures. No correlation, no causality.

  134. Panic attacks by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    I haven't seen any evidence of a "panic attack" by politicians where they "open the flood gates to immigration from the poorest excuses for countries."

    So far, exactly the opposite has been true: recently there has been panic attacks by politicians where they close all the borders to immigration from the poorest countries.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  135. Re:Fruits and vegetables by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    Eh, truth be told, if you want to grow more cattle on less land, you need to grow alfalfa densely and feed it to them. On the other hand, alfalfa and vetch are cover crops, and we grow them on our existing farmland between uses; we do use them as feed, or as fertilizer (plowed under before reseeding).

  136. Re:Fruits and vegetables by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    People with high-meat-intake diets can, but rarely do, get deficiencies; people on vegan diets have to jump through hoops not to. That was the point: fruits and vegetables aren't the primary source of all nutrients, and aren't holding up your critically-deficient, mainly-meat diet; a cursory preponderance of evidence suggests the eggs consumed by ovolacto vegetarians are holding up their critically-deficient, mainly-vegetable diet. I've seen statistics stating between 75%-95% of vegetarians and vegans bail on the diet because of adverse health effects; and vegans themselves always have something to say about how you have to make sure you're eating the right vegan diet or else of course it will make you sick, which simply isn't a concern with modern incidental-vegetable-intake diets that get their main source of greens and yellows and reds from hamburger toppings and tacos.

    As for fiber, Stopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptoms.

    For no fiber, reduced fiber and high fiber groups, respectively, symptoms of bloating were present in 0%, 31.3% and 100% (P

    CONCLUSION: Idiopathic constipation and its associated symptoms can be effectively reduced by stopping or even lowering the intake of dietary fiber.

    The medical term "idiopathic" means "we don't know why," as opposed to being caused by an observed deficiency, disease, genetic condition, stress, or anything else. It's a placeholder for "healthy adults" when the adults are experiencing a symptom making them not healthy.

    The benefits of a high-fiber diet have been repeated again and again, but rarely actually researched. Don't look too closely, or you'll find out you're wrong.

  137. Re: Ten years, you say? by fred6666 · · Score: 1

    I'd be surprised if over that 0.1% of Windows 10 users activate the feature.

  138. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, you're of the opinion that since Newton didn't know about relativity, newtonian models of physics is completely useless and can't predict anything. Maybe when you grow up, you learn that models don't have to be perfect to have predictive power.

  139. Re:Fruits and vegetables by PPH · · Score: 1

    if you want to grow more cattle on less land

    Why would we want to do that? We've got plenty of land.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  140. Re:Fruits and vegetables by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    Because herding cattle across a wide area requires managing a wide area. That means more cattle-hands, more moving from place to place, more expending fuel, more maintaining machines, more trying to extinct wolves for eating your cattle (estimate total population in Washington is 90), and, essentially, more wages paid per pound of beef, meaning more cost and higher prices at the grocery store.

    I'd rather pay those wages to buy another month of Spotify than employ 40 fewer engineers at Spotify and 40 more ranchers herding cattle and not have anything to replace Spotify.

  141. Hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The reason why "Climate change" is a hoax, because the ones that are doing all the yelling about it are the worst offenders.

  142. "The planet could pass a key target..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and then you force us to click on the link to read what the damn target is in the article. Is planted clickbait? Does Slashdot check for this shit? Go to hell where the Siberian swamps and ocean floor methane hydrates are boiling and the global temperature rise to more 20 degrees. In a few short years we all be there.

  143. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by fatwilbur · · Score: 1

    So what's "noticeable"? The problem is that the changes occur so slowly we aren't likely to notice.

    I live in a major city - we had our first major snowfall over two weeks ago and temperatures have been at or below 0C for nearly a month. There are still THOUSANDS of kilometers of land (many million square km) between me and the north pole, btw. Also, this snow cover will likely last until next May (8 months out of the year).

    What does this mean? We are still largely a cold planet. Most of the rabid AGW activists seem to live in California where it's warm all year and perhaps a slowly rising ocean is a threat. Sucks for them, the rest of the world has to put up with long harsh winters. A warming trend seems like a good thing, and if you're telling me I'll live to see a point where we don't have winter like conditions for over two thirds of the year, we're all just going to laugh.

  144. About that climate change threshold by eric_harris_76 · · Score: 1

    Too hot or too cold? Too hot, apparently.

    "Climate change" is ambiguous, and could be misinterpreted.

    How about changing the name to something more specific?

    How about "global warming"?

    Just a suggestion.

    --
    There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
  145. Demographic data by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    That's a cute speculation.
    What I posted, however, is observational data.
    Demographics shows that affluent people, on the whole, have fewer children than poor people. Period. Independent of "advanced" societies, or "cultural programming."

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  146. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Either seriously advocate the eradication of between 50-95%
    First of all, who rated this insightful has nothing learned from the third reich, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc.
    Secondly, if the remaining X%, depending how many you cull, don't change their lifestyle, the problem is only postponed.
    Thirdly: instead of "killing" people you simply can help them to reduce CO2 output to ZERO. Problem solved.
    Bottom line I have to point out: you are an idiot.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  147. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As 1998 is only the sixth hottest year, drawing a line to any of the hotter ones (all more recent) will not be horizontal. 2016 isn't over yet, but as every month so far has also been record-breakers, it'll probably be the new hottest.

    As the models have predicted, temperatures clearly are still going up, just like they have been for many decades. Cyclic random noise from periodic oscillations like ENSO, PDO, and NAO, are not factored into the models (as they're random), but have no long-term effect on the trend (as they're oscillations).

    CO2 going up one year doesn't automatically mean land temperatures also go up that year, not when there's other cyclic factors at play - but at smoothing windows longer than the oscillation periods, the observational record fits within the models' predictions - particularly when you add in the other observed external factors like volcanic & man-made aerosols, and solar & ENSO cycles.

  148. Re:Ten years, you say? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Besides 2015 of course... and now 2016 has been hotter month on month than any other year, and if it continues will be hotter than 2015. We had a short pause and now it's really ratcheting up again.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  149. Re:Ten years, you say? by fred6666 · · Score: 1

    2015 is included in the 2010s.

  150. Re:Is this the same "One Decade" we were promised. by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    So what's "noticeable"? The problem is that the changes occur so slowly we aren't likely to notice.

    Yep we won't notice In case you're too lazy to read those, they go from pending flooding to already uninhabitable and cover descriptions of vanishing land due to rising seas over the last 80 or so years.

    I live in a major city - we had our first major snowfall over two weeks ago and temperatures have been at or below 0C for nearly a month. There are still THOUSANDS of kilometers of land (many million square km) between me and the north pole, btw. Also, this snow cover will likely last until next May (8 months out of the year).

    So, from this we can surmise that you live at least 3k km south of the north pole. Given that London or Tokyo are also just over 3000 km south of the north pole and aren't covered by snow for 8 months, we can also surmise that you live inland and possibly at altitude. You might just as well complain that you suffer from heat, year round snow, or daily rainfall and high humidity and live 13k km south of the north pole (all are possible, it's merely geography)

    A warming trend seems like a good thing, and if you're telling me I'll live to see a point where we don't have winter like conditions for over two thirds of the year, we're all just going to laugh.

    You could just move as it appears you severely dislike your climate instead of advocating that the rest of the world become potentially uninhabitable to make your apparently miserable location bearable.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  151. Re:DGW - Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by dywolf · · Score: 1

    and you simply don't know what youre talking about.

    now, and every time you post on this topic.

    and again you use as your shield that stupid fallacious trick of your where first you demand certain irrelvent criteria, and then should anyone actually engage with them, deny that the deflecting criteria have even been met.

    go collect your pieces of eight shill.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.