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National Geographic Releases Alarming Climate Change Movie 'Before the Flood' On YouTube (youtube.com)
dryriver writes: National Geographic's Climate Change movie "Before The Flood," featuring actor-activist Leonardo DiCaprio, can now be viewed freely on Youtube. One of the most interesting points in the movie comes at around the 23 minute mark. At 23 minutes, scientist Michael E. Mann, famous for co-discovering the "hockey stick graph" via eigenvector based climate field reconstruction (CFR), recounts how media like the Wall Street Journal demonized him for his research, how he received death threats from unknown sources, how Congress grilled him about whether his scientific methods are credible, and how he even received an envelope in the mail with strange white powder in it. The movie is worth watching because it shows very clearly that a) man-made climate change is happening and that b) the negative effects of climate change are already impacting many areas of the world.
"rogue", not "rouge"...
changes. If I wanted always summer I'd go to the Venezula, or if I wanted always winter I'd go to Canada. I like - I WANT - the climate to change! If God had wanted it any other way it would not happen!
You want the weather to change.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I might have watched it did it not feature actor-activist Leonardo DiCaprio.
It depends on how (dis)honest you use the term "the science is settled". There is an overwhelming, if not almost universal, agreement that climate change is real. That has not been disputing in any proper and significant way for a long time. What the relevant parts of the scientific community are still haggling about is:
(1) How bad is it going to be if the current trend continues?
(2) Can the effects be reasonably limited or reversed?
(3) What is the least/cheapest amount of work to keep humanity alive?
A lot of those predictions have a high degree of uncertainty, simply because the underlying physical processes are extremely complex. Many factors are not fully understood, i.e. the impact of global warming on permafrost and the associated feedback cycle, the impact on flora and fauna etc.
In short, the point is not whether the science is settled on every aspect. The problem is real, it is undisputed and aggressive actions are needed now, if not better yesterday. It is far easier to determine when enough has been done compared to predicting that in advance. The car analogy is running full speed into a traffic jam. When do you start to brace -- at the latest point feasible or by reducing your speed to a decent level first?
I didn't believe in climate change before, but now that I see it on Youtube with Leonardo it makes it a) really real and b) happening as we speak.
Ich bin ein Bjork!
Oh do fuck off you silly twit. This isn't "science", it's environmental activism masquerading as science. What is it about p-hacking and "modelling" that doesn't raise your sceptic eyebrows?
What is it about settled physics that you don't like?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's amazing how many self-proclaimed "nerds" are willing to discard evidence and disregard science when the conclusions challenge their worldview or their bank accounts. The whole lot of them are selfish, self-deluding children. These aren't the nerds I grew up with.
The world isn't here to cater to you. We've thrived by reshaping it and now have to deal with some unintended consequences. Only a fool fails to change course when they are approaching a cliff. We've seen the approaching disaster and would like to try to avert it or minimize the harm. If we're wrong, then people -- including ourselves -- suffer short-term economic damage. If we're right, we save the world for humanity.
They don't understand the youtube generation. I'll take a ten minute summary version, but if they can cut it down to 90 seconds that would be even better.
Oooh look, a cat video. I think I'll watch that.
Just dropping three points here:
* Sea levels *are* rising, and its negatively impacting the lives of people already, today: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/...
* greenland ice is melting http://www.independent.co.uk/e...
* glaciers are melting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
All three of these things are hopefully undisputable.
Yes, science isn't sure about everything, but it is quite sure about this, sure enough that it should be trusted. And please do base your political decision on what the scientific consensus provides, everything else would be totally irresponsible.
So was it the Koch Brothers or BP that paid you to do that?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
My car has "climate" controls; not "weather" controls.
A car has neither and the designers chose a metaphor. It's irrelevant
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Well said. I'd just like to add:
Disputes over the key scientific facts of global warming are more prevalent in the popular media than in the scientific literature, where such issues are treated as resolved, and more prevalent in the United States than globally.
source
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Pro tip: It is not the scientists or the politicians who listen to them over their donors who are ideologically wrecking the lives of millions of people.
Ich bin ein Bjork!
I think that's Welsh bro.
You are greatly underestimating the power of idiots to dispute reality.
I have been amazed by this phenomena on slashdot for quite some time as well.
I keep seeing zealots on this side calling for everything incredibly invasive (in terms of liberties) public policy, to criminal prosecution of "climate change deniers."
Oh, please. Show me one person who has called for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers.
And what "liberties" infringed, for example, by a carbon tax, or a cap-and-trade energy market? If your conception of liberty includes unrestricted license to foul other people's air, then I would suggest that the word "liberty" doesn't mean what you think it means.
All three of these things are hopefully undisputable.
You underestimate the power of denial. These are people living entirely in a fact-free zone.
The problem conservatives have is that they've let the liberals own the issue. So of course liberals will come up with some giant government solution. Rather than come up with some small government solutions, conservatives chose science denial. Once the science got to be more certain, they doubled down. It's beyond debate that it is a thing that is happening and we're the root cause, but they've tripled down. There's no way for them to back down now without losing face and pissing off donors.
Watch this, then ask yourself what you think the best course forward is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
But then again, we live in a day and age where scientific proof is tossed against opinions.
Many people do not trust any science with a political agenda, and when they see all of the usual suspects lining up behind it, they rightly assume it is a scam like the rest of the things these people do.
If climate science is true -- a big if -- and if it fails, it will be because of (1) who promoted it (2) how they promoted it and (3) how they did similar things in the past that ended up being corrupt, and therefore instructed their audience to avoid such things in the future.
And what is this celebrity worship? These people are good at acting, not verifying truth. They are not our leaders or moral guardians, but rather, the opposite.
I think you need to go farther. Until people are willing to face jail time and restitution in the case that they are wrong, they are running your future on your dime.
Alternative Right.
This is my favourite cartoon concerning this subject: http://scienceblogs.com/starts... concerning a game-theoretic (if one wants to be pompous, and one does) aspect of this. That is, a low carbon, breathable air, greener world is a better world anyway, so we are right to start down this road, with or without AGW.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
To me! Send it by next Tuesday and you'll be saved!
But do you offer "Salvation Guaranteed or triple my money back" ? Otherwise, sticking with the SubGenii. . .
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
Alternative Right.
Climate change denial seems to be a generational thing.
When I was growing up, environmentalism meant conservationism. Mowing your lawn and not littering were ways to particpate.
Then people started talking about acid rain, eutrophication of the great lakes and the ozone layer. It was counter-culture, clearly against the industry establishment. Youth supported these initiatives for awareness and change. Those that didn't, weren't an organized opposition. Industries reduced sulpherous emisions, successfully addressing the dead lakes and dead trees from acid rain. Sulphates in soaps were controlled, bringing back Lake Erie from being a stew of algae. Chloroflorcarbons were controlled to address the ozone layer.
Then came the next generation. Global warming became a more serious issue, atmospheric carbon dioxide being observed as the cause. It wasn't as localized as the other issues, and not as easy to address as the ozone issues. Environmentalism was mainstream. Suddenly being anti-environmentalist was the "alternative". "open your eyes" was the call to action "big environment money" was the real cause. Supporting environmentalism was supporting the mainstream government.
The environmental movement was successful because it achieved results on a global scale. Not because it's part of a big moneyed establishment conspiracy. It's embarrassing to be on a site with so many of these anti-environmental twits.
Sometimes I think the only way to get them on-board is to make environmentalism look like some alternative viewpoint being suppressed by a self-serving government conspiracy. Like starting stories that the government is taxing hard-working people, subsidizing oil and gas to increase atmospheric carbon so that real-estate speculators can get a windfall return on investments in the Ozarks.
Beating these people over the head with mainstream movies? it only supports the "big environment" theory.
Which is why this is actually a funny response to "famous actors"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There are literally 303 references to back up the information in the article linked by GP. I'd say there's a lot more credibility there than there is in your random internet comment.
Promotion gets a bad name, but it is what one is doing when releasing one-sided or selectively chosen data.
I used to respect National Geographic, but after seeing one-sided political propaganda coming from them over the past few years, I throw them in the junkheap with most of the rest of media.
All you had was your good name, media. And now, that is gone.
Alternative Right.
Take your pick: hasbara, CTR and fuzzy bears.
Alternative Right.
Physics has a well-known liberal bias!
Also, another thing that I'm unable to understand. Even if it Climate Change wasn't true, the technologies that we're implementing are very good.
Yes, this is the "what if climate change is a trick and we built a better world for nothing" argument, and I am right there with you. Worst-case, we realize improvements in efficiency and extend our natural resources. Gee, that would be terrible! Wait. Not terrible. Wonderful. That would be wonderful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Unfortunately the demographics of Slashdot are no longer dominated by what we'd call "nerds". In this case, articles about certain hotbutton issues for right wing conservatives are very obviously flooded by certain external groups trying to influence opinion or at the very least talk so much and so loudly that they drown out any rational debate. Captcha: "invasion"
What surprises me here is that the National Geographic Channel is majority-owned by Murdoch's News Corp and has been for over 5 years. This makes reports more credible that the National Geographic Society "still maintains complete editorial control".
As to whether it is happening or not: I have lived in the same area since 1982 and there have been major changes in the temperatures here in that time, in particular in the last 5-10 years. It is generally warmer and a higher incidence of heavy rain showers in summer, with or without thunder and lightning. Wildlife is changing as well, I really hope malaria does not make it up here.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
My car has "climate" controls; not "weather" controls.
Your car has "Automatic HVAC" which your vendor has chosen to market to you under the name "climate control" — I am in the same situation, but I do not mistake this for having some relevance when discussing climate change.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So if you are going to intertwine science and politics like that, in ways that will invariably lead to the needless suffering of many millions of people if you are wrong, what happens if you are wrong?
Indeed. You've got two areas here. People claim the problem is so huge that all means become justified. So there's a tendency towards eco-fascism. But to be clear, a tendency as most environmentalists are genuinely nice people. However, one has to be careful how these things get hijacked, just like, I'm sure it is fine for a good government to spy on people in order to catch terrorists with dirty bombs, as the threat is just too big, but those spying powers can be hijacked. So that's the political side of it. Back in 1970 you already had Ecologist magazine talking about the population bomb, and back then you also had films like Zero Population Growth (ZPG) doing a narrative on the totalitarian dystopia, which the population bomb view, could imply. And besides, in climate change, there's been a tendency to polarise the issues, often as "big oil" versus the "little eco-friendly guy". But how much do wind farms cost to build? Billions. And who benefits from building them? All sorts of people, including big gas. Because you need gas to backup the wind. So is it really big oil v. little guy? No. There's lots of vested interests all round. And that's fine, because big infrastructure means big money. So there is a lot at stake.
The other area then is the science itself. Here they invented the term "denialist" simply to mask the basic truth that the science cannot know the future climate of the planet. It is unknowable. Science has some wonderful methods. And often they can't be used because the thing you are studying doesn't allow them to be used. For example, if I was studying nutrition, I would lock people in a cage and feed different groups different things all their lives, and see the outcomes. Oh wait, that's against human rights. Can't use that method. So the kinds of rigorous methods you can use to smash atoms and crush concrete, you can't use to study humans. So we use other softer methods which require more inference and guess-work with poor quality data. Likewise, we can't study the climate in a "let's bombard a few Earths with different gasses and rays" way. So we use a lot of modelling. Climate science is one of the biggest for use of computer simulations, I gather. But because this natural vagueness runs counter to the "it is settled" claim, they have to call people "denialists". That's like someone calling me a "dog-hater" when I complain to the owner that their dog ran straight across a park and chased me and bit me. It masks the fact that they were not in control of their dog. So I'm the "dog hater".
The real issue here is trust. We naturally trust the organisations which are supposed to be the sources of knowledge, and socially, if you're a scientist, you have to trust your profession and trust your colleagues and a lot of this goes by reputation and power-structures. They are funding you, deciding if you get funding, and y'all have to work together. And the point is to uphold standards. But there are issues around the basic vagueness of some kinds of data and the way certain views become established and accepted simply in an evolutionary way, that ideas compete and by accident some become more prominent, and sure, science's validity is that it is self correcting, however, the big point here is that self correction takes time.
There are cases where we know that self-correction took 50 or 60 years. It is related to human lifespan. So that is the risk. Yeah, we have to act, given the current knowledge, and, you can't magic away the risk that in 50 years the knowledge will be quite different. So sure, you "can't wait", but just be honest and admit that in 50 years, the view can be wrong. So don't stand in the way of self-correction. Stop calling people "denialists".
Calling anyone who voices criticism a "denialist" is a sure way to interfere with science's ability to self correct. Once you go down that route, it stops being science.
Now, does anyone have a link to those charts which show the models continue to run much hotter than the real climate?
Even when an existential threat stares them in the face, they deny it if it is just a few years away and not too immediate. (Just look at all the deniers posting here.) The human race is incapable of dealing with an existential threat that is a few decades away.
That said, maybe Trump will nuke the planet, thereby reducing the problem as nobody will be around to suffer the consequences...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You lie.
This language is designed to be vague so that anyone who "denies" climate change can be prosecuted. This is not private lawsuits; these are prosecutor-initiated government lawsuits. That is a criminal prosecution, since we are talking about corporations and not individuals.
Also of note:
http://www.overlawyered.com/20...
Alternative Right.
Only fools are cowed by a large number of sources when it is clear those have been selected for their agreement with a thesis.
Alternative Right.
...anything you touch will turn to lead.
Ten million criminals, liars, grifters, con men, frauds, and shysters agree on something.
Maybe they like the science, or maybe they are doing what they usually do, which is extract money from the sheep.
Either way, they destroyed their own credibility and that is why people do not trust them.
Alternative Right.
This thread will have lots, and lots, and lots, of flaming going on soon. The slashdot editor who let this through with that summary would have been wiser to post an article discrediting emacs as a useful and relevant editor.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
No one (except the really silly) deny climate change. They are skeptical of the MAN MADE portion of that.
That's because they're stupid. We emit orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanism and nobody questions whether volcanism influences the climate. The other way they are stupid is that it doesn't actually matter if we produce more or less of anything than does nature, only if we produce enough to take the system past some kind of tipping point.
If you want to be taken for anything but a troll, your trolls are going to have to address these points directly, and not just go on a rant about Al Gore. That shit is old.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
na na na na Na na na na na na na
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
When people show their hand so clearly
Nah, way too many vowels.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
My car has "climate" controls; not "weather" controls.
Your car has "Automatic HVAC" which your vendor has chosen to market to you under the name "climate control" — I am in the same situation, but I do not mistake this for having some relevance when discussing climate change.
No, no, the button in my car says it controls the climate: when I set it, the whole planet changes temperature to suit my comfort level. I saw it on TV./
Yes, there are lot of of morons expressing their beliefs on IMDB for some reason.
This was especially funny:
"In reality 66% of scientists have no opinion about AGW"
...In reality 95% of scientists have no opinion about gravity. So?
So, you are saying you can't be an environmentalist or, in your words, you are anti-environment if you are skeptical of various AGW claims?
Maybe the best way to get certain folks on board is to present information with a sense of self-skepticism and talk about the uncertainties rather than having movie starts tell us disaster is upon us and not even acknowledge those uncertainties.
So you are noticing that 0.25 degree increase. Brutal, isn't it?
My biggest argument thus far is that so far I've seen absolutely NOTHING on the policy side which has a reasonable chance at doing anything other than marginally at the edges. The solution to this problem is not going to come from attempting to modify human behavior by carrot and stick. Sure, it can help but it's not going to solve the problem. The solution is going to come from some technical advancement that is cost effective for people to use vs what they already do now.
That is so true, and it occurs on all political sides. Regarding climate change, the "right wing" people currently ignore reality. But I also get see the other side. I'm working in the humanities at a university and you wouldn't believe the kind of shit I have to listen to by (usually) left-wing liberal morons about social constructivism and that there is no objective reality, blablabla. These "theories" are completely beyond good and evil or true and false, and are practically always based on a huge slippery slope argument in combination with a blatant misunderstanding of what makes a good theory. Sometimes the people who defend them are even relatively smart, it's just that the good old audio engineering principle also holds for the choice of literature/information sources: Garbage in, garbage out.
It makes me so sad. :(
And wake me when there are penalties (fines/taxes/etc.) for having "too many" offspring, that is, when we address the ever-increasing hole in our resources bucket. Until then, doing anything else is only delaying the inevitable by a relatively small amount.
Wait! Everybody told me you don't exist! You were just supposed to be some conspiracy by the media!
The problem is real, it is undisputed and aggressive actions are needed now, if not better yesterday.
How can you argue to act now when we do not have answers to these questions:
Because the partial answers we already have are clear enough. Again, we are already seeing enough of the impact that it is evidently going to be back. It doesn't matter if the bad means "half of the world will no longer be able to grow food" or `just' "a sea level will eat a good chunk of all ocean nations.
You do not even know whether trying to prevent climate change is cheaper then just live with it. And realize that any country which drastically limits the use of the cheapest energy (the one which emits most CO) will disadvantage itself compared to the countries which do not care. It will have less money on military a because of that it may find itself to be liberated from its climate saving government. The government will impose drastic policies on it's voters only when voters support it. Otherwise it is just too risky. And good luck, telling people their energy will be 2-3 times more expensive (and housing more expensive because of stronger insulation requirements) when many of the voters have hard time to pay their bills.
Yes, we do know that living with it is significantly more costly. Look at the raising costs for tropical storms and other freak events alone. It is also wrong that burning fossil fuel is cheaper. If you compare a modern black coal plant with state-of-the-art pollution filtering, it is not cheaper wind energy in large parts of the world. There is a reason why wind turbine are growing a lot even in the USA. Arguing that energy prices will grow by a factor of 2 or 3 is just dishonest.
There is a lot of black and white painting in the discussion about climate change. Noone (wanting to be taken serious) says we should drop all fossil fuels today. That's simply not feasible because there are no alternatives. What should be done is starting to deploy the technology we already have on a wide scale. The USA are a prime example of where large scale deployment of renewable energy would be easy. It is a single national body and has low population density in most parts. It would be easy to have wind turbines enough to consistently produce all the necessary energy and a grid that can actually distribute it. It wouldn't even be that costly to deploy something like that. The problem here in Germany is that a lot of people especially in the south follow the classic NIMBY pattern. Building 100kV+ power lines underground is just ridiculous. *That* is a problem when dealing with voters.
The idea that man is soley responsible for climate change is absolutely a fallacious and unscientific idea. You're the only one talking about it.
What's interesting here, is that there's a willful and direct stupidity. I mean, the post infers something ludicrous from something that wasn't said, then attacks that argument. It's a straw man, followed up with an ad hominem.
There's another ad hominem, with a vague and nebulous claim of something which wasn't said.
There's no sense, logic or even evidence of basic reading comprehension behind this anonymous post.
So can I just patiently wait for an affordable electric car an buy one when its ready?
Can I support politicians who support nuclear power? No wait that one's not acceptable.
Theres already more wind power in my county than in yours....
So I'll just go on living my life and waiting for technology to solve this.
I'm fully in agreement there. What I don't like is climate change being used to implement other government controls to run my life.
Tesla and Solar City
Greed is the root of all evil.
or if I wanted always winter I'd go to Canada.
If you want always winter, we don't want you up here. We hate winter. It's why we're so nice - we use up all our hatred on the weather.
Is it about this movie? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04... Couldn't find the review...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Found it http://www.imdb.com/title/tt59...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
It's on page 2 of the reviews. Link > .http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5929776/reviews?start=10
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
... and even if you know there will be a (high velocity) impact, will you still break to reduce damage to whatever is possible or will you start to run idle or continue as you where and hope for the best or do you accelerate because fuck-it.
The majority of people will try to do the first. The people who do the second or first would be considered not fit for out society and will be locked up because they are either murderers (if other people are involved) or mentally unstable or both.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Why don't you loan your magic car to the government so it can be used to geoengineer the planet to a useful and stable climate?
This space intentionally left blank
walked the dinosaur....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83nFiPoSuzU
I've waited 30 years for this to happen.
But civilisation as we know it won't survive. We kind of need that. That's the point. The planet will be fine, we will be screwed.
Yes, and those are entirely reasonable things to do when people come up with "new statistical methods" and demand immediate action. Just look at the mess Li's Gaussian Copulas caused in the financial and mortgage markets. New statistical techniques require many years and many different test cases to validate.
Now, what is this activist crap doing on Slashdot?
>So if you are going to intertwine science and politics like that, in ways that will invariably lead to the needless suffering of many millions of people if you are wrong, what happens if you are wrong?
I keep seeing zealots on the other side shielding coal mines from responsibility for the millions of people they kill every year (it's totally coincidental that the highest rates of respiratory illness in the world always happen in towns with coal mines - and the highest worker death-toll of any energy source in the world is pure happenstance). I keep seeing them complain about Native Americans in North Dakota who don't want a pipeline built over their land.
You want to know what will happen if we're wrong ? Nothing of value will have been lost- there is literally not a single change being advocated that would harm your liberty in any way, all we're proposing is to replace archaic 19th century technology with the best 21st century technologies available. And what if we are wrong and did nothing ? You act like that's a non-effect situation. But we could end the suffering of billions of people around the world with the SAME actions that we need to fight climate change - and you would rather have their suffering persist.
You think you're the one defending liberty ? The Jackbooted Thugs are not shooting at the people wanting to build the pipelines, they are shooting at the people whose land is being ruined to build the pipeline against their wishes. The government overreach isn't acting against fossil fuels -it's defending them. If liberty/politics is a factor then it is, at the very least, a zero-effect change considering the actions of governments FOR fossil fuels are ALREADY as bad as they come, it will only be more of the same in this regard.
But everything else ? Clean air to breath, clean water to drink - those things are hugely beneficial for everybody, even if we were wrong about climate change then so fucking what ? Would you turn down a guaranteed million dollars with a chance at a billion dollars because you may not get the billion ?
Why turn down clean air, clean water, safer vehicles, safer cities, reduced exploitation - because you fear something that is no better under the systems you defend ?
If anything - renewable energy which naturally favours lots and lots of small businesses competing in an open market is a much better deal for consumers than fossil fuels which tend to require massive infrastructure investments that turn them into natural monopolies where no real competition has ever existed.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Then present some new evidence.
Oh there is NO evidence against the theory ? Then until that changes - the science is settled, and that's the meaning of the word in this context.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The first one is the national anthem of Greenland. The language is Kalaallisut, a.k.a Greenlandic.
I can't figure out the second one, though.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The second one is German, with the name of an icelandic singer at the end (with the ümlaut missing, but that's just slashdot.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
What is it about settled physics that you don't like?
The part where we have to spend money. Also, the part where wealthy companies might have to start cleaning up after themselves.
...In reality 95% of scientists have no opinion about gravity. So?
So, obviously gravity doesn't exist.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
>The overwhelming agreement, even to the 95% confidence level, was that temperatures would rise more than they did
False the temperatures are on track with the best models and have shown no significant deviations - ever. Yes I know fox news said otherwise and you read some blog with a graph that said otherwise. They were lying to you - the deniers cherry-pick data to present false images, or when they are really eager, they flat out lie about what the data means.
Much like claiming the medieval warm period was sooo hot and everybody was fine, while carefully not mentioning that it affected such a tiny area that the global average didn't even change. A global average change is a big deal.
>The overwhelming agreement was to delete original but inconvenient data
False, and the people who told you that this is what happened were lying. Three tribunals in a row have investigated the allegations and all three found no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing. But I suppose it's like Benghazi, no matter how many times it is investigated and found that the person being targetted did nothing wrong - there will always be another witchhunt and people will still believe there is guilt. Funny though how nobody wants to prosecute Colin Powel - after all 11 embassies were hit during his tenure and 6 diplomats killed, why is the ONE time one got killed under Hillary so much worse than his 11 ? And so it goes with this claim - it is devoid of any truth, but believed because it supports your personal ideology.
>The overwhelming agreement was to use temperature monitoring stations sited on concrete and asphalt pads, next to heat exchangers, near runways, and so forth, as proxies for temperatures in nearby wilderness and other less-developed areas
Funny though - how when a group of denier scientists set out disprove climate change theory by building a data set with all those shady stations excluded - that set promptly became the GOTO set for the climate scientists and actually proved things were WORSE than previously thought. The so-called BEST set - created to try and disprove the theory, ended up being the strongest data FOR the theory.
When people actively try to disprove a theory, and only end up making it stronger - that's a very good sign in science.
>In short, the point is whether climate science deserves to be called science at all.
In short the point is whether climate denial is deliberate deception or the suckers who fell for the deliberate deception.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>We still have as many glaciers as ever. They didn't melt.
And all the glaciers that ALREADY MELTED ?! ... did you not know that ?
Oh
The Andes is filled with abandoned clusters of cottages... do you know what they were ? Ski-resorts, built in the 1980s, abandoned in the years since because the glaciers don't exist anymore !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Religion - which is, in fact, a major motivator for climate denial.
Like a certain republican congressman who told the world climate science cannot be true because God promised Noah he wouldn't destroy the world again.*
*Which is ironic because you'd think a Bible-thumper would AT LEAST have read the bits they quote - according to Genesis the skydaddy actually did NOT promise that, in fact he promised he WOULD destroy earth again - with fire. If you're going to base your belief system on stone age myths, at LEAST get the myths right.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
"Settled."
As in, "Well, that's settled then."
Actual meaning: all of us believe it, and per our usual begging-the-question fallacy/passive-aggressive attack, we are going to insist you believe it too and call you a bad person if you refuse.
It's a pathology. Leftism, I mean.
You DO realize you're basically doing the exact thing you're complaining about here right?
(1) How bad is it going to be if the current trend continues?
(2) Can the effects be reasonably limited or reversed?
(3) What is the least/cheapest amount of work to keep humanity alive?
You do not even know whether trying to prevent climate change is cheaper then just live with it.
I would say that question is covered by the answering the first three. Before you can address the question of whether it's "cheaper to just live with it", first you need to know "how bad is it going to be if the current trend continues."
And realize that any country which drastically limits the use of the cheapest energy (the one which emits most CO) will disadvantage itself compared to the countries which do not care.
That's an assertion. It is not at all clear if it's true. Burning coal is 18th century technology. Moving on to more efficient 21st century technologies may well be an advantage, not a disadvantage, and being early in adopting technologies that the rest of the world will move to could have significant advantages.
Reducing carbon usage required more technology, not less. In general, developing and improving technologies-- for almost anything-- seems, in the past, to be something that has had benefits.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Why is he letting National Geographic spread these unpatriotic facts?!!!
He should be more like Florida Governor Rick Scott, who banned state employees from using the term "global warming".
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
None of the things you list as things that were predicted but have not happened were predicted to have happened by 2016.
Some of them weren't predicted at all, and some were predicted as things that would happen by 2050, and quite a few were predictions for "by the end of the century."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It's Galileo all over again.
Another one of those folks who fails to realise that refusal to believe anything leaves him with anything other than nothing. Quit reading InfoWars and use your brain.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Mann got the death threats and "suspicious power" after those dicey emails were released. So it wasn't specifically because he was the "hockey stick" guy, but because wingnuts were sure he'd concocted the whole thing based on the emails about fudging the data. And you have to be a wingnut to even threaten to kill someone over this.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
No, I'm only commenting on the counter-culture draw to anti-environmentalism.
I agree, scepticism is important for science. If you deny AGW claims and you're a scientist, you're in a very small minority. That doesn't mean you're not a good scientist. You will be scrutinized more carefully, but that's not a bad thing.
There's decades of more nuanced materials on AGW. These documentaries or docudramas are not scientific papers, and they're not where most geeks get their info.
Yes, and those are entirely reasonable things to do when people come up with "new statistical methods" and demand immediate action.
I'm sorry, but no.
Death threats are never an appropriate response.
If your side thinks that they need to issue death threats to rebut a scientific argument, this is basically evidence that they are not arguing with the science.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
That was supposed to be "suspicious powder". *sigh*
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The problem we have in our modern world is that people believe what they want to believe. For the first time in history, nearly every person has the whole of human knowledge at their fingertips - you can find the answer to any question with 30 seconds of googling/wikipedia-ing.
This video tells "believers" what they already know - and will be completely ignored by those who don't.
"An Inconvenient Truth" set the stage - it may have swayed a few minds - but essentially, everyone who already knew and understood had their deepest fears confirmed - and the people who didn't want to believe simply dismissed it out of hand...possibly never even watched it.
This is everywhere these days. Donald Trump can say any lies he wants - people who support him will believe absolutely anything he says, no matter the evidence to the contrary. The people who were convinced to vote for "Brexit" in the UK were similarly immune to fact when the facts didn't fit their world view.
So what we need as a civilization is NOT more videos like this. What we need is to somehow awaken people's minds to the idea of seeking TRUTH. To think for themselves. To look up the fact - and if they doubt the fact, to follow the little blue numbers on the Wikipedia pages. To think for themselves. To believe what is actually true, and not what they want to be true.
For me - global climate change is very real. What's wrong is that we're trying to fix it by switching to LED lamps, recycling coke cans and driving hybrid SUV's. We need to look for changes that'll work...stop farming cows, for example. We can all, quite easily, give up beef and cow-milk. That alone would have more impact than replacing every incandescent bulb, replacing every car with a Nissan Leaf, and recycling every scrap of recyclable material to perfection. The second thing we need to do is to cut our population to maybe a quarter of what it currently is. This is REALLY hard to do. But that's the thing that'll ultimately do.
So even the promoters of fixing things need to step back from their current recommendations and check the facts. It's actually not that hard to figure out what's required.
www.sjbaker.org
The problem is real, it is undisputed and aggressive actions are needed now, if not better yesterday.
"Well, we don't know what we need to do, but we need to do lots of it! Now hand over your money and your liberties."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"Must be demonstrated in the past" -- without that, Rightists will "not believe" which actually means "not accept the ravings of other human beings as reality."
If you only look to the past, you can never move into the future. You're welcome to at least join us here in the present.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
OK, and how many of "humanity" do we need to keep alive?
We have maybe a billion people a century ago and 7 billion now. Is it any wonder that feeding and housing 6 billion additional people causes changes?
Let's face it, "humanity" on the Earth is a very temporary condition. There are all sorts of long and short cycles and within the span of future recorded history, Manhattan will again be covered in ice as it has many times before.
Ultimately the Sun will claim the Earth no matter what the angst of the moment is related through the media.
Enjoy life now. It ends. It ALWAYS does.
Worst-case, we realize improvements in efficiency and extend our natural resources.
I'm fully in agreement there. What I don't like is climate change being used to implement other government controls to run my life.
You can't have it both ways if you're making a mess of the place now. If you aren't, then you won't have to change anything.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I guess I'm a wingnut, because everything before the real-estate speculators part appear to be actual facts.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
He doesnt need to. His people are doing it for Him. Or against Him - depending on your interpretation of the pig's intestines.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
How many billions of people should shiver in the dark this winter to prevent a few thousand tropical islanders from having to worry about the water? What's the scientific consensus on that?
Let's just say the one side is completely correct. So what? Do you think everyone will say "I want to help -- please let me shiver in the dark every winter and bake in the heat every summer until I die"?
You want to take "agressive action" to "fight climate change". Ok. What if people refuse to be subjected to your aggression and decide to defend themselves and their way of life? What's your plan for that?
What is disputable is the reason for the changes. Is it man-made or cyclical? The planet has seen both global warming and cooling over multiple eons. The cycle will be seen again, with or without man.
We are stewards on this planet to protect the resources we're given. However, it's also important to stop panicking as Leo and Al seem to be. The logical steps I see coming from Elon Musk and other innovators will have an impact on conserving resources.
Just because we're not riding in the same bandwagon, doesn't mean we're living in a "fact-free" zone. There is some degree of uncertainty in all of this.
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
No, mathematics are an art, not a science.
Big difference. Science looks at reality and tries to make predictions about it. Mathematics doesn't give a damn about reality. It just produces logical conclusions based on axioms which may or may not be in any way related to reality. A true mathematician doesn't care.
In fact, there's a professor in mathematics at a Belgian university (I think it's in Gent) who likes to say things like "every now and then somebody calls me up to tell me they've found a practical application for my work. I always feel that's a bit of a pity."
The "ich bin ein Björk" is a German thinking the Greenland national anthem is Icelandic, it is the one between them which no-one has worked out.
Not wanting to do a statistical analysis of this, but this story seems to have attracted a very high proportion of a/c postings. Most of said postings are slanted the same way, rather like stories which involve Russia attract large numbers of postings from the Leningrad Troll House.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Well, actually, worst case is that we pay for it through laying a heavy burden of taxation on the middle class-- as usual-- shrinking it further and stagnating the economy in a 21st-century version of the New Deal.
That's why I stop short of deciding that government is the answer to this problem, because government is usually only the right answer if you need someone killed or thrown in prison.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'd like to emphasis that just about in every 1st world country on the planet the general populace agrees and acknowledges the science that man-made climate change is real and happening. It is only in the US that anti-eco idiots appear in such numbers have such a widespread platform and that they are actually listened to. These crackpots would be laughed out of the room in just about any european country, by any party, left or right.
This all fits snuggly into the type of political debate taking place in the US right now, that has everybody outside the US shake their head in disbelief.
Just wanted to get that out.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Batman!
No one (except the really silly) deny climate change. They are skeptical of the MAN MADE portion of that.
If they were in fact skeptical, that would be fine. But there are far too many people who have one-sided skepticism: they are not merely skeptical but completely unwilling to listen to one side-- the actual science--but completely credulous to claims by people with no actual expertise at all saying that they science is wrong.
In fact, there are good reasons to think that human-produced carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere, has an effect on climate. The current measurements of about 1C increase in average global temperature is well in line with what you'd expect from the basic physics. So far, there really isn't a credible alternate model.
...We emit orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanism and nobody questions whether volcanism influences the climate.
Well, yes... but primarily volcanoes affect climate by emitting volcanic aerosols, which reduce sunlight and cause temporary cooling. It's not due to their carbon dioxide emissions, which are (as you point out) very small compared to human emissions. The aerosols are, actually, an excellent natural experiment that allows us to see the effects of a reduction in solar input.
[snip] ... If you want to be taken for anything but a troll, your trolls are going to have to address these points directly, and not just go on a rant about Al Gore. That shit is old.
I will agree with that! Al Gore isn't a climate scientist, he isn't cited by climate scientists, he isn't even talked about by climate scientists. He's a politician who held the vice presidency, a not-very-important office, two decades ago. Really, if somebody's only contribution to talking about climate is to bring up Al Gore, about all I can think is that they don't know anything and don't have anything substantive to say about the subject.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
He should have done the whole movie flying around in a private jet, as he is wont to do.
To run your car analogy off the cliff...
Science is predicting a traffic jam on the highway, but it's over the horizon, so we can't see how bad it really is yet. We are in our car accelerating at the moment and we are debating whether to let off the gas or hit the brakes. Except the scientists haven't said anything about the fact that we might have converted to a flying car by the time we get to the jam and would be able to fly right over it. There is also the potential that we could get off on a side road and take a slightly longer route that ultimately saves the trip. We could theoretically also just leave the road and drive through the grass to avoid the jam even though it would be very hard on the car and be very uncomfortable.
The people demanding we slam on the brakes don't see anything other than the traffic jam. Those are the kinds of people that end up causing accidents by over braking way early and catching people by surprise.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I see comments like yours and think that you're a pretty informed person. You seem to know a lot about the history of the earth's climate. You also seem to think that if you point out that the climate has changed in the past due to non-man made causes, then that's the proof that will convince climate change supporters to stop being so worried.
Everyone knows what you're saying already, so why are they still worried? Here's what you're missing...
It's not the fact that the climate is changing that people are worried about. It's the fact that it's changing exponentially faster than it ever has in earth's known history. It's this rate of change that's the problem, not the change itself. And in case you haven't heard this already, the problem with it changing so fast is that it outpaces the speed at which adaptation through evolution can occur in all but the short life-spanned bacteria. So, if any plants/animals aren't already able to adapt with their current biology and features (without adapting through evolution), they will go extinct. And since we as humans rely on the environment to live, having a mass extinction of plants and animals is going to be a problem for us.
Where is your evidence that groups of people are more often wrong than not? That's simply a fact-free assertion. It also implies we are unable to achieve things in groups because we're likely to get it wrong, and thus we should only do things as individuals. But most of what we do in the world is too complex for any single individual to do, and while groups can succumb to groupthink, individuals can't get an outsider's perspective to check their thinking.
Science is never settled. It's always open to re-evaluation upon presentation of new evidence.
You don't seem to understand what "settled" means. "Settled" doesn't mean that new evidence is rejected; it means we've reached the point where the burden of proof is clearly on one side of a question.
If you invent a perpetual motion machine, a physicist isn't obliged to consider your position carefully. He just says, "That violates conservation of energy." and he's done. This is useful, and indeed necessary feature of the way science works; otherwise scientists would spend all their time re-litigating well-established results because some crackpot had a brainstorm.
Nonetheless it is possible to mount a credible attack on settled science. Retroviruses turned the whole "central dogma of molecular biology" on its head. Yes, they actually called it that. And there are serious attempts at overturning conservation of momentum using quantum theory. An attack on a well-established theory has to be narrow in its specific claims and impeccably supported. If it succeeds, then the burden of proof is subsequently altered.
We've reached the point where it's unreasonable to demand scientists spend their disproving your beliefs about what is happening to climate and why. It doesn't mean you can't attack the theory of anthropogenic climate change, you just do it from a point where the burden of proof is on you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Maybe the best way to get certain folks on board is to present information with a sense of self-skepticism and talk about the uncertainties rather than having movie starts tell us disaster is upon us and not even acknowledge those uncertainties.
Right there you're showing that you're not familar with the actual science. If you would read, for example, the IPCC Working Group 1 report, there is exhaustive discussion of the uncertainties-- the whole report repeatedly addresses how well do we know what we know, what are the sources of uncertainty, how much uncertainty is there, and what do we need to do to reduce our uncertainty.
If you want "talk about uncertainties", look at the actual science, where uncertainties are laid out in detail, not at the popular media (and certainly not at the blogger commentary.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
He claims he got death threats and received white powder in the mail, therefore his climate models are accurate.
http://leonardodicaprio.org/
What's your contribution?
If you're going to attempt wit, at least spell it correctly. Indisputable, not undisputable, you pillock.
Whining. Just like the people who modded him up. They contribute massive whining whenever anyone asks them to turn off a light or to top using a firehose to water their lawn.
Well it does when a pebble strikes your condensor and leaks POISONOUS REFRIGERANT into the atmosphere.
You realize you can purge any R134A AC system and fill it with propane who no loss in performance or seal integrity??
You realize that R134A is used in asthma inhalers? At least, the good ones? I've got one right here and It hasn't hurt me in the sli
No, but seriously, we don't use propane in automotive AC because it's a fire risk. It's used less and less commonly in general, and only in cases where if there's a leak it's not going to cause a fire.
ASE certified AC tech here
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Like so many other things, people slap a magnet on the back of their minivan to Raise Awareness, and then pretend they've done something. You being all alarmed or convinced or otherwise aware of the problem after seeing the movie, doesn't actually accomplish anything. DO SOMETHING. Plant a tree. Plant a thousand trees. Install solar panels. Change your light bulbs over to LED. Turn down the thermostat. Properly inflate your tires. Get a job closer to home. DO SOMETHING.
I've planted around 10,000 trees, and installed around 10KW of solar panels. The solar panels are on a 4-5 year schedule to pay back the money spent on them, after which it's pure profit. AND, all the CO2 emissions that have been avoided by having them producing energy. I changed jobs to reduce my drive by an hour a day. We even gave tree seedlings to our wedding reception guests. Maybe I don't have a magnet on the back of my car, but, to me, actually doing something about it is more important than "raising awareness".
Solar is a great way to do something, and, have a great investment. Where else can you put your money and get a ~5 year ROI?
That is spot on. And there was no need, incidentally. McKinsey has produced a bunch of cost-curves for various types of actions to reduce carbon intensity. There was plenty in there for conservative politicians to promote, had they so wished.
http://www.mckinsey.com/busine...
Yes, the AC will function. But the system is not designed to contain flammable gas, so there's that...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I've been undermining your efforts by spinning the knob the other way. Hey, I have potential beachfront property here up on the hill.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why wait for an affordable electric car? There are affordable electric cars already. Mine costs me £150 per month, all-in (purchase costs plus electricity plus running costs, which are minimal).
We hardly need "science" to demonstrate any of those three facts.
The whole issue is not "if" but "how big" is the human effect on Climate Change.
It sure would be nice to get that "fact" transmitted to people too ready to label me a Climate Change Denier.
Why on earth would you require that a problem must have been demonstrated in the past before you address it? What if it's a new problem? Or do you not believe it's possible for humanity to face a new problem?
All of our empirical data was gathered *in* a fairly limited location (on or near the Earth), but it was gathered *from* a much larger set of locations. That's kind of the point of a telescope.
"In the realm of politics when you ideologically wreck the lives of a lot of people, justice demands you pay for it." If by "pay" you mean "sit out of office for a term", then sure. I don't recall anyone volunteering for the gallows when we were wrong about WMDs, and near-millions died for it.
...will sue you.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Leo I think wants to increase awareness for the issue to enable people like Elon to actually perform the transition to an emission free economy.
Humans do actually have an influence over earth. Maybe not as individuals, but certainly as species.
CFC has caused a hole in the ozone layer, and measures were taken to abandon OFC for most purposes, and now the ozone hole is getting smaller again: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07...
Also, some clues have been pointing towards a possible cause for a "little ice age" that struck europe during the middle of the last millenium and caused death and starvation amongst europeans to have been man made in some sense: http://phys.org/news/2011-10-t...
Hmmmm. I thought they were both ROT-13.
Can I support politicians who support nuclear power? No wait that one's not acceptable.
/quote>
Sure it is. What's not acceptable is supporting the installation of 30 year old reactors and infinitely extending old shit because NIMBY's think that upgrades are somehow worse than what is existing.
Don't worry, we still have 10 years before this becomes unsolvable.
Dark Reflection
worst case is that we pay for it through laying a heavy burden of taxation on the middle class-- as usual-- shrinking it further and stagnating the economy in a 21st-century version of the New Deal.
Nonsense. No one is asking individuals to pay carbon taxes.
That's why I stop short of deciding that government is the answer to this problem, because government is usually only the right answer if you need someone killed or thrown in prison.
If people won't stop directing corporations to destroy the ecosphere upon which we all depend, they should be killed or thrown in prison.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Seriously? He gave you the author and the topic, and you couldn't take 10 seconds with google?
CORRECTIONS TO THE MANN et. al. (1998) PROXY DATA BASE AND NORTHERN HEMISPHERIC AVERAGE TEMPERATURE SERIES
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Butbutbut! The government scientist conspiracy will put me in jail if I present my data!!!! I'll be killed and lose my job if I release these findings that disprove AGW!!!!!!eleven!1!! That's why you can't trust the "science!" It's a liberal big government globalist conspiracy! That's why they keep reverting my edits to Wikipedia! The ancient Greeks were wrong! Reality is unknowable!
Have you seen any evidence at all to support the "settled science" that wants me to believe in the Ball Earth model? With your own eyes??? Hmm???????
The lizards from between the 3rd and 4th dimensions don't want you to know that the azimuthal equidistant map is the true map of the earth, which is flat! The sun never actually "sets"--it just roves around in a circle with sunset being an optical illusion that happens because of atmospheric haze, just like the sun can't illuminate the depths of the ocean! The Antarctic ice wall proves AGW is a Thubanite hoax!
-- The rest of this sad, sad thread
" What the relevant parts of the scientific community are still haggling about is:"
Those points being the actual meaningful aspects of this controversy, it sounds like an admission that the science is just not yet settled.
"The planet is fine, the people are fucked." - George Carlin
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I live in North Central Texas. I haven't watered my lawn for two years (still pretty green). I recycle. I have my lights on timers so I never forget to turn them off. I adjust the timers as needed. I use low energy bulbs. I use a programmable thermostat and have gotten used to being a little warmer or a little colder as the seasons change. My wife and I both have to work but we own cars that are easier on the gas. I'm not going to list every lifestyle change I've made in support of doing my part. I am a reasonable person when it comes to conservation and being environmentally friendly. I think man does contribute to climate change. I think we can make reasonable changes to how we live and that those changes may negate some of the issues. But I also believe that some of us are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Not all of the suggestions I've read for reducing our footprint are viable right now. Perhaps in the future we can (and should) revisit some of the less doable ideas. But an objection based on practicality or inability doesn't mean a person is an Earth burning ludite,lowIQ,moronic,sciencehatingidiot. That's where I get wrapped around the axle on this subject. When a nuanced opinion is categorized as being from a denier and when the mouthpiece for the message is a hypocrite. This all-or-nothing, burn em all to the ground attitude toward people that don't agree with you 100% is self-defeating.
Charter Member of The Committee Group For The Elimination And Eradication Of Repetitive Redundancy
And this is the specific follow up with Monte Carlo Red Noise simulations giving back Hockey Sticks with Mann's algorithm.
Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance
That one took me looking up the Wikipedia article on "Hockey Stick Controversy". Seriously, learn to use the internets.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Climate change is happening and has always happened since the beginning of time. Parts of the earth that were desert are now seas and vice versa. Ice ages have come and gone and will continue to do so. These cycles of climate change happened before mankind came along and will happen long after mankind is gone but there is no disputing that man is contributing to the current cycle of climate change. Generally, the cycles are so long (in time) that they're not easily recognized, but mankind has accelerated the change through industry and environmental disruption.
It is important, though, to understand _the other side of the equation_. We've been using coal to heat and power our homes, for instance, along with other fuels. If we did not use coal, how many millions of acres of trees would we have to burn to provide the same heat to the same number of homes? There's such a hue and cry about GMOs (and I believe there is GMO abuse, so I'm not defending that) but GMOs allow 1 acre of land to render double or triple the amount of non-GMO crop. Should we then not have GMOs and instead clear three times as much forest to grow crops to feed the growing population of the world? Which would be more catastrophic?
So, my point is, yes, mankind is contributing to climate change, but its happening with or without us and if we didn't do the things we are doing that contribute to climate change, doing something different would also have a negative effect, resulting in changes. If we want to eliminate the negative effects of mankind on our environment, including climate then we must eliminate mankind. If we want to reduce mankind's impact, we must reduce the population of mankind. Its simple arithmetic.
The naysayers, pessimists and alarmists seem to make all the headlines all the time but there are plenty of things happening that are cause for optimism. It's okay to raise the alarm about bad things happening but we need to balance those with acceptance of the good things that are happening all the time lest we wring our hands in dispair and resort to wailing and slashing our wrists. There is plenty of research, history a literature out there for those who are truly interested in the facts rather than being susceptible to only one-sided and incomplete context. If you're willing to be enlightened substantially and not just accept all the bad news as the only news I can recommend so great reading from a famous author, historian and researcher, Matt Ridley. As a starting point, read his book called "The Rational Optimist" - it'll give you a much needed perspective in this deluge of pessimism we're all subject to.
Does Google not work in your country? I can't be bothered to copy and paste the results for you here, but just do a search for your own phrase "criminal prosecution of climate change deniers" (without the quotes). I am pretty sure you will find more than one.
Oh, ok... here is one to get you started: http://www.washingtontimes.com...
The problem is real, it is undisputed and aggressive actions are needed now, if not better yesterday.
That kind of depends on the answer to question #1, wouldn't you say?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The science says that doubling the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere results in 3.7 W/m^2 of additional atmospheric forcing. This is generally held to equate to a 1 degree difference in global temperature. Water vapor is known to be an excellent greenhouse gas, and warmer air can hold an exponentially larger amount of water. There are vast reservoirs of liquid water on this planet. The feedback cycle is complicated but strongly positive. There are a number of other obvious feedbacks connected with melting ice.
You can talk about models and trust all day. People argued about Einstein too. His theories were even more controversial and less well-supported. You don't need rhetoric, you need facts. We've been looking for facts that would disprove AGW for about a century, and we haven't found them because they don't exist. Disputing global warming is very much like disputing gravity; you're inherently proposing wholesale violation of known physical laws.
Now, there is some room to argue about severity, but not much. Arrhenius calculated about a six degree increase per doubling of CO2, and a significant part of work of the last hundred years has been improving on that estimate. We know that the sensitivity cannot be less than 1 degree, and there are a bunch of really obvious reasons why H2O would magnify the effect. So now we've blown past 400ppm and show no signs of stopping. We don't need a model to figure out what's going to happen here. The model is to figure out how quickly this is going to happen. We're already seeing lots of melting glaciers. I grew up in Alaska, and even in the span of my life the change has been dramatic. When you're standing on the spot where several cubic miles of ice has been for the last few millennia, and that ice has completely vanished to the point where the glacier is no longer even visible, and that change happened in ten years, it becomes very hard to dispute that the world is changing dramatically. The entire state of Alaska is melting, particularly on the tidewater and low alpine glaciers which are more accessible and noticeable. The same thing is happening with damn near every glaciated area in the world.
It is not enough to suggest the models are inaccurate. You are in need of some fact which shows they are wrong. Then you can start trying to reconcile the observed warming with your theory. Alternately you could examine the published research to find out whether improvements could be made to the models. You know, like all the rest of those climate scientists. Your trust issues are the result of your choices. You have chosen to elevate your own doubt over empirical fact. So now you have put yourself in the position of picking and choosing what parts of the world to believe in. Personally I try not to get into arguments with reality, but if you do then being labeled a "denier" is probably the least of your problems.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
You must be driving down the Antelope Freeway...
It's an extraordinary comment on the state of the US polity that it is not possible for me to be sure I share your views as to which would be the obviously wrong choice next Tuesday. It's obvious to me which is the wrong choice, it's no doubt obvious to you, but there's no guarantee we'd both agree.
stop a phenomenon that HAPPENS ALL THROUGHOUT TIME.
Oblig XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1732/
Does Google not work in your country? I can't be bothered to copy and paste the results for you here, but just do a search for your own phrase "criminal prosecution of climate change deniers" (without the quotes). I am pretty sure you will find more than one.
Tried that. Got a bunch of links to Breitbart and the Washington Times. Which is sort of its own fact-check, in a sad way.
Oh, please. Show me one person who has called for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers.
If you say "No one says X, that's crazy;" it's almost certain you will find someone crazy enough to say X.
Lest you think it's just idiots, here's a quote from a top climate scientist:
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
He's mentioned in the credits: Alexei Berteig. He does lots of commercial, documentary, and now entertainment video work. He recently moved to Vancouver from Beijing. You can check his stuff out at Fashioner Films.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Ich kann Deutsch ziehmlich gut lesen, danke. Und das ist jedenfalls nicht die richtige Artikel.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
What is it about settled physics that you don't like?
Totally off-topic, but the lack of FTL travel and also the lack of flying cars are quite annoying. The lack of anti-gravity is frustrating. The fact that physics says we will probably never get those is what hurts the most.
Oh, and entropy. Fuck entropy, man.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Wow, I'm brain--dead this morning. When I said "lack of flying cars" I meant to type "lack of time travel." I don't care about flying cars but I at least want to see the past and future.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A cap and trade energy market? That's rationing by another name.
Perhaps an example would help.
Suppose you write a scientific paper which states, offhand, that T-Rex was a cold-blooded theropod dinosaur of the late Cretaceous period, about 70 million years ago. Since the thermoregulation of dinosaurs is currently still an open question, you have to support any definite an unqualified claim of cold-bloodlessness with evidence. However you don't have a burden of proof on the taxonomic classification or geological period because those questions are currently settled and everyone knows the evidence supporting those conclusions.
Now suppose I write a paper that says T-Rex was a warm-blooded theropod dinosaur which went extinct 4000 years ago because it wouldn't fit on Noah's ark. I could actually do that. I wouldn't have to justify saying T-Rex was a theropod dinosaur, but if I wanted people to take me seriously (i.e., publish me in an actual scientific journal), I'd have to supply proof for every other claim in that sentence. I'd have a burden of proof to show that dinosaurs are warm-blooded (because that's an open question), that they lived 4000 years ago (because that contradicts settled science) and that the Noah's ark story is factually true (because that contradicts settled science).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And this is where the hyperbole comes in. There are zero climate change models that predict a Venus like Earth, nor one where "we all die", or "destroy most of the surface of the planet". The problem is that too many of the solutions that are being proposed are poo pooed by eco warriors for reasons of ideological purity. Mass conversion of coal to natural gas, nope. Investment in nuclear power, nope, crash program to develop fusion, nope. Rather we're playing around with credits and caps that in large part transfer wealth from the poor to the rich while having minimal effect on CO2 emissons
Can the effects be reasonably limited or reversed?
Not well understood at all. Estimates are that Kyoto and the Paris Accords fully implemented will have pretty minimal impact on climate (if all the models are perfect, which they are not). An investment of $13.5 trillion, plus pressures to raise the cost of carbon energy, preventing 3rd world countries from growth that involves any carbon-based energy, are all pretty aggressive measures.
it is undisputed and aggressive actions are needed now
That doesn't follow.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Your logical fallacy is: Genetic
"You judged something as either good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it came. This fallacy avoids the argument by shifting focus onto something's or someone's origins. It's similar to an ad hominem fallacy in that it leverages existing negative perceptions to make someone's argument look bad, without actually presenting a case for why the argument itself lacks merit."
I found more evidence of the conspiracy! Black people burned their own church in a FALSE FLAG operation and painted Trump graffiti!
Obviously a REAL right-winger would NEVER do that, so it had to be those left-wing naggers!
Trump 2016!
Where is your evidence that groups of people are more often wrong than not?.
It logically follows from knowing that for thousands of years, one idea after another about the universe was discarded as new ideas came around. The modern set of "scientific knowledge" is simply the latest round of new ideas, and it is constantly changing in small ways here and there.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
The real fun part is that I have my own idea of who is a wrong choice, and I probably disagree with both of you, whether you two agree with each other or not.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Today's consensus is usually tomorrow's laughingstock.
There is also the tendency that, in groups, people react with herd behavior (panic or mania).
Alternative Right.
changes. If I wanted always summer I'd go to the Venezula, or if I wanted always winter I'd go to Canada. I like - I WANT - the climate to change! If God had wanted it any other way it would not happen!
Just be sure to bring your own toilet paper, that worker's paradise is out of just about everything related to civilized living.
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Those refrigerants are completely inert at normal conditions. Hell we really don't know if there effect on the ozone hole is even real for sure.
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What I don't like is climate change being used to implement other government controls to run my life.
What a strange way of looking at it.
The regulations are limiting the damage you are allowed to do. If there were no limits, you could pollute as much as you like, waste valuable resources all day long and generally make your corner of the world quite unpleasant. Of course, other people would do the same and you would suffer as well.
So what you are really arguing is that you disagree with the amount of damage to the environment and harm to other people you are allowed to do.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Actually, there appears to be an economical alternative. Natural gas can be "cracked" into hydrogen gas and carbon black by bubbling it through a column of molten tin. The carbon accumulates as a removable layer on top of the tin, and pure hydrogen comes off the top of the column. Switching to a hydrogen economy would be difficult, but it certainly is doable. Disposing of the carbon black is a problem, but is minor compared to the continued emission of CO2. Might be able to pelletize the carbon and dump it into a deep ocean trench ( I can imagine the screech coming from the environmentalist at such a suggestion! Deafening! ) Going this route would provide a solution to CO2-induced global warming, but I really doubt that government has the will or competence to do it. https://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfue... http://newatlas.com/hydrogen-p...
Look at the raising costs for tropical storms and other freak events alone.
I still have not seen any convincing evidence that climate change is making tropical storms worse or more frequent, or causing any additional "freak events". "Because Bill Nye said so" is not convincing evidence. The "rising costs" of damage is completely explained by the rising cost of development in areas affected by tropical storms.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I would add realclimate.com and Wattsupwiththat.com to the list.
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So if you are going to intertwine science and politics like that, in ways that will invariably lead to the needless suffering of many millions of people if you are wrong, what happens if you are wrong? You don't get to just walk away and say "sorry about the shit we did to you, science corrected itself. Don't you Fucking Love Science?" In the realm of politics when you ideologically wreck the lives of a lot of people, justice demands you pay for it. So, are you ready to say the science is settled, we trust it, let's act on it and if scientists firmly disprove it we're ready to face whatever consequences the political system demands of us?
How is it possible you're NOT applying this to the fossil fuels side? Dumping excess carbon into the air IS A FUCKING INSANE SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. Not even a hypothesis driven one.
It's looking like every one who was involved in making those decisions isn't going to walk away and say "sorry," they're just going to be dead of old age long before our children have to deal with the worst effects.
So, are you ready to say the science is settled, we trust it, let's act on it and if scientists firmly disprove it we're ready to face whatever consequences the political system demands of us?
Okay, we should cryopreserve the Koch brothers, the GOP, every climate change denier. If climate change never happens, we'll thaw them out in 2100 and let them continue living. If climate change does occur, we'll thaw them and put them in to hard labor in the sahara desert for the remainder of their lives. I'm 100% okay with that.
https://memegenerator.net/inst...
Behavior modification is necessary
... for everyone that is not a member of the globalist elite club, who will be enforcing the desired behavior of the serfs.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Show me one person who...
Always a dangerous question to ask. The internet is very large and you're likely to find someonem, somewhere who holds an opinion, no matter how stupid. I have heard this a lot from people bashing liberals recently. Find one idiot who said something stupid then say "liberals say...". Naturally the fact that one can also find rare nutcases who generally identify with their cause that say stupid things doesn't seem to prevent that line of argument.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"You judged something as either good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it came.
I'm not sure that is a logical fallacy. Breitbart has very little credibility. I've encountered tried fact checking a few articles in the past and every time they seem to boil down to unsourced facts or experts who appear to have little expertise. Sometimes you get blog posts with no backing too.
Once you've debunked the first 5 Breitbart articles and not had a single one which comes up as vaguely sound, one can entirely reasonably conclude that the source is unsound and so anything pointing to Breitbart as a source has no credibility.
That doesn't of course prove the claim it false, it just means the claim has no veracity, much as if there was no corroborating source.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If that's true than Mann vs Steyn trial of the century should be a slam dunk, instead Mann is trying to weasel out of discovery, and is dragging it out as long as humanly possible.
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The current trend is no statisically significant warming for about 18 years,
No, it's not. You're quoting denier talking points from several years ago. The purported "pause"-- which never reached the level of statistical significance-- went back to a rising trend years ago. http://blogs.discovermagazine.... Get some up-to-date talking points, why not?
and considering how few sunspots there have been lately, it's likely to cool down a bit as well.
Considering that meteorologists and climate scientists have been looking for a link between sunspots and temperature for over a hundred years now, and have still failed to find any link, this is a speculation that doesn't seem to have any evidence. The latest solar cycle (24) was lower than the previous one... but the temperature rise during this cycle was more than during the previous one. So, if anything, the most recent solar cycles show the opposite from what you suggest.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You do know that Al Gore and DiCaprio aren't scientists, right?
Neither is Bill Nye.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Genau.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It would be OK if we were just arguing about different solutions to AGW, which is what you're doing. The biggest problem though, is the denialists argue that we don't have a problem. Actually, they'll take any stance as long at the outcome is - do nothing. You sound like a perfectly rational person, which seem to be in short supply.
But civilisation as we know it won't survive.
That's a foregone conclusion, whether the most dire predictions of AGW come true or not. Civilization as we know it today will not exist. Fossil fuel is a finite resource, so eventually we won't have gas stations, ICI cars, cheap crap shipping from China on giant diesel ships and trucked to your local Walmart in diesel trucks. People won't be flying coast to coast. DiCaprio (or his progenitors) won't be jetting around the world on concern tours.
There's no technology now or on the horizon to replace any of those things.
The path we're on now - slow climate change by ending the use of fossil fuels - leaves us with a rather bleak future where most of the world population is subservient to a wealth cadre of global elites, preserving the dense energy-rich resources for use by themselves alone. The only realistic hopeful vision of the future for humanity is creating and growing a vibrant commercial space program. The resources in our solar system are vast and rich. But I fear we will never be able to exploit them due to the selfishness of a few.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Ever since they switched from CFCs to HFA (c. 2008), I've had to stop using inhalers. I find that the new(ish) propellant is just as likely to make mild symptoms worse, so I only take it if I'm having a real hard time (triggered normally by allergies). The good news is that ever since I stopped working near refineries, my symptoms are fairly well controlled. Oddly, my son doesn't have any issues with his inhaler. Maybe because his body never knew the old propellant?? Who knows.
The car analogy is running full speed into a traffic jam. When do you start to brace -- at the latest point feasible or by reducing your speed to a decent level first?
That explains a lot about why people don't want to anything about climate change. Around here, you ride the gas until the last possible second. I can't count the number of times somebody has zipped ahead of me just to have to slam on their brakes as we both approach the traffic jam. And god forbid you ever let more than 3/4 car-length get between you and the guy ahead of you! Maybe your analogy works better than you intended.
It will eventually. Try building something out of steel on Venus!
Starvation because large areas no longer can be farmed. Lack of water. Wars when people who lack these resources invade those who have. Vast areas with dense populations being put below the ocean level.
We are straining the capacity of the earth with the numbers as is, if we get worse conditions, we will probably not be able to compensate enough keep things going. We might, but that's an awful lot to have depending on a gamble.
But if we return to the original argument, PvtVoid denied that even one person "has called for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers".
My counterargument was that a Google search does in fact show a large number of reports of people calling for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers. I don't think the fact that one of these many links leads to Breitbart -- which you regard as an unreliable source -- negates my argument.
In fact, let's throw caution to the wind and click on that odious Breitbart link right now: http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...
The article claims that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse made the following statement during a Senate Judiciary Hearing:
First, you might argue that the esteemed Senator did not actually speak these words. I confess that I do not have time to examine the Congressional Record to see if these words were really spoken. But I do trust Breitbart enough to believe they did not just make this up. Feel free to dispute this if you wish.
Second, you might argue that this statement is not really calling "for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers". The way I read it, the Senator equates "the climate denial apparatus" of the fossil fuel industry with tobacco industry fraud. He then states that the Department of Justice won a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) action against the tobacco industry. He then complains, with obvious dissatisfaction, that "the Department of Justice has done nothing so far about the climate denial scheme."
I don't know how you parse this, but it sounds very much to me as if Senator Whitehouse is calling "for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers". I submit that this is sufficient evidence to disprove PvtVoid's claim that not one person has called for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers.
Canadians are known for being polite, not nice. There's a difference. Personally, I think it's because if you weren't polite, you'd all kill each other before the first thaw of spring.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
This is incorrect by your use of "in the blip of man's existence". Even your "credible" scientists agree it is the hottest humans or human-like ancestors have ever experienced, by some way; this is going back tens of thousands of years.
False. Study, study, study.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The problem with deniers is that all they need is one source for them to declare hundreds of other sources wrong. Go to the bottom of the Wikipedia article and look at the sources cited there. If that's not good enough, there are literally thousands of reputable sources to choose from. Well over 95% of which support the general conclusion that man-made global warming is real, and is really dangerous. Besides, just throwing up your hands and saying somebody else's sources are shitty doesn't make your argument for you. Where are your sources, and what yardstick do you measure shittiness by?
https://xkcd.com/1732/
But how do you kill a corporation or throw it in prison? Maybe we should ask Mitt Romney...
While I don't disagree, physics? What does that have to do with anything? I guess at a certain level one could argue that everything is physics, but climatology isn't something I would first associate with the term.
Bah! Deigenic global raining/"precipitation change" is just a hoax! Precipitation has always changed! *throws a snowball at you!* What a bunch of politically correct new age lib...! Oh shi--! glub... glub...
You're validating his argument. The academic echo chamber hasn't let anything contrary through, therefore it must a conspiracy.
Though, there's a decent argument. There are bad publications in every field ... except climatology.
I submit that this is sufficient evidence to disprove PvtVoid's claim that not one person has called for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers.
OK, sure. I was more concentrating on the idea that it's reasonable to dismiss Breitbart out of hand as having no credibility. The trouble is that "not one person said..." is the internet is very large and in so many cases you can fine some nutter somewhere.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Then present some new evidence.
Oh there is NO evidence against the theory ? Then until that changes - the science is settled, and that's the meaning of the word in this context.
The "new evidence" is not "new". It's "old". There are thousands of videos, television shows, documentaries, heck go out in your back yard or to the nearest area of the most exposed rock and hack into it a bit. The evidence of global warming and cooling is already there. It happened long before Humans existed. It occured as Humans came into the picture. There are blips upward and downward based on things like meteor impacts and volcanic eruptions, but they are difficult to present as part of the big picture because the rock record doesn't collect natural data from a 100 year time frame and leave it at the same proportional thickness and "straightness", if you will. The more time passes, the more the rocks compress and the blips (like the World War 2, 4 year climate change period) become less visible. You can see it now, but 10,000 years from now, you're pushing it. Add another 0 to the end of that number and it's almost undetectable but it IS still detectable. Expensive equipment has to be used to analyze it and no one wants to pay for that because there's no net gain from a final statement of "things are progressing normally".
People with money only put it in to something they get a return from, unless they are attempting to educate the world. Now, think about it, who will be taken seriously? The oil companies funneling funds into information that is alarming where they have an interest in the "new products" that will be designed to overcome it, or the scientist with a Masters and Ph.D who says "the average processes found to occur since 3,000,000,000 years ago and today are leading to a conclusion that there is nothing going on to be alarmed about. Who is going to pay that scientist? If there isn't money, there isn't data to counterbalance data from other sources that are paid for and even encouraged. The common statement of the person who has memorized phrases and numbers (God, "Show me the peer-reviewed data" is the least realistic and educated I have read yet) as a final point in a sentence to think through everything again is absurd. Peer-reviewed data is EXCELLENT and should always be a factor. When you have money being funneled in to a biased idea with the outcome expected to support the hypothesis, and money being funneled in to another entity with the same hypothesis, ummm... Gee.. I wonder if the data will show as "scientifically absolutely true"...? Of course it will. There's money on the line and every Human being is concerned about themselves first, sometimes their offspring next, and the rest is a haze. You only have one side fighting a point with loads of money as encouragement. The other side looks at the data with all they have and shows that there's a trend of compression in ice and rock data over time, so logically, of course, you see more "change" and more of a delta from now to a short period backward. You see huge events from the past in compressed matter, but not the tiny ones. By tiny, I mean less than a century.
It's not "settled". It's "incomplete". The ones who say it's "settled" are akin to a parent saying, "...because I said so."
Mathematics is not an art. It's a way of proving truth and actualities. The solving of problems might take on an "art form" or people that solve at high levels might be considered "an artist" in mathematics, but that doesn't make it art. Mathematics can prove or disprove the science. You seem to be confusing "pure mathematics" with actual mathematics. Big difference.
.02C then later said the tolerance for correctness of that claim was ± .1C. That means that there is absolutely no chance that the number they claimed is accurate. That's mathematics and there is no evolving model of it that would change to make that number being any where close to being correct. So when someone shouts that from the mountain top and then ignores the questioning of how their math doesn't add up, I am going to believe that person is full of shit, mathematically speaking.
That's why I believe the group that pushes AGW ignores math because it disproves many of their claims. In 2014, I believe, Nasa and Noaa claimed it was the warmest year ever by
Jagadish Shukla and about 19 others; and of course there is always AGs United for Clean Power a coalition consists of 15 state attorneys general (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington State), as well as the attorneys general of the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.
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He is marked a troll because he pointed out the known creditably issues of wikipedia? Yeah, do a college paper and use wikipedia as your sources. See how far that gets you................
Ever hear "the boy that cried wolf" analogy? If you keep claiming something and it doesn't happen time and again, people tend to think you are full of shit or an asshole. Maybe both.........
No one (except the really silly) deny climate change.
I wish that were true, but it is not. I know several very smart people, who have bought Mr. Trump's assertions that climate change is a Chinese hoax. Of course before that, they were blaming it on the "liberal media" or the "left-wing academics." My question was always, "why would anybody be making this up?" The answers were all over the map, but they were all equally insane. These are normally the guys that say "follow the money." The problem for them is that when you follow the money on climate science, the picture is pretty clear. There is not a big industry supporting global warming research, and the denier crowd is funded almost exclusively by multi-national oil companies.
In your case you say society is being "robbed of its liberty." Who is robbing us? To what end? Who could possibly benefit from this really bad news? Does somebody benefit if I turn my thermostat up a couple of degrees or drive a little more conservatively? What is more likely, is that my grandchildren are being robbed of their future, by some billionaire businessmen in Houston, The Haugue, and Dhahran.
Look again at those historical "spikes." They are more like bulges. What we are facing now is a precipice. You are right that humanity is a blip on geologic timescales. That should make this more alarming, not less.
But how do you kill a corporation or throw it in prison? Maybe we should ask Mitt Romney...
Do it to the executives instead. And if it keeps up its bad behavior, do it some more.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So what predictions have they made that have actually come true that can be directly link to AGW? All the ones from years ago said either we'd all be under water or it would be so hot outside no one would be able to go outside. That we'd not be able to grow farming crops, that we'd have no water to drink. So at what point do you keep pouring money in to a cause that doesn't have a good track record of getting things right? A whole lot could have been done to make this a better planet with the trillions of dollars that have been given to research and "combat" AGW yet every month it's more and more dire, with Henny Penny like "the sky is falling" refrain. If the money that we have spent already hasn't helped and these same people are asking for more, at what point do you want to be rational about it? It's to the level of televangelism with their "we are in dire need of donations to feed the starving people of "X" country."
Science is never settled. It's always open to re-evaluation upon presentation of new evidence.
You don't seem to understand what "settled" means. "Settled" doesn't mean that new evidence is rejected; it means we've reached the point where the burden of proof is clearly on one side of a question.
If you invent a perpetual motion machine, a physicist isn't obliged to consider your position carefully. He just says, "That violates conservation of energy." and he's done. This is useful, and indeed necessary feature of the way science works; otherwise scientists would spend all their time re-litigating well-established results because some crackpot had a brainstorm.
Nonetheless it is possible to mount a credible attack on settled science. Retroviruses turned the whole "central dogma of molecular biology" on its head. Yes, they actually called it that. And there are serious attempts at overturning conservation of momentum using quantum theory. An attack on a well-established theory has to be narrow in its specific claims and impeccably supported. If it succeeds, then the burden of proof is subsequently altered.
We've reached the point where it's unreasonable to demand scientists spend their disproving your beliefs about what is happening to climate and why. It doesn't mean you can't attack the theory of anthropogenic climate change, you just do it from a point where the burden of proof is on you.
The burden of proof is on those who aren't funded, because there's nothing to be gained from the outcome if the answer isn't "yes, it's happening and it's accelerating." You're biased, so there's no reason to even talk to you about re-analysis. If you were proven wrong, you would fight tooth and nail until you had no option but to say, "But I'm still right" and fade into the background, so as not to be noticed admitting defeat. I'm NOT saying you would be. I'm saying that's how you fight an argument - like every other Human. There's nothing bad in that; the only bad that comes from it is biased output. Collective biased output combined with uneducated reading of "proof" only grows the biased culture, if you will. The only thing that can happen to prove you wrong is impossible. We're in a warming trend (actually overdue, given the rock and ice records). If it warms because of Humans, you're right. If it warms without Human impact, you're right. Either way, you're right. Reality is a bit different than a biased opinion that leaves you with a feeling of superiority and "everyone agrees with me". That's embellished far too much - everyone and superiority are black-and-white feelings and positions. The reality is that you're like other Humans - you have many biases, but the ones that are relevant in my point in this comment are anchoring bias, confirmation bias, attentional bias, the "cheerleader effect", you definitely have the "bias blind spot", clustering illusion bias, continued influence effect, conservatism effect (you're male; that's almost forced; hell, I have that one but I make efforts to overcome it to remain scientific), expectation bias.... Ok I'm going to stop there. I'm sick of wasting my time because you're not even reading.
This is all overshadowed by hyperbolic discounting. Good luck getting rid of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Interesting take. I hadn't thought about this. Are the generational shifts in environmentalism in alignment with the traditional boomer/genX/millennials? If you've done actual research on this, I would be interested to read it.
I like your counter culture idea. When you think about it that way it answers a lot of questions about why this election seems so screwball. Look at organized labor and trade deals. You've got organized labor being portrayed as something to be rebelled against. Trade deals with bipartisan support are being attacked. Gay rights, abortion, immigrants, etc. These used to be the counter-culture. Ironically, they are probably still the underdog (at least in Texas), but they are being treated as a Goliath in need of a David (or Donald).
I guess the problem is, how does something go from being counter-culture to just plain culture. Nobody really thinks anymore that we shouldn't let women vote. How did that happen? It started out as a counter-culture movement, derided by many. Even some women were not for suffrage. Then it became the law. Were there a bunch of men who protested that the right for women to vote should be revoked? Were there poll taxes and tests like there were during the civil rights movement? There's got to be a way to get over the hump without waiting 50 years. We simply may not have the luxury of time.
No matter what languages, there was just way too much phlegm in that post.
The "political science" is not settled though. Relevant parts of concern to political scientists are, "how can I continue to to receive campaign donations from major greenhouse gas producers?"
Actually, that sums up the Global Warming deniers' newest scam. It's becoming impossible for any rational person to deny it's happening, so they're changing their prattle to, "It's already gone too far to do anything about it. We might just as well keep on the way we are and trust science to find a way to fix things when the excrement really hits the fan."
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
If you use a chalkboard then it's mathematics. If you do experiments then it's science. If you actually make something happen then it's engineering.
My some of my (older) family members are climate change skeptics. The most effective analogy I use is this. "Aunt Stacy, every week you fill up your truck with about 140lbs of gasoline. Then at the end of the week it's magically all gone, and you need to fill up again. What do you think happens to that 140lbs? Of course it goes into the air, all 140 lbs of it. And we know that stuff is bad news, because you don't want to be locked in the garage with the car running either" Now I know I'm conflating CO and CO2, leaving out the finer details of the combustion chemical reaction, but it makes the point to a 70 year old, that as an individual you are polluting the atmosphere. Trying to pollute less is better and more responsible.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2...
"Climate One program at the Commonwealth Club of California, recorded Oct. 21, 2016. Greg Dalton, moderator." 7:58+
"Truthfully...white people are the problem"
I'm curious in what context such a statement (applying any other ethnicity, or special interest group) could be uttered without the speaker immediately (& rightly) being castigated and socially outcast?
Let's see:
"Truthfully...black people are the problem"
"Truthfully...gays are the problem"
"Truthfully...jews are the problem"
And one wonders how the "Climate Change" message doesn't seem to resonate with the majority of Americans?
Perhaps patronizing racism *isn't* the kind of thing with which one builds consensus?
-Styopa
What is it about settled physics that you don't like?
it's not science, it computers making thousands of calculations on noisy and incomplete data to develop a snapshot of what might happen in 30 minutes on grids 100Km square and 30 layers high and introducing round off error with each calculation, then repeating that 1,753,152 times to get a guess of what might happen in a century and pretending the results are not spirally off into chaos.
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>Now I know I'm conflating CO and CO2,
You were better to "conflate" the two because of current emissions controls. The point of a catalytic converter is to make CO into CO2.
Unless your Aunt Stacy is running an antique from before the first gas crisis.
--
BMO
Rather we're playing around with credits and caps that in large part transfer wealth from the poor to the rich while having minimal effect on CO2 emissons
[Mr. Burns, 'steepling' his fingers] "Excellent!"
That's a huge 'tell' for me right there, that the solution being pushed is simply a wealth-transfer system that has no actual effect on CO2 (like new 'scrubber' tech, alt. energy sources, etc).
That tells me that the 'problem' is that there's money out there that they've just gotten around to figuring out how to steal with "OMGClimateChangeWe'reAllGonnaDieGiveUsAllYourMoneyQuick&STFUYouHeretic!!"
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It doesn't follow logically at all. The sum total of all that we can be right and wrong about is not the same as the sum total of all our scientific knowledge. The latter is a subset of the former. And as you've just demonstrated, a single person's ideas can be completely wrong without other people to help them course-correct.
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You are seeming to suggest that the fact that we are not really sure yet how to present the case to the jury means that there was no case to begin with.
We still have as many glaciers as ever. They didn't melt.
I actually live surrounded by glaciers, and I know for sure: This is simply wrong. The glaciers shrink. And the lower border of the glaciers went up the mountains. All the skiing infrastructure from the 1930ies and the 1960ies is now lower than the glaciers, and new infrastructure has been built in the last decades in higher regions.
Reducing sulphur oxide emissions actually produced a measurable increase in rain pH.
"Chloroflorcarbons were controlled to address the ozone layer", the holes are still there, and the holes were detected the first time we had the ability to detect them, so its hard to say if they are natural or anthropogenic, and the CFC's role is still conjecture.
The Great Lakes/algae thing was actually a ban on phosphates not sulphates. I'm not sure how applicable it is any more anyway, the Zebra mussels that invaded from Europe have pretty much made diatomic algae in the Great Lakes a thing of the past.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
That is, a low carbon, breathable air, greener world is a better world anyway, so we are right to start down this road, with or without AGW.
Billions of poor people would disagree with your breezy dismissal of their problems. Poverty is the obvious rebuttal to the unfounded assertion a greener world is a better world. Poor people are higher fertility than rich people and they care far less about the environment than about getting their next meal.
While the claim that a greener environment means less poor people has been sold hard, it remains in the real world that attempts to mitigate CO2 emissions result in the sort of stuff, like Denmark and Germany almost doubling the cost of their electricity, that makes more poor people rather than less.
Sea levels *are* rising - And have been since the ice age. Greenland ice is melting - This was named Greenland for a reason glaciers are melting - Thank god. Otherwise we would have never been born. Your timescale is just too narrow.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
So was it the Koch Brothers or BP that paid you to do that?
Most of us paid climate denialist shills are still waiting for that first check, those fuckers promised us the check was in the mail.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Nobody watched it on television. Even "Bubble Guppies" beat it in the ratings. People just don't want to be preached to by a self-righteous hypocrite.
You sure as hell can have it one way over the other.
In all honesty I see it this way.
Chance of saving us from Climate Change:
The Market/Green Industry/Innovation: 80 %
Government Regulation: 20%
I know someone who is working on a new reactor design.
The HARDEST part is getting past all the government red tape.....
Government could make innovation in Nuclear power much much easier.....
As far as that goes we should DEMAND that they make it easier to do.
it is undisputed and aggressive actions are needed now, if not better yesterday.
You had me to this point. Evidence please. Not 300 references that would have happened anyway.
Notice how unscientific the pro-urgent action arguments get in this discussion. It's all fallacy, arguing from authority, consensus, and obfuscation, or ad hominem. If the science on climate change was that clear, we could just argue from the evidence. But who understands it? It's all just a black box that is merely accepted to be true.
My view is that there are several huge warning flag here: poor climate data before about 1850 coupled with firm certainty about what happened; opaque research data and models; the strategy of urgent mitigation is sold hard, but adaptation is downplayed; research on demand combined with errors of research, presentation, or prediction that always favor the more extreme story; and a huge conflict of interest.
The car analogy is running full speed into a traffic jam. When do you start to brace -- at the latest point feasible or by reducing your speed to a decent level first?
We're a few billion people too late for a sudden stop here. Adaptation is on the table no matter what happens. And I guess I still need to point out that non-greenhouse gas pollution remains a more serious problem? We can fix all that with wealthier societies, but it requires people to have priorities over urgent climate change mitigation.
I arguing that Government solutions very often do not produce the expected results. In fact they sometimes product OPPOSITE results.
I wonder where you could find evidence of that.....
Mann, subject line "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL": "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer review literature is!"
A lot of cronyism was going on with the hockey team back in the day, if you weren't one of the "good ol' boys" you didn't get published, not getting published meant you weren't considered an expert and wasn't included in 98 people included in the study.
"When one looks at the published climatology papers, that 97% paper is quite low. It is more like 100%. See The Scientific Consenses on Climate Change, Oreskes in Science, December, 2004."
Oreskes is a Historian, no more qualified to publish a scientific paper than a High School teacher.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
You compare timespans of hundreds of thousands of years with timespans of a hundred years. That's where the problem lies.
Did you just call the Senator from Rhode Island a nutter?
The very nature of climate and the history of this planet is not enough evidence to prove that climate changes, sometimes DRASTICALLY without humans even existing?
OK, I'll handle just one of your points; the rest I'll leave to you to work out for yourself.
Yes, climate scientists have known about the solar cycles you speak about -- the Milankovitch cycles -- and have known about them since the 1920s. This in fact was the basis for the 1950s consensus that the Earth was heading in a cooling phase. The changes were are experiencing are going in the opposite direction than what the orbital factors that drive ice ages would predict. As for other changes in solar output -- those are measurable with instruments, particularly orbital instruments, which we have had in place since the 1970s. These show very minor fluctuations in luminosity -- on the order of fifteen hundreths of a percent.
Climate change is real. It's always BEEN real. The part about us "breaking" the world is what we need to put on the shelf and talk about CLIMATE change, rather than it being "our fault." You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.
What people would like to be true (honey) and prefer not to be true (vinegar) is irrelevant. It's not a case of "breaking" the world, it's a case of changing the world faster than we can adapt to it. I refer you to the obligatory xkcd explanation.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Inert is a bit of a stretch. Exposure to HFC-134a causes relaxation of smooth muscle tissue, which may give an additional positive effect in asthma inhalers for those of us with activity-induced bronchial asthma. But the LD50 is massive, and the danger from inhaling it is that it is heavier than air and pools in the lungs if one does not breathe vigorously, or hang upside down. The same is true of Freon (R-12/CFC-12) which was formerly used in asthma inhalers, and which was phased out because of ozone damage due to the chlorine in the molecule and not because of toxicity. HFC-134a was eliminated from asthma inhalers allegedly over the global warming concern,* and will likely be replaced in automotive use by HFO-1234yf until automotive CO2-based systems become practical.
* The use in asthma inhalers is not a serious environmental concern compared to the amount which is commonly deliberately released by shadetree mechanics, or accidentally in automobile accidents
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I keep seeing zealots on this side calling for everything incredibly invasive (in terms of liberties) public policy, to criminal prosecution of "climate change deniers."
So if you are going to intertwine science and politics like that, in ways that will invariably lead to the needless suffering of many millions of people if you are wrong, what happens if you are wrong?
You don't get to just walk away and say "sorry about the shit we did to you, science corrected itself. Don't you Fucking Love Science?" In the realm of politics when you ideologically wreck the lives of a lot of people, justice demands you pay for it. So, are you ready to say the science is settled, we trust it, let's act on it and if scientists firmly disprove it we're ready to face whatever consequences the political system demands of us?
It sounds to me like you've engaged in a bit of a double standard here. If you want to hold the scientists, and those who accept the science liable in the case that they are wrong, then surely the the proponents of the alternate explanation (be they denialists, conspiracists, whatever) are also liable if they are wrong?
Economists calculate that the cost of mitigating against climate change (though undoubtedly expensive) as a fraction of the cost of dealing with the outcomes if we do nothing. So you can imagine that your proposal brings the question of liability to the fore.
That is, those that fund the broad arm of propaganda seeking to throw the science into doubt are liable for the damage caused so far by delaying action.
Those that have in the past adopted a position ("the climate is not changing") and then smoothly, and without explanation transitioned into a contradictory position ("sure, the climate is changing, but nobody really knows why") are liable for both the first and last position.
You would agree that the concept of liability applies to all parties? I'm quite sure, that, if there were a way to arrange it, that the scientists and those that accept the science would happily enter into an arrangement where they are liable in the event they are wrong - so long as the denialists and conspiracists are held to the same standard.
Senator Whitehouse
AG Loretta Lynch
17 AGs from 15 states, the Virgin Islands and DC
Bill Nye
Michael Mann
Some representatives of the California state legislature
AND scientists:
Jagadish Shukla, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Edward Maibach, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Paul Dirmeyer, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Barry Klinger, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Paul Schopf, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
David Straus, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Edward Sarachik, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Michael Wallace, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Alan Robock, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Eugenia Kalnay, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
William Lau, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
T.N. Krishnamurti, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Vasu Misra, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Ben Kirtman, University of Miami, Miami, FL
Robert Dickinson, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Michela Biasutti, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY
Mark Cane, Columbia University, New York, NY
Lisa Goddard, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY
Alan Betts, Atmospheric Research, Pittsford, VT
It's not the fact that the climate is changing that people are worried about. It's the fact that it's changing exponentially faster than it ever has in earth's known history.
This is the actual part of AGW theory that only propagandists and alarmists promote. It's demonstrably untrue. There is also plenty of unknowns in the amount of contribution to climate change is man-made vs. natural, and how much humanity's efforts can affect those changes. The types of things people throw out as "facts" often are not. This is an example, and so is the "95% of climate scientists agree", because everyone always leaves out "of those climate scientists that provided an opinion". They also leave out the fact that there is nothing like a consensus on the amount of contribution is man-made. And that's only referring to CO2, while it's clear that deforestation (also mostly man-made) is also a major contributor.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
You know, people who think that scientists don't like controversy probably don't know many of them. Shifting consensus is how reputations and careers are made. And if there were some credible line of inquiry that promised we could burn as much fossil fuel as we wanted, it wouldn't be hard at all to find funding for it.
For that matter, I'd personally like it if we could burn as much fossil fuel as we wanted -- with local pollution controls of course. But that's wishful thinking.
If you want to create some kind of grand social dynamics theory of climate change science, you should at least take time to familiarize yourself with the literature on AGW. If you go into Google Scholar you'll see that the consensus in the 1950s was that the Earth was entering a cooling period. It took fifty years to shift that consensus and the substance of how it shifted is worth studying before engaging in armchair sociology.
We're in a warming trend (actually overdue, given the rock and ice records).
Actually we should be in a cooling period. You can't just plot out the cycles and infer a period, the main driver of the cycles is the interaction of the Earth's orbital and rotational precession, which is why scientists used to think we were heading into a cooling period that should last for about the next twenty-thousand years.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Replying to correct bad mod. Sigh; I really wish we could change our moderations, but hey, this is Slashdot.
-- sigs cause cancer.
Chance of saving us from Climate Change:
The Market/Green Industry/Innovation: 80 %
Government Regulation: 20%
In that case, the government needs to stop subsidizing fossil fuels in all the ways that it does that; most of them are not direct subsidies, and their greatest benefit is being able to ignore their externalities. Take that away and fossil fuels become unprofitable overnight.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not true... the seas have risen several meters in the 10-20,000 years. Greenland was named in the last 2-3000 years. Glaciers covered NY and New England in mile thick ice as recently as 20,000 years ago.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
So by your logic, Denmark and Germany should have worse poverty than less green countries such as the US and Somalia. Appears your reasoning is incorrect.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Hear Hear!
I met someone who works on nuclear safety systems at a conference. We used the same products in a plant I was working at. The catch is he was just finishing installing the end of life systems we were just pulling out and replacing with a newer version. Both projects were started within a year from each other, the difference is one system had 10 years of good life in it, the other had 10 years of paperwork before being turned on.
The red tape is just incredible.
Best of all he was working at a research reactor. Like the worst case scenario on loss of cooling and no shutdown was maybe setting off a radiation detector at the facility's fence if the all the water drained from the vessel. Such is the level of prescription in the industry.
It's conceivably true, so it isn't fallacious. It can be tested, which makes it scientific. It is likely to be wrong, but that's to be found out with empirical evidence.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Fuck entropy, man.
No way, I love my air conditioner.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
The other argument that annoys me is that there is no correct temperature for the Earth. This is correct, but there is a small range of global temperatures that are correct for the civilization we've built, including buildings, large agricultural infrastructure investment, and adaptation of food crops to certain temperatures at certain latitudes.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You don't know what physics is. Climate modeling is not physics.
A rational person would see data collected over less than 200 years, half of it from very inaccurate instruments, and wonder about your panicking over variations in weather as being "climate change"
Are you seriously suggesting that oil companies are funneling funds into studies where the conclusion supports AGW?
Seriously?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
(catch breath)
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
It's difficult to link things to AGW, because what we're seeing is mostly statistical tendencies. There are a few obvious things, like the shrinkage in Arctic sea ice, but a significant change in frequency and intensity of droughts can only be seen over the long run.
Anyone can predict anything. Most of us are lousy at foretelling the future. You seem to be going by sensationalized predictions in the media, which are usually going to be wrong. The predictions that matter are those made by the scientists, which you can easily find. They're a lot more conservative than the media predictions, typically. However, slow changes over decades can turn into disasters.
Where do you get this idea of trillions of dollars being spent on climate research? In one typical year, the US spent less than $1.5 billion on climate research. The US has something like 15% of total world income, so that would suggest no more than $10 billion a year on climate research (probably less, since less wealthy countries probably spend less proportionally on research). It would take two centuries of that to constitute "trillions", and I'm fairly sure that there was a lot less spending on climate research shortly after the end of the Napoleonic wars.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Aw, you lost a point there. "Flying cars" was funny and insightful, but time travel is just nonsense, as demonstrated by all of the Star Treks. Or to quote the respected publication Rick & Morty: you can't move time while standing in it.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
You don't seem to understand what "settled" means. "Settled" doesn't mean that new evidence is rejected;
Apparently you don't understand how the AGWCC folk intend to use the term settled science, as we can see new evidence contrary to their pet positions being consistently and continually rejected, even to the point now that they want to use USA RICO law to persecute those who have the temerity to hold an opposing position.
Have a Day!
And when a pebble strikes my condensor and leaks FLAMMABLE GAS instead, that's better how exactly? So I can have a gas explosion from my leaking AC unit..?
Bite my shiny metal ass!
Did I say AGW? Assumptions...
Mathematics can prove or disprove the science.
At least one of the following statements is true:
* You do not know what mathematics is (hint: It deals with abstract concepts).
* You do not know what science is (hint: It deals with reality).
* You do not know what a proof is (hint: It works within an axiomatic system, and we do not yet an axiomatic base for how the world operates).
Their math adds up just fine, it's you who don't understand it and the numbers they are presenting. Go read up on confidence intervals and statistics.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
So by your logic, Denmark and Germany should have worse poverty than less green countries such as the US and Somalia.
Not by my logic. But speaking of Somalia, what would happen should its electricity prices double? Are we going to see increased adoption and use of electricity by the poor?
To run your car analogy off the cliff...
Science is predicting a traffic jam on the highway, but it's over the horizon, so we can't see how bad it really is yet. We are in our car accelerating at the moment and we are debating whether to let off the gas or hit the brakes. Except the scientists haven't said anything about the fact that we might have converted to a flying car by the time we get to the jam and would be able to fly right over it. There is also the potential that we could get off on a side road and take a slightly longer route that ultimately saves the trip. We could theoretically also just leave the road and drive through the grass to avoid the jam even though it would be very hard on the car and be very uncomfortable.
The people demanding we slam on the brakes don't see anything other than the traffic jam. Those are the kinds of people that end up causing accidents by over braking way early and catching people by surprise.
Your car analogy is missing a couple key points. The problem is that the car hurtling toward the traffic jam has no brakes since we lack the technology to remove significant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.* Also, the car is accellerating and will keep accellerating even if we took our foot off of the gas right now. That's because the quantity of CO2 in our atmosphere hasn't yet warmed up the planet as much as it eventually will. By "get off the road" are you suggesting colonizing other planets? Because we're definitely going to be stuck with this mess if we stay on Earth. Still think it's a good idea to keep business as usual?
*Don't even talk about trees. The CO2 they sequester is exactly the same quantity of CO2 that they release when they die and decompose. If trees were immortal and took up no space, they'd be great for sequestering CO2. Do you know what actually is great at sequestering CO2? Coal! Oil! Too bad we're burning them, huh?
So if AGW is made up can you explain why the permafrost is melting?
These companies have invested a great deal of money in developing the carbon industry, it is only natural they want to maintain the status quo.
Was it the Koch Brothers who hired their own scientists to disprove AGW and it backfired on them?
Here in SoCal winters used to be colder around 20 to 25 years ago. You could not go outside without a jacket or at least a sweater. There was frost on the grass, on rooftops and my windshield used to ice up frequently. These last few years I can get away with wearing a t-shirt and shorts. My jackets and sweaters have been gathering dust in my closet as I have not needed them for years.
That is interesting because I thought deforestation was a big problem in Africa like it is in South America particularly Brazil.
You make a valid argument. In my utility bills there is a fee for providing poor people with electricity and gas. I believe there is a similar fee on my cell phone bill.
Are you referring to the poor in the 3rd world? They have more kids because they have no social security. The idea is their children will support them financially in their old age. Plus if they own a farm or business they are free labor.
No! This general disbelief in society is the right behaviour and to be encouraged. Hear me out.
Climate is complex, and what is really happening is people are being skeptical of government and rich people trying to convince them of something they don't fully understand. Millennials seem to be more quick to jump to trust the government and celebrities, but being skeptical is the right approach, especially when someone wants in your wallet without actually explaining anything about how we fix the problem. Carbon taxes are the prime example. So taxes go up - any reasonable person is wondering just how that reduces their use of gas or anything other than making someone else rich.
And sorry, doesn't science involve something about verified experiments with repeatable results? Isn't that at the core? How is that possible with ANY climate model that has been put forth? I'm not saying they're totally wrong - they're just guesses, and you CANNOT SAY with a straight face they may be completely wrong either way as we don't fully understand the variables. Plenty of reasonable (sounding anyway) evidence (ice ages) of recent significant climate changes without man, so when people are dismissed as stupid they become more skeptical. As they should be.
You lined up;
> Oil companies funding alarming information
against
> A scientist...leading to a conclusion that there is nothing going on to be alarmed about
Which one of these is describing AGW?
We in the West are going to be fine, sure we will probably end up paying more for food and water but that is nothing we can't handle. It is the 3rd world that will be hit the hardest, the ones who can least afford it, but then when have we ever cared about them?
They have more kids because they have no social security.
Last I checked, social security is not at the top of the green agenda for mitigating climate change.
Well it does when a pebble strikes your condensor and leaks POISONOUS REFRIGERANT into the atmosphere.
You realize you can purge any R134A AC system and fill it with propane who no loss in performance or seal integrity??
Except when a pebble strikes your condenser and leaks HIGHLY FLAMMABLE REFRIGERANT into the hood of your car.
I am laughing and crying at the same time.
Well played sir.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Actually, just to answer myself and respond to some valid criticisms below, I shouldn't have said 'low carbon', a better description might have been 'less polluted', which would have included 'low carbon'. Politicians tend to fix on and sell one or very few things, they are value monists: http://plato.stanford.edu/entr... whereas it's probably more useful to use a basket of measures, be pluralistic.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
How do you service an AC? Most of the ACs here need some servicing.
You just put your lips together, and blow.
Very close together, as it turns out.
The result sounds like th-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-pt!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ever since they switched from CFCs to HFA (c. 2008), I've had to stop using inhalers.
Get your physician to write you a paper prescription, fax it to Canada, and get back some real inhalers, eh? It's only here in the USA where they've outlawed medical use of HFC-134a. It can only have been done as a handout to Big Pharma; the same old drug with a new propellant is now a new drug which is patented. This was done specifically to crush the plethora of widely and cheaply available inhalers. Meanwhile, you can stroll down to the auto parts store and buy HFC-134a in cans, hook them up to your car with a leaky AC system and refill it, and not even be breaking the law. It's illegal to knowingly let the gas in your AC system into the atmosphere, but people do it every day because it's cheaper than having it evacuated at a shop.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sorry, dude. You need to get at least up to high school science level to understand this. More would be better.
Do you really think there's only 200 years of data contributing to our understanding of how climate works? You have a lot of catching up to do.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
You lined up;
> Oil companies funding alarming information
against
> A scientist...leading to a conclusion that there is nothing going on to be alarmed about
Which one of these is describing AGW?
Again, in the reply you replied to, I didn't say that.
If I had to throw a stick, I'd say it would land near funded alarming information to encourage the purchase of alternative products and energy.
I could be irresponsible and crudely intelligent and deliver a line to others like "Show me the data where stock holders and executives of oil corporations have their hands dipped into the stock of alternative energy companies," but that would be crass and completely illogical. More logic - if you have massive amounts of stock in oil companies and a few .....hundred thousand.. shares of car manufacturers, why would you NOT use the blaming of global warming on oil/cars (let alone other uses of your fuel and their burners' manufacturing companies' products) trigger action to set up alternative identities, shell companies, middlemen, etc to profit no matter what happens? Really? Come on. These people are self-centered and want to win every battle, like every human male (and lots of females!); there is no way they are just resting and not taking advantage of future prospects. If I'm the first one to think of that idea.... well, there is no "if" on that. It's impossible. I'm just an intelligent person in the middle class who doesn't focus on my company stock holdings all day long. There is no way in hell I just thought of that. It's being done and has been done. I'm NOT challenging anyone to find proof of that because, if they could, they already would have. Someone will accidentally screw the handling of a single page document or "get bugged" and caught at some point. But I don't have proof, so I'm just full of it, right?
I'm not being an ass to you, just leaving the words for thought (and, heh, mostly non-thought by others).
I think you have kool-aid stains on your mouth.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
http://blogs.discovermagazine....
Sorry, but that's just not the case. The problem in that statistical analysis is that the "pause" only exists if you pick exactly the right data subsetset. Pick the wrong start year, and it vanishes. But when you have to select a specific data subset to show an effect, and the only reason to pick that data subset is that this is the one that shows the effect-- that's not signal; that's statistical noise. The noise in the measurement is about 0.2C; the run of 18 years (or whatever run you pick) is simply mathematically not long enough to derive a local slope with high enough precision to reject a 0.015/year rise..
The fact that the deniers don't have a well-defined null hypothesis is a significant part of the reason that scientists don't consider their work science. Here is a good null hypothesis: "greenhouse gasses added by humans to the atmosphere do not cause an increase in the average temperature". This null hypothesis thus states that the rise in temperature from 1960 to present is statistical fluctuation (or, due to natural random factors not known, which is equivalent.) But, random noise will go down as much as it goes up. But the upward trend is significant. The graph trends up, but never down.
So, the null hypothesis is statistically rejected.
Now, rejecting the null hypothesis does not necessarily mean that the rise is due to human effects: it means that the rise is real, but does not say what causes it. So, the "human produced gasses do not cause warming" argument needs a different explanation of the rise.
So far, that different explanation simply has not been found, although there have been many many people looking for it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Under our glorious capitalist system, we consider the poor to be responsible for their own plight, and we have no obligation to help them.
It's worth noting that whatever the cause, there has been a huge decline in global extreme poverty. I believe capitalism, global trade, and use of fossil fuels deserve the lion's share of the credit for that. For example, in East Asia
Here's an amazing fact: The number of people in extreme poverty fell by 114 million from 2012 to 2013.
That is a simply massive one-year decline, and it's not even the biggest drop in recent years. From 2010 to 2011, global poverty fell by 132 million people. From 2008 to 2013, the number fell by an average of 88 million people per year. If that rate of progress keeps up, global poverty will be eliminated in less than a decade.
Spoiler: They don't expect the trend to continue because of Sub-Saharan Africa which is far less tractable than East Asia is.
The purple line representing East Asia shows the most striking trajectory. In 1990, a large majority â" 60.2 percent â" of people in the region lived in extreme poverty. In 2013, only 3.5 percent did. Thatâ(TM)s a shift of mind-boggling scale. And it means that extreme poverty in that area is now a rather small part of the overall global problem.
Of course, it's worth noting that China which has most of the population of the area introduced massive pro-capitalism and trade liberalizing reforms at the beginning of this period.
You can be as sarcastic as you'd like, but it doesn't change that the world is improving at an enormous rate due to the very systems you deride and the very fossil fuel use that is supposedly such a good idea to reduce. Yet as usual, we have a bunch of would-be environmentalists who remain ignorant of the most important improvement in the well-being of humanity in history.
If you refuse to believe well documented and verified facts, especially when refusing to do so has dangerous consequences, then yes, we will call you a bad person. Anthropogenic global warming is a documented, verified fact, and it is accelerating. Those who stand in the way of fixing that are bad people and should be called out on it. Don't like it? Tough. Get used to it, because like global warming, it's only going to get worse.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
They are skeptical of the MAN MADE portion of that
Which is an equally silly and stupid position to take.
over a fallacious and unscientific idea that man is solely responsible for climate change.
It is neither a fallacy nor unscientific.
Were there no man-made or man-caused mechanisms in play, the earth would be slightly cooling right now.
If you were to take the last 50,000 years of the Earth, you would see spikes of cold and warm periods throughout
None of which were as large, as fast, nor as universal (ie, global in scope) as what is currently occurring.
And how modern, technologically advanced society needs to be robbed of its liberty and progress
No one is suggesting that happen.
to stop a phenomenon that HAPPENS ALL THROUGHOUT TIME.
again: the current situation in no way reflects a normality that occurs regularly.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
don't forget the benefits to global health, which in turn leads to less money spent on healthcare.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
That green energy market revolution?
yeah... ...it happened because government investment helped foster it.
See, government involvement to help foster and speed up noteworthy goals involves a carrot and a stick.
the stick is the economic disincentive of fines stemming from regulation.
the carrot is the economic incentive of investment in promising technologies.
both of which were used to create that green revolution years ahead of when market forces alone would have brought it about, and allowed it proceed at a much faster rate.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
>(3) What is the least/cheapest amount of work to keep humanity alive?
To exterminate >90% of the world population. But I'm not a big fan of this solution.
Nonsense -- the USA is only 4.35% of world population.
OBSF -- "The Sheep Look Up".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Further than that, if the cost of the lobbying and marketing campaigns fighting it is way cheaper than the costs of actually cleaning up their carbon and other by-products, its only natural to want to do the former rather than the latter.
Like the time when a friend of mine wanted a universal remote control?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Now, does anyone have a link to those charts which show the models continue to run much hotter than the real climate?
The IPCC's Fifth Assessment has it for you in Figure 11.9. They graph the instrumental record against an ensemble of 42 models and the instrumental consistently falls on the lowest end of the error margins for the predicted warming. IE, the very, very coldest models are the closest to matching the instrumental record.
Now, that is working from a short term prediction, which isn't where we expect the models to really start showing their promise, but the IPCC saw fit to print it regardless. You can compare the IPCC's first assessment from back in the 1990's, if you want a longer term prediction to compare against. The trouble is the IPCC back then hard referenced their predictions to the year 1975. Practice since then is to show anomaly against something like a 10 year average, so you don't cherry pick a particularly hot/cold year as your initial reference. IF you do use 1975 as the reference for the IPCC FAR predictions from 1990 though their predictions that come closest to the last 25 years are the ones using a CO2 sensitivity of 1.5C.
oh i have post-graduate level understanding, I can assure you.
You allude to methods of ascertaining temperatures in the past that have huge margins of error outside the fractions of a degree over decades that is the current basis for claim to catastrophic climate change.
By the way, I won't deny that carbon pollution is very bad and we should stop it. I also won't deny increase in greenhouse effect. I will challenge the absurd extrapolations and doomsaying, however
2014 was measured as the warmest year later by 0.2K (?), with a tolerance of +/- 1K. Mathematically, that's fine. It means we don't have much confidence that 2014 was the warmest year ever, but it's the most likely candidate. Since we're talking about a statistical distribution of a continuous variable, the probability that it was exactly what it was announced as is some form of zero (it gets complicated here, and we have to use some more sophisticated analysis), but the probability density function peaks there.
Be very careful when saying that scientists did something that looks obviously wrong. It may in fact be wrong, since scientists often don't have a good feel for statistics, but the odds are that you don't understand why they're saying what they're saying.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Except the scientists haven't said anything about the fact that we might have converted to a flying car by the time we get to the jam and would be able to fly right over it.
What is this? Interplanetary travel?
There is also the potential that we could get off on a side road and take a slightly longer route that ultimately saves the trip.
The traffic jam is still happening, you would just be personally avoiding it. I guess this could be analogous to carbon credits.
We could theoretically also just leave the road and drive through the grass to avoid the jam even though it would be very hard on the car and be very uncomfortable.
Fact remains, there's still a traffic jam, however you choose to avoid it.
The people demanding we slam on the brakes don't see anything other than the traffic jam. Those are the kinds of people that end up causing accidents by over braking way early and catching people by surprise.
Slamming the brakes is indeed no solution, but maybe slowing down enough to be able to react to whatever emerges over the horizon? Otherwise you could be the one ending up surprised.
Maybe the car analogy is not proper here. The road might be more fitting, and currently we are driving on it using tank treads, seemingly oblivious to its is deterioration. When it breaks, it will have to be closed until fixed, and traffic halts indefinitely. Unless, of course, we have converted to flying cars by then.
Yes, regardless of anything we do to work around the traffic jam, it is still there. But it's a fucking traffic jam. Traffic jams generally don't kill everyone who gets stuck in them... They just are irritating, greatly slow progress, and waste resources. I believe a warmer climate is going to happen, but I believe it's not going to be catastrophic for all life on the planet as people insinuate to try to get their tax and spend projects funded.
If you want to use the tank tread analogy, tanks can pretty easily traverse terrain with no roads, just not as fast as on pavement. Your analogy is still falling apart faster than your pavement in the analogy.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Yes, tanks can go many places. The goal here is to keep the road drivable.
Interestingly enough, you allude to something no one discusses. I have no issues with doing things to emit less of everything, including carbon. I have tremendous objections to the idea that the solution to "global warming" is "carbon tax" which is what almost everyone says. Let's see, how exactly would giving the state MORE MONEY to squander help? What exactly happened to all the money from the tobacco settlements that were supposed to go for health programs and anti smoking stuff anyway?
You know, if you deny AGW as you rob a bank, you're still likely to get convicted of the robbery. If you deliberately lie about something for financial gain, you're probably committing a crime, and it doesn't matter what you're lying about. So, someone who denies AGW while knowing it is happening (deliberately lying) to make more money is committing a criminal act. I'm not sure if it matters whether AGW is happening or not.
In the cases I know of, a corporation had research reports that were believed inside the company saying that AGW was happening, and therefore deliberately lied about it. Tobacco companies were liable because they knew tobacco caused health problems and said it didn't. Nobody was prosecuted for just saying tobacco didn't hurt anyone.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The term "denialist" is parallel with "Holocaust denialist". It refers to people who deny something without any reference to any evidence. A skeptic says "I'm not convinced yet." Someone who genuinely believes it isn't happening could just say so. The denialist starts with the premise that AGW isn't happening, and deals with all evidence for it by finding some way to claim the evidence isn't correct. The scientific community says it's happening, so the scientific community is corrupt and only saying that for political reasons. There's mountains of evidence that the planetary surface is warming, so the denialist looks through it for a small apparent contradiction and says that invalidates the evidence.
If this doesn't describe you, you're not a denialist. Calling it denialism doesn't interfere with science, because a denialist is someone who isn't gong to provide sound observations or arguments. Do you have a problem with scientists dismissing the contributions of astrology? Astrology is better than denialism, since it doesn't contradict as much of what we know to be true.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, for everybody who finds it more plausible that an entire branch of science must be corrupt and deliberately pushing toward a political end rather than trying to find the truth or something than that something is happening.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Carbon taxes don't have to take from the poor and give to the rich. It's all in how they're structured.
Carbon taxes would use the power of the marketplace to efficiently reduce CO2 emissions. If industry A finds it difficult to reduce emissions, it can pay taxes, while industry B finds it'c cheaper to cut CO2 emissions than to pay the taxes. Consumers shift from A's products to B's products according to their individual desires and resources. Individuals get to try apparently stupid solutions out, and if they work, get them into production without worrying if they don't qualify under subsection R, paragraph 13 as a CO2 reduction technology.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
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It's amazing how many self-proclaimed "nerds" are willing to discard evidence and disregard science when the conclusions challenge their worldview or their bank accounts. The whole lot of them are selfish, self-deluding children. These aren't the nerds I grew up with.
The world isn't here to cater to you.
I'm nothing short of amazed that you haven't been modded to -1 troll, and are sitting at +5.
Just goes to show that some folks are paying attention. We don't get to declare that the greenhouse effect somehow fails at global levels, that it only works to the point of keeping average temps what they were a long time ago, that the energy retention will just stay in the atmosphere.
We've thrived by reshaping it and now have to deal with some unintended consequences.
And some of the unintended consequences are interesting indeed. While most people just think of warmer winters, there may very well be strategic issues such as once verdant crop producing areas entering long term droughts, with marked production falloff and the resulting social and political problems. AGW will not in itself cause the biggest issues we will have soon, but the wars resulting from it will. We are already become anti science, and willing to get our physics education from politicians and the corporations they work for, and consider all of science suspect at the very best.
Only a fool fails to change course when they are approaching a cliff.
HIstory is littered with fools who have driven off their cliffs. I give about a 75 percent chance that we will drive off one, and quite happily.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm not deriding the system. I'm embracing it, even the traits that people criticize it for having.
Maybe. Perhaps next time, you should say that instead of what you apparently originally posted.
I would actually say you're the one deriding capitalism, because in the link you provided, it suggested wealth redistribution to speed up eliminating poverty
I didn't link to the article for that reason and I routinely link to articles with which I don't wholly agree. But even so, how does that deride capitalism?
It also had a bit on slamming fossil fuel subsidies
Is that deriding capitalism either? And most fossil fuel subsidies, like most subsidies in general, are rather pointless.
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No one (except the really silly) deny climate change. They are skeptical of the MAN MADE portion of that.
That's because they're stupid. We emit orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanism and nobody questions whether volcanism influences the climate.
Dammit Drinkypoo! That's special non-working greenhouse gases, that have absolutely no effect at all. You and your liberal scaremongers are trying to destroy the world somehow with all that perfectly parsimonious poppycock.
What really has been heating up the world is wind turbines - yeah, you heard it here. Them wind turbines are so inefficient that they are heating up the air, plus they steal all of that wind. and anyone with a lick of the common sense that Jeebuz gave them will tell you, when the wind dies down, you get all warm and sweaty.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
In your case you say society is being "robbed of its liberty." Who is robbing us? To what end?
If I buy a Tesla, and charge it from solar panels, I'm being robbed of the liberty to give my money to a petrochemical company.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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Wow, I'm brain--dead this morning. When I said "lack of flying cars" I meant to type "lack of time travel."
I do that same typo all the time - so don't feel bad. 8^)
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What is it about settled physics that you don't like?
it's not science, it computers making thousands of calculations on noisy and incomplete data to develop a snapshot of what might happen in 30 minutes on grids 100Km square and 30 layers high and introducing round off error with each calculation, then repeating that 1,753,152 times to get a guess of what might happen in a century and pretending the results are not spirally off into chaos.
So you are saying that there is no relation to the energy retention characteristics of an atmosphere by virtue of the composition of that atmosphere?
A yes or no answer is sufficient.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Also, another thing that I'm unable to understand. Even if it Climate Change wasn't true, the technologies that we're implementing are very good.
Yes, this is the "what if climate change is a trick and we built a better world for nothing" argument, and I am right there with you. Worst-case, we realize improvements in efficiency and extend our natural resources. Gee, that would be terrible! Wait. Not terrible. Wonderful. That would be wonderful.
Again with the liberal claptrap. Oil and coal will last forever, so there is no need for any other energy source at all.
Unless of course, we aren't raptured.
I guess I meant for very small values of forever.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Carbon taxes don't have to take from the poor and give to the rich. It's all in how they're structured.
Sorry, that's what we here in reality call "wrong".
No matter how you structure carbon taxes they will *always* end up being ultimately paid by the poor. Businesses pay no taxes, their customers do through higher prices.
Carbon taxes would use the power of the marketplace to efficiently reduce CO2 emissions.
Energy taxes and added costs are one of the most regressive forms of taxation upon and wealth-transfer from the poorest to the richest.
By raising energy prices you will cause some number of poor/elderly/disabled people to die. That is a fact. How many unnecessary deaths are you OK with in pursuit of your political/ideological goals? Do the ends justify the means?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
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I am not discarding evidence or disregarding science. I think people who write posts like yours just aren't willing to read / consider the opposing point of view. There is lots of credible science that disproves the man made global warming hypothesis. And I look at things like the email release from North Anglia and the continued editing of the historical data by NOAA as confirming data sources.
If it were true you have a "post-graduate level of understanding", I'd have thought you would have written your comment very differently.
What "absurd extrapolations and doomsaying" are you referring to?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Batman is a global warming denier?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
If you think that there is an entire branch of science that is advocating such a thing, you should think again.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I know someone who is working on a new reactor design.
The HARDEST part is getting past all the government red tape.....
Government could make innovation in Nuclear power much much easier.....
As far as that goes we should DEMAND that they make it easier to do.
Then perhaps you should DEMAND that the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Imdemnity Act be repealed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...–Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act
doesn't it make sense that if the Federal Government is protecting the Nuclear industry against liability that they would have some input?
As well, if these new designs are safe, then there is absolutely no need whatsoever to indemnify the producers of Nuc Electrical power because there will simply be no accidents that will result in any liability.
Seems like with the new and safe designs, the industry should be 100 percent insistent upon insuring themselves, amiright?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Back to school for you, to revise what pH actually means.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Both projects were started within a year from each other, the difference is one system had 10 years of good life in it, the other had 10 years of paperwork before being turned on.
The red tape is just incredible.
Best of all he was working at a research reactor. Like the worst case scenario on loss of cooling and no shutdown was maybe setting off a radiation detector at the facility's fence if the all the water drained from the vessel. Such is the level of prescription in the industry.
If the Federal Government is the evil incarnate in nuclear power, the one thing that is stopping nuclear generated industry from leading us into a new age of inexpensive and safe electricity, then why does it still need indemnification against liability?
I'm talking about the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. of course.
The nuclear industry has some big problems to overcome. One is that they have always promoted that version of power generation as safe, but there have been some pretty exciting counter-examples to those declarations.
The second is that the typical reaction to criticism regarding sfety is to declare the person offering the criticism is an idiot.
How's that working out for y'all?
The problem such as it is, is that while we can declare a type of reactor as really safe - yeah - it might be.
But humans are involved, and some of them have other missions than safety/
Let us take the Fukushima reactor complex for example. Ordinarily, it would still be running today, providing clean power. But there wer several fatal flaws in the siting and facilities. We all know about the ftal flaw of the emergency generators being emplaced in an area that would flood if the seawalls were breached.
But some how or another, there was no problem foreseen with seawalls that were a dead lock to be breached, unless plate tectonics suddenly ceased. My simple research showed that not only in the historical record that there was tsunami higher than the seawalls, but that there was geological record as well. The walls were simply not up to the job.
People. Managers, Accountants, Investors. All people who have other interests than safety. Schedules, budgets, paybacks, and sometimes backscratching can conspire to let that genie out of the bottle.
So given the nuc industry's track record, when the government has to let you off the hook, you can bet they might have something to say about your project.
And when nuc people are pronouncing the technology as safe, while people watch reactor buildings blow, you gotta do better than "Yeah - but!"
Just sayin'. I'm not against nuc power generation. But I see some of it's proponents as the industry's worst enemies.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I arguing that Government solutions very often do not produce the expected results. In fact they sometimes product OPPOSITE results.
I wonder where you could find evidence of that.....
That indemnification act is a good example. The guvmint might not be quite as interested if they weren't shielding the industry.
Which is weird, because as safe as nuclear power generation is, why would they then need indemnification, or maybe even insurance at all?
So yes, the nuclear power generating industry wanted indemnification, but they didn't want oversight.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So what predictions have they made that have actually come true that can be directly link to AGW? All the ones from years ago said either we'd all be under water or it would be so hot outside no one would be able to go outside.
Okay, I'm calling you out here. Who exacty said that?
Citations please, or else just be another denialist liar.
That we'd not be able to grow farming crops, that we'd have no water to drink.
Cites or you are another denialist liar
Seriously, you actuallly posted not as an AC? Because your lies make you look really foolish.
So anyhow, show us the citations of the utter bullshit you say were "all of the ones."
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There seem to be two camps in the "deniers"... one is the bunch that claim that it isn't happening at all, that it's a hoax.. these are the noisy idiots that make anyone who takes issue with climate change to be all nuts.. and then, however, there's the second group.. who do NOT deny any of the data or that climate change is , in fact, occurring, but take issue only with the claim that it is entirely due to man made influence. This group , rightly, points out that ALL the planetary bodies in our solar system have had an increase of the same percent, despite the fact that we do NOT inhabit these planets. We, however, are brushed off along with the kooks and crazies without having our evidence being given fair consideration.
This is disturbing, since if something OTHER than mankind is causing a solar system wide change , perhaps this deserves serious attention.
Y'think?
If the Federal Government is the evil incarnate in nuclear power
It's not, but regulation isn't regulation, isn't regulation. The government plays a very important role in the safety of not just the nuclear industry but process, chemicals, etc too. While the former is stuck in the 70s, the latter have in the private sector made leaps and bounds in safety increases over the last 50 years.
The difference is in prescribing a central solution vs prescribing an outcome. You say humans are the problem yet many of those humans are indemnified by the over regulation in the nuclear industry because all they need to do is what they are told and then they can point a finger and say "see!". In the mean time in other industries which are outcome focused those same humans get proper fucked if they can't reach the outcome.
What the nuclear industry has now is prescribed solutions and such overbearing micromanagement that it stifles all innovation, including safety. You say we are talking about safe reactors while reactors are blowing up, yeah I agree with you. But this is the fault of a government that has put in so many roadblocks that none of these safe reactors have been built. The USA had it's first new reactor come online this year, and it's a Gen II PWR. You know what else is a Generation II reactor? Chernobyl.
So anyone who criticises the safety of modern nuclear by pointing to nuclear incidents is really saying, "See you're modern car is not safe to drive", while pointing to a 1960s era Ford Galaxie after it's occupant was ejected from the driver seat, through the windscreen and flung into the woods because the car had no seatbelt.
When a modern reactor gets built, only then can we start using modern reactor designs to talk about nuclear safety. In the meantime the technological state of nuclear power is completely decoupled from the installed reality.... often because reactor upgrades get blocked by NIMBYs.
Is it alarming because it shows how global warming (FTFY) is real, or because it shows how global warming is not real?
I mean, it could go either way.
Oh. DiCaprio. Never mind.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Why do you think Canada is not civilised enough??
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
To repeat myself, carbon taxes don't have to take from the poor and give to the rich. We can structure them to be revenue-neutral and compensate for the regressivity in other ways. Maybe we substitute them for the low part of the FICA taxes and adjust welfare payments. Maybe we supply some compensatory income. There's ways to do these things, and ways to structure the tax system to account for regressive taxation.
You are technically correct in saying businesses don't pay taxes, I suppose, but the money also comes from the shareholders,
A business is making and selling widgets for $10. Now, the cost of making widgets goes up $1 due to the carbon tax. If the business could say "Carbon tax!" and raise its price to $11 and not lose sales, it would be passing the cost onto the customers. However, the business will make fewer sales at $11 rather than $10, so its profits go down. It will wind up at a price between $10 and $11, so customers do pay more, but shareholders receive less.
By allowing rising healthcare costs, you will cause some number of poor/elderly/disabled people to die. By allowing atmospheric CO2 levels to rise, you will cause some number of people to die and suffer. Any government decision, will cause some number of people to die or suffer. You're counting the costs of things you don't like, after exaggerating them, and ignoring the costs of things you like.
My ideology here is making life better for lots of individuals. My methods include paying attention to the best scientific projections available, and trying to get policy tailored around that, rather than any sort of ideology that carries its own "facts" with it. My politics are supporting people I think likely to do good for people, and that includes doing something about global warming.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Climate scientists have noticed that temperatures are going up, and that this is primarily due to human activity. This is pretty elementary stuff, and we know all the mechanisms involved pretty well. The details are insanely complicated, but the thermodynamics are easy to figure out if you can make predictions of changes in Earth's albedo with temperature and added CO2.
I don't know how many climate scientists advocate global warming. Most seem to consider it generally bad.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So anyone who criticises the safety of modern nuclear by pointing to nuclear incidents is really saying, "See you're modern car is not safe to drive", while pointing to a 1960s era Ford Galaxie after it's occupant was ejected from the driver seat, through the windscreen and flung into the woods because the car had no seatbelt.
When a modern reactor gets built, only then can we start using modern reactor designs to talk about nuclear safety. In the meantime the technological state of nuclear power is completely decoupled from the installed reality.... often because reactor upgrades get blocked by NIMBYs.
just remember though, that the public was assured that the previous generations of power generating reactors were safe. And that's the problem. I can be convinced that a reactor design is good, but the industry as a whole has a bit of a credibility gap. And some of it's proponents are exceptionally condescending, and have zero tolerance for any other view. You should see some of the arguments I get in and the names I'm called when I have the nerve to note that the present day paradigm calls for as big a reactor as possible, generating as much power as possible, versus my idea of scaling back a bit to avoid stressing the materials, and having more reactors overall. That's not the only advantage either, as it is a strategic one as well. If I was at war with another country, my biggest hope would be that they had as centralized a Power generating infrastructure as possible, with as few, and as large power generating plants as they could possibly build.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It would have less of a credibility gap is it wasn't hamstrung by approaches that other industries abandoned in the 80s as the failures they were.
Regardless of the credibility gap, prescription based safety isn't.
The earth's biological productivity is rising rapidly (14% in 30 years) mainly due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere reports Matt Ridley in a Royal Society video with a transcript. Environmentalists may hate it, but it looks like good science to me. See it quicker (19 minutes), less political, and 3 years ago or for busy folk, in Snippets: (2 min) and (20 sec).
I am going to let go of a rock in my hand. Wait, what will happen to the rock? It is unknowable. Science just can't tell me what will happen to that rock after I let go, because the future is unknowable. Most would think the rock will drop. But to those twisting themselves into knots about it, anything could happen, I guess. It's just all so unknowable. We should just throw our hands up in the air based on your expert knowledge... denialist.
You're also ignoring the other major combustion product, H2O, which is not a pollution product (I don't consider CO2 a pollutant either, but YMMV). The approximate equation (from Wikipedia) is:
12 12 O2 + C8H18 8 CO2 + 9 H2O
Approx in part because gasoline isn't entire octane, and because there are other biproducts, mostly taken care of in her catalytic converter. Also, if I'd used a fraction in such an equation in chem class, I would have gotten points off, but I guess the point is still clear.
needing CO2 is not the same as "needing more co2".
the time scale of reaching 140ppm was in the millions of years.
it's not we were in a time crunch.
the earth was sitting at ~280ppm for several million years already.
and still vastly different from cranking it back up to dinosaur era levels in a mere 200 years.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
fallacy doesn't mean wrong.
if Bob's Deli repeatedly serves you a turd sandwich when you asked for ham, at what point do you stop expecting ham, and start expecting turd when you go to Bob's?
same goes for misinformation and lies when you expected facts and logic, after repeated visits to Brietbart's Land of the Alt Right.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
worker's paradise is a euphemism for communistic hell hole country, so that would be Venezuela..
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So you are saying that there is no relation to the energy retention characteristics of an atmosphere by virtue of the composition of that atmosphere?
A yes or no answer is sufficient.
That's called a strawman arguement, it has nothing to do with what I was refering to, please refer tp Edward Norton Lorenz's 1963 paper "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences,
The climate simply isn't predictable at century scales with our present technology.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
How so,
As you can see from the mathamatics, as the number of hydrogen Ions in a solution increases and the solutition becomes more acidic, the pH goes down, such that a solution with a pH of 2, pH = -log(10^-2), is ten times more acidic than a solution at pH 3, pH = -log(10^-3).
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So you are saying that there is no relation to the energy retention characteristics of an atmosphere by virtue of the composition of that atmosphere?
A yes or no answer is sufficient.
That's called a strawman arguement,
And that's called not answering the question.
In other news, a question is not an argument. It often serves to point out a flaw in another's argument that requires them to confront that flaw, but it is not an argument, but a question.
And please, don't try to call it a strawman question. It's just a question, no more, no less.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.