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Climate Change Will Stir 'Unimaginable' Refugee Crisis, Says Military (theguardian.com)

Citing military experts, The Guardian is reporting that if the rise in global warming is held under 2 degrees Celsius, there still could be a major humanitarian crisis to sort out. From the report: Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of "unimaginable scale," according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the "new normal." The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency. Military leaders have long warned that global warming could multiply and accelerate security threats around the world by provoking conflicts and migration. They are now warning that immediate action is required. "Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century," said Maj Gen Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change and a former military adviser to the president of Bangladesh. He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation. "Weâ(TM)re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people."

333 comments

  1. Unimaginable crisis by spikenerd · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and yet the article proceeds to imagine this crisis.

    1. Re:Unimaginable crisis by rdelsambuco · · Score: 1

      Die internet, die.

      --
      I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.
    2. Re:Unimaginable crisis by The-Ixian · · Score: 3, Funny

      The Internet, the.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    3. Re:Unimaginable crisis by sinij · · Score: 1

      The die, internet

    4. Re:Unimaginable crisis by hey! · · Score: 2

      No need to imagine -- it's already happened in Syria.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:Unimaginable crisis by Dantoo · · Score: 1

      Hmm. Nobody who speaks German could be evil.

      OTOH 30 million people displaced as unimaginable? I don't have to even go far back in time. 55 million people killed in WW2 and many more displaced not that long ago. If that migration becomes the only problem then it's a soft landing. Probably more people than that take an annual vacation in the U.S.

      I like the shift away from blaming callous bloodthirsty dictators and Islamic fundamentalism openly clashing for the Arab Spring. Spring is climate right? Bad outcome for lots of people ergo climate change is to blame somehow. Seriously, all this alarmist stuff ever does is magnify an emotional dimension to the problem that will make it increasingly difficult to solve it. It is pissing off a lot more than 30 million people and they are sneering through the internet and the ballot box.

      Wish the drama queens and alarmists would just piss off now. They have nothing to offer.

    6. Re:Unimaginable crisis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it is there. If you look at the Bangladesh tidal gauge and tilt your head, you can see it.

      http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/1451.php

    7. Re:Unimaginable crisis by Shane_Optima · · Score: 1

      Die internet, die.

      The Internet, the.

      Pretty sure that would be ungrammatical regardless of one's opinion in the wider debate.

      (Or possibly that's the joke, in which case my response must be: Die "the Internet", die.)

    8. Re:Unimaginable crisis by billd10 · · Score: 0

      Aren't there parts of the world which were already supposed to be abandoned according to climate change expert opinions from 10 years ago? This article sounds like a political statement from a liberal government to me.

  2. Better up the Military Budget by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    Just in case their crazy-sounding warning happens to come true.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 insightful. There is a lot of money in global warming. That is really what it is all about. No one gives a shit about the environment. If they did we wouldn't increase our co2 output every year. Next year won't be any different.

    2. Re:Better up the Military Budget by Rockoon · · Score: 1, Insightful
      From the summary (which is from the article):

      "We're going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people."

      There are currently 60 million war refugees according to UNHCR

      So either our military commanders havent kept up with whats been going on the last decade, or they can't even imagine current reality.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    3. Re: Better up the Military Budget by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree, +1 insightful, but perhaps not for the same reason as yours.

      Temperatures are trending upwards. Ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. These are observed facts.

      Look at human history. War is a frequent consequence of competition for limited resources. In the case of climate-change, that resource will be land. Land that is not underwater. Land that you can still grow crops on. Land that has not been rendered uninhabitable due to violent weather-fluctuations.

      Sadly, preparing a military that can manage such a dystopic future may be a grim necessity.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    4. Re: Better up the Military Budget by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The amount of money in AGW is a fraction of the amount of money oil companies pump out of the ground every week.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    5. Re:Better up the Military Budget by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      We'll just build a wall. And make them pay for it?

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    6. Re:Better up the Military Budget by avgjoe62 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's 30 million people in Bangladesh alone, not worldwide.

      --

      How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

    7. Re:Better up the Military Budget by PatientZero · · Score: 1

      There are currently 60 million war refugees according to UNHCR

      So either our military commanders havent kept up with whats been going on the last decade, or they can't even imagine current reality.

      I understood that quote to count only refugees from Bangladesh—not worldwide.

      He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation. "We're going to see . . . 30 million people."

      --
      Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
      I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
    8. Re: Better up the Military Budget by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, desired land perhaps.

      All of the people in Florida could fit in Wyoming, at half the population density of Florida currently (estimated in my head).

      Even the worst models have water rising a few feet in 100 years. Which wipes out almost all coastal cities, but not a huge percentage of land - for the US at least. So people will have to move. Orderly. Because even at an extreme 1" per year, they can walk away from it.

      Now, several other countries are truly fucked. But we don't really need a huge military increase for that.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    9. Re: Better up the Military Budget by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's plenty of land. There will also be plenty of useful farmland - it just might not be the same land that makes good farmland today.

      The problem isn't really an overall resource shortage, it's that which land is valuable will change. Wars have certainly started over just that. People will need to move, likely across current borders. How will that end up?

      No need for some flood of refugees, though. This is a slow change, by human measure. Plenty of time to work on moving, perhaps emigrating, to where you want to be. It can take years to relocate, but we have years. Make good use of them if you believe in all this.

      If your worried about a flood of refugees ruining your home area even though you found a good place, promptly, well, join the club.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    10. Re: Better up the Military Budget by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      So, in other words, a very large fraction of the population of the United States of America is looking at either moving, or paying vast amounts of money to build levees and dykes. Yeah, no big deal.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re:Better up the Military Budget by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      We're going to need a LOT more killer drones people.

      Yes, really. Once resources become scarce enough, and suddenly a catastrophe eliminates a large chunk of them, there will be a lot of people fighting for survival and a share of the planet's resources.

      (Idea: the government should tax us for clean air and clean water. It costs money to add pollution controls. People should have to pay for it. You don't think clean air grows on trees do you?)

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    12. Re:Better up the Military Budget by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      A migration over 100 years or more is a comfortable migration, not a refugee crisis.

      You can't even imgine the tech in a hundred years.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    13. Re:Better up the Military Budget by DickBreath · · Score: 2

      If there is enough of them, and it is a matter of SURVIVAL, a wall isn't going to stop them. It will turn very ugly.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    14. Re: Better up the Military Budget by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      Over 100 years. Imagine the US before World War 1, imagine it now. That's the change that can happen, slowly, in 100 years. So, no, not a big deal.

      Or reduce/mitigate pollution.

      Which one is easier?

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    15. Re: Better up the Military Budget by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Reducing CO2 emissions is a lot cheaper than building vast dykes around New York City.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    16. Re: Better up the Military Budget by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Not disagreeing at all. And it's probably a lot easier.

      But, very oddly, building dykes is probably an easier political move.

      People are weird, and short sighted.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    17. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hail Trump!!

    18. Re:Better up the Military Budget by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just in case their crazy-sounding warning happens to come true.

      It's all those Marxist SJWs in the US Military pushing their climate change agenda based on a Chinese hoax just so they can get money from George Soros.

      Give me a second, and I'll work in a reference to #pizzagate, pedophilia, third-wave feminism and corrupt games journalists.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    19. Re: Better up the Military Budget by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      The problem here is that the dykes wouldn't be built now. They'd built once storm inundations meant lowlying areas of New York City spent large amounts of time underwater. In other words, it wouldn't be the 2016 taxpayer paying for it, it would be the 2036 taxpayer paying for it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    20. Re: Better up the Military Budget by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Or just get the R proposal over with, defund social security to pay for that wall.

      I think I smell a Trump plan in the works...

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    21. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It doesn't stop people from wanting that fraction. Wouldn't you take $100,000 even if they other guy got $1,000,000,000?

    22. Re:Better up the Military Budget by swb · · Score: 1

      A wall won't stop them, but it will slow them down enough for people behind the wall to shoot them dead.

      Don't be naive, if refugee/migration pressures are this severe do not think of a second that the people with will demand the invading hordes without be stopped by any means necessary.

      I'm of the opinion that it's happening already. We argue around the margins about immigration, pretending it's about jobs, racism or some other bullshit but I think at the heart of it people really are nervous about long-term resource access. It's low level and you can easily rationalize away any kind of urgency about it, but I think the level of news coverage about refugees into Europe, the noticeable increase in Hispanic populations in the US over the last 10-20 years, etc is invoking something of a panic mindset.

      We laugh about Trump's wall now for all the obvious reasons but it wouldn't surprise me at all if fortifying the border specifically against mass refugee influxes doesn't become something more than a fringe idea.

    23. Re:Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > You can't even imgine the tech in a hundred years.

      It'll be yuge! Terrific tech! The best tech you've ever seen!

    24. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mix in the planet's absurdly high human population that is already stretching our ability to grow enough food and... well let's just say I hope we can hang on for another 40 or so years so that when the proverbial really hits the fan I'll be safely dead. What is coming is something I very much do not want to witness.

    25. Re: Better up the Military Budget by ghoul · · Score: 0

      Republicans want to build walls to stop an imaginary flow of terrorists who are taking their jobs (Are all republicans terrorists?)
      Democrats want to build walls to stop an imaginary rising sea due to an imaginary global warming (Definitely all Environmentalists are republicans)

      When will a sane party come to power in this country?

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    26. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are nuts.

    27. Re:Better up the Military Budget by ghoul · · Score: 1

      In other news the wall is getting built but its not going to be made of concrete. Its going to be made of overpriced US made Carrier ACs that noone will buy . Donald probably guaranteed Carrier he will buy all the ACs they make . (Not really different from the Department of Agriculture guarnteeing to buy all the corn farmers can grow). And the illegal Mexicans? He will give them jobs building the wall but he will ask them to work from the Mexican side. When the wall is finished they will be on the right side. And since he will refuse to pay them (as he has done to many workmen) they will complain to Mexico and Mexico will pay for the wall.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    28. Re:Better up the Military Budget by ghoul · · Score: 1

      The wall is getting built but its not going to be made of concrete. Its going to be made of overpriced US made Carrier ACs that noone will buy . Donald probably guaranteed Carrier he will buy all the ACs they make . (Not really different from the Department of Agriculture guarnteeing to buy all the corn farmers can grow). And the illegal Mexicans? He will give them jobs building the wall but he will ask them to work from the Mexican side. When the wall is finished they will be on the right side. And since he will refuse to pay them (as he has done to many workmen) they will complain to Mexico and Mexico will pay for the wall.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    29. Re: Better up the Military Budget by ghoul · · Score: 1

      I am buying land in Nunavat.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    30. Re: Better up the Military Budget by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Informative

      You do know there decades of scientific fact about actual rising seas, right?
      http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

      Or that 2 quadrillion pounds of ice melted off Greenland alone in 4 years, right? A quadrillion is a thousand trillion.
      https://weather.com/news/clima...

      Like to the point that municipalities have to deal with that actuality coming soon:
      http://www.miamidade.gov/plann...

      Or, you're yet another Troll. I'll go with that.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    31. Re: Better up the Military Budget by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Aren't the coastal cities economically very significant in the US?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    32. Re: Better up the Military Budget by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1

      `This is a slow change, by human measure`
      Plants also need to migrate, and they might not move fast enough :
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

    33. Re: Better up the Military Budget by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Yes, they are.

      But we know this is happening. So we can deal with it in two ways:

      1. Reduce output of pollution/heat to reduce greenhouse effect & rising seas
      2. Start to move stuff away from the ocean. The rise is happening slowly, so require new infrastructure to be 20 feet, or whatever, above sea levels.

      Or I guess we could just keep hoping it goes away, or the idiots on the House Science committee pray it away...

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    34. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you think that it will be a slow change? Overall, perhaps, but there is nothing to say that a small change will not render specific highly-populated areas useless in short order.

    35. Re:Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they just want any old wall, they can have the military haul over a bunch of T-walls or deploy those big nets that they fill with a bucket loader. These are not easily damaged, either.

      Our infantry have literally walled off entire cities in the middle east for tactical reasons, there's no reason they couldn't construct a big wall if they were called upon to do so. I dare say they're quite good at it.

      I'd say it's a better use of them than trying to destabilize the middle east again.

    36. Re: Better up the Military Budget by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      So your definition of a "sane party" is a party that ignores mountains of research and data?

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    37. Re: Better up the Military Budget by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 1

      Please tell me you didn't just predict Trump still being in office in 2036.

    38. Re:Better up the Military Budget by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      A migration over 100 years or more is a comfortable migration,

      And frankly, it's going to happen no matter what we do, because of climate or otherwise (as there have been many migrations in the past century.......some positive, some negative).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    39. Re: Better up the Military Budget by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Humans are really good at adapting to change. Lots of the species we rely on for food and clothing and such may not be nearly as adaptable.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    40. Re: Better up the Military Budget by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The amount of money in AGW is a fraction of the amount of money oil companies pump out of the ground every week.

      Do you really think those two numbers are comparable?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    41. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The essential good topsoil doesn't magically relocate in a hundred years. You're deluded.

    42. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol straight out of the tobacco playbook. "We can't do anything about it anyway".

    43. Re: Better up the Military Budget by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      No! I insist that you set your hair on fire and run around hysterically in circles because ClimateChange!

    44. Re: Better up the Military Budget by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      The difference? 100% of AGW money is government money. Come on, now spout off about so-called "fossil fuel subsidies" and accuse me of stupidity, evilness, etc.

    45. Re:Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Don't be naive, if refugee/migration pressures are this severe do not think of a second that the people with will demand the invading hordes without be stopped by any means necessary."

      There is the thing that no once in history did that work
      No once.
      Even when travelling was hazardous and hard enough that resulted in high mortality rates enough people made it to their intended destiny to mark the cultures of their new countries
      Now travel is easier, even with people drowning in the Mediterranean on a daily basis it cannot be really compared to travelling 1000 or even 200 years ago, and despite getting better at killing, are we going to beat Genghis Khan, Xerxes? you name it, even they had a killing upper limit
      We don't have a solution for migration, or maybe the solution is the usual, lots of people dead but enough make it, cultures change and evolve and the world continue spinning

    46. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If every single American vehicle stopped moving tomorrow, global warming would still happen. At this point, we should be reducing and we should be literally planning for all those bad things that will be happening.

      Besides, we both know everyone won't magically stop driving. We can save the world if all the humans die...

      But that's not preferable for us.

    47. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The effects of this climate change are fortunately not felt as fast as those of the ending of the last ice age. Some communities in Australian continent still have stories about the rapidly rising sea level. Water traveling 10-100 meters inland per day would certainly attract undivided attention.

    48. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AND? They fuckin' chose to live there! I mean shit, people chose to live in New Orleans which was under sea-level (or damn near close enough) to begin with. California WILL eventually break up & split in to numerous parts, that's likely to happen 'all at once', that is a REAL crises waiting to happen. People having to move because their basement will be flooded...yeah I'm not losing too much sleep over that.

    49. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      There's plenty of land. There will also be plenty of useful farmland - it just might not be the same land that makes good farmland today.

      That's a bullshit lie you're pulling straight out of your ass. The amount of arable land in the world is limited. Not even considering how one would easily and cheaply move major agricultural infrastructure, where do you see all the "useful farmland" magically appearing? Where are these virgin, nutrient, non-parasite laced soils? Do these areas just happen to have diurnal cycles that match the crops too? The right pH? The right amount of rain and drainage? Solid aquifers to provide water during lean years? Are they easily accessible? Are the native species conducive? Will any species brought along by such a transfer suddenly grow wildly out of control due to no natural predators to keep them in check?

      There are thousands of factors at play, and there a few regions in world which actually permit the large scale operations we use currently to produce most of the world's food.

      The problem isn't really an overall resource shortage, it's that which land is valuable will change.

      Yes, the problem will be shortage. If areas where current production is done dry up, there aren't any other areas that can take their place in any reasonable time frame.

      Wars have certainly started over just that. People will need to move, likely across current borders. How will that end up?

      No need for some flood of refugees, though. This is a slow change, by human measure. Plenty of time to work on moving, perhaps emigrating, to where you want to be.

      The changes aren't slow by human measure. It took decades of building up the support and infrastructure necessary to support current agricultural operations. Assuming these magical untapped farming areas exist (which they simply don't), you'd need to put the same infrastructure in place there to support operations (likely more).

      It can take years to relocate, but we have years.

      It would require decades, not years. We also haven't established where the best areas to relocate would be, and now we certainly won't with a bunch of scientific illiterates at the helm.

      Make good use of them if you believe in all this.

      If your worried about a flood of refugees ruining your home area even though you found a good place, promptly, well, join the club.

      When a million starving desperate people are heading straight for you, you get out of the way. When people have nothing left to lose, they don't really care about laws and morality. That's why the military and intelligence organizations are very much interested in climate research. It's not only so they can have effective plans for dealing with the impacts here, but also to identify likely areas of socio-economic unrest that could flare up with potentially bad global impacts.

      --
      ~X~
    50. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      30 milion people in India is like 3% of the population. The U.S. equivalent is only around 800,000 people and 300,000 immigrants.

    51. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, it's easy to see you've no idea what you're talking about. You guys always forget that the earth has always been at its most fertile, having the greatest variety of life, when temperatures are warmer. We're living in an ice age right now. Yes, this warming is happening earlier and faster than it should have, but it would have happened eventually. In any case, land that is currently unusable for farming due to too cold temperatures for too long a period, will suddenly become available. Just because it hasn't been used for farming recently, doesn't mean it can't be. Humans are experts at adapting. We'll figure it out. Most of the extremely fertile soil that exists now probably wasn't 10000 years ago. Not to mention we can add chemicals to the soil where necessary. We do it now. We get overspray of anhydrous ammonia from a neighboring corn/bean field in the baseball field at my kids school every year. Pot ash gets dumped on fields. Farmers burn off chaff from the last crop. Basically, the agricultural infrastructure you're so worried about will just have to change from trains to trucks, until a better method is determined. Enormous grain bins for storage can be built in months by only a few people who own the proper equipment. Maybe that will be a new growth industry for a while.
      This is happening. Failing to realize that it needs to be dealt with on more fronts than just "reduce CO2 emissions" is dangerous and unhelpful.

    52. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We grow plenty of food now. The only issue is the logistics of getting it to the people who need it. Unfortunately that requires fuel which exacerbates the problem.

    53. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, we can. But not nearly fast enough, so ignoring that people will have to move to deal it with it is like sitting in a burning building while the fire fighters battle the flames, and figuring you don't need to leave because they'll put it out before it gets to you. Does that sound reasonable?

    54. Re: Better up the Military Budget by lgw · · Score: 1

      Sure, it will take decades. Fortunately, it will take centuries for the problem to unfold. Millions will do nothing until the water reaches waist-level of course - that's people for you - but you don't have to wait.

      Farmland's easy, BTW. The vast majority of what was farmland 100 years ago is forest now. It can be farmland again in a year, and productive the following year. Roundup-ready seed and a fuckton of fertilizer and a self-driving combine, and we're swimming in corn - that's modern farming for you.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    55. Re: Better up the Military Budget by blindseer · · Score: 1

      I doubt that. Replacing fossil fuels for vehicles and electricity is much harder than moving some dirt. We know how to move dirt, we've been doing that for a long time. We've been trying, and failing, to find alternatives to fossil fuels for a long time too.

      We are going to be burning a lot of fossil fuels for at least thirty years. How can I say this? Easy, look at the typical lifespan of a cargo ship, passenger airplane, train, construction equipment, and so on. These are very large and expensive pieces of equipment that are not replaced on a whim. In addition to this it takes years to design and test new versions of these things. I remember the F-35 having it's "fly off" in the 1990s and it's still being tested for deployment. The transition from fossil fuels will likely take much longer than thirty years but given just the lifespan of these vehicles sets that as a lower limit.

      What might allow for a faster change away from fossil fuels is an alternative source of hydrocarbons. These vehicles don't care where the hydrocarbons came from, they just need that kind of fuel because nothing else is as easy to handle, energy dense, self lubricating, and so on. The US Navy has been researching synthesized hydrocarbons and if they could just get the funding for this we could see this happen much sooner. It also would not require replacing all of our hydrocarbon infrastructure for something new.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    56. Re:Better up the Military Budget by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you should read up about the "migration times" or "emigration of nations" or "invasion of the barbarians" in early medieval times in Europe ...

      Moron!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    57. Re:Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The wall and "shooting" won't do shit, leave your autistic anti-human zombie fantasies in your dreams. People will kill you regardless of technology.

    58. Re: Better up the Military Budget by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

      Burn hydrocarbons, produce CO2.

      The real solution is to price fossil fuels to account for climate effects.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    59. Re: Better up the Military Budget by blindseer · · Score: 1

      If the hydrocarbons are produced from the CO2 in the air then their is no net increase in the CO2 in the environment. This is what the Navy wants to do, use nuclear power to draw CO2 from the seawater (which dissolves in the water from the air) and create hydrogen from electrolysis, put them together and out comes hydrocarbons and oxygen.

      Taxing fossil fuels will do nothing. There is already ample incentive to move from fossil fuels. What we need is someone interested in actually solving the problem. The Navy has shown us a solution, one that does not require economy killing taxes or ripping up our hydrocarbon based infrastructure.

      Effectively we've already solved the problem, we just need people that want to see the solution implemented.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    60. Re:Better up the Military Budget by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Well, duh. Did you know why they allowed gays and women in the military? So that they could pack it with those Marxist SJWs who'd push for the climate change hoax!

      (BTW, you forgot to add "cultural" to "Marxist")

    61. Re: Better up the Military Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sea levels are lowest I've seen in my entire life by a large margin and I haven't been able to swim where I usually would have all summer. Winter started a month early this year. Your "facts" are at least regionally the exact opposite of what is actually happening.

  3. "Military" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    You don't mean military. You mean ex military who have sucked off the taxpayers teat all theirs Ives and are now retired on a taxpayer pension and looking to make even more money as "advisors". Everyone is trying to make a buck off is a crises

    1. Re: "Military" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well now that they are in the private sector and have a piece of the pie, it is only rational to want to defend it from all threats, real or imagined.

  4. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Slashdot lost credibility a long time ago.

  5. Will? Would! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So far, the model predictions have been wildly different from reality, and there are very real disputes about not only the methodology of data collection and interpretation, but also the very mathematics used to extrapolate that data into predictions about the future.

    A government's power grows under crisis; when there's no crisis, just manufacture one!

    1. Re:Will? Would! by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Models predict temperature rises, temperature rises are observed. What you're doing is moving the goal posts so you can make it sound like your childish denial has any basis in fact.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Will? Would! by Layzej · · Score: 1

      Here's how actual temps compare to the CMIP3 model output used in the IPCC AR4:

    3. Re:Will? Would! by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      Models project everything, so they just point to one that's close and say, "See? Our models are correct." Enjoy your assumed moral superiority and virtue-signalling while it lasts.

    4. Re:Will? Would! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be really interesting to see that graph projected over the next few (let's say 4) years. We are due, if I don't misunderstand the basics, for a temperature dip (or a hiatus in warming, at least) over the next year or so, and I would be very curious to see not only if the model agrees with this prediction but also to compare the model's predictions with actual temperatures over the next few years.

      Out of curiosity, can you link the fuller article or paper that that graph comes from, as it obviously hasn't come directly from the 4th* Assessment Report (AR4): the actual temperature data from roughly 10 years after the report was published is a bit of a giveaway :P

      *Given that the models have gotten a lot more sophisticated in subsequent years (a fascinating description of their 'evolution' is actually given in the AR4, roughly pg. 99) I also wonder if the CMIP3 model you cite is the same model used for the AR4, or a more refined version.

      [Sorry for posting anon, but I've used a few mod points elsewhere in the topic :-/]

    5. Re:Will? Would! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Enjoy your assumed moral superiority and virtue-signalling while it lasts.

      "Virtue-signalling", the new buzz word put-down used to attack the debater rather than engage in the debate...

    6. Re:Will? Would! by Layzej · · Score: 1

      Here's the full article: http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

      CMIP3 was used in AR4. CMIP5 was used in AR5.

  6. It's like I said the other day - if San Francisco by raymorris · · Score: 4, Funny

    This reminds me of something I mentioned here on Slashdot just the other day. Though it's not looking like San Francisco will really be underwater by 2020, if it is, refugees from San Francisco will come *here* wearing their assless leather pants. That's worrisome.

    Now back to News for Nerds.

  7. Keep them out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any country that actually implements climate change mitigations should hard-reject migrants from countries that deny its effects. Free riders should suffer the consequences, and should bear the brunt of the catastrophe so that there are less mouths the feed after we lose the arable land caused by climate change.

  8. "climate change" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought "climate change" was a Chinese hoax. Is the military now in cahoots with foreigners?

  9. Re:It's like I said the other day - if San Francis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So nature is going to do humanity a solid by killing off a large selection of hipsters. Good to know.

  10. Hm.. by colin_faber · · Score: 4, Insightful

    “Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century,” said Maj Gen Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change.."

    1. Re:Hm.. by ichthus · · Score: 1

      Muniruzzaman
      Money ruse a man.
      Ah, oh, I get it.

      --
      sig: sauer
    2. Re:Hm.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You would prefer to hear it from the Chairman Of The Council On Basket Weaving?

    3. Re:Hm.. by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

      Considering it owes its existence to spreading its news, sure.

  11. Gotta be fake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The military wouldn't say something like this about fake global warming, so this has to be another fake story.

  12. Science Deniers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't deny the science. The earth is 1.8 degrees hotter than the last 100 year average. Not sure why I would relocate over a 1 degree change in average temperature, but I just follow the science not hysteria.

    1. Re:Science Deniers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to work in a lab with a guy who would go back and modify his lab notebooks to make himself look better.

      You can't do science when someone is changing the numbers after the fact.

    2. Re:Science Deniers by sexconker · · Score: 0

      I used to work in a lab with a guy who would go back and modify his lab notebooks to make himself look better.

      You can't do science when someone is changing the numbers after the fact.

      Form what I've seen, that's standard.

      People love to tweak their data, adjust it, reinterpret it, look for any excuse to throw out an "outlier" (an outlier only to their predetermined conclusion), etc. Being "right" or pushing an agenda or foisting some scam is more important than actually testing a hypothesis (if they even have a proper hypothesis to test).

      People bitch about how the masses are anti education, anti science, etc. Generally, they're not. They're anti educator, anti school, anti government, and anti "scientist" because they're sick of the bullshit.

    3. Re:Science Deniers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The earth is 1.8 degrees hotter than the last 100 year average.

      Known climate cycles include a ~400 year long one, of which we are roughly 150 to 180 years into the warming portion of. However, many people insist that this cycle does not exist so they can continue to focus on 11-20 year cycles. Also ignored is the ~5000 year cycle with the argument that the proxy measurements for previous rotations of that cycle didn't rise as quickly (in the multi-century average proxy that we have) as the current change (which we measure and debate about daily).

      I did relocate over a 1 degree change in average temperature, from a region with significant seasonal swings to one with a much more consistent temperatures, and also about 1 degree warmer using annual averages.

    4. Re:Science Deniers by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Known climate cycles

      It's also known that humans are driving climate change faster than any natural cycle. Stop hand waiving.

    5. Re:Science Deniers by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      Don't deny the science. The earth is 1.8 degrees hotter than the last 100 year average. Not sure why I would relocate over a 1 degree change in average temperature, but I just follow the science not hysteria.

      This is primarily referring to areas of the tropics and coastlines.

      But, to put that temperature change in perspective, -2C below the 20th century average is enough to plunge the world into an ice age. It takes a lot to move temperatures, but it doesn't take a lot of change to significantly alter the climate.

      --
      ~X~
    6. Re:Science Deniers by Raenex · · Score: 1

      It's also known that humans are driving climate change faster than any natural cycle.

      If you believe the proxy science. I don't trust it since Climategate.

      On the one hand, trees are supposed to be very important for reconstructing past climate. On the other hand, when the most recent tree data from the past several decades didn't match thermometer data, they just truncated the tree data, hypothesized that only modern trees weren't behaving, and concluding based on thermometer readings versus truncated proxy readings that the current rise is unprecedented.

      I will also point out that most of the rise from global warming is also a hypothetical one based on feedback from cloud formation, and the science is still very much unsettled on that. If anything, the climate models have been running way too hot compared to the actual warming that has taken place.

      And finally, there's the economic problem, because cheap energy has brought more people out of poverty, while renewable energy is just not nearly as cheap or efficient on the large scales needed to do away with fossil fuels, and the world has no appetite for nuclear.

    7. Re:Science Deniers by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      If you believe the proxy science.

      What proxy science. Data and methodologies are publicly accessible and subject to peer review.

      I don't trust it since Climategate.

      You mean since you found an excuse to get your confirmation bias on - just like the anti-vaxxers. You guys come up with a reason yet for why, in an industry where a single company can make $40 billion in a single quarter, they haven't been able to debunk climate science if it's all faked? When even their own paid scientists admit that climate change is happening, when they actually examine the facts?

      while renewable energy is just not nearly as cheap or efficient on the large scales needed to do away with fossil fuels

      Outdating talking point #3,475: Wind now competes with fossil fuels. Solar almost does - and that's allowing the fossil fuel industry to externalize most of their side effects. Feel free to skip the baseline red herring, as production capacity can be spaced across the grid to account for the rare windless periods or times of low sunlight.

      and the world has no appetite for nuclear

      Slight correction: the world has no appetite for the cost of nuclear. Nuclear power is by far the most expensive and ludicrous form of corporate welfare invented by man, with the exception of defense contractors. It simply costs too damn much to mine, refine, construct, secure, maintain, decomission, and store the waste for hundreds of years.

    8. Re:Science Deniers by Raenex · · Score: 1

      What proxy science.

      The science surrounding the Mannian hockey stick, which lie at the claim you made surrounding recent warming being "faster than any natural cycle". Though even that claim is wrong unless you limit yourself to the past 1,000 years or so. Peer-reviewed climate proxies show dramatic swings in climate.

      Data and methodologies are publicly accessible and subject to peer review.

      Climategate showed scientists unwilling to release their data, even to the point of preferring to delete it. It showed scientists deleting email around the IPCC process. It showed scientists pressuring other scientists to boycott journals that published peer-review articles they didn't like. It also showed scientists publishing manipulative graphs to the wider public.

      And just because something passed peer review doesn't make it true or even good science. Plenty of bad science has passed that bar.

      You mean since you found an excuse to get your confirmation bias on - just like the anti-vaxxers.

      You're wrong. My initial position was to trust the scientists, even though I knew modeling the Earth was a complicated and uncertain business. What Climategate showed was science corrupted by politics and confirmation bias.

      You guys come up with a reason yet for why, in an industry where a single company can make $40 billion in a single quarter, they haven't been able to debunk climate science if it's all faked?

      How can you "debunk" something that doesn't have simple answers? I didn't say "it's all faked". That you're even going that route shows you don't understand the complexity of the topic or the wide range of views between "Hoax!" (100% denier), "The sky is falling!" (alarmist), and anything in between. It also doesn't help that the topic is highly politicized and biased in one direction.

      Outdating talking point #3,475: Wind now competes with fossil fuels. Solar almost does

      Wind isn't available everywhere. And solar has down days and is also not available everywhere in useful capacity. You still need the base load. Nothing beats coal for cheapness and availability. If it did it there wouldn't be any discussion, we'd just be using the alternatives.

      Slight correction: the world has no appetite for the cost of nuclear.

      Maybe, though if the concern is carbon dioxide it's a reasonable alternative to look at. The public, though, has no appetite for nuclear because of worries about catastrophic failures and nuclear waste.

  13. There is only crisis by DarkOx · · Score: 1

    There is only crisis if 'we' allow it. Securing the boarders against 'mass migration' would be easy.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    1. Re:There is only crisis by The-Ixian · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well not until we can build a wall and have the oceans pay for it....

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    2. Re:There is only crisis by chispito · · Score: 1

      Securing the boarders against 'mass migration' would be easy.

      But what if your boarders decide to stay somewhere else?

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    3. Re:There is only crisis by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      we will take their documents so they can't cross the border

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    4. Re:There is only crisis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is only crisis if 'we' allow it. Securing the boarders against 'mass migration' would be easy.

      If our boarders are engaging in a 'mass migration' then we should probably lower their rent.

    5. Re:There is only crisis by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      There is only crisis if 'we' allow it. Securing the boarders against 'mass migration' would be easy.

      Who's 'we'?

      Preventing migration will make the crisis worse, not better. Unless you don't consider tens or hundreds of millions of people starving to death just outside your beautiful wall a "crisis".

    6. Re: There is only crisis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Killing innocent people gets bad press. That's why the right wing pr is in over drive to label them as subhumans.
      Rapists, criminals.. Real bad hombres... Radical Islamic terrorists.. Etc.
      So we can kill them by the millions.. In self defense.

      It is looking like we are in for a sad star wars future, not a happy star trek one.

  14. Sure General, Sure by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 1

    Radical Islam can't be a factor here. It's all due to climate change. The fact that your country doesn't have a very good handle on it's own radical insurgents doesn't mean you're looking for convenient scapegoats to deflect blame to. Naw.

    1. Re:Sure General, Sure by PatientZero · · Score: 1

      Radical Islam can't be a factor here.

      Fundamentalists can cause the sea level to rise? Holy shit, we're fucked!

      --
      Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
      I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
    2. Re:Sure General, Sure by swb · · Score: 1

      There was that guy they called Moses. Not sure if fundamentalist is the right word for it, but he did have a way with the sea level.

    3. Re:Sure General, Sure by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      Radical Islam can't be a factor here. It's all due to climate change.

      I find it interesting that you believe that Radical Islam is capable of flooding Bangladesh. Can I follow your twitter feed?

    4. Re:Sure General, Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was that guy they called Moses. Not sure if fundamentalist is the right word for it, but he did have a way with the sea level.

      Yeah, but that was the Red Sea. So we just need to make sure that the oceans are conservative...

  15. Boko Haram? by ScentCone · · Score: 0

    Right, Boko Haram's systematic rape and murder of insufficiently Islamic villagers in Africa is all about climate change. Gotcha.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:Boko Haram? by chipschap · · Score: 1

      Indeed, from TFS: "having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency."

      No matter where you stand on climate change, linking it to the above is more than a bit of a stretch.

      Which brings up a point. If you're serious about doing something about AGW/climate change, articles such as this one move the cause backward, not forward, by giving ammunition to AGM/cc opponents.

    2. Re: Boko Haram? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're confusing "connected to" with "exclusively caused by" which is a common rhetorical strategy by people who want to mislead and confuse on an issue.

      If you want an exhaustive review of influences, I suggest starting with the Egyptian Old Kingdom.

    3. Re:Boko Haram? by PvtVoid · · Score: 5, Informative

      Indeed, from TFS: "having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency."

      No matter where you stand on climate change, linking it to the above is more than a bit of a stretch.

      Which brings up a point. If you're serious about doing something about AGW/climate change, articles such as this one move the cause backward, not forward, by giving ammunition to AGM/cc opponents.

      Actually, not so much of a stretch. The civil war in Syria was preceded by a massive migration of people from rural to urban areas due to an unprecedented drought:

      https://news.vice.com/article/...

      Global warming doesn't directly cause civil wars, but migration and the resulting social instability most certainly does, and will.

    4. Re:Boko Haram? by Dare+nMc · · Score: 2

      >No matter where you stand on climate change, linking it to the above is more than a bit of a stretch.

      Likely your bias contributed to your reading into this a claim never made, and that is that all climate change = Man made Global warming. Some are related, but if you re-read this article with that difference in mind, it is then true. That small localized changes will get worse as the world gets hotter is made more important by understanding how vulnerable the world is to small changes in local climates.

      I think too many people just don't get that ag societies still exist, and need to be informed that it often doesn't take much to trigger a flare up when you have so many people living in poverty. It may be wrong to conflate climate change of the past (regional droughts, water shortages, poor crops due to weather variations.) as closely with man made global warming, as this article hints. But it would be difficult or impossible to say localized climate change didn't contribute some to all of those uprisings.

      https://www.americanprogress.o...

      "A once-in-a-century winter drought in China contributed to global wheat shortages and skyrocketing bread prices in Egypt, the worldâ(TM)s largest wheat importer." (Sternberg, p. 7)
      "Of the world's major wheat-importing companies per capita, "the top nine importers are all in the Middle East; seven had political protests resulting in civilian deaths in 2011." (Sternberg, p. 12)
      "The world is entering a period of `agflation,` or inflation driven by rising prices for agricultural commodities." (Johnstone and Mazo, p. 21)
      "Drought and desertification across much of the Sahel-northern Nigeria, for example, is losing 1,350 square miles a year to desertificationâ"have undermined agricultural and pastoral livelihoods," contributing to urbanization and massive flows of migrants. (Werz and Hoffman, p. 37)
      "As the region's population continues to climb, water availability per capita is projected to plummet. Rapid urban expansion across the Arab world increasingly risks overburdening existing infrastructure and outpacing local capacities to expand service."(Michel and Yacoubian, p. 45)
      "We have reached the point where a regional climate event can have a global extent." (Sternberg, p. 10)

    5. Re:Boko Haram? by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      So, instead of rambling on, how about specifically explaining how Boko Haram's murdering of villages full of people and kidnapping the young girls and subjecting them to gang rapes and forced marriage is a function of climate change. Be very specific. How does the climate change cause the rape? When a man decides to rape a woman and tells her village it's because they're not Muslim, what is the actual, climate-based reason for that rape? Specifically, please.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    6. Re:Boko Haram? by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      Global warming causes everything. As long as those everythings are bad. Biggest scam in mankind's history.

    7. Re: Boko Haram? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The preceding argument was brought to you by "guns don't kill people, bullets do" crowd.

      By your logic, I should be legally free to put a gun to your head and pull the trigger, because a tiny metal tap on a pin can't possible be the cause of your death. Don't blame me for the fact that you are too lazy and religious to get out of the way in time. The average bullet sits in a magazine for weeks before moving. So the average speed is just inches per hour.

    8. Re:Boko Haram? by Dare+nMc · · Score: 1

      > How does the climate change cause the rape?

      First show me where the article or I said that. It is a read hearing, neither I nor the article said climate change caused anything, let alone a specific act.

      Horrible shit happens in War. War is more likely to happen, when you have millions of people who cannot feed their families because crops are gone, clean water is not available and the food they had bought in the past is too expensive and thus out of reach. You cannot tell me in that situation, it isn't more likely for a warlord with food, money, and smooth talk to get a army together of those people to further his agenda? Pre-existing problems that may have lead to war without a major drought, but with time could have found another outlet, it boils up faster and larger when more heat is applied.

    9. Re:Boko Haram? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does the climate change cause the rape?
      How does decades long heat waves cause hunger?
      How lack of food and water cause untold misery and the breakdown of civil society?
      How do nut jobs, rapist and extremist run wild in a broken society?
      Why the Aztec goods demanded child sacrifices so that it rain?

      I wonder
      Did it occur to you that it doesn't need to be a single event?
      They say that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs, yet other evidence point to volcanoes instead
      Could it be that the the asteroid on top of its own damage triggered a wave of volcanism and earthquakes among other disasters over a long period and that killed the dinosaurs?

      Could it be that climate change triggered some events in an already fragile social fabric?
      Want some examples of climate events that changed the world? what about
      French Revolution
      Downfall of the Aztec empire
      Downfall of the Khmer civilization
      Perhaps western Roman empire fall?

    10. Re:Boko Haram? by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency

      Boko Haram's name, translated, means "Western/Non-Islamic Education Is A Sin." They kill and rape in the name of that message. TFS directly links Boko Haram's insurgency to climate change.

      It is a read hearing

      The term you're looking for is "red herring." Red, the color, and herring, the fish. It comes from a technique used in training and testing fox hounds, to see if they can be too easily distracted.

      So you're right, but only by accident, for the wrong reasons. The summary is trying to distract you from the evils of groups like Boko Haram by somehow making their willingness to slaughter villages and take hundreds of young girls into the jungle where they are then sold off as sex slaves somehow about climate change, rather than about the very reasons they plainly state that they do those exact things. People like you who try to tell those Africans that they're too dumb to know what they're saying, and that it's really the fault of climate change that they're murdering and raping their way through areas they're trying to convert to Islam ... people who trot that crap out are the worst sort of patronizing, condescending, smug racists one ever comes across. Quick! Absolve them of their ideology and actions because they're too simple, as a people, to realize that it's climate change and not the culture they're embracing that causes them to murder, torture, and rape! Whew, dodged a bullet there - wouldn't want to ever judge anybody, because every world view is equally valid, unless you're from a western democracy, in which case you're evil because climate change. Except that very dismissal judges them as too mentally inferior to resist murdering and raping, because ... climate change.

      Which "smooth talk" is it that you think is somehow more persuasive in the context of climate change that makes someone who would otherwise not murder a girl's family in front of her eyes before assigning her to a rape camp ... suddenly change their world view and decide that's the right way to be? What would it take YOU to be convinced that's the way to gain political power? Or are you saying you, personally, could not be convinced to think that's OK, but those people in Africa are somehow by disposition more easily persuaded to take up that way of life, especially because Climate Change?

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  16. Lots of room by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are lots of room in the north. Only thing that is needed is preparation, shedding of complacency and optimization of food production efficiency with industrial scale indoor and high-efficiency farming. My small country could take at least 120 million people more assuming globally optimized food production. The neighbors could take millions and millions more. The 30 million refugees is nothing in the world that has finally gotten through the culture shock and grown up. Grown up in all sides, of course.

  17. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ah yes, some oil company-funded think tanks and a couple of climatologists who have never published any of their AGW-crushing research must be speaking the truth, whereas the overwhelming majority of experts in the field are faking it.

    Oh, and I think at this juncture useful to remind this AC that those aforementioned oil companies knew about AGW forty years ago.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  18. Very true: can already see it happening by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    In South America, glaciers are disappearing so fast that people are running out of water, and moving to other places, regardless of boundaries.

    Even internally you can see the migration occurring in North America, regardless of boundaries, or oceans.

    Now if only these land-hoarding NIMBYs would stop their futile attempts to resist growth, and decommission the empty states and counties, we'd be fine.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re: Very true: can already see it happening by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see the effects where I live as well. I just went outside and didn't need a winter coat. Hello??? It's December!!!

    2. Re:Very true: can already see it happening by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You actually made me curious enough to google that for you, and sure enough, there's a non-empty list of glaciers in south america. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_glaciers_in_South_America

    3. Re:Very true: can already see it happening by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      It's hard to tell with some of the ACs whether one is reading a complete idiot's rant, or a satirical post. I'm assuming in this case that this is satire, because otherwise this would require such an extraordinary ignorance of basic geography that I'd have to assume the poster is likely a low-IQ halfwit.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Very true: can already see it happening by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you know that South America is actually a continent? It has more than one environment.

  19. "former military adviser to [...] Bangladesh" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "former military adviser to [...] Bangladesh"

    This is what Slashdot refers to simply as, "Military".

  20. The Onion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I looked at my news feed and thought this article came from The Onion until I clicked it.

  21. Putin is a prck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Russians are Mongols. They are Slavs and a lot of them used to be ruled by Ancient Byzantium. From Genghis Kahn to Stalin, they have not changed. They never will, and we will never learn, at least, not until it is too late.

  22. Send them to Canada! by avandesande · · Score: 1

    --EOM--

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  23. Climate Wars: Interesting series on this stuff by I've+Got+Three+Cats · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A bit dated from 2009, but a good series on future-casting the Geo-politics of climate change. http://gwynnedyer.com/radio/

  24. Re:It's like I said the other day - if San Francis by sinij · · Score: 1

    refugees from San Francisco will come *here* wearing their assless leather pants. That's worrisome.

    I have seen San Francisco on TV, and this is exactly how all of them dress all the time.

  25. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah yes, some oil company-funded think tanks and a couple of climatologists who have never published any of their AGW-crushing research must be speaking the truth, whereas the overwhelming majority of experts in the field are faking it.

    Oh, and I think at this juncture useful to remind this AC that those aforementioned oil companies knew about AGW forty years ago.

    As opposed to the current way research dollars are handed out?

    Given two studies, one that says "OMG!!! We might be headed for a disaster!" and "Nah, it's no big deal.", which researcher gets the follow-on money?

    If you're going to reflexively attack one side of the funding coin, you'd be an utter hypocrite to ignore the other side.

  26. Fridays are for SJW clickbait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess chicken little climate alarmists will have to do.

    1. Re:Fridays are for SJW clickbait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We'll see this kind of crap for at leas the next four years. Democrats are out of government; they have nothing else to do but make the same tired, mindless attacks on anything trumpish.

  27. BULL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fact is there will be a huge immigration problem caused by an economic collapse which is caused by the New World order.

    Climate change has nothing to do with it. 6 degrees is insignificant.

  28. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And where is your evidence for that claim?

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  29. King of the Hill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think this was covered already:

    Dale Gribble: "I say let the world warm up, see what Boutros Boutros-Ghali-Ghali thinks about that. We'll grow oranges in Alaska."
    Hank Hill: "Dale, you giblet-head, we live in Texas. It's already a hundred and ten in the summer, and if it gets one degree hotter, I'm gonna kick your ass"

  30. Re:Liars will Liar by NatasRevol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You sound exactly like you work on the @HouseScience committee.

    Who yesterday tweeted out an anti climate change article. From Breitbart. Because it got colder. In winter.

    Holy Fucking Shit.

    https://twitter.com/HouseScien...

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  31. Re:Liars will Liar by lgw · · Score: 1, Insightful

    On the flip side, if Climate Change is your religion, and yet you live in low-lying coast land, you're kind of an idiot at this point. If you Believe, then topographical maps are free and you should be taking care of yourself and your family - live and work where it will remain safe, and make the move now, not after everything goes crazy. Heck, buy a bunch of safe property while you're at it, great money to be made when the waters rise!

    It's the people who insist that other people need to change everything they do because Climate Change, but aren't taking the threat seriously in their own life, who piss me off right up there with the hypocritical televangelists.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  32. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who pays you Marvin?

  33. But the globe is cooling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not even cooling, more like freezing.

    Let'a hope Trump's wall is able to withstand all of the refugees.

  34. Re:It's like I said the other day - if San Francis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  35. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Informative

    A lot of the people living in low lying areas, particular in Asia, don't exactly have the resources to pick up and leave, and if you bothered to read the article you would realize this is exactly what these people are talking about, large numbers of people living in areas that climate change will make relatively uninhabitable, or at least considerably more unpleasant to live in, getting up and leaving. You know... migrations.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  36. Re:Climate change skeptic by dywolf · · Score: 1

    the only thing you proved is that the media has been sensationalizing and misreporting science for a very long time.
    and you get modded down because the things you say are discredited BS, the same tired BS that gets trotted out by "skeptics" every time.

    only thing is, a skeptic only gets to question until his question actually gets answered.
    it is then, when begin ignoring science and still post the same BS that you are no longer a skeptic.

    you are not a skeptic.
    you are a troll, posting BS.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  37. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Currently I live about two hours from the ocean. I also live a few miles upland of pliocene escarpment. If we take that to be the high water mark, the worst case scenario is I get a house near the beach if Antarctica totally melts.

  38. Time to build those walls..... by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

    In light of this news...time to start building those walls NOW....

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Time to build those walls..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd better make them high. With a couple of thousand dead people in front you can walk over most walls without trouble.

  39. Re: Climate change skeptic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Billions will die!? The world is overpopulated anyway.

  40. Re:Climate change skeptic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you prove point #1, congratulations. smh

  41. Re:It's like I said the other day - if San Francis by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of something I mentioned here on Slashdot just the other day. Though it's not looking like San Francisco will really be underwater by 2020,

    Correct. San Francisco is very hilly. They may have to elevate the freeway, but most of it will be fine.

    http://www.floodmap.net/Elevat...

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  42. Trump confirms it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trump confirms it's imagination, and luckjily the military knows how to follow orders so we won't waste time on this

  43. Stop the presses by TimothyHollins · · Score: 1

    So fucking things up immensely on a global scale leads to shit getting immensely fucked up on a global scale? Color me surprised. I just hope it doesn't affect the skeptics and deniers, it might bruise their egos.

  44. Re:Climate change skeptic by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    There hasn't been a serious claim of global cooling in nearly half a century. This is like saying "Well, you know, up until relatively recently lots of people believed the sun circled the Earth."

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  45. Moderated "redundant" [Re:Climate change skeptic] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just copy and paste this into threads every time it comes up...

    There are lots of reasons I am skeptical of this: 1. A primary method of convincing others is to ridicule and insult them. Notice the responses and downvotes this post will get.

    Nope. I just modded it "redundant" because you just told me it is.

  46. 50 million island people to be displaced by 2010 by steveha · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    In 2005, there was a prediction that 50 million people would be displaced by global warming by 2010. Didn't even come close to coming true.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/feared-migration-hasn-t-happened-un-embarrassed-by-forecast-on-climate-refugees-a-757713.html

    This article has a rather strident tone but has solid links to document the above story.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/15/the-un-disappears-50-million-climate-refugees-then-botches-the-disappearing-attempt/

    These claims were put forward by Norman Myers. After the prediction didn't pan out for 2010, he made updated claims: now it will be 200 million displaced, by 2050.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23899195

    I'm not a climate scientist, but as far as I can tell, the worries about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming have led to very few testable predictions, and the few that have been tested have not proven out. The predicted sea level rise and flooding by 2010 didn't happen, and the computer models that try to predict warming due to carbon dioxide are very far off their predictions.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/13/the-abject-failure-of-official-global-warming-predictions/

    People argue over whether there was a "global warming pause" or not, but I think it's pretty clear that even if global warming didn't pause, the total carbon dioxide concentration went up a lot during that time yet the predicted temperature rises didn't occur.

    There is a saying: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm not convinced that the claims of global warming problems even rise to the level of ordinary evidence, let alone extraordinary.

    So if someone could please post links to the most persuasive proof that we should all be worried about carbon dioxide levels, I'll take a look. But at the moment, I think we have plenty of other worries that are higher priority.

    P.S. The article suggests that Boko Haram is being driven by climate change. Boko Haram itself says that it is driven by a desire to create an Islamic state and to impose Sharia law. I view this attempt to form a linkage between climate change and Boko Haram as unsubstantiated hand-waving. As I understand it, the claimed link is that global warming leads to displaced and impoverished people who are more likely to join Boko Haram, but I'd like to see some evidence. Are there any factors other than climate change that might lead to people being displaced and impoverished? How do you control for such factors in any predictions?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram#Ideology

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  47. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who pays you Marvin?

    Translation: I have no evidence.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  48. What happened to the 50 million climate refugees? by cirby · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You know, the ones we were already supposed to have?

    By 2010?

    That was according to the United Nations Environment Program. You know, a bunch of those experts who are telling us about all of the disasters global warming was supposed to have caused by now.

    All of the "endangered" places that they talked about have had population increases since then, and no serious out-migration.

    Of course, they noticed that prediction had failed spectacularly, so in 2011 they changed the date to 2020.

    And no, the trend still hasn't changed.

  49. I already told you my plan by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    You wanted to go "lalala, I can't hear you", so if you now leave your shore settlement to climb the mountain I'm on, I'll shoot you.

    Problem solved. I don't care whether climate change is real anymore. If it ain't, great. If it is and your shores get flooded, drown or get shot.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re: I already told you my plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok, so you are saying you will kill me for trespassing on land you say is yours if I want to avoid drowning. Fine. I guess I should set fire to the mountain now to burn off any clear and present threats to my life.

      Like Jesus said, "kill the fucker before he can kill you, for that is thy path to eternal salvation".

  50. Re:Climate change skeptic by dywolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. A primary method of convincing others is to ridicule and insult them. Notice the responses and downvotes this post will get.

    Repeated ignorance in the face of facts deserves ridicule.

    2. We have seen vastly higher CO2 levels in planetary history and right now we are seeing what is actually all time lows. We should expect CO2 increases and, in fact, hope for them as going much below 300 ppm would see the beginning of a massive plant die off - there's a reason commercial greenhouses pump CO2 into their facilities.

    Not in human history.
    And the level sat at ~280pp for several million years without a die off in sight.

    3. The temperature change we are seeing now is far from unusual, we've seen similar changes in both rate and magnitude before. In fact, what we are seeing now does not stand out from background noise.

    Completely wrong.
    The current rate is over 333,000x faster than anything that has come before.

    4. Measuring temperatures from millions of years ago to tenths of a degree with any certainty is not realistic. Yet, that's what we're doing.

    Wrong.

    5. The measuring devices we use, known as Stevenson Screens, have approximately 70% of them improperly cited in such a way as to produce more than 2 degrees of error making it appear hotter (see http://www.surfacestations.org...).

    Still wrong.

    6. We know some, perhaps a lot, of data has been fabricated (e.g. Yamal tree ring data) or manipulated in such a way as to produce the desired results (e.g. the so called hockey stick graph) and how it conveniently always gets colder in the past as data is adjusted.

    Yep, wrong again.

    7. We know from the ClimateGate email leaks that coordinated efforts to suppress any conflicting information/studies occurred and were successful.

    Manufactured scandal.
    IE, lies.

    8. Many times the data and methodology of studies supporting AGW is not shared and that even occurs illegally in the refusal of FOIA requests.

    Total fabrication

    9. So many of the predicted side effects of AGW have not come to pass. For example, we were supposed to be seeing Katrina like hurricanes as the norm but instead the exact opposite happened and we have the longest stretch of reduced cyclonic activity since we began keeping records or the millions of climate refugees that were supposed to be created by now - the UN 62nd General assembly in July 2008 said: it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010. They now say it'll be by 2020 - only a little over 3 years from now. It's not happening. [More here](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list-of-failed-climate-predictions/).

    Actually 2012 was a record year for tropical storm damage, especially in areas that don't typically see much of them.
    Cherry picking for only hurricanes, a geographically restricted term, leaves out rather a lot of the globe.

    10. Experiments allegedly proving AGW are sometimes blatantly faked ([see here](https://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/gore-and-bill-nye-fail-at-doing-a-simple-co2-experiment/)).

    Link to nonscientists who lie about science, and get paid to do so.

    11. The breakdown of the scientific method as it becomes science by consensus with massive reliance on appeals to authority and popularity as well as theories that are not falsifiable.

    Myth.

    12. Computer models are based on assumptions that may or may not be accurate, computer models are not necessarily "proof" of the future. For example, the "pause" of the last 15 years that is causing all the confusion now.

    There was no confusion.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  51. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    Anyone with even a bit of knowledge of the history of major migrations knows that it is often the sedentary populations who suffer the most. The Western Roman Empire fell in no small part due to the first wave of migrations from the Asian Steppe, and the Eastern Empire's collapse occurred in no small part because of later Turkic migrations from the Asian interior.

    But more to the point, you're a fucking monster, and I hope you die of the most horrible disease one can imagine, so awful that your family literally prays to God every night that you die quickly... but you won't. I also hope the nurses and doctors who treat you are Muslims, and they are nice to you until your dying breath, so you can know fully what a disgusting subhuman you really are, you monstrous ugly piece of excrement.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  52. old military maxim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is only crisis for 72 hours. After that, it's a "situation".

  53. I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by HBI · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The climate change police are getting more and more shrill over time. This decreases rather than increases their power to convince. But it was all futile anyway because you are asking people to reduce their standard of living by choice to accomplish a community goal. Even people who see the danger are loath to do that...thinking Al Gore and his planes and houses. It's the Whole Earth Catalog thing all over. "living guilt-free with our appropriate technology like Indians in the woods...free at last!". Only a tiny percentage of people will ever share in that goal meaningfully.

    Nothing is going to change politically even when the oceans start encroaching cities, because the argument then will be that it is too late to fix the problem at that point. So, why bother with the stupid political activity, when we all know it's a nonstarter? Aren't there more constructive uses for their time? Instead of futile political activity, how about carbon sequestration-related work? Fund startups to do that... Plant trees. Do *something* to combat the problem you see rather than all of this wasted political activity...dare I say hot air? Solve the problem and stop trying to force others to change to 'solve' it.

    But they won't, because it's not really about climate change. It's about social control and mandating lifestyles. People who apparently really don't like personal success very much because they choose goals that are unachievable.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      Oh, good fucking God.

      People's lifestyles are going to change whether they like it or not. Nature is going to force them to, not the Evil Gubmint. The "climate change police" are pointing out that if people act in their own best interest now, that change will be less disruptive than if they sit around stroking their dicks and opining about conspiracy theories about "social control". But the change will come.

    2. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by ghoul · · Score: 1

      I would invest in land in Nunavat and Siberia.
      Also in companies like Caterpillar which will be building Dikes.
      Also short real estate firms like Euity who are mostly on the coasts
      Buy Rail compnies like BNR. Once the Sea comes upto the coastal ranges the interior will get populated and rail will be important for the relocation

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    3. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't have a problem with nature forcing me to change. As for you, you can fuck off.

    4. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Siberia stil will have incredible hot summers and incredible cold winters.
      Regardless of:
      Ice Age
      Global Warming

      Or what ever.

      Global warming will only make the winters perhaps 10 days shorter and the summers 10 degrees warmer ... beyond that not much will change.

      Hint: polar summer(day) and polar winter(night) are just the same ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by ghoul · · Score: 1

      Its already proven that Summers are not getting any warmer over the last 100 years. The rise in global average temperature is all due to warmer winters. I dont see that as a bad thing

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    6. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Then link the proof.

      In my areas summers got warmer. You must live on one of the poles :D ... all due to warmer winters. I dont see that as a bad thing
      Because you are an idiot? Or simply completely uneducated?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    7. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by ghoul · · Score: 1

      From a major Global Warming prpaganda site Warmer Winters are what are driving most of the rise in temps

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    8. Re:I've never seen so much effort futilely wasted by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Wow ... nice link ...

      U.S. Temperature Trends

      Fixing that for you. I don't live in the US. Nor do 90% of the world population.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  54. Look in the mirror, dehumanizer. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When you dehumanize someone for an anonymous comment on the Internet you reveal that underneath you are no better than the person who made that comment.

    When you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you.

    1. Re:Look in the mirror, dehumanizer. by Bengie · · Score: 1

      "No better than" assumes there is some universal standard to measure the worth of a person. There is no such thing as good or bad, just what makes the majority of people happier or sadder. Of course I a technologist, so I don't focus only on averages, but also percentiles. I don't just want average happiness to go up, but the 99th percentile as well.

  55. Re:Liars will Liar by hawguy · · Score: 1

    On the flip side, if Climate Change is your religion, and yet you live in low-lying coast land, you're kind of an idiot at this point. If you Believe, then topographical maps are free and you should be taking care of yourself and your family - live and work where it will remain safe, and make the move now, not after everything goes crazy. Heck, buy a bunch of safe property while you're at it, great money to be made when the waters rise!

    I believe in Climate Change and the resulting sea level rise. I live about 10 feet above MSL (and about 2 miles away from the water) and my region recently voted to tax ourselves to help pay for mitigations against that rise.

    But instead of paying those taxes, I'd rather pay a bit more in goods and services to cover the costs of reducing carbon emissions to reduce the rate of global warming and slow the sea level rise.

  56. Re:Liars will Liar by jmccue · · Score: 2

    Oh, and I think at this juncture useful to remind this AC that those aforementioned oil companies knew about AGW forty years ago.

    Yes and I remember US Pres. Carter trying to bring the issue to the forefront, he even installed solar panels on the White House which Regan ripped down as soon as he took office. Pres. Carter stated we need to start to address it now before it gets too expensive.

    Maybe something will be done when most of Florida is under water. Some very young people here may even see that start to happen and people will still be voting for deniers. Well, when Florida 1/3 it's size maybe that will solve the issue of electing the people we do in this nation.

  57. Re:Liars will Liar by jmccue · · Score: 1

    What winter :) Last year it was a cool spring here in December, January and February with no snow. So far as of today it hardly went below freezing a couple of days and by now when I was young, we would usually have had a few light snow storms now, with maybe a permanent covering on our lawns of 2 inches (~5cm) or so.

    Great for my heating bill anyway

  58. Re:Liars will Liar by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They literally meant colder from last month. Exactly the same as the Hawaii senator holding a snow ball, or Trump saying it's colder during a snowstorm.

    These people are guiding science funding at a national level. And literally don't understand seasons, much less anything at a global scale.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  59. Seal level rise is slow, time to adjust, not new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The guy from Bangladesh says a 1 meter sea rise will endanger 20 million people.

    At the current rate of sea level rise, that will take >300 years.
    People will have time to adjust.

    (And the sea level has been rising for centuries, and shows NO signs of acceleration)
    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

  60. Re:Liars will Liar by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But instead of paying those taxes, I'd rather pay a bit more in goods and services to cover the costs of reducing carbon emissions to reduce the rate of global warming and slow the sea level rise.

    That's rather ... optimistic. Maybe that could work. Maybe it's already too late. Maybe China will talk a good game while quietly doubling their CO2 output. Maybe it's all solar activity and Antarctica is gone regardless of human activity. When it comes to important things, it's best to plan for more than the optimistic case, especially for years-long efforts.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  61. The Garbage Dumpster Argument [Re:Climate chan...] by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ah, the garbage dumpster argument: pile enough garbage up, and tell the reader somewhere in the dumpster one argument might be real; you need to wade through all the garbage to find it.

    I don't have time to wade through all the garbage. I'll go with the three strikes you're out approach: if your first three arguments aren't convincing, I'll stop there.

    There are lots of reasons I am skeptical of this: 1. A primary method of convincing others is to ridicule and insult them. Notice the responses and downvotes this post will get.

    Not relevant.

    2. We have seen vastly higher CO2 levels in planetary history

    Yep. And, you know what? All of those higher CO2 levels were associated with higher global temperatures! That's not evidence against the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming-- it's evidence for the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming

    and right now we are seeing what is actually all time lows..

    Nope. Current levels are higher than it's ever been for as long as we can measure the CO2 record from ice cores, well over a million years. I think you're talking about really long ago. In that you'd be correct: carbon dioxide levels were higher before the Pleistocene. These were also, however, times when the Earth didn't have an ice cap or glaciers. So, again: this isn't evidence against the effect of carbon dioxide on climate-- it's evidence for it.

    We should expect CO2 increases and, in fact, hope for them as going much below 300 ppm would see the beginning of a massive plant die off - there's a reason commercial greenhouses pump CO2 into their facilities.

    Slightly misleading. Carbon dioxide increases plant growth-- but only in environments in which CO2 is the limiting resource, not other nutrients, water, or sunlight. In a greenhouse, where you make sure that the temperature, nutrients, and water are all optimal, sure, it's worth adding CO2. Outside, though, it's only one effect among many.

    3. The temperature change we are seeing now is far from unusual, we've seen similar changes in both rate and magnitude before. In fact, what we are seeing now does not stand out from background noise.

    Doesn't stand out from the background... over tens of millions of years. Even so, actually, the current rate of warming is pretty exceptional. It does, however, stand out from the background over the period in which we have good measurements of both temperature and of all the other forcing factors, such a solar irradiance. So: no.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  62. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To quote Thomas Edison:

    "We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind, and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

    And that was pre awareness of AGW*. Unfortunately for every person who dreams of breaking away from the status quo and tackling big problems there are two others who would rather stick their head in the sand and hold the rising tide doesn't drown them.

    *well technically the science of the greenhouse effect was well understood at that point (co2's spectral absorption lines were known, and experiments had been done to show that co2 could act like an insulation layer to hold heat in), but no one had thought about the real world implications.

  63. Re:Liars will Liar by PvtVoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On the flip side, if Climate Change is your religion, and yet you live in low-lying coast land, you're kind of an idiot at this point. If you Believe, then topographical maps are free and you should be taking care of yourself and your family - live and work where it will remain safe, and make the move now, not after everything goes crazy.

    So ... your solution to global warming is that impoverished villagers in Bangladesh should be buying condos in Aspen?

  64. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just because humans have found a way to dodge this bullet for now doesn't mean that there won't be a bill coming due eventually. Forecasts a lot of time are off, just because they got the timing wrong doesn't mean that the same outcome won't take place.

    In the meantime, all the people who want to keep their heads in the sand because so-and-so was wrong about when something was going to happen doesn't mean that the eventuality won't take place.

  65. Troll much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the refuge crisis in Syria is due to Climate change? Dang, thanks for letting me know! And we were led to believe that this was a political struggle causing massive death and destruction.

    Without the sarcasm, try to stay on topic lest you continue to be perceived as a shithead Troll.

    1. Re:Troll much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The Syrian crisis is largely because of the migrations of rural areas into the cities. The reason those people are migrating to cities? The climate has exacerbated a long drought.

      https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ominous-story-of-syria-climate-refugees/

      It is very much on topic.

    2. Re:Troll much? by hey! · · Score: 1

      Sorry, we're in the new, post-fact era. Was is peace, freedom is slavery, and facts are trolling.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:Troll much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Your "Facts" are tied after the fact and incidental to the actual wars in that region. The list of countries at war with itself, the US, Russia, and other countries in that region are not all "climate change" wars and to believe such denies all other aspects of history and sociology in that region. What you are doing is claiming that Hitler's problems were all due to later suspected sex problems. Which is stupid and ignores every other aspect of history, but you leftards only care about history which matches the dumbass narratives you try to cram down people's throats.

      Yeah, we are living in a post-fact era because idiots like you repeat bullshit instead of studying very near history. You are GUILTY!

    4. Re:Troll much? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      So you are ignoring the facts and instead basing your argument on your feelings towards history. Gotcha.

  66. They won't. by HBI · · Score: 1

    Period. It's a waste of time. Any government that tries to force standard of living reduction will be voted out of office. This is essentially what happened with Obama, and he tried to do it in a stealthy way. Imagine someone openly taking an axe to public prosperity in the interest of climate change? They'd shove knives up his ass like Quaddafi.

    You have to create a totalitarian state with the full apparatus of secret police, surveillance, detention camps and summary executions to even start to go there, and the focus on climate change would impair your ability to maintain that social control. Beside which, the inherent corruption in such a state would ultimately subvert your efforts to reduce your carbon footprint.

    Also, i'd rather have the climate change than the secret police, thanks.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:They won't. by ghoul · · Score: 1

      Its interesting that you mention Qaddafi. He led a low carbon lifestyle living in a tent in the desert

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    2. Re:They won't. by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      You have to create a totalitarian state with the full apparatus of secret police, surveillance, detention camps and summary executions ...

      Actually, a carbon tax with the revenues applied to subsidies for renewables would do the trick pretty easily.

      But by all means stay locked and loaded. They're coming for you.

    3. Re:They won't. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Another thing to do with a carbon tax is to reduce other taxes to keep it revenue-neutral. The tricky part is making sure the poor get enough relief, since income tax cuts don't give them much extra money. In the US, paying everybody's first $X of FICA payroll taxes might work.

      The really neat thing about carbon taxes is that they allow the market to adjust to produce less CO2, which is going to be more efficient and effective than top-down directives.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    4. Re:They won't. by HBI · · Score: 1

      I think we all know the tent in the desert was just propaganda...

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    5. Re:They won't. by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Any government that tries to force standard of living reduction will be voted out of office. This is essentially what happened with Obama

      Uh, he's still in office, with the highest presidential approval rating in 20 years.

    6. Re:They won't. by Sartr · · Score: 1
      >with the highest presidential approval rating in 20 years.

      According to the same poll companies that universally predicted Hillary in a landslide.

    7. Re:They won't. by ghoul · · Score: 1

      As is all low carbon bullcrap. Good you get the point. I have as much respect for Greens as for the Green Book

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
  67. Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you think those people are going to leave when there isn't water lapping at their doors? So the predicted timing was off. That doesn't change the outcome.

  68. Re:Seal level rise is slow, time to adjust, not ne by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

    Well, someone disagrees with you:

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

    First sentence:
    Sea level rise has been estimated to be on average between +2.6 millimetres (0.10 in) and 2.9 millimetres (0.11 in) per year ± 0.4 millimetres (0.016 in) since 1993[3] and has accelerated in recent years.[4]

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  69. How about taking the Herring away by s.petry · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    TFA makes a bold assumption, that the reason for all of the political turmoil in the world is at least somehow related to climate change. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and yet they provide none. Start with a false assumption, end with a false conclusion. The Wars in the Middle East were not started because "Climate Change", they were started over "IDEOLOGY". Those wars continue over IDEOLOGY, not bad weather or land due to climate change.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:How about taking the Herring away by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

      TFA makes a bold assumption, that the reason for all of the political turmoil in the world is at least somehow related to climate change.

      Perhaps you should quote the part where they made this claim, because I can't find it mentioned in the article. At no point does the article state that there is a singular reason behind all the conflicts of the world. At no point does it even say that climate change is a factor in all political turmoil in the world. You made that up.

      You claim that ideology is the reason for wars, but where does ideology come from? Will the ideology of some armchair critic, sitting in his comfortable air-conditioned home in some far off affluent country, be the same as a poor, desperate person who has lived a large portion of his life in a crippling drought? If your answer is yes, then that seems to me to be a simplistic, black and white view of the world that has no basis in reality.

      You claim that the article makes a bold assumption, but all it does it reports the studies that scientists have made and analyses of high-ranking military figures. You say it is a false assumption, but where is your evidence that it is false? All you have done is counter those claims with assumptions of your own. If you say that the wars in the Middle East had nothing to do with climate change despite what the scientists and military leaders say, that is something that I consider to be an extraordinary claim; and one that requires extraordinary proof. But you have provided none.

  70. Re:Liars will Liar by gnick · · Score: 1

    But more to the point, you're a fucking monster, and I hope you die of the most horrible disease one can imagine, so awful that your family literally prays to God every night that you die quickly... but you won't. I also hope the nurses and doctors who treat you are Muslims, and they are nice to you until your dying breath, so you can know fully what a disgusting subhuman you really are, you monstrous ugly piece of excrement.

    Damn! A simple, "Go to Hell," might have sufficed.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  71. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    China is doing more than talking a good game, they have also quietly built up a renewable energy industry that dwarfs all others on earth, by an order of magnitude. They will be able to turn their energy economy on a dime, they just prefer selling to westerners for the time being. Practice on the weak; save the best for last.

  72. Not skeptical enough by BCGlorfindel · · Score: 1

    The amount of money in AGW is a fraction of the amount of money oil companies pump out of the ground every week.

    You are missing just how much money there is to be controlled through carbon taxes and carbon markets. Furthermore, to have a military adviser declaring that topic X is an important reason to increase military funding hardly seems surprising. Call me when the military volunteers their budgets be cut to help offset climate change because it's more effective.

    1. Re:Not skeptical enough by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Call me when the military volunteers their budgets be cut to help offset climate change because it's more effective.

      I believe the US Navy gave this call a long time ago.

      The US Navy wanted some nuclear powered ships but Congress crapped on them with more oil fired power plants. Now the Navy has to support these ships with oilers to bring them fuel. The US Navy has been experimenting with a hydrocarbon synthesis project that can turn seawater into jet fuel. If this technology could be brought into wide use the US Navy could fuel the aircraft on board their nuclear powered ships with fuel produced on the ship.

      The US Navy would likely still have a class of ships called an "oiler" but those ships would instead of carry fuel oil from port to port they'd be producing it on board while en route. Since purification of the seawater is part of the process to produce the hydrocarbon fuel it would be conceivable for these ships to have large stores of fresh water as well, for the purposes of providing drinking water to other ships and to ports in times of emergency.

      Of course the US Navy has a primary concern of keeping their ships supplied so that the crews are happy and healthy but if this also allows for reduction in CO2 added to the atmosphere then I'd hope that support for technology like this fuel synthesis would be widespread.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  73. Military Committee wants more money by BCGlorfindel · · Score: 1

    It's entirely unsurprising that a military committee would recommend that a good response to ANYTHING is increasing military spending. When the military advises that defense interests are better served by redirecting their own funding to offsetting climate change that's the point you know they mean it. Otherwise you've got guys with little to no climate background declaring climate change as a good reason to give them more money, which isn't entirely convincing.

    1. Re:Military Committee wants more money by hyades1 · · Score: 1

      If what you say is true, the military would be better off choosing a less incendiary excuse for wanting more money. This is especially the case given that so many Republicans deny Global Warming is anything more than some kind of excuse for scientists to get handouts from the gubmint.

      They didn't, which speaks volumes about how real and dangerous they know GW actually is.

      --
      I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  74. Re: Climate change skeptic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So your response is basically, wrong, wrong, really wrong, and liar liar pants on fire. At least the OP backed up his statements with information that he believes is factual.

  75. Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee by ghoul · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well you can count the Syrian, Ethioian and Eritrean refugees as Climate refugees. Mega droughts have triggered the fighting in Syria and the exodus from the Horn of Africa

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  76. Re:Climate change skeptic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are a lot of things wrong with your arguments. Let's discuss some of them.

    1. I intend to discuss your arguments. However, saying you're going to be ridiculed should be considered a form of trolling.

    2. Yes, we have seen higher levels of carbon dioxide in the planetary history, some by an order of magnitude. However, the greenhouse effect is but one driver of the climate. Aerosols and volcanic activity are another. And the sun is another important driver of Earth's climate. During many of the times in which carbon dioxide levels were much higher, the sun was also significantly dimmer. The overall trend on geologic time scales has been for the sun to get brighter, meaning the Earth receives more heat from the sun. If the sun was dimmer in the past but carbon dioxide levels were higher, those factors would somewhat offset each other.

    3. While we have seen significant differences in the magnitude of temperature increases, paleoclimate data generally doesn't provide the resolution to assess whether we've seen similar rates of change. It's possible that these things have occurred naturally in the past. That doesn't mean there weren't severe impacts as a result of rapid increases or decreases in temperature. Furthermore, even if such things have occurred naturally, it doesn't disprove that humans are causing rapid changes in temperature right now.

    4. We are not measuring temperatures from millions of years ago with precise resolution. Absolutely not. There's even significant uncertainty about temperatures a few hundred years ago. Paleoclimatology is based on proxies for temperature, and is considered to have significant error. We can reason that some areas were significantly warmer or colder than they are presently based on what lived there, but there is limited resolution both in time and in the actual temperature. Your point is false on that matter.

    5. While there are issues with properly deploying instruments, a warm or cold bias due to the location of a station or a poorly calibrated instrument would not necessarily prevent accurate measurements of trends. Even if those stations are ignored, which is reasonable, what about the other 30%?

    6. Although I'm sure that data fabrication goes on in every field, that does not mean that everyone studying climate change is fabricating data. Just because one data set might have been fabricated or had significant errors in the methodology to produce it, that certainly doesn't invalidate all climate data. About the hockey stick, that wasn't fabrication of data but rather a problem with the methodology that has since been corrected. As for adjustments to the data always producing warming in recent times and cooling in the past, that's blatantly false. For example, water temperatures used to be measured by putting a bucket over the side of a boat, collecting water, and sticking a thermometer in it. Now, these readings are taken during the intake of water into the engines of ships, which produces a warm bias. This bias is corrected for by adjusting more recent temperature readings downward. Your claim is false.

    7. If there were credible studies that disproved human activities causing global warming, those studies would be published. However, if the studies have serious errors with them, they shouldn't pass through the peer review process. There have been multiple reviews of the Climategate emails, but no misconduct has actually been found.

    8. And yet the reason you're aware of the adjustments to data, which are done to correct for biases, is because of transparency. The data and methodology from many climate change studies are shared publicly. Can you invalidate what's been shared publicly?

    9. Actually, many of the effects of climate change are projected to occur in the future, and haven't happened yet. Also, your example is totally incorrect. It's believed that water temperatures in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico will warm as a result of global warming, which is intuitive. However, it's also believed that vertical wind shear

  77. With a headline like that who else is afraid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL! More proof of fake news on the internet brought to you by the guardian.

    I thought you guys would be pushing the scare with https://www.theguardian.com/en...

    How is your article above not as fake as this "Trees might cause air pollution on city streets" to drive a wedge to help us decide to cut down all the trees on the planet.

    Is this greenpeace's reply to the inconvenient news that the world has gotten 14% greener? http://www.spectator.co.uk/201... -- indeed, why does no one want to know? And why go all denier on good news?

  78. Re:Climate change skeptic by afxgrin · · Score: 2

    "2. We have seen vastly higher CO2 levels in planetary history and right now we are seeing what is actually all time lows. We should expect CO2 increases and, in fact, hope for them as going much below 300 ppm would see the beginning of a massive plant die off - there's a reason commercial greenhouses pump CO2 into their facilities."

    We have seen vastly higher?

    When? Some time before 400,000 years ago?

  79. Not much. I do look at data which may upset you. by hey! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The refugee crisis you refer to is actually the second Syrian refugee crisis.

    The first refugee was an internal displacement of 1.5 million people (out of a population of 20 million) over the period 2007-2011 during crops failed due to unprecedented drought. Over two hundred villages were completely depopulated, and 40% of Syria's agricultural workforce was lost. Domestic wheat production crashed, and prices skyrocketed as it was replaced by imports.

    So you had over a million hungry, unemployed displaced people crowded into cities, when a bad harvest in Russia caused a spike in global wheat prices. Check out the graph in this link labelled "World Monthly Grains Price Index" and note the massive upswing in prices in 2010 - 2011. There was a similar price spike in 2007, but back then Syria produced essentially all the wheat it consumed. In 2010 Syria only produced 80% of what it needed, resulting in underconsumption -- aka "starvation". You can check out the figures here.

    Finally note that the so-called "Day of Rage" which critically destabilized the regime took place on March 15, 2011. The timing was not coincidental.

    Now you can talk to me about "political struggle" in Syria. The roots of that struggle are of course decades old. But the effects were exacerbated by the worst drought in 900 years.

    Without the sarcasm, try to stay on topic lest you continue to be perceived as a shithead Troll.

    I have stayed on topic. Shithead troll I guess is a matter of perspective. Syria is exactly the kind of scenario security planners are worried about. And one reason they are worried is that many in the public literally find the idea of climate-driven refugees unimaginable. People who've been paying attention find it all too easy to imagine.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  80. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's great but you didn't provide any references to support your beliefs in Global Warming. CO2 is up... where is all the warming?

  81. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    China is incredibly vulnerable to overall sea level rises, considering that large portions of its population live in low-lying areas. I know China is the anti-emission control crowd's favorite bogeyman, but countries like China and India are at great risk in multiple ways if even the more moderate models for the latter half of this century come to fruition.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  82. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    In reality, physicists studying CO2 at the end of 19th century understood its solar absorption properties and hypothesized that if CO2 levels increased in the atmosphere, that it could lead to greater heating.

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

    There is absolutely nothing controversial from a scientific perspective about even fractional increases in CO2 in the atmosphere causing increased trapping of energy in the lower atmosphere.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  83. Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well you can count the Syrian...refugees as Climate refugees

    Isis is now part of the climate? Was Stalin a snowstorm and Pol Pot a typhoon?

  84. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because moving isn't free? Because jobs aren't guaranteed? Because people don't have a sick ass savings account to make the transition? Because they don't know where would be a good place to settle and can't afford to roam for years on end? Because the consequences of climate change will be much more dire than slightly warmer, less snow, and higher tides (ocean acidification and the collapse of ocean ecology, aiding the spread of tropical diseases, desyncing migration and plant blooming cycles, amplifying extremes in weather)?

    So yeah, you fuck face, it's not hypocritical for them to stay where they are while pushing for clean energy, lowering meat consumption, and more efficient housing and appliances.

  85. Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee by cirby · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope. Plain old wars and good old fashioned political corruption did that.

    The "drought caused the Syrian civil war" theory is, frankly, crap. It was based off of one paper, which built a big statistical mountain off of a molehill. They exaggerated the number of people affected by the drought, and failed to show any sort of cause and effect. For that matter, the ACTUAL cause of the migration was a financial - subsidies for diesel and fertilizers were cut.

    The civil war in Syria, by the way, started two years AFTER the drought ended. If it was caused by the drought, it seems like the events would have been closer together.

  86. Re:Seal level rise is slow, time to adjust, not ne by greythax · · Score: 1

    Gee. I wonder if anything might drastically alter that rate when certain areas like Greenland pass some arbitrary point. Oh, lets just choose, I dunno, an average low of 33 degrees F. Nah, you're right. It will probably continue like clockwork.

  87. Re:Liars will Liar by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter if you believe in climate change or not. What matters is what actually happens. A meter or less by 2100 seems likely, and someone who's living 2m above sea level has plenty of time to move.

    I live something like 180 or 190 meters above sea level, personally.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  88. Re:Climate change skeptic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your response is to say "lies!" and "wrong!" over and over despite the majority of those points being 100% proven and factual. You play on the same logical fallacies I detailed and literally simply deny things. You're a zealot.

    Look, I don't think you'll ever be convinced of anything other than what is obviously a very dearly held belief, essentially a religion. You're like those flat earthers.

  89. Re: Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Article in the telegraph today saying studies showing there hasn't been a noticeable change in ice at the Antarctic in100 years but, I guess you're right. The science is settled. No arguing allowed.

  90. Re:Dumbass by hey! · · Score: 1

    If Wheat was the problem, the US would be dropping food bags on the populace instead of TONS OF WEAPONS.

    You'd need a time machine capable of sending three million tons of wheat six years into the past.

    As to why we didn't do it that the time, you may recall we had a financial crisis to deal with. Very few Americans were paying attention to what at the time was an internal crisis in Syria, and if they had they wouldn't be interested in spending a billion dollars addressing it ($350/ton * 3 million ton shortfall).

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  91. Very wishy washy sources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Title says "military" but article cites anonymous "military experts". What, pray tell, is a military expert?

    1. This certainly isn't an official statement from any country's military.
    2. The sources are anonymous. As such, they have no credibility.

  92. sea level rise-not so bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You do know there decades of scientific fact about actual rising seas, right?
    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ [colorado.edu]

    Yes, sea level has been rising for centuries. It is about 3mm/year, so for Bangledesh to have a meter of rise, it will be 300 years.
    So there is time for people to move or adapt.

    And, the link you show demonstrates NO acceleration of sea level rise. That only exists in speculative computer models with dodgy feedbacks and unrealistic assumptions on the climate sensitivity.

  93. Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee by pipingguy · · Score: 1

    They're never called on their (many) mistakes, shitty science and deplorable conduct towards climate realists. Too sexay of a story for the media to endlessly, unquestioningly repeat. There's too much government money involved and the climate is being used as a political weapon. Unlimited taxpayer funds buys tons of PR. Biggest. Scam. Ever.

  94. Re:Seal level rise is slow, time to adjust, not ne by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh yea, wikipedia, the ultimate source of truth.

    Look at the data from http://sealevel.colorado.edu.
    No acceleration. And in that same Wiki article, do you see the post-glacial sealevel rise graph covering thousands of years?
    That paper referenced [4] is probably another set of adjustments like the warming alarmists do to the temperature records, cooling the past and adding to recent data, to create trends.

    See:
    https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/data-tampering-at-ushcngiss/
    and many other similar exposures of their adjustments .

  95. Then fix the problem by blindseer · · Score: 1

    If the military sees climate change as a military problem then I'd like to see the military try to solve the problem. Perhaps the military could build more nuclear powered warships to replace oil burning ones. Aircraft carriers and submarines have been nuclear powered for a long time, use that technology in other ships, like destroyers and amphibious assault ships. There has been so much research in synthesizing fuel for aircraft, because kerosene is awesome fuel for aircraft and by synthesizing the fuel from carbon in the air and water the carbon loop is closed. Synthesized fuel not only closes the carbon loop but also separates the national economy from relying on oil supplies from hostile and/or unstable nations. Nuclear power is great, and the military should certainly invest in it, but also wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal energy projects could come from military funding and research.

    It turns out that the US military has been trying to do this for a very long time.

    I've seen so many people in the energy research industry, and people in the military, that would love to invest in energy alternatives so that we would not have to rely on fossil fuels as much as we have. The largest obstacle to this, ironically, is the US Department of Energy.

    The US Navy wants more nuclear powered ships. They are able to operate for much longer periods of time before needed resupply, which is a huge tactical advantage. Given the large energy density of nuclear power it is also possible to have more weapons, and more powerful weapons, than an oil fired ship would be able to support. Directed energy weapons are really only viable on a nuclear powered vessel. But the Navy cannot build nuclear reactors without some support from the DOE, and certainly without support from Congress.

    The US Navy has been funding research in synthesizing fuels and in fusion power reactors. The problem is that if the funding reaches a certain monetary level then the DOE comes along, declares it within their authority, takes over the project, and... kills it. The DOE is interested in tokamak fusion, and anything that might compete with it makes them look bad, so they simply declare any fusion reactor that is not a tokamak "non-viable" and keeps betting on the same horse that may never finish the race.

    The US Navy has also been funding research in synthetic fuels, because a nuclear powered vessel that can fuel the aircraft that it carries is very advantageous. This technology would also be quite valuable for land based operations, and civilian vehicles. But this is a threat to the DOE research in electric vehicles so they will try to kill it if they can. The Navy though has been very protective of this technology and has been doing this research for a very long time now. If given proper funding then we could see this much sooner.

    The US DOE has been very hostile to nuclear power, synthetic fuels, among other technologies that might actually solve this climate change problem. This is assuming the problem even exists, I'm not a believer in this catastrophic anthropogenic global warming issue largely because of the very hostile attitude the DOE has had on so many possible solutions to the problem. If the CAGW crowd want to convince me that it is a real problem then I want to see real solutions be given a chance. If the federal government, through the DOE, keeps killing these alternatives to fossil fuels then I cannot be convinced that the federal government truly sees CAGW as a problem.

    Oddly enough it might take a Trump administration, which is not on the CAGW bandwagon, to solve this problem of global warming. Trump himself and the GOP have stated that nuclear power should be developed. The Obama administration and the Democrats are openly hostile to nuclear power. Trump and the GOP are supportive of the military and just might give them the nuclear powered ships they've asked for. As well as more solar panels for forward operating bases. The "Drill, Baby, drill" attitude might turn a lot of pe

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    1. Re:Then fix the problem by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Trump himself and the GOP have stated that nuclear power should be developed. The Obama administration and the Democrats are openly hostile to nuclear power.

      WTF? Obama approved construction of some reactors a few years ago.

    2. Re:Then fix the problem by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Obama "approved" these nuclear reactors by speaking in front of them. The laws that allowed for their construction were signed by Bush and enacted by a Republican majority Congress. The licenses were issued before he took office or by people already at the NRC before he could change the members on the regulatory board.

      His "approval" also went away after Fukushima. He spoke in front of some union workers at some nuclear power plants under construction in 2010 but made no such other approvals since.

      We should be building a new nuclear power plant every month in the USA, at least, just to keep up with growing demand and the shutdown of older coal and nuclear power plants. Obama allowing a handful of nuclear reactors to continue the construction started before he took office, at existing nuclear power plant sites, is hardly the nuclear renaissance we need.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    3. Re:Then fix the problem by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Obama "approved" these nuclear reactors by speaking in front of them

      Yes.
      That open hostility you imagine was not there that day was it?

      We should be building a new nuclear power plant every month in the USA

      Economy of scale you goose - the "blind" bit seems spot on but the "seer" no so much. Learn about the topic before attempting to lecture the reader - if you want nukes you want them BIG so that you have shitloads of steam in one location and can get every lats little bit of energy out. The reactors themselves don't need to be big (eg. pebble bed) so long as you have a few of them within reach of your turbines.

      but made no such other approvals since

      And none denied either. The energy environment since 2010 has meant nobody has tried to put anything up for approval.

    4. Re:Then fix the problem by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Economy of scale you goose - the "blind" bit seems spot on but the "seer" no so much. Learn about the topic before attempting to lecture the reader - if you want nukes you want them BIG so that you have shitloads of steam in one location and can get every lats little bit of energy out. The reactors themselves don't need to be big (eg. pebble bed) so long as you have a few of them within reach of your turbines.

      I stated nothing to imply the size of the reactors. But since you bring it up the era of the large (gigawatt scale) nuclear reactor is likely to come to an end soon. Big reactors allow the costs of development, licensing, and so forth to be recovered more quickly. If we see a sensible change in the licensing process we can build medium sized (200 - 500 MW scale) or small (50 - 200 MW scale) reactors built on an assembly line. We already build things of this size, cost, complexity, and need for safety in things like passenger aircraft. Each aircraft is much like the other, allowing for a spreading of the cost of the development, but each is licensed separately although in a much more streamlined manner since the people licensing it know what they are dealing with from the start.

      We can do the same with nuclear power plants. Make them in small enough sections to move by train or barge and stack the pieces on site like Lego blocks. The foundation and other large concrete structures would obviously be poured on site. I saw a very interesting presentation on YouTube where a nuclear engineer proposed placing something like five 200MW small modular reactors on a site with four 250MW turbines. This would make a nice gigawatt scale power plant with room to grown incrementally with additional turbines and reactors. I may not have the power ratings exact but the goal was to optimize the output with as low of cost as possible. It just happens that those sizes of reactors and turbines gave the best results.

      That open hostility you imagine was not there that day was it?

      The people working on the reactor were largely union members, during a mid-term election year. His presence there was likely very reluctant but necessary to avoid open hostility in closing an already started nuclear reactor, leaving these people without jobs.

      And none denied either. The energy environment since 2010 has meant nobody has tried to put anything up for approval.

      Seems rather pointless to submit an application when you know it will be denied, no? The people in the nuclear power industry know who their friends are. Many license applications were cancelled during the Obama administration even though they met initial approval under Bush. The price of natural gas certainly played a part, the downturn in the economy played a part.

      The Democrats do not like nuclear power, but they do like unions. They'll do what ever they can to stop a nuclear power plant from being built but once started, and union workers hired, they will support it until the point when those union workers go away and they operators want to actually power it up. We saw this with Yucca Mountain. The Democrats loved the idea of digging a big hole in a mountain but when it came time to use the hole for what it was intended to be used for, storing spent nuclear reactor fuel, the Democrats stood in the way of it being licensed as a nuclear material storage site.

      If the Democrats love nuclear power so much then why not allow the use of Yucca Mountain for storing nuclear material? If they didn't want the nuclear material there then why approve its construction?

      We'll get nuclear power when the Pelosi and Reid Democrats die off or are otherwise removed from power.

      On a side note, am I the only one to notice that US Senators tend to only leave office feet first?

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    5. Re:Then fix the problem by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Many license applications were cancelled during the Obama administration even though they met initial approval under Bush.

      Name one.
      As for the rest - please read a fucking book on the topic before writing so readers can get something resembling reality instead of imagined ramblings.

    6. Re:Then fix the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a list:
      http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col.html

      I counted seven applications withdrawn. I didn't check them all but it seems that most or all of these applications were submitted prior to 2009, when Obama took office and the Democrats took a majority in both houses of Congress. The withdrawals could be because the application process was not going well, and that is on the Democrats. It could have been because of a poor economy, also on the Democrats. It could be because natural gas got real cheap, which as much as the Democrats tried they could not stop fracking for natural gas on private lands. Natural gas prices went down in spite of Democrats pulling drilling contracts on federal lands.

  96. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by steveha · · Score: 1

    So if someone could please post links to the most persuasive proof that we should all be worried about carbon dioxide levels, I'll take a look.

    So far nobody has posted any links to CAGW proof, but my post has been moderated "Flamebait" and "Overrated". Folks, if you are trying to convince me of the science behind CAGW, that's not the optimal strategy.

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  97. Wind and solar are already cheaper than coal... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    But it was all futile anyway because you are asking people to reduce their standard of living by choice to accomplish a community goal.

    ...making this post a pantload of denailist dumbfuckery. The only people that would be hurt by climate change mitigation are the capistlists driving climate change in the first place.

    Then there's the fact that the cost of addressing climate change is insignificant next to the costs of not addressing it.

  98. Re:Not much. I do look at data which may upset you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Attempting to simplify the crises in Syria by pointing at climate change seriously under states all other factors. Hell, one of your own links (the usda one) clearly shows that Syria has been able to meet its needs IF allowed via imports and even discusses the fact that Syria manages this particular food stuff as a critical element of their sovereignty.

    Trying to claim that sustained droughts over a period of years (2007-2011) when only 1 of those years shows a MAJOR fall in production vs traditional internal production doesn't even come close to explaining the refugee crisis. Hell, the USDA article makes it clear that the government (you know that 'bad regime' that we're trying to get rid of) has purposely paid higher than market prices to producers & kept pricing of bread stuffs low (e.g. 'price controls') in order to ensure domestic tranquillity. Furthermore the USDA article points out that Syria maintains a policy of ensuring growth or import of between 3 & 4 million tonnes in order to have at least '1 year supply' of wheat. Which probably explains why they important almost 1 million metric tonnes in 2009 over the consumption needs, probably to resupply their reserves. So just because production declined significantly in 1 year or imports didn't always meet a given years consumption doesn't mean that there wasn't sufficient reserves to feed their own people during that period of time.

    Now, given the economic sanctions imposed since 2010 that have effectively decimated their economy...now THAT can cause a major crises, see this article about how sanctions causing oil & wheat prices to skyrocket & impact domestic wheat production, https://theintercept.com/2016/09/28/u-s-sanctions-are-punishing-ordinary-syrians-and-crippling-aid-work-u-n-report-reveals/.

    This from e-mails & reports from the UN, not someone particularly keen on blaming themselves.

    O, and throw on top of that that world-wide wheat production has sky-rocketed since 2006 by over an extra 120 million metric tonnes (a 20% increase over 10 years) world wide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production_statistics) so at least in theory if sanctions against Syria didn't exist they'd not only be able to feed themselves rather easily they'd likely be back up to normal production levels.

    Now, I don't doubt that climate change MAY have an impact on what I'll call 'living patterns', e.g. where people will move to in order to avoid effects of climate change induced weather but the Syrian situation is hardly a good example of this. And the generals pointing at revolutions against dictatorial regimes & terrorism as examples doesn't cut it either.

  99. Wow! by reboot246 · · Score: 1

    Nothing like an article about climate change to bring all the loonies out.

    One meter rise in sea level in our lifetime? Really? I was born at night, but not last night.

  100. Re:Liars will Liar by fisted · · Score: 1

    Congratulations, you're now no better, or possibly worse.

  101. This the new chicken fucking? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    What happened to the 50 million climate refugees?

    It used to be "what happened to that ice age we were going to have", then it was "sun spots" or "volcanoes". The chickens are getting sore and would like to lay down for a while.

  102. Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    They're never called on their (many) mistakes, shitty science and deplorable conduct towards climate realists.

    I'm glad you "realists" have such great WiFi out in the Maldives. That's where you've all gone to, right, since beachfront property is so cheap these days? Just make sure you stay there.

  103. Re: Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If your Muslim doctors and nurses treated you well until your dying breath, it's a fair question to ask why you died? Terrorists in the ER...

  104. Duh... by Uberbah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Key word being "military". The U.S. military is the single largest user of carbon fuels. The U.S. military gets most of it's funding to ensure the world's gas station (the Middle East) keeps pumping oil.

    So, yeah, you might want to pay attention if even the Pentagon is saying climate change is going to have serious consequences. It's like Philip Morris talking about the cancerous substances in tobacco - if even they are admitting it's a problem, why are you continuing to deny it?

    1. Re:Duh... by blindseer · · Score: 1

      If Congress hadn't killed the plans for more Navy nuclear powered ships then they'd be using a lot less fossil fuels. The US Navy has been researching synthesized fuels, still carbon based but derived from nuclear power and seawater, not fossil fuels. If Congress would just fund this project properly then we could see this deployed in the military very soon. After some time in real world use by the military then perhaps this synthetic fuel technology could get into civilian use too.

      I've seen people in the military speak publicly on the issues of energy and the projects they fund to address it. They speak publicly on this because they need support from Congress to fund this, and Congress will only do so if the public wants them to.

      I see the last election as a change of public opinion on energy. The "drill, baby, drill" people see domestic oil production as a means to stop sending so many of our warriors over to so many sandy places to die for what we can produce here. The Democrats have been openly hostile to nuclear power while Trump and the GOP have at least given lukewarm support for it.

      I'm tired of so much arguing on if CAGW is real. I want to see people discuss real solutions. While many people might not like it things like domestic oil and gas production, and more pipelines, are necessary for a smooth transition away from fossil fuels. Domestic oil and gas means less fuel being burned to haul it halfway around the world. Moving oil and gas by pipes means not moving it by truck and trains.

      Burning more natural gas means burning less coal and oil, which means less CO2 produced for the same energy. Even if we could produce an all electric fleet of vehicles tomorrow we'd still be burning a lot of fossil fuels for the next thirty years as we make the transition. The US military also knows this and they've been looking for ways to reduce their oil consumption. The problem is that Congress is holding them up from doing so.

      Don't blame the military, blame Congress.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    2. Re:Duh... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      If Congress hadn't killed the plans for more Navy nuclear powered ships then they'd be using a lot less fossil fuels.

      How's that? New submarines are nuclear, and new aircraft carriers are nuclear. The U.S. has been out of the battleship business for some time - so where are these new nuclear ships going to be? And even then, if they started slapping them on cruisers, you couldn't tell the difference in the military's overall energy consumption. And aside from the Navy's use of oil, the Army, Air Force, and Marines are more or less 100% driven by fossil fuels.

      The US Navy has been researching synthesized fuels, still carbon based but derived from nuclear power and seawater, not fossil fuels. If Congress would just fund this project properly then we could see this deployed in the military very soon.

      Or....Congress could completely gut every single military program and institution outside of the various Guards: Coast, National and Air. It would be more than enough for this nation's actual defense needs. Having a thousand military bases around the world and special forces deployed to 130+ countries has nothing to do with defense and everything to do with empire.

      The "drill, baby, drill" people see domestic oil production as a means to stop sending so many of our warriors over to so many sandy places to die for what we can produce here.

      Which is another red herring. There is no such thing as a nationalized energy sector in the United States, else the CIA would have have to overthrow its own government. Most of the oil drilled in Alaska, for example, is exported to Japan, because there is only the world oil market.

      The Democrats have been openly hostile to nuclear power

      As much as they've been hostile to corporate trade agreements like NAFTA and the TPP. Which is to say, not at all. Nuclear power hasn't been held back by liberals, peacenicks or Green Peace. Nuclear power has been held back by the fact that it is completely and utterly unjustifiable based on cost alone. You can't square the circle of spending 15 years building a $15 billion nuclear power plant when wind and solar are far faster and cheaper to roll out, even building in capacity across the grid to address the baseline red herring.

      While many people might not like it things like domestic oil and gas production, and more pipelines, are necessary for a smooth transition away from fossil fuels.

      Sorry, but I have to ask: did your eyes get a little crosseyed while writing that? We need more fossil fuel production to transition away from dependence on fossil fuels?

      I'm tired of so much arguing on if CAGW is real. I want to see people discuss real solutions.

      Real solutions have been around since the 70's - and sometimes the 1870's. When wind and solar are already cost-competitive with coal - and that's allowing coal to externalize most of its costs - what justification can there be for nuclear power plants? And again, we can skip the "baseline power" canard as 1) there's no such thing 2) green power generation can be spread across the grid, same as coal or nuclear 3) store excess energy for when it's needed.

      If nothing else, you can use spare electricity to pump water into a reservoir, either a lake or water tower, and then use gravity to power a turbine to produce electricity. If that just sounds silly, remember what nuclear power plants do: they heat water. To move a turbine to produce electricity.

      Burning more natural gas means burning less coal and oil

      Until you factor in all the fossil fuels used in the production of said natural gas, in which case it's a wash. With a side order of earthquakes and poisoned ground water.

    3. Re:Duh... by blindseer · · Score: 1

      How's that? New submarines are nuclear, and new aircraft carriers are nuclear. The U.S. has been out of the battleship business for some time - so where are these new nuclear ships going to be? And even then, if they started slapping them on cruisers, you couldn't tell the difference in the military's overall energy consumption. And aside from the Navy's use of oil, the Army, Air Force, and Marines are more or less 100% driven by fossil fuels.

      The US Navy has hundreds of ships, of which only a few dozen are aircraft carriers and submarines. Since the submarine power plants tend to be in the 50MW to 150MW range then I'd say any surface ship with a power plant of 50MW or larger should be capable of being nuclear powered. This might even be "cheated" down a bit since I can imagine that some compromises were made on the size of these power plants in order to minimize fuel consumption. Since a nuclear powered ship is not limited by fuel, and can in fact create it, then many more ships that would not normally be considered for nuclear power might now be suitable for it.

      Also, claiming that if we cannot shift the entire military to nuclear power then we should not bother does seem odd. I know that's not what you said but that is how it could be read. What you seem to fail to comprehend is that nothing requires this technology to be used only on ships. It can be done in any location where a nuclear power plant can be located and there is access to water. Put these reactors and fuel synthesis plants on all military bases large enough to support them and the US military will not only never have to buy fuel again they could get in the business of selling excess to the community around them.

      Or....Congress could completely gut every single military program and institution outside of the various Guards: Coast, National and Air. It would be more than enough for this nation's actual defense needs. Having a thousand military bases around the world and special forces deployed to 130+ countries has nothing to do with defense and everything to do with empire.

      That's just an anti-military rant which has nothing to do with this matter. As a veteran I support your right to speak your mind. You can thank me later.

      Which is another red herring. There is no such thing as a nationalized energy sector in the United States, else the CIA would have have to overthrow its own government. Most of the oil drilled in Alaska, for example, is exported to Japan, because there is only the world oil market.

      Where in your fevered mind did this come from? There does not need to be a nationalized energy sector for Navy technology to be used in the civil sector. Since this technology was developed with public funds it is (or at least should be) available for civil use. Of course this would be regulated by the appropriate government agencies to assure safe use of the technology but the fuel production would be, and should be, privately owned.

      As much as they've been hostile to corporate trade agreements like NAFTA and the TPP. Which is to say, not at all. Nuclear power hasn't been held back by liberals, peacenicks or Green Peace. Nuclear power has been held back by the fact that it is completely and utterly unjustifiable based on cost alone. You can't square the circle of spending 15 years building a $15 billion nuclear power plant when wind and solar are far faster and cheaper to roll out, even building in capacity across the grid to address the baseline red herring.

      I trust actions more than words. Democrats have been fighting nuclear power for decades. It's only when and where the tide has shifted against them that they will jump out in front and declare they've been supporting nuclear power all along. One speech by one, admittedly prominent, Democrat does not negate decades of hostility to nuclear power.

      Sorry, but I have to ask: did your eyes get a little

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    4. Re:Duh... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      The US Navy has hundreds of ships, of which only a few dozen are aircraft carriers and submarines. Since the submarine power plants tend to be in the 50MW to 150MW range then I'd say any surface ship with a power plant of 50MW or larger should be capable of being nuclear powered.

      There's two questions here...."can we" and "should we". Nuclear powered reactors have a use case on aircraft carriers, as they are floating cities with immense power needs. For icebreakers, for power, long deployments, and acting as floating power plants for remote sites. Submarines, for obvious reasons.

      Not really seeing it for cruisers, though, for a couple of reasons. First, the cost, which happens to be the Achilles heel of civilian nuclear power. For what it would cost to build and maintain a reactor on a cruiser, you could probably pay to have fuel oil shipped to it anywhere in the world, build enough wind and solar farms to make up for any CO2 burned as fuel, and save a nice chunk of money in the process. So if the purpose is to lower overall emissions, why bother.

      Second reason is, the U.S. military hasn't faced anyone that can give it a kick in the teeth, or at least a bloody nose, since it got its imperialistic ass kicked out of Vietnam. If Hillary had won the election and tried to enforce her stupid fly zone over Syria, bomb Iran for the weapons program the CIA and Mossad said Iran didn't have, or take the "Asian Pivot" another step and sink a Chinese vessel, we might have a few sunken Navy vessels on our hands.

      Aircraft carriers are kept at a distance and are well-defended. If a nuclear sub is sunk, it probably means it just fired off its nuclear missiles and we have much much greater things to worry about than having a mini-Chernobyl in the Persian Gulf. But if a cruiser is sunk because it was swarmed with enough missiles to overwhelm its defenses - you really want that mini-Chernobyl, or several of them? Countries that have been picked as enemies of the United States aren't going to bother trying to outspend the Pentagon's $1+ trillion annual budget, they're just going to get enough missiles together to sink your ships stalking their coastlines.

      What you seem to fail to comprehend is that nothing requires this technology to be used only on ships. It can be done in any location where a nuclear power plant can be located and there is access to water.

      Try to "comprehend" the cost and risk arguments above. I'm sure the U.S. base in Okinawa uses a good amount of power - but why not simply buy it from Japan's civilian power infrastructure (even nuclear powered). For reasons based both on cost and risk. Let's say some trigger happy commander in Foal Eagle decides to fire some "warning shots" in the annual practice invasion of North Korea. North Korea, deciding its the real deal this time, decides to defend themselves by firing off some ballistic missiles at said Okinawan base. Mini-Chernobyl, again.

      Or....Congress could completely gut every single military program and institution outside of the various Guards: Coast, National and Air. It would be more than enough for this nation's actual defense needs. Having a thousand military bases around the world and special forces deployed to 130+ countries has nothing to do with defense and everything to do with empire.

      That's just an anti-military rant which has nothing to do with this matter.

      It has everything to do with it. The United States shells out at least $1.2 trillion a year on warmonger spending, more than the rest of the world combined. This is wholly and completely unneeded corporate welfare, in service of an American Empire. Nothing more, nothing less

  105. Send In the Clowns by hyades1 · · Score: 1

    Cue the Global Warming Deniers, Trumpster Divers, Koch-paid commenters and other loons.

    Meanwhile, organizations like the US military have to look squarely at the reality of Climate Change and try to protect the country from its consequences...despite the best efforts of the fossil fuel lobbyists and their drooling, willfully ignorant dupes.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
    1. Re:Send In the Clowns by ghoul · · Score: 1

      Can you tell me where to sign up for all that Koch money. Right now I debunk GW on my own time. Sure would like to get on the gravy train like all the "Warm is Better" Deniers.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    2. Re:Send In the Clowns by hyades1 · · Score: 1

      You would fall into the "Other Loons" category. If you're trying to debunk GW on your own time (and fail, of course), the Kochs wouldn't pay you anyway. Why would they? It would be like paying a guy to clean a gas station toilet when he's stupid enough to do it for free.

      --
      I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  106. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You moron, they referred to global land temperatures. Is it winter everywhere? Stupid fuck.

  107. That type of wall has a name by penguinoid · · Score: 1

    Building a wall and having the ocean pay for it is called tidal power (and the wall is a tidal barrage, a type of dam)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  108. Re:Not much. I do look at data which may upset you by hey! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Attempting to simplify the crises in Syria by pointing at climate change seriously under states all other factors. Hell, one of your own links (the usda one) clearly shows that Syria has been able to meet its needs IF allowed via imports

    The USDA link shows no such thing; it shows Syria eating up its reserves as it fails to import enough wheat to make up the shortfall. Yes, Assad underwrote the price of bread, but there wasn't enough subsidized bread to meet demand, forcing people to buy non-subsidized bread which increased in price six-fold. The net bread expenditure went up by 20% in a country where many people spend half their income on food.

    I'm not a reductionist; situations like this have multiple important factors. The Assad/Islamist thing had been simmering for decades -- generations really. Had that situation been different, the climate shock might not have destabilized the country. In point of fact bread prices were an issue throughout the Middle East and a major factor in the Arab Spring. Syria was arguably better positioned than most other Arab countries, but the stress of having 5% of your population displaced on top of the deep and old fault lines broke the country apart.

    This is precisely how climate shock is going to work. It won't be like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water; it'll be formerly rare occurrences happening more frequently and stressing vulnerable populations. Take sea level rise; cities won't drown slpowly, but what was once a hundred year flood will become twenty year flood. That will stress coastal cities, and the results depend on how stable and wealthy a particular city is.

    For example were sea level to rise almost a meter by 2100 (as is now within the scope of mainstream positions), the very wealthy coastal city I live in would go the Venice route and build a tidal barrier, which would conservatively cost at least ten billion dollars. Chittagong Bengladesh, however, will be screwed. My city has twice the GDP of Bengladesh as a whole even though it has 3% of the population.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  109. Re:Dumbass by swillden · · Score: 1

    If Wheat was the problem, the US would be dropping food bags on the populace instead of TONS OF WEAPONS. GUNS DO NOT GROW OR WATER CROPS YOU FUCKING MORON!

    Let me get this straight. Your argument is that the crisis must not be driven by a non-political cause because if it were the US would have solved it? Or, to put it another way, your're arguing that the US government is so perfectly effective at always addressing the root causes of problems in a timely manner, that the government's failure to address this one means it's not the root cause?

    Dude, you must know a different US government than I do. The one I know occasionally does the right thing at the right time, but it's mostly by accident.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  110. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So far nobody has posted any links to CAGW proof, but my post has been moderated "Flamebait" and "Overrated". Folks, if you are trying to convince me of the science behind CAGW, that's not the optimal strategy.

    They aren't trying to prove CAGW because there IS no proof.

    They are simply trying to censor, shout-down, and otherwise silence opposing views. It's the "Scientific Method 2.0". Just scream & shout-down opposing views until society conforms to your ideology/religion while randomly interjecting science-y sounding jargon.

    People who are skeptical of CAGW are automatically redneck Luddite bigots clinging to their bibles and guns and anything they say is wrong and a lie anyways, so everyone but those who agree with us can be ignored.

    https://youtu.be/QwviDPo4Rh4

  111. well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they say a rising tide lifts all boats. is this actually what they meant?

  112. Wow.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So they're going the climate angle for massive refugees. Damn globalists, their days are numbered.

  113. Re: Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So I buy a house in higher ground , later I have to defend it with my life when migrants overrun my territory. They don't care for my life, or that I planned for disaster, they want their "human rights" to get free lodging and I become the villain saying get off my lawn.
    No, what other people do *is* my business, because I prefer to avoid a scenario where what they do endangers my life, and where defense of my own human rights endangers theirs.

  114. "Snow Crash" imagined it by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Neal Stephenson imagined it and made it part of "Snow Crash".

  115. Re:What happened to the 50 million climate refugee by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Don't blame the scientists for some shit said by a pimply political intern somewhere that then ended up in a speech.

  116. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by dbIII · · Score: 1

    In 2005, there was a prediction that 50 million people would be displaced by global warming by 2010. Didn't even come close to coming true.

    For some reason this is the first I've ever heard of it.
    What is the point of debunking some obscure lie somewhere and pretending that the lie is mainstream? It just seems like a mindless way to try to start a fight to me.

  117. Few people are mentioning the big lies by Shane_Optima · · Score: 2

    The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.

    This sort of donkey shit is part of the reason why the anti-climate change movement has so much steam behind it. Even blaming stuff like Hurricane Katrina on climate change was pretty bad, but this? It shouldn't be mentioned. It's senselessly injecting tangential politics into an already senselessly politicized issue. I'm sure someone has a very clever conjecture-heavy explanation for these claims, but I highly, highly, highly doubt that global warming was remotely significant in the genesis of any of those things.

    I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but Syria didn't suddenly erupt in chaos because the banana harvest was a bit low this year.

  118. Re:Liars will Liar by BlueStrat · · Score: 0

    And where is your evidence for that claim?

    You're a funny guy!

    Oh, wait...you were serious?

    How is it that CAGW alarmists can basically wave their hands and repeat some sciencey-sounding BS and we're not supposed to question it because "science!" but on the other claw, opposing viewpoints are required to trot-out extraordinary levels and amounts of counter-evidence (that they then simply claim is funded by "big oil)?

    You CAGW folks are the ones making extraordinary claims and demanding massive societal and economic changes. *You* are the ones that must produce the extraordinary levels and amounts of evidence if you expect to be taken seriously, and not just seen as using CAGW as a convenient propaganda tool to further your political and ideological agendas.

    We're still waiting.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  119. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

    if you are trying to convince me of the science behind CAGW,

    Actually, nobody gives a flying fuck what an idiot like you thinks.

  120. Re:Liars will Liar by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

    And where is your evidence for that claim?

    You're a funny guy!

    Oh, wait...you were serious?

    How is it that CAGW alarmists can basically wave their hands and repeat some sciencey-sounding BS and we're not supposed to question it because "science!" but on the other claw, opposing viewpoints are required to trot-out extraordinary levels and amounts of counter-evidence (that they then simply claim is funded by "big oil)?

    You CAGW folks are the ones making extraordinary claims and demanding massive societal and economic changes. *You* are the ones that must produce the extraordinary levels and amounts of evidence if you expect to be taken seriously, and not just seen as using CAGW as a convenient propaganda tool to further your political and ideological agendas.

    We're still waiting.

    Typical Leftist response. Down-mod but don't refute. Because facts are stubborn things and are hard to refute.

    That's fine, I've got enough karma to burn to raise global temps by 10C by New Years!

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  121. Why should he present that info to you? by aepervius · · Score: 1

    All what he said was cited and cited over and over and over. Just go to real climate science FFS. But you guy keep repeating the same lie, and every time ask for the thankless job of citation. Just to ignore it again in the next story. Personally I stopped caring. I am old enough that the effect will be minimal on my life, and I have no children. So I egoistically don't care anymore. Go ahead continue pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, and go ahead continue ignoring the very fucking simple science about the greenhouse effect (heck that effect was long known, but apparentely for idiot like you climate change denier , having a higher CO2 ppm in the atmosphere does not warm it, go figure). I'll be long dead when the worst effect will start to be felt. And go all fuck yourself *bows*.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  122. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sorry dude, Americans can't wear sweaters; it's just too much to ask. The freedom to squander freedom and resources is simply too important. Our society deserves to die, preferably the slow exhausting death we are about to witness, with each and last breath of every generation henceforth resigned to the fact they left this place worse, their children in a deeper state hopelessness.

  123. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So if someone could please post links to the most persuasive proof that we should all be worried about carbon dioxide levels, I'll take a look.

    So far nobody has posted any links to CAGW proof....

    I guess part of the problem is in what you consider to be proof.

    This probably doesn't count, and if that didn't then almost certainly this won't either.

    However, perhaps once you've read them you could let us know what their failures are, as specifically as you can, and what more you'd require for them to be considered 'proof'.

  124. Re: Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wait. Wait. Slashdot once had credibility?

  125. Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    All models are wrong. Do you have a better one?

    Keep in mind these models are not statistical analyses of the dataset, they are physical models, which are true because of the laws of physics. The models may be inaccurate, but they can't be wrong, because that would mean that some fundamental part of physics would be wrong. And if you want to poke holes in the laws of physics, you need some pretty strong empirical evidence to do so.

    The amount of modeling you need to do to see that a higher partial pressure of CO2 results in warming is minimal. It's a direct result of the properties of the gas, as established by Tyndall in 1860, and Arrhenius was able to hand-calculate a fairly accurate estimate of the warming for a doubling of CO2 in 1896. We actually did have decades where the AGW theory was scientifically controversial, including much of the early 20th Century. I am not sure how you imagine that decades of physical research and unimaginable increases in computing ability would result in worse models. Simple models are also not necessarily less useful than more complex ones, either, depending on what the exact question you want to know is.

    Want to know how much of the Earth's global average temperature is due to atmospheric warming? You just need a one-dimensional model, it's just the difference between the blackbody temperature and the observed temperature. Want to know what the effective radiating height is for the atmosphere for a given temperature? Two dimensional model. If you want to know what happens to the Earth as a result of doubling CO2, that question is pretty complex, especially since it needs to model human behavior. The question of "What happens to a column of air of a given composition when the partial pressure of CO2 doubles?" is much, much easier to solve. Radiative transfer equations also describe extraterrestrial atmospheres well, including the atmospheres of Venus, Jupiter, and the Sun.

    Which brings us back to you. Yes, you, the one with a bone to pick with physics. The global climate models are not your problem. Your problem is that it requires very little sophistication to start seeing evidence of AGW. We don't need to model the whole Earth and everything in it, nor even the whole atmosphere. In order for these basic models to be wrong, the observations must also be wrong, so ultimately you just need one single fact in your favor to lay waste to the entire theory of AGW, and potentially all atmospheric and radiative physics. You need either a change in the physical properties of CO2, a new way for Earth to transfer heat energy to space, or a hidden decrease in solar output. Personally, I try not to get in arguments with the consensus view of reality, especially with the people whose job is to measure that reality to extremes of precision, and especially not after a hundred or so years of research into the issue. But if that makes sense to you, I applaud your courage, and await the results of your paper.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      We actually did have decades where the AGW theory was scientifically controversial
      Actually not. It only was "controversial" in the US popular press and for about a decade that "scepticism" suddenly got traction in other western presses.

      That global warming is a threat never was controversial amoung scientists who are interested in that topic and laymen who watched it. I'm 50 ... never meat one who was not concerned about it. But I live in a country where the climate shift of the last 40 years is clearly visible.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    2. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      No, AGW was genuinely scientifically controversial in the late 19th and early 20th Century. The prevailing view was that changes in climate (including periodic ice ages) were cyclical and self-regulating. Arrhenius showed the potential for changes in carbon dioxide to cause long-term changes in climate, but there was as yet no evidence that humans had a measurable effect on CO2 and it was believed that the atmosphere was too large for human activity to be able to change it.

      So AGW contradicted dogmatic theories which were unsupported by data, but it also had some empirical counter-evidence. The atmosphere is already saturated with CO2 to the point of being optically opaque. Water vapor also absorbs energy over much the same spectrum, and water vapor is far more prevalent in the atmosphere. It was eventually realized that increasing the partial pressure of CO2 raises the layer of CO2-rich air and thus increases the effective radiating height. Despite the work of Arrhenius and a few other scientists, the theory of AGW was considered entirely discredited up until at least the 1950s.

      From the 1900s to the 1970s the mathematics of describing global climate defeated human scientists. It was fruitful however in discovering different feedback mechanisms (especially small changes in albedo) whereby small changes in climate or weather could be amplified to potentially produce "Snowball Earths" or Venus-like atmospheres. The death of the idea of a static or self-regulating climate was a drawn-out affair, but had gained broad acceptance by that time. Beginning in the 1950s with the advent of digital computers, scientists began to make headway on modeling the effects of CO2 and climatic feedbacks, and the first baseline measurements of CO2 (from 1960 onwards) began to paint a picture of rising levels of CO2 due to human industry exceeding what could be absorbed by natural processes.

      By the late 1970s the theory of AGW was dominant, but some controversial aspects remained, particularly with regards to the effects of warming on cloud formation. However, the research from that point on was mostly trying to establish how much warming would result from an increase in CO2, and many lines of evidence were converging to the same 2-6 degree range.

      I am sure that most informed people you have met during your life have been concerned with anthropogenic climate change. The status of AGW as "settled science" is actually fairly recent: the formation of the IPCC in 1988 is probably as good a date as any. It's not a bad thing for a scientific theory to have been controversial, it means it has been challenged many times and come out as the best possible explanation.

      Out of curiosity, where are you from? I grew up in Alaska and spent about 25 years there. Alaska has been losing glacial ice at a rate of 75 cubic kilometers per year for some decades now, mostly in the smaller glaciers, lower alpine glaciers, and tidewater glaciers -- which are of course the most accessible and visible. The bottom layers of glacial ice can be thousands and tens of thousands of years old. Its deep blue color is like nothing else in the world. In some places there are little glacier overlooks built for people to stop and view glaciers from the roadside. Some built a few decades ago no longer overlook anything as the glaciers have retreated out of sight. The Columbia Glacier near my home retreated 20 kilometers. Alaska is a tragedy in action, and the land of glaciers and permafrost that I knew will soon only exist in photographs.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    3. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      No, AGW was genuinely scientifically controversial in the late 19th and early 20th Century.
      No it was not. As I said before. It is a "pop news" myth spread from the USA.

      Out of curiosity, where are you from?
      Germany. 30 years ago winters had like -30 degrees centigrade. Perhaps people remember the exceptional cold winters after WW2.

      Now we barely hit 0 degrees, or in every 3 or 5 odd years -3 degrees. (That does not count for the higher mountains ofc.)

      We even have heat records in winter now. 23rd of december in 2013(I think) with 23 degree centigrade (plus). It is supposed to snow around that time. When I was 10, I had my appendix removed. Went to hospital at 23rd and got out at 30th of december. At night of 30th - 31st of december we had -35 degrees.

      Right now the melting of the glaciers is more a loss for tourism. But in future it will affect water supply in summer in north Europe.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      So which part of the history I wrote was false, then? Before you answer you may want do do some research here. It's well cited and I am sure that I can find some other citations if necessary. I'm really not sure what you're alleging, but your flat denial of verifiable scientific history is appalling.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    5. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Don't know about the history abstracts you gave, as they are all america centric.
      And that is not the point.

      The point is you concluded and proclaim that AGW "always was controversial" while the opposite is true.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    6. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      America centric? Arrhenius and Tyndale? Do you think that the website is inventing the research papers being discussed? What about the scientific evidence, are the properties of H2O and CO2 also somehow "America centric"?

      Arrhenius' paper was well-received, but it did contradict existing assumptions that the Earth was generally static or cyclical. Plate tectonics would not be widely accepted until the 1950s. The concept of ice ages had become mainstream only in the 1870s. In point of fact, Arrhenius was writing about CO2 in relation to his interest in the origin of ice ages. That it suggested anthropogenic warming was possible was incidental. Researchers in the early 20th Century had made measurements which suggested that additional CO2 would not have an effect on the Earth's climate. The theory was widely discredited on that basis, even though Arrhenius' equations and calculations seemed to be sound. Other lines of evidence spoke against the idea of a static Earth, and CO2's indisputably also key role in atmospheric warming spurred scientists to attempt to measure global concentrations of CO2 in the 1950s, culminating with the work of Keeling in 1960.

      AGW was neither always controversial nor always accepted. Like most scientific ideas it had to gain acceptance, and as always, our theories about the universe improve with better data. The nice thing about the history of science is that it is objective: there are either published papers and observations or there are not. If AGW was as well established in the early 20th Century as you say, then you should have a plethora of evidence. So let's take a quick trip to Google scholar, and start searching for anything climate related that happens to turn up, and see what it says.

      Civilization and Climate, 1922

      "...there is a widespread idea that climatic uniformity is the normal condition..."

      "As to the assumed uniformity of climate, meteorologists do indeed find that so far as records are yet available...there are no certain indications of progressive climatic changes."

      An Introduction To Weather And Climate, 1943

      "Water vapor is much the most important of the atmosphere's absorbing gases, although carbon dioxide and ozone are of minor importance."

      "Very insignificant amounts of both solar energy and terrestrial energy are likewise absorbed by ozone, oxygen, and carbon dioxide."

      Climate and evolution, 1915 seems to take the view that climatic changes are exclusively due to the shape and position of the continents, and that the shape and position of the continents is mostly due to erosion, not continental drift.

      Ah, here's a good one. G. S. Callendar, 1949 "CAN CARBON DIOXIDE INFLUENCE CLIMATE?" You will also find Callendar's work highlighted in the AIP "Discovery of Global Warming" website I linked earlier, and I believe this article in particular is mentioned.

      An interpretation of climatic change in terms of the variable carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was first proposed some sixty years ago by the famous Swedish physicist, Sevante Arrhenius, who made some of the classic experiments on the absorption of heat radiation by gases. Since then the theory has had a chequered history; it was abandoned for many years when the preponderating influence of water vapour radiation in the lower

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    7. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      I don't know what you want to achieve with this long post.

      You bring stuff like: Researchers in the early 20th Century had made measurements which suggested that additional CO2 would not have an effect on the Earth's climate. The theory was widely discredited on that basis, even though Arrhenius' equations and calculations seemed to be sound.
      You give an argument and a counterargument in two sentences, is that your idea of "controversial"?
      For me the counter argument is mainstream. When ever one comes with a claim that CO2 is not a problem or there is no AGW or everything is a natural pendulum, one comes and rectifies: CO2 is a problem, AGW is a problem. The "idiots" coming up with their "weird ideas" don't make the whole topic "controversial".

      This thing you're doing where you're denying objective facts which you could trivially confirm, and only reading enough of what is presented to confirm your biases, is rather rude.
      Hm.
      And what are you doing? Pushing your idea that it is controversial, by brining up idiot scientists that got debunked instantly?
      If something gets debunked instantly, then it is not controversial. At least not how I understand the word.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    8. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      Arrhenius was discredited because his ideas had what was considered to be disproving empirical evidence. That's what empiricism means: if you don't observe it, it isn't real, even if theory says it should be real. You have a climate science textbook from McGraw-Hill in 1943 that explicitly trivializes the role of carbon dioxide and does not make mention of climate change at all. Callendar's paper in 1949 makes it abundantly clear that neither climate change nor CO2-mediated climate change were mainstream thought at the time, for the exact reason I've been citing. For another measure, we can look at Arrhenius' paper's citation list. Google lists 1,979 papers which cite that one, of which 10 were written before 1950, and only three of which are actually about climate.

      You clearly have very little foundational knowledge about climate science, or science in general. Most theories which are commonly accepted today were initially controversial -- ice ages and plate tectonics, as well as the germ theory of disease, evolution, the nature of electricity and the atom, biogenesis, heliocentrism, quantum mechanics, relativity, black holes, the Big Bang, the Standard Model, the physical basis for heredity (DNA), etc. Scientific controversy exists when the evidence is unclear. Saying that earlier scientists had all the benefits of later observations is a logical aberration. In science, theories compete based on supporting evidence, and controversies are usually resolved by extremely careful measurement. The mass of the Higgs boson was recently controversial, as were neutrino oscillations, and currently dark matter is somewhat controversial. And of course the simplest disproof of your worldview that AGW has always been held to be correct is that prior to the Industrial Era it wasn't actually happening.

      Your assertion that the evidence for a particular theory is always clear is nonsensical. You adhere to AGW on religious grounds, not on the basis of empirical evidence. But like most zealots you don't actually have any idea of what you believe, because that would force you to make judgments as to its validity. The good news is that your religion is actually supported by empirical evidence. The bad news is that you're trying to argue against objective reality: you are every bit as anti-science as the AGW deniers. I have to assume this mental defect is also responsible for your continually equating the two positions of "AGW was controversial before the mid-70s" and "AGW is controversial now". Rest assured I am not trying to make your religion look bad, or even to disagree with it. I simply happen to know a hell of a lot more about it than you do, apparently including some bits of history that you're trying to pretend didn't happen. AGW is a vital issue for me, and almost certainly the bulk of what I write about. We're on the same side, and you're not really doing us any favors by having stupid arguments.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    9. Re:Models are inaccurate, but not wrong by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      You clearly have very little foundational knowledge about the history ofclimate science,
      Fixed that for you. ... or science in general. Yeah sure, my school reports however show different.

      You adhere to AGW on religious grounds, not on the basis of empirical evidence. You are an idiot and insulting and don't read much on /. or you knew I'm an atheist ;D

      I simply happen to know a hell of a lot more about it than you do, apparently including some bits of history that you're trying to pretend didn't happen.
      About the history of climate science publications, yes. About the history of climate science: doubtfully.
      About climate science itself: very very unlikely.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  126. Re:Liars will Liar by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Typical Leftist response
    Please enlighten me.
    What is that supposed to mean?

    So if I'm left: pro health insurance, pro unions etc. ... what responses do you expect from me if the topic e.g. is global warming or fund increase for the navy etc.?

    I don't get it.

    Why can I not have a political opinion without being labeled a "lefty" and why can I not be "left" without being supposed to have a particular opinion on a topic?

    Sorry, the US way of labeling opinions/political stances/ideas/arguments seems extremely NAZI to me.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  127. Re:Liars will Liar by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    In same countries ... that counts for EU e.g. your funding is determined by the university you are researching at.

    There is no magical funding because you "make press".

    Perhaps you should either reconsider your IDEA how funding works, or if the funding in your country in fact is such retarded: change the way how science is funded?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  128. Re:Liars will Liar by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    The problem is: there is no hell.

    So letting him die while suffering is the closest thing to hell imaginable he will experience.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  129. Re:Climate change skeptic "wrong wrong wrong" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you may be correct or not ... but parent post has citations. Statements of like "wrong" "wrong" "still wrong" "manufactured scandal...lies" "total fabrication" are not ...compelling... arguments against verifiable citations.

    If you are expert or have have credible knowledge to share, please present it in a civil and credible manner (links to sources, please) otherwise your statemets do not seem useful in promotion of your position.

    Thank you for considering this opinion.

    Alpha Charlie

  130. Re:Liars will Liar by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

    Typical Leftist response
    Please enlighten me.
    What is that supposed to mean?

    In this context it refers to the typical response to inconvenient facts by those who are committed US Leftists of attempting to shout-down, censor, and/or silence those expressing them, a 'shoot-the-messenger' tactic commonly employed by those on the US political Left.

    Why can I not have a political opinion without being labeled a "lefty" and why can I not be "left" without being supposed to have a particular opinion on a topic?

    I ask the same question regarding being on the 'Right'. One need only scroll through responses to my past posts to see the mirror-image labeling and pigeon-holing being employed.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  131. Re:Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    You didn't provide to refute. Just a series of non sequiturs.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  132. Re: Liars will Liar by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    Which is absurd as Shackleton and the like could only observe sea ice. You may note that they didn't have satellites or permanent monitoring stations a century ago.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  133. Re:Liars will Liar by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

    A lot of the people living in low lying areas, particular in Asia, don't exactly have the resources to pick up and leave, and if you bothered to read the article you would realize this is exactly what these people are talking about, large numbers of people living in areas that climate change will make relatively uninhabitable, or at least considerably more unpleasant to live in, getting up and leaving. You know... migrations.

    I see this happening within the USA midwest to southwest states. Who wants to live where the daytime temperature rises above that of the human body, and where water evaporation at that temperature leaves the land parched and nearly barren. Of couse, the side effects are denied too, you know the ones, hurricanes and tornadoes and dry heat windstorms.

    --
    Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  134. Re:Liars will Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    research dollars are handed out?

    Is this some kind of turncoat argument? Create a bigger boogieman called Big Government to let that smaller boogieman Big Oil to hide behind of.

  135. Re:Climate change skeptic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, your ignorance is showing. First fool errand - who are these 93% of the scientists that agree man is causing GW. I dare you to identify them. You can't, they're anonymous - i.e. it's bullshit.

    Here is a talk by a real scientist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2iggJN4Etw .

    He'll explain the scientific method, and so on. You can look up what he says. Watch it and I expect you'll get upset when you realize how you've been lied to.

  136. Re:Liars will Liar by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

    In the majority of land area, yes it is.

    Since you're such an expert AC, perhaps you could tell me the percentage of land that is in winter right now?

    I'll give you a hint. It's 68%.

    Thus, land temps in the northern hemisphere are overweighted for the whole world.

    And I'm the stupid fuck...lol.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  137. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is the point of debunking some obscure lie somewhere and pretending that the lie is mainstream?

    Did you miss the part about the UN publishing this? According to the provided link, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations University both claimed this. It wasn't exactly obscure at the time; it was treated as news and reported upon. I remember this, and I don't remember any prominent climate change scientists saying anything against it (not even "that 5-year timetable might be a bit premature"). After it failed to come true, it became non-news and was put in the memory hole.

    So now we are being warned of the same thing again, only this time instead of a 5-year timetable we have a much more vague timetable. We should worry about a refugee crisis, someday, and it will be really bad so we should spend a whole lot of money now.

    Do you really think it is hard to understand why someone might mention that this exact problem has been warned about and didn't come true?

    If your next argument is "well the guy was just mistaken about the timetable, all the predictions will come true, just later than he said" then my next question is "please show me the data you used to figure that out."

  138. Re:Liars will Liar by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    I'm a lefty, and I would never do or propose one of the things you claim lefties would do ... just for your interest. And neither would any other lefty in my country ...

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  139. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by dbIII · · Score: 1

    and I don't remember any prominent climate change scientists saying anything against it

    Probably for the same reason I had never heard of it. It's obvious bullshit and was ignored.

  140. Re:Liars will Liar by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

    I'm a lefty, and I would never do or propose one of the things you claim lefties would do ... just for your interest. And neither would any other lefty in my country ...

    I believe that more speech is always the solution. Let ideas compete equally out in the open without censor regardless of how revolting some may find some speech. After all, it is only unpopular opinions that need protecting. Nobody tries to suppress speech they agree with.

    If one's ideas and speech can only gain acceptance by silencing/suppressing others' ideas and speech, then one should re-examine and re-evaluate their own ideas and speech, for that is where the problem lies.

    If what you say is true then carry on, Sir, whether we may agree or not. If I may ask a favor, please have a heart-to-heart with the US Left. Sad to say, they are currently not only harming themselves but the US as well with the tactics I outlined above, which are just a fraction of the things they discredit themselves with without help of opposition.

    Hell, I really don't want either faction to gain too much power. That leads to tyranny. However, the US Left has swung the pendulum quite a ways Left in the US and I fear the counter-swing, of which Trump could be just the beginning. That the pendulum has swung so far Left in the US (by US standards) is what's driven extreme political views, opinions, and policies from both sides.

    A far-Right fascist authoritarian regime and a far-Left socialist authoritarian regime are nearly indistinguishable from the general populations' viewpoint.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  141. Re: Liars will Liar by JohnMathon · · Score: 1

    Hillary and Obama policies have created 65 million refugees the largest in history. Now climate change liberals want to tell us climate change will create refugees. How ironic. The refugee lovers complaining about refugees. You made 65 million of them. What do you care about refugees anyway? What a load. Load upon load of lies and crap. Cagw doesn't exist. All the consequences ever predicted never happen. There is no sea level rise. 30,000 km more coastlines In the last 30 years than before. Less extreme storms than ever. Nothing cagw people say has ever happened. The last year heat wave was El Niño. We have gotten them before and will get them again just as we're getting a monster La Niña now. The fastest decline in temperatures ever recorded. Did they say that? Did they predict that? I did. Totally crap climate science is drivel but we are expected to beleive nonexistent coastline decline is supposed to cause things when nothing they've ever predicted before has come true. Nothing. No ice free Arctic by 2000. No polar bears extinction. No extreme hurricanes. No extreme anything. It's crap science for morons.

  142. Goalpost shift detected by dbIII · · Score: 1

    The democrats crashed the economy before they even got into office so some nukes didn't get funding?
    How stupid do you think we all are here?
    Did you come to this site today just to troll?

    There is a massive shift of the goalposts between "refused by government" and "decided not to go ahead due to lack of funding".
    Show me one that was refused instead of jumping on a thread with a blatant goalpost shift because you can't find something that fits.
    I don't have anything in this fight but all this "nukes would be great if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their dog" dishonest shit really gets me. If Westinghouse wasn't pushing 1970s dinosaurs painted green a bank might actually put up some money.

    1. Re:Goalpost shift detected by blindseer · · Score: 1

      The democrats crashed the economy before they even got into office so some nukes didn't get funding?

      I should have said the licenses were withdrawn instead of "cancelled" since cancelled could imply the government interfered instead of the business losing interest in dealing with a hostile government. Also, with the licenses submitted in 2006 or 2008 and withdrawn in 2009, 2012 or 2015 then it is quite likely, and I argue highly probable, that a friendly Republican administration created an environment where people wanted to build nuclear reactors but the Democrats created an environment where the businesses decided that spending the money on licenses they were not likely going to get was bad business.

      I'm not shifting the goal posts, I'm made a claim and I'm sticking to it. Your failure to understand my arguments is not my fault.

      Of the 18 licenses listed on the NRC site only 5 were issued. All of the licenses were submitted before Obama took office with the possible exception of one or two that were submitted in the early months of his administration. During that time 7 were withdrawn, the license applicants walked away for whatever reason. After not getting a license for nine years can you blame them? I should not take nine years to get a license to operate a nuclear power plant. It should take more like nine months, or nine weeks.

      If Westinghouse wasn't pushing 1970s dinosaurs painted green a bank might actually put up some money.

      If the NRC actually had the means to license a reactor that wasn't a dusted off design from the 1970s then we'd see something new. The section in the NRC code for molten salt reactors is a set of blank pages. The NRC apparently wants AP1000 reactors so that is what it gets. If the NRC wants to see something new then they need to create rules where such designs can even meet those rules they've created.

      Also, if the NRC would issue licenses in a reasonable amount of time then banks would be willing to invest. A bank cannot invest in a nuclear power plant if there is only a one out of three chance the government will actually issue a license before two presidential terms have come and gone.

      Obama speaking in front of a bunch of union workers, even if it is on a nuclear power plant work site, does not mean he supports nuclear power. I look at actions, not words. If he and his party supported nuclear power then they would have been issuing licenses before the people that applied lost interest and walked away. I also found it interesting that those licenses that were issued were only for applications submitted before Obama took office, so there was already considerable money invested in these projects. Obama spoke at a nuclear power construction site in 2010 and the licenses were issued only in 2012 and 2016, election years.

      You tell me that Obama is supporting nuclear power. I tell you that he's only been buying votes.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    2. Re:Goalpost shift detected by dbIII · · Score: 1
      Sorry, I thought the AC was somebody trying to stir up trouble. The financial crisis and low gas prices had to be considered by commercial nukes and it's almost certain that is why they pulled the plug. I'm in the mining industry instead of electricity these days and it's the way mining companies act all of the time - a commodity price drops and that mine that so many have been working on developing suddenly doesn't happen. With nukes they may not be so fickle but it happens.
      To sum up the misunderstanding here in simple terms, Democrats are sometimes paid to like nukes and Republicans are usually paid to like oil instead. I think you are going after the wrong target by bringing politics into the mix. That "friendly Republican administration" really liked oil and the approvals had to wait, didn't they? Disgusting wasn't it?

      If the NRC actually had the means to license a reactor that wasn't a dusted off design from the 1970s then we'd see something new

      Not unless it's an import or military technology released and implemented by a new startup. It's not the rules stopping it but the almost total lack of R&D inside the "nuclear lobby" companies. They do not have anything new to put up for approval.
      Maybe we can do what the British did and take on Chinese plus German technology instead of a 1970s dinosaur. Maybe Trump will let friends of Putin come in and build a Russian nuke design (they are pushing ahead with liquid sodium cooled reactors and other things 40 years ahead of what Westinghouse have), or an Indian design could be built (eg. accelerated thorium which burns up expired weapon material and some other high grade waste). It's somewhat pathetic that even South Africa (with pebble bed) has more advanced civilian nuclear technology than the locked in club of the "nuclear lobby" can provide. South Africa can't build it for us now but the technology was licenced to a German company that can do it quicker than those AP1000 reactors can be built.

    3. Re:Goalpost shift detected by blindseer · · Score: 1

      You have much to learn about nuclear power if you believe the Russians and Chinese are leading the way in nuclear reactor technology. Look up Flibe Energy and their LFTR designs. Transatomic has WAMSR. Terrestrial Energy in Canada has their small modular reactors, Integral Molten Salt Reactors I believe that they are calling it. I don't mean to imply China is not making advances, they are investing in nuclear power development too, but they are starting from what they've been able to copy from America.

      The rules are in fact holding up nuclear power development in Canada and the USA. The US NRC simply does not have the means to license anything other than a solid fuel, water cooled, big containment domed reactor. While it is possible that a molten salt reactor could be built under the rules as they exist it would be a very expensive design and it would destroy many of the benefits of a liquid fuel reactor.

      As I recall Russia and Japan have experimented with molten metal cooled reactors they have not had much success. Russia is at least one step ahead of the USA by having nuclear powered icebreakers. This is a technology that I'm sure the US Coast Guard would love to have.

      Kirk Sorensen from Flibe Energy is quite vocal about the lack of ability to build a molten salt reactor in the USA. He's got investors for his technology but without the ability to get approval from the NRC to build a reactor we are stuck with dusted off and repainted 1970s reactors.

      It's hard to not bring politics into this because we've seen the Democrats fight to keep nuclear power down for decades. They'll let a few things through when it serves their needs to buy votes but for some reason they must see nuclear power as some sort of threat. Go look at the Democrat policy platform and then compare that to the Republicans. The Democrats simply do not mention anything nuclear except to say that nuclear weapons are bad. The Republicans recognize the need to have nuclear power, at a minimum, in an "all the above" energy strategy. Some Republicans are more supportive than others but at least they see nuclear power as a benefit. The Democrats seem to want to pretend that nuclear power does not exist.

      When it comes to the importance that nuclear power proves to the military there are several ways that nuclear power helps. The first is perhaps the most obvious, large naval vessels with nuclear power plants provide an extreme tactical advantage. This is best demonstrated with submarines but is also a big help with surface ships. A ship that doesn't need to take on fuel oil constantly can better defend itself and do so while traveling much farther, faster, and longer.

      Military bases want nuclear power so that they can be independent of the national grid if they must. That hydrocarbon fuel synthesis technology the Navy has been developing would be huge for vehicles on land, sea, and air. Now that I think about it, this technology would also be great for spacecraft as well.

      Once the NRC gets off its thumbs and stars to go down the path of small modular reactor, molten salt reactor, and high temperature reactors, then we are going to see some movement in nuclear power. Again, this comes down to politics. The Democrats don't want nuclear power and they've been in a position to kill it off most every where it's been tried for a long time. With Reid gone, Obama gone, and Pelosi as a (rather unpopular) minority leader, the Republicans have two tears to fix this problem. Let's hope that they can fix it in a way that the Democrats cannot tear apart if they get some control back.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    4. Re:Goalpost shift detected by blindseer · · Score: 1

      In addition to my post above I also must point out another problem holding up nuclear power. You say you are in the mining industry. Then perhaps you are aware of the nonsensical regulation on thorium. Rare earth metals tend to be in places that also contain thorium. Thorium is currently controlled much like uranium or plutonium, it is considered a weapon grade material. This is even thought the concept of using thorium in a nuclear weapon is theoretical, and the theory is suspect since the few times thorium has been used in weapons the tests had disappointing results. They still went "boom" but only because there was enough plutonium to make it work, it just did not work well enough.

      Because of these rules thorium and rare earth mining is nearly non-existent in the USA. If the NRC treated thorium as a fuel, instead of as a weapon, then we'd not only have unlimited energy under our feet but enough rare earth metals that we'd stop buying them from China and would instead likely compete with them in the world market.

      I studied electrical, computer, and software engineering so I have some familiarity with the workings of a power plant. My main area of study was in digital electronic design but one cannot go down that path without some exposure to power engineering, control theory, and such that comes with a degree in electrical engineering. I got to tour a couple coal fired plants and a very pathetic tour of a pumped hydro storage dam. I plan to take more, graduate level, courses on power engineering soon.

      My undergraduate education and some reading on my own tells me that wind and solar simply cannot power the world on their own. Adding storage technologies to the mix benefits nuclear power as much as wind and solar. The pumped hydro dam I toured was in the TVA. They used the dam to store up nuclear power in the winter so that there would be enough water and electricity for the summer. They could do the same for wind and solar, I suppose, but that could mean having to operate the dam at a cycle it would not be able to handle, or at least not as efficiently.

      These new high temperature nuclear power plants can load follow as well as any natural gas turbine or hydro dam. Put these power plants against wind and solar and the whole idea of energy storage starts to look real silly.

      The nuclear engineers have done the math, they can build these things at a price cheaper than coal, if only the NRC would allow them to.

      In a few weeks we won't have Obama running out in front of a crowd of construction workers telling them how great he is at "approving" the nuclear power plant they are working on. Obama didn't sign anything to make it happen. It was started before he came to office and the Bush appointees signed off on it all. The parade started without him and he ran to the front to look like a grand marshal.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    5. Re:Goalpost shift detected by dbIII · · Score: 1

      You have much to learn about nuclear power

      So a coder who has read a bit of shit on wikipedia but not finished the articles is telling an engineer with experience in the electricity generation industry that? Seriously?

      It appears that by not calling you an ignorant piece of shit I was mistaken for showing weakness.

      lack of ability to build a molten salt reactor

      This conspiracy theory again? Give it up, it's not 1950 and the world has moved on.
      I should have just looked at your ignorant little sig and written you off as a naive moron.

    6. Re:Goalpost shift detected by blindseer · · Score: 1

      So a coder who has read a bit of shit on wikipedia but not finished the articles is telling an engineer with experience in the electricity generation industry that? Seriously?

      Someone that mentions pebble bed reactors as some sort of next step in nuclear power would seem to be missing a lot of nuclear technology developments. Pebble bed reactors have all kinds of problems.

      PBRs are a compromise to appease the incumbent fuel fabricators while also trying to achieve a means to move fuel and moderator into and out of the reactor almost as if it was a fluid. This is so close to how MSRs work but with all the problems of little fragile billiard balls for fuel elements. MSRs are PBRs with the fuel elements being on the molecular level. No worrying about cracked pebbles clogging up the works. No need to "shuffle" the pebbles to keep the fuel burn consistent.

      MSRs work but the powers that be don't know how to deal with molten fuel. One method tried was with pebble beds. Another was to have fuel rods but the fuel inside was made so that it would melt within the sealed tubes. Put the two together and we'd have something like a molten salt or molten metal fuel reactor. Molten salt reactor research was going well in the USA before Nixon and/or Carter killed it off. Private companies came across this research and picked up where they left off.

      If the rules on licensing nuclear reactors could be changed to allow for liquid fuel reactors again then we wouldn't have to bother with those compromise designs like pebble bed reactors again.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    7. Re:Goalpost shift detected by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Imagine a teenager who only had seen a photo of a gun was delivering you a lecture on guns. Now imagine that you assemble them for a living and you still get that lecture.
      Getting the picture yet?

    8. Re:Goalpost shift detected by blindseer · · Score: 1

      I got the picture. Rather than debating over what I wrote you are debating over what you wish I wrote. You aren't debating me, you are debating some image in your head of someone you'd rather be debating, someone that knows less than myself and holds opinions I do not hold.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    9. Re:Goalpost shift detected by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Debate? There was never a debate? How fucking deluded are you in thinking there was a debate? I was telling you stuff you didn't know about and you were tossing things in every now and again that I've known about for thirty years.

    10. Re:Goalpost shift detected by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Here's a little bit of homework debate boy since you brought in the irrelevant political shit. I can remember it but you'll probably have to look it up or ask your Dad.
      How many nuclear reactors were approved (not built after being approved earlier, but approved) in the terms of Reagan, Bush and Bush's idiot unemployable draft dodging son?
      Work out that number and you'll see that the Republicans have nothing but empty words on the issue.

  143. Re:50 million island people to be displaced by 201 by steveha · · Score: 1

    I was rather more hoping for a summary than a direct link to the 2007 report.

    If I were a global warming scientist, I would already have read through those hundreds of pages. As a non-scientist, with things I need to do, I somewhat rely on news stories, like this one:

    One of the central issues is believed to be why the IPCC failed to account for the âoepauseâ in global warming, which they admit that they did not predict in their computer models. Since 1997, world average temperatures have not shown any statistically significant increase.
    The summary also shows that scientist have now discovered that between 950 and 1250 AD, before the Industrial Revolution, parts of the world were as warm for decades at a time as they are now.

    Despite a 2012 draft stating that the world is at itâ(TM)s warmest for 1,300 years, the latest document states: âoe'Surface temperature reconstructions show multi-decadal intervals during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950-1250) that were in some regions as warm as in the late 20th Century.â

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/10310712/Top-climate-scientists-admit-global-warming-forecasts-were-wrong.html

    And then I read through the PDFs at this site:

    http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/

    The tone is rather tendentious (especially the second PDF) but I find the arguments compelling. As I understand it, the CAGW theory is that feedbacks will cause the warming to "run away" precipitously once we reach a cruical tipping point, but the PDFs have graphs showing the Earth once had a significantly higher CO2 concentration than currently without turning into another Venus. The annual news stories about "the previous year was the warmest on record" don't seem to mention error bars, and when I tracked some down I was astonished to see that the margin for the "warmest" claim was a small fraction of the uncertainty interval. And in my original post, now modded down to 0 score, I provided the link to an article with graphs comparing the predicted temperature increases with what actually were recorded.

    I have seen proposals for a carbon tax that was intended to take trillions of dollars out of the economy. (The authors of the proposal viewed this as a feature: trillions of tax dollars of additional revenue for the US government! I personally don't think you can get something for nothing, so I worry about the harm that would occur if that level of tax was levied.) I think that this level of tax should require a high level of confidence, and I personally am not at that level yet.

    Thank you for responding politely. You haven't convinced me and I likely haven't convinced you, but I hope you at least believe that I'm genuinely skeptical and not just trolling or trying to flame people about this.

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  144. Re:Climate change skeptic by dywolf · · Score: 1

    typo.
    i meant 2016, not 2012.
    my kingdom for an edit button

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  145. Re:Liars will Liar by jwhitener · · Score: 1

    I'd rather pay a bit more in goods and services to cover the costs of reducing carbon emissions

    That is an unfounded assumption that moving towards more renewable energy is going to make goods and services cost more.

  146. Seeing hidden correlations to overlook the obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Causes for terrorism: climate change, ... economic depravation, ...western military occupation, ...Israel, ... western entertainment, ... scantily dressed models, ..

    As much as I believe global warming is a crisis, simply modern middle-eastern culture, the rapes, the terrorism has everything to do with Islam and the ideas it presents, and how muslims are forced to 'accept' them. I live in Germany and rape and terrorism is now an 'issue'. The cause isn't the change in temperature.