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We're Creating a Perfect Storm of Unprecedented Global Warming (popsci.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: If we do nothing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, by the end of this century the Earth will be as hot as it was 50 million years ago in the early Eocene, according to a new study out today in the journal Nature Communications. This period -- roughly 15 million years after dinosaurs went extinct and 49.8 million years before modern humans appeared on the scene -- was 16F to 25F warmer than the modern norm. [...] During the Eocene, it took more atmospheric CO2 to influence temperatures than it does today. In fact, if we don't change our behavior, 2100 will be as hot as the Eocene with much less atmospheric CO2 than was present at the time. A hotter sun means we get more bang for our CO2 buck. "Climate change denialists often mention that CO2 was high in the past, that it was warm in the past, so this means there's nothing to worry about," said lead study author Gavin Foster, a researcher in isotope geochemistry and paleoceanography at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton. "It's certainly true, that the CO2 was high in the past and that it was warm in the past. But because the sun was dimmer, the climate wasn't being forced as much [as it will be] in the future if we carry on as we are."
The kids and grand kids are on their own. Best of luck to them.
Some people say the sun rises in the East.
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Which is right?
Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between?
Teach the controversy!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
At a guess?
The one backed by considerably more than 90% of the academic experts in the field.
But who knows. Maybe unqualified Anonymous Coward #7687123 is correct...
-- Gaxx
Probably the one with real scientists and actual data. Please provide a link to the scientific journal where your peer-reviewed study is published so we can compare.
Trump is hell bent on making it happen by 2020.
This is the best global warming in the world. It's fantastic global warming.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
the ones that say east are right. the ones that say west are drooling morons and need to be told so loudly and in public for all to hear.
We need to STOP letting the low IQ spout their stupidity. Point at them yell "STUPID" and do it in public and in groups.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No, they said the INCREASE in average temperature had nothing to do with increased output from the sun. (Smacks AC with sandal).
The answer- CLEARLY- is to give complete power to our government to oversee the minutiae of our interaction with our environments. Its the only way!
The Sky is Warming. Not Falling.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Agreed, you being pissed off is retarded and irrelevant.
Really. Isn't this getting old and tired.
Yes the climate is changing. Yes it's caused by Humans. No it can't be fixed.
It is impossible to change or reverse. Sorry - we can't stop murdering each other as it is. How can we stop global warming? Answer. We can't.
Just plan for the inevitable and stop screaming the sky is falling. O.L.D. F.*.C.K.I.N.G. N.E.W.S.
Ughh
There is a difference between "It can't be fixed" and "The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
Some people say the sun rises in the East.
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Which is right?
Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between?
Teach the controversy!
Forget the real world.
Because real-world results don't matter.
What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?
And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?
We should deal with crisis in the order that they each threaten our extinction. Climate change is the first on the list in terms of immediacy. Later we can deal with other problems that are further out in time.
After climate change the next extinction level problem is the Y10K problem. When four digit years need to be expanded to five digit years. In about the year 9997, everyone will start talking about this problem. But I'll get a jump on this. In the year 9995 I will seriously start learning COBOL which is a skill that will offer many consulting opportunities for the Y10K problem.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The one backed by the vast majority of scientist trained in the subject matter.
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No it can't be fixed.
Humans could fix it.
Sadly, capitalists are in power.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
"Oops! Something went wrong. Please scroll down to find your content." I did. Six pages later, still didn't see it. I searched the site for "perfect storm" and "eocene"; still couldn't find it.
I think the focus needs to shift away from climate "change" and focus on climate control. It's refreshing to hear the climate alarmist actually admitting that the sun has something to do with warming. However regardless of who is to blame for climate conditions, we humans should focus on analyzing all of the data and factors and see what we can do to control conditions. If we are heading into an ice age do what we can to keep temps up. If heading into warming, do what we can to cool it down. Instead of picking a political agenda and only supporting the facts that contribute to that agenda.
As the temperature rises, the volume of air increases.
Either the air is expanding outwards and/or pressure increases.
If the case is the latter; the sky IS falling!
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Yeah, yeah. Red herring 4, straight out of the deniers handbook. Ok, my turn to debunk.
Nobody disputes that nature could cause this kind of global warming or the later cooling. What science rejects is that for this particular global warming there is any other plausible explanation than human activity. Especially because of the remarkable speed with which it happens, the synchronicity with the industrial revolution, and just plain simple physics.
The sun isn't hotter compared to a few decades ago. The sun is hotter compared to millions of years ago. There's no contradiction.
Can anybody tell me more about the humans and their Industrial Revolution that happened 50 million years ago to cause this earlier global warming incident?
Well, we could point you at the Wikipedia pages that explain all this, but you'll only accuse it of being warmist fake science and cherry-pick this for any uncertainties or unknowns which you can claim disprove the whole thing... While also missing the point that these were changes that took place over tens of millions of years and could have been driven by things like continental drift and very slow variations in orbit or solar output... rather than a few billion stupid apes digging up and burning every scrap of fossil carbon they could find over the course of a mere century.... or the concept that a small initial change in temperature could trigger the release of huge amounts of otherwise sequestered methane...
From TFS: Climate change denialists often mention that CO2 was high in the past, that it was warm in the past, so this means there's nothing to worry about,
Of course, in the past, the locations of many of our major cities or key agricultural lands were in the middle of parched deserts or under oceans which would be... inconvenient if it happened again.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
So, we can agree that it's getting hotter right? Everyone says either we need to lower CO2 more than possible or that it's getting hotter because of outside forces. Either way, it's getting hotter. To say that it's nothing to worry about silly though. Sure the rock we live on survived past heating and cooling. You know, cause it's a rock. We should prepare for changes in climate the same way we prepare for increases in volcanic activity, hurricanes, or other changes in the weather AKA climate changes. Improve food production in harsh environments. Build dwellings that are energy efficient and safe from the elements. When you say we need to prepare for various destructive weather patterns people are chill and support you. You say climate change and they argue about coal.
Short of completely wrecking the global economy or starting a major nuclear war, no government policy is going to have an appreciable effect on climate.
Good climate for primates and mammals, and generally life on the planet. Milder, wetter conditions everywhere. More arable land, fewer deserts. We should be so lucky. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, if not for any other reason, than that it will take a couple of thousand years for the polar ice caps to melt.
Yes, before the earth plunged into the current cycle of glaciation periods, which makes large parts of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable for more than half of every 100000 years. (Not so) great times!
Ah, the joys of science based on "alternative facts".
The US and many western countries have been curbing CO2 emissions. China, India, Russia, and others have been increasing. The US can control it's own policies, but not those of foreign States. Hell, we can't stop the DPRK from developing nuclear weapons and missile technology, which has a far bigger impact on the environment than global warming. We can't stop China from creating man made islands in the South China Sea, which again has far bigger impact on the climate (loss of ocean habitat, destruction of ecosystems, etc..)
So what is _your_ magic plan exactly? Tell China to give some entity money so that they can ignore your request? Tell Russia to stop industrial work so that they can laugh at you? How about having some invisible entity with no plans either selling you "Carbon Credits" so that you simply lose money yourself?
In case you haven't noticed, the latter question is the only one that has been proposed. Al Gore, supra genius, flying around in his private jet with his entourage renting massive bullet proof SUVs is proof that people in power don't give a rats behind about fixing any Climate problems. They want power, which includes your money and livelihood.
Until you come up with a solution, there is no possible way to deal with this issue with any immediacy. You are on par with demanding world peace and harmony, in that it sounds good but won't work because "human nature".
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You mean to say the sun is hotter and, as a result, is having an effect?
The sun is slowly getting hotter, over millions of years, due to hydrogen slowly turning into helium, with greater density, following a standard progression for stars of this type.
This means that for the same CO2 levels, the Earth is getting hotter now than it did before.
I wish I could trust "academic experts". I really do. But all my experiences with academia and academics have been very disappointing.
The first problem can be summed up with the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, research.". That's exactly what we see in academia: those who couldn't cut it outside of academia with their bachelor's degree end up back in academic circles, often for the rest of their lives. Academia provides a safe playpen for those who were below the standards of the real world.
The second problem, which is somewhat related to the first, is that many academics are completely out of touch with reality, and full of, for a lack of a better term, total bullshit. My background is in computer systems design. When I hear industrial practitioners discuss this subject, what they have to say is relevant and interesting. But when academics discuss this subject, it's clear that they're off in a world of their own. For example, just look at all of the colleges that still teach UML, despite industry having tried it and rejected it almost two decades ago now.
The third problem is related to the second. There are entire academic fields that are nothing but bullshit from top to bottom. This should not surprise us. If you take many useless academics and collect them together you will obviously end up with entire fields that are useless. Most of the social "sciences", which have absolutely nothing to do with anything remotely like the scientific method, fall into this category.
The fourth problem is when you take all of the above and add money into the mix. That's when everything really goes to hell. This is a sure-fire way for even the sciences, which are generally among the least-inept of the academic subjects, to become highly politicized. It's no longer just about inept people doing inept research. Now it's about inept people doing inept research but always finding the "correct" results for politicians who need to legitimize otherwise illegitimate practices like carbon taxes and excessive and costly regulation.
So when such a flawed system provides results or information for my consideration, I have to take what they're saying with a very, very, very big spoonful of salt grains. None of it can be trusted, from the individual level all the way through to entire fields of study.
We live in a society where we are expected to provide for ourselves, exception being libtards, millennials, and Hitlery voters.
The same self-sufficient people who don't know that Social Society and Medicare are government programs that Republicans would love to eliminate and may get a chance to do so under Trump.
[...] and start working on environmentally friendly alternatives to fuel and coal.
Wind and solar? Oh, wait. That was a priority under Obama. Coal mining jobs are a priority for the Trump Administration, looking backward and not forward.
We can't walk 40 miles to work every day.
I and 40 other people take the express bus to travel 50+ miles per day.
What if someone's standing on the North Pole?
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Warning; turn scripts off before following the link
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The relativity of wrong
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
the ones that say east are right. the ones that say west are drooling morons and need to be told so loudly and in public for all to hear.
You sound like an elitist. The opinions of those who say west is just as valid. Who are you to tell them they're wrong?
If we do nothing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,
but.... we HAVE been doing things to reduce our CO2 emissions. so.... fear mongering??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Now add the fact that if you promote the idea of a global warming crisis you are assured as much grant money as you can but if you take a critical position you won't even get peer reviewed and thus cannot publish, and what does tell you about science and academia?
They didn't say or even imply the sun is hotter in the last 150 years. They said it is hotter than it was in the Eocene.
This is basically the way I feel about it now. It's pointless to worry about it or fight it; we're just fucked, and that's it. There's nothing we can do, because we're simply too stupid as a species to fix the problem in time. Some small well-managed countries full of smart people should probably work on anticipating the effects and working proactively to mitigate them, but the rest of us are screwed.
haters like you make life worse for everyone
As a moderate conservative, I can reassure you that the Republican Party is already extinct. Just like the political dinosaurs before them, it'll take a while for the memo to circulate.
Then the answer is still correct but is less meaningful to that person.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
No, there is no difference at all. It's lunacy to think that the rightwingnuts are going anywhere any time soon, and in fact, we just elected them into power here in the US.
We just need to get used to it, and figure out how we (some of us, not the rightwingnuts) can deal with the effects during our lifetimes.
Don't think it's the #rightwingnuts who are busy saying "we'd rather have coal and gas than nuclear for our baseload"....
IOW, when the alarmists start calling for new nuclear construction, I'll start taking them seriously....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
And your plan as I said has no impact on what other people will do, or have been doing. China does not give a shit about your position, they care about economic power and growth (as well as protecting that power with Military). The same can be said of India, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, etc.. etc.. Are you going to stop purchasing cheaply made goods from China and India to support your plan? Are you going to demand companies in the US stop all foreign trade with carbon producing countries like China and India?
Your plan is no different than carbon credits and tax. Try thinking one through a bit, and do me a favor. Use the Socratic method to get at least 1 level deep into your plan.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Considering the way truly insane places like Iran and North Korea are building Nukes and ICBMs I predict that by 2100 we'll have a nuclear winter that will solve the global warming crisis.
No, humans can't fix it. Humans elected the politicians who say it isn't a problem, and humans (even here, or should I say "especially here" as this site is a far-right-wing haven) will argue till they're blue in the face that climate change is a "hoax".
I understand wanting to blame things on the people at the top, I really do. But this is unfair and counterproductive here. The "climate deniers" are everyday, regular people all across America, people who just elected our new President and stuffed Congress with Republicans. The problem isn't a few people at the top, it's most of the population (the non-Republican voters also deserve blame for choosing horribly).
Yeah, really... We should all just move to Vegas...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Yes - because socialists have an impeccable record of fixing things.
I predict that by 2100 we'll have a nuclear winter that will solve the global warming crisis.
That would solve the population problem as nuclear winter will present a different set of problems.
In what way is that answer still correct? The sun rises in the South at the North Pole.
His point was that the government need not be the primary driver in this change. If solar/wind are viable, then private industry, driven by concerned environmentalists, are absolutely free to go out and change the way we generate power. Our electric companies aren't owned and run by the government.
Why would anyone look at Mars to see if the Sun is getting hotter, when you can directly look at the Sun ?
But the Middle East is completely screwed.
Over the few hundred years of industrialisation, solar impact is negligible. Over the 50 million years since the Eocene, obviously less so.
Edit: diatribe, how appropriate
read your wiki page.
Nice, if you understand what it really means, then basically they just guess and then reverse fill to make it plausable. (temperature from proxies that have multiple interlinked variables = I guessed the temperature).
All the rest of the bullshit is just pretend that we know what we are talking about, so you should believe our guess.
The AGW experts(and media, and talking heads) have been telling us for decades, that the sun(aka solar changes) have no impact. None
You seem to have problems understanding the difference of "decades" vs "millions of years".
If they took a step or two backward from the North Pole then the Sun would then appear to be rising in the West. So the ones who believe things like this are the ones who are a little backwards.
It tells us that you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. There are entire industries (Coal mining, petroleum, automotive) chomping at the bit to throw gigadollars at one-- just ONE-- reputable study that indicates that global climate change isn't actually occurring, yet these huge, apocalyptically powerful industries are stymied by the peer review process? Are you fucking retarded, or is it autism?
His point was that the government need not be the primary driver in this change.
Who else is going to pay for this change? Industry will not if they can get away with doing business as usual. For example, the civilian electrical grid is vulnerable to EMP attacks. A well-known problem that no one industry wants to fix much less pay for.
If solar/wind are viable, then private industry, driven by concerned environmentalists, are absolutely free to go out and change the way we generate power.
Has the oil industry given up their tax subsidies?
Our electric companies aren't owned and run by the government.
No, but they're regulated by the government. If the government says, "coal bad, natural gas good," as it has been for decades, the industry will move towards liquid gas generators. One of the reason why coal is dying as an industry, and will continue to do so not matter what the Trump Administration does, is that natural gas is inexpensive and natural gas plants are replacing coal plants.
A few years back they were saying the average temperature has nothing to do with the output of the sun. I found that strange. Now they are saying that things will be hotter than predicted because the sun is hotter?
Suns output increases by about 10% per billion years while it remains close to the main sequence.
50,000,000 years ago is 5% of 1 billion
Industrial revolution started about 300 years ago.
300 is 0.000003% of 1 billion.
Change in solar output since 50 million years ago is a small but substantial 0.5% percent. Change during the period of concerted human meddling is less than a rounding error at 0.0000003%
To put all of this into perspective an increased solar output of only 10% of todays output is sufficient to trigger irreversible moist earth runaway leading to surface temperatures measured in thousands of degrees.
not necessarily. Humanity may yet survive even this crisis. we do have a high adaptability, after all.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Majority of state legislatures, and governorships, majority in congress, presidency, and soon to be judical branches.I think not.
Not for long. Democrats dropped the ball and will correct their mistakes. The tide will change.
The republican party is just getting started.
If they can negotiate among themselves on a common agenda. The "repeal and replace" health bill failed because the Republicans spent seven years on "repeal" without giving any thoughts to "replace." As the recent health bill fiasco had shown, they don't have their shit together. Tax reform will be the same story.
Forget the real world. >Because real-world results don't matter. What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?
If you are snarking about climate models, in fact the climate models have been remarkably accurate over the last fifty years. Here's the Berkeley Earth comparison between models and measurements: http://static.berkeleyearth.or... (See also: https://www.skepticalscience.c... https://www.theguardian.com/en... )
And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?
You ARE aware that satellite measurements are heavily corrected, right? The satellites see a line-of-sight average of microwave emissions, and there is a rather long and controversial process to turn microwave emission intensity into middle troposphere temperatures. One researcher (John Christy) has a correction method that produces an output that says that global warming is real, but it's on the low end of the predicted values. http://www.realclimate.org/ind... Other researchers using the same data, however, come up with other answers.
The ground measurements, on the other hand, have had relatively minor corrections to account for changes of the type of thermometer, the corrections being well-documented, and (an important thing to note) the change due to corrections making no significant difference to the final conclusion.
If you don't remember acid rain it's because of the very successful cap and trade treaty that won international agreement in the 1980's. Oddly the treaty was the brainchild of the conservative heros Thatcher and Reagan. (Thatcher read chemistry at Oxford and was also the first "world leader" to accept AGW was a serious problem). If mankind is convinced it is a common threat, it will be fixed, but not before we lose some nice stuff like; the Arctic ice cap, coral reefs, Bangladesh, Miami, Seychelle Islands, ... (ok, Miami is not really a "nice thing" but some people like it)
I do however agree it's "old news".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people.
No, in fact he was not.
Yeah, yeah. Red herring 4, straight out of the deniers handbook. Ok, my turn to debunk.
Nobody disputes that nature could cause this kind of global warming or the later cooling. What science rejects is that for this particular global warming there is any other plausible explanation than human activity. Especially because of the remarkable speed with which it happens, the synchronicity with the industrial revolution, and just plain simple physics.
I never understood this argument (the one you are replying to, not yours). Even if it is natural, do they think that it is somehow not going to affect us? I mean, we know it's happening. The cause won't make a difference to people in a hundred years or so who are having to deal with the fallout of it if it keeps on the course we are on now. We (well future humans, not most of us) are fucked if it's natural or man made. At least if it's man-made we have some options to prevent it. If it's natural, then maybe we can at least slow it down or reduce the effects somewhat by curbing our own contributions to it. So either way, isn't it kind of a good idea to go that route? I realize it comes at a cost but isn't it worth it either way?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
On the timescale of AGW, the Sun's output only shows very minor variations. While they do have some influence on the climate (as documented by the experts), they aren't nearly as big as the warming caused by CO2. And actually the Sun has been cooling a little bit since the 1980's.
Trade policies are garbage, Trumpcare was a joke and a drain on the working class, environmental policy ...what environmental policy?
FTFY — Obama is no longer president.
Sure he helped the poor with free stuff but he also sent millions of working Americans in to poverty.
I'm still waiting to get my free iPhone from the government. The funny thing is Republicans talk about this all the time but no one can tell where I can sign up.
The election result proves it.
Winning 46% of the vote doesn't make for a mandate.
"The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
The problem is the left wing nuts' plan is...pay lots of taxes to be redistributed to other countries while the political elite scrape trillions off the top, and we exempt China and India so the planet gets cooked anyway.
Vote for the right wing nuts and we all die. Vote for the left wing nuts and we all die poor. Tough choice.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people.
No, he wasn't. He only won 44% of the vote in his election in 1933, and less in previous elections.
You are being conservative, it's closer to 97%.
While they do have some influence on the climate (as documented by the experts), they aren't nearly as big as the warming caused by CO2. And actually the Sun has been cooling a little bit since the 1980's.
Sorry. That can't be true. All those articles which use sources, and are the basis of AGW talking points say that your view is untrue. Hate to be the bearer of bad news and tell you that you're still a climate denier.
Om, nomnomnom...
Sorry -- CO2 is still a main driving factor. I wouldn't get too excited about the influence of the change in the sun's output. The sun has been getting brighter (more luminous) over time but the percentage is small, and the change happens over billions of years. As it gets closer to running out of hydrogen, the effect will speed up.
I'm so happy for you to have found your villain so you can sleep at night. I've been arguing with the real purveyors of doom for over 30 years that the way to 'fix' the problem was obvious on its face, that building out nuclear power to replace the massive amounts of polluting base load we use daily was the only reasonable option until such time as technology allowed us to harness the sun more efficiently & cost effectively (I never, even said nuclear was the end-goal). It wasn't 'rightwingnuts' refusing this option & killing it at every turn. But hey, you don't actually want to fix the problem, you want to blame the problem on some nebulous group of people that don't want to be controlled by you, call them names & insist that they are the ones that stopped your 'insert favorite but inefficient green energy technology here'.
So, before you go to sleep tonight, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you actually want to fix the problem or just want it fixed YOUR way, if its the latter than your the villain. I hope you can sleep at night knowing you help kill >50K people yearly in the US alone.
Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people
To which election do you refer? The 1932 Presidential one, where he got 30.1% and 36.8% in the first and second rounds respectively, or the 1933 Federal election, where NSDAP (the NAZI party) got 43.91%?
Strongly disagree. We have the technology, money, and the bit of willpower needed to fix it. I don't like to believe "the future will solve it" but there's a chance that the prices of renewable vs. fossil energy may even fix global warming for us. The only things standing in the way of victory are denialists, their fossil fuel company puppetmasters, and defeatists like you.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Ok, if the problem is so serious, then why not solve it with climate engineering? It's apparent that solving it by reducing carbon footprint is economically disadvantageous and politically untenable.
It's just an argument that deniers make up to justify their selfishness and so they don't have to change a single thing about their lifestyle or lift a single fucking finger to help the planet, which in their arrogance and ego they think they are entitled to do with as they please because they're "human", like they somehow earned that status themselves.
. . . .and merely between continental glacial advances. Another of which is due Real Soon Now*
(* Real Soon Now in Geologic terms, meaning some time in the next ~10,000 years. . . .)
It's the former. The atmosphere has swelled slightly and there's more drag on objects in low earth orbit. Good news is it might help clean out some space junk faster via orbital decay.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
IOW, when the alarmists start calling for new nuclear construction, I'll start taking them seriously....
Also an end to 3rd world immigration into the first world (increasing the migrants' carbon footprints) and an end to subsidizing the population boom in Africa.
If the alarmists switched their screed to "the Earth is dying, build nukes and fuck foreigners!" an awful lot of their opposition would dry up overnight.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I have some excellent ideas for reducing CO2 emissions. . . . Now, if you'll just step on to the moving sidewalks, passing pastoral paintings into the rotating knives. . . .
But cap-and-trade (or cap-and-tax in the long run) while exempting India and China won't fix the problem.
Vote Republican and we all die. Vote Democrat and we all die poor.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
So what if one of the things we can do to 'cool it down' is to prevent some of the warming by burning less fossil fuels? How is it then a 'political agenda' to suggest doing just that. Only in today's polarized, corporate-funded political environment is such a thing 'political' - and only then if a large willfully ignorant cohort decides to 'choose a side' and accept nonsense as valid arguments against.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I find it interesting that many pooh-poohers have suddenly switched from no, not true, not happening to nothing can be done.
Non-one has switched anything. Warming on the scale it was supposed to happen, is not happening.
However you and other Warming Cultists like you are either too stupid or to stubborn to admit this based on evidence, common in the case of so many religions.
Thus, many of us try to make you feel better by pointing out that even if the warming you are claiming will happen, happens, it would actually be a good thing... this message seems to be able to get through a little better to some of the less addled.
Sadly we as a species are not that lucky, and once the faked data grows ever wider from reality the truth that the Earth is on the cusp of descending into a cooling period again will hit home. Then the real, and meaningful worrying can begin.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You elitist ass-hat. Does it help you sleep at night to portray people as some homogeneous set of uneducated, gun-toting villains?
I'm libertarian, so yeah you could say I'm 'far right' but I'm as far from a 'denier' as you can get. I saw the writing on the wall over 30 years ago & have been arguing with ass-hats like you for that whole time that there is a technology TODAY that would have significantly helped address the problem but elitists like you don't want to address the issue, you want it done YOUR way. The problem with being libertarian is that I try to convince people through open discussion, logic, math as to the 'best plan', but people like you don't want to use logic you want to use emotion. I should have just decided I was a socialist & argued for government intervention in to the problem to support massive build outs of nuclear power regardless of what 'the people' wanted.
It is NOT the 'climate deniers' that are the problem AT ALL. They are a minor blip on the radar, most people either don't care because it doesn't affect them today or actually know it is happening but hope/pray that someone will 'fix it'. When you have a choice to either feed your child by driving your gas guzzler to work or 'save the planet' which one do you think people will choose?
So get your head out of your elitist ass for just one second and when you've done that, perhaps you'll support actual efforts to mitigate the issue rather than decide there's only 1 way, your way and that the rest of us just better toe the line.
It does neither rise, nor set.
It moves in a circle, either above or below the horizon. Not a perfect circle, obviously... might want to call it an oval.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
This article on the evolution of the Sun says, "The energy output of the Sun has not fluctuated by more than perhaps 0.1% to 0.2% in human history – not bad for a nuclear reactor that has no regulatory committee, no engineers, and hasn't had a safety check in nearly five billion years." Granted, human history doesn't stretch back 50 million years, but 50 million years is an eye-blink compared to the billions of years ago when the Sun is theorized to have been 70% dimmer than today.
I wish TFA had cited a source for that claim rather than just stating it as if it was something "everybody knows".
Basically, anyone who says something is "absolute" when it comes to this subject, should probably be ignored.
Truth is nobody really knows what's going to happen. All we have is data, not time machines.
I tend to rant.
Thank you for your input. Your concerns have been noted. But at this time we're unlikely to suspend scientific inquiry for a site that proclaims to be "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"
People usually won't stop shouting that your house is on fire when you're sitting in your easy chair shaking your head "no it's not". That's just human nature, even if it is tedious and annoying.
There are plenty of other doomsday religions that are way more popular than this one. Perhaps we could convert to one of those.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If they're standing at the Magnetic North Pole it would still rise in the East.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Wow, so he was an authoritarian fascist who won the election without winning the popular vote!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The unusually tough drought in Syria contributed to the civil war there.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That completely ignores the tragedy of the commons. Ten people live around a lake. One guy dumps toxic pollution in the lake and kills all the fish. It doesn't matter how hard the other 9 try to clean up the lake, they'll never keep up with the one guy spewing toxic waste. I suppose they could pay him to not do it, but I don't see why he actually has a right to dump toxic waste in the lake in the first place. Likely they'll just gang up on him and make him stop. Same with carbon emissions... assuming everyone has a right to breath in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide, the total amount being put into the atmosphere is much more than that basic allowance. What gives a few people/companies/nations the right to dump far more than their allotment into the atmosphere? Why should others pay them not to do it? It's a common resource, and has to be managed by agreement, and if we disagree too much, there will be violence to settle it. It's the same as if someone took all the food and didn't leave any for anyone else.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I say we forget trying to sequester carbon. Instead, we should create artificial hurricanes. This will have two effects: more transfer of heat from the surface to the upper atmosphere where it can be radiated to space, and since hurricanes are massive heat engines, we can just use them as power plants.
Win-win!
I'm only half-joking.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
The number of Hitler supporters was undoubtedly inflated by fear and the social inability to form adequate resistance.
The number of doctors who believed in bloodletting was inflated by the lack of technology which now allows for advanced research and instantaneous communication.
Both of these are improved in our culture today.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
You seem to have problems with reading. A quote from one your articles:
Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity
Which is exactly what I said.
Really. Isn't this getting old and tired.
Yes the climate is changing.
Yes it's caused by Humans.
No it can't be fixed.
It is impossible to change or reverse. Sorry - we can't stop murdering each other as it is. How can we stop global warming? Answer. We can't.
Just plan for the inevitable and stop screaming the sky is falling. O.L.D. F.*.C.K.I.N.G. N.E.W.S.
Ughh
I don't think global warming can be stopped, at least not without doing things that are worse than global warming. However, there are some simple things that can be done to slightly lessen the impact of global warming.
However, I do think what we need to do, is start spending on infrastructure for the side-effects of global warming. The most obvious one, is protecting coastal cities better from rising sea levels. Less obvious ones would be increasing our sewage and storm water run off capacities. In general, warmer air means more severe weather events. Things like flooding events will become more common. Cities will need better run offs or face costly damage. I wish people would put politics aside and focus on preparing our cities and not working retroactively after massive flooding.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Why would anyone look at Mars to see if the Sun is getting hotter, when you can directly look at the Sun ?
Teacher told me to never look directly at the sun.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
One of the reason why coal is dying as an industry, and will continue to do so not matter what the Trump Administration does, is that natural gas is inexpensive and natural gas plants are replacing coal plants.
Look at that - free-market forces doing good for the environment! Fracking is probably the most environmentally beneficial advancement of the last 50 years, and it was entirely driven by private forces. Used to be the natural gas trapped in shale was too expensive to harvest to be viable. Then fracking was perfected. Now it's a boon of unparalleled cleaner energy.
Private industry will do the same for solar and wind, if solar and wind can be developed in such a way that it's cost effective. The government needs not lift a finger, especially with the way it's proven to be almost entirely corrupt when it does.
Because let's face it. We can't walk 40 miles to work every day.
I was assured your generation in fact did so in the snow up-hill both ways every day.
So quit whining and get walking like the rest of us or STFU.
- a milenial
So what you're saying is that people of a darker skin tone have lower IQ?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Then unfortunately, you thought wrong.
http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_o... does describe solar irradiance and even puts a figure on the estimated amount it provides to the total radiative forcing. So solar (and other natural forcings) do have something to do with climate change, its just that they are swamped by our activity.
Feel free to use hyperbole, but because this is a site for nerds, when you do, it just makes you sound like a bit of a pillock.
As long as it doesn't move in an irregular decagon pattern, we should be alright.
#DeleteFacebook
Perhaps a better way to phrase it:
Q: If you are stationary at the South Pole, in what direction does the Sun appear (when visible) to move?
A: From the East to the West.
(It's easier to get to the South Pole.)
Which is exactly what I said.
Sure, but you're continuing to miss the point. You figure it out yet or no?
Om, nomnomnom...
From their perspective there's still a rising and setting motion, there's just no crossing of the horizon.
You lose. Pedant Lord Kano wins. Flawless Victory!
Some people say the sun rises in the East.
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Well one of them is wrong, but the other definitely isn't right either. In many places in the world the sun rises and sets in the North or the South.
you need to look up that word in a dictionary
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
It's "champing at the bit". You're the one who doesn't know shit.
How many Slashdot articles have we had in the last year where the peer review process is exposed as a complete farce, even for the "reputable" journals? (Hint: A lot.)
Look at that - free-market forces doing good for the environment
What free market? Fracking was made possible by the tax subsidies that the industry. Take away the tax subsidy and see what the free market does. For example, milk would be $10 per gallon without tax subsidies.
Fracking is probably the most environmentally beneficial advancement of the last 50 years[...]
Never mind the earthquakes in places that never had earthquakes and poisoned waste water filtering back into the water table.
Well, when the 10th person is China, who has no inclination to stop spewing CO2 no matter what, what option is there other than adapt? Nuke China?
The USA is doing admirably in reducing CO2 emissions (thanks in good part to fracking). Any government-induced suffering to reduce it further, when we know for a fact that said efforts will pale in comparison to the increases of other global actors, is idiotic.
Donald, is that you?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas and the rise in CO2 cannot account for the rise in temperature, even when you rejigger the timelines however you want.
MightyMartian wrong again!
It's only going to get worse as long as the liberal approach is to shut down carbon-free nuclear power and replace it with carbon-producing natural gas (which by the way pays someone to frack it), heavily subsidizing solar panels and then declaring it cheaper than carbon power. Yeah, stop the free money and disconnect from the evil carbon grid and we'll see just how a fair comparison works out. (ps, also look up the meaning of sustainable and see if it involves free money from a magic source) Or imagine if there were organized efforts to make solar installations as painful and expensive as possible through any means (lawsuits, unnecessary processes, etc) possible.
How about a tax on solar panels to pay for new nuclear plants. After all, renewables are great at supplying peak/variable loads, but nuclear is required for the base load. We could also require China build a whole bunch of nuclear plants (built to French standards, of course, they really know how to do nuclear right) and that's half the problem right there.
And before someone squawks about how dangerous nuclear is, well compared to what, coal mining? But yeah of course BWR type reactors are dangerous, and so are reactors on fault lines, we should replace them with new safe reactors ASAP. The current approach of resisting safe new reactors and forcing the more dangerous old ones to keep running is really poor thinking. Imagine if Ralph Nader had proven how unsafe 1950's cars were, and shut down production of any new safer cars and forced unsafe old cars to be repaired and kept on the roads.
Tell me more about Social Society, please.
why would a weatherman report rising sea levels when he/she is just giving predictions for the new few days? When they are on documentaries when climate change discussed then they do discuss possible rising sea levels
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Technology, perhaps... money, probably. Willpower? Not so much... at least from those with the ability to change it. The necessary combined willpower and ability that it would take from a significant number of people to fix global warming simply does not exist... the people that care the most about this are virtually powerless to change it, and those that might have the ability don't care enough, and you can't make them care by simply repeating the same stuff they've already heard or showing them more science that proves what is going to happen eventually... they simply don't care, or will believe that the science is wrong. It's clear to me that the only way they will learn is by experiencing the hard consequences of being wrong. By that time, of course, it really *will* be far too late.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Which is exactly what I said.
Sure, but you're continuing to miss the point. You figure it out yet or no?
Gentlemen please, this can be settled with simple science.
All we need to be absolutely sure of AGW is a duplicate Earth, but without the humans. We implement a second Earth as it was 200 years ago, remove the humans, and run the clock out.
To increase the fidelity of the test, we simply create more Earths.
There is a difference between "It can't be fixed" and "The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
The real question is, "How much extra are you willing to pay in taxes (etc) to stop it?"
If you're a typical person, the answer is "not enough." #rightwingnuts are just willing to admit it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yeah, really... We should all just move to Vegas...
I'll go with Colorado. (Or were you not referring to "The Stand?"
the democrats would need to move more center and not this extreme leftism to do that.
The Democrats have been right of center under Clinton and Obama. With Trump in office, I expect the Democrats to go left of center.
That sort of non-sense is exactly what you shouldn't do.
Put those people down, sure. Then what? They go home with their tails between their legs, thinking about a way to get revenge on those "smarty pants".
Your bullying tactics only ends up creating a bunch of criminals. Good job. You get a free asshole badge!
If you can't treat stupidity with reasoning, you ignore it and move on. That's that.
I tend to rant.
Take a break from atmospheric studies and learn a little bit about human psychology.
You can't stop ALL car crashes, so we should get rid of seat belts? You can't stop all birth defects, so lets stop funding pre-natal care too. Your argument is asinine.
We can cut our emissions a lot with already known technologies. Many of these are already starting to flourish despite decades of being beaten down, and it will take time to build them out. If we simply stopped all the petroleum subsidies (including foreign adventures to secure them, which is still a subsidy in my book) and shoved that same amount into energy storage, solar, and wind we could put a big dent in CO2 emissions. Put an extra carbon tax on gasoline and use that to keep and increase electric car subsidies would help too.
Our suburban societies need to be made more compact to allow walking and biking like you find in Europe (where CO2 emissions are half that of the US). Currently new construction in most places is very car-centric, and it creates a hostile biking/walking environment. Many new schools are not designed with sidewalks leading to them, and kids are not allowed to walk to/from school. Once built these awful situations will live on with high carbon use for decades. Dense city centers make for low carbon use, and those savings last for decades as well.
In the end we could greatly bend the curve if we actually focused on improving carbon emissions rather than throwing out hand up, buying us many further decades to continue to innovate.
Tell me more about Social Society, please.
A 1950's Supreme Court decision ruled that Social Security is a government program, Congress can cancel the program at any time, and keep the money.
But climate change has nothing to do with religion
You underestimate Biblical literalists. All they have to do is count the Noachian flood as climate change, and quote Genesis 9:11.
There is a difference between "It can't be fixed" and "The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
There is blame on both sides. The #rightwingnuts that refuse to acknowledge there is a problem and the #leftwingnuts that not only refuse to understand that Nuclear ang Natural Gas have to be part of a resonable solution but activly work to against them even as it is largely replaced with dirty alternatives aka Germany and Japan.
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas and the rise in CO2 cannot account for the rise in temperature, even when you rejigger the timelines however you want.
If order to draw that conclusion, you'd have to use an accurate model. But you don't believe accurate models exist.
https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
I think you're looking for numbers 12, 30, 46, and 50.
At least this time it's post retirement and post death.
No real surprise seeing as short term predictions kept coming up wrong.
50 million climate refugees and entire countries gone by 2010 (UN)
http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
West Side Highway under water by 2010 (James Hansen)
http://www.salon.com/2001/10/2...
The idea of a "Perfect Storm" is a shit idea popularized by that dumb-ass book.
Anything that happens in life can be seen as a random confluence of multiple, independent events. A car accident? 5 seconds would have prevented it. Getting killed by a falling tree limb? Just imagine all the things that have to happen for the branch to fall on someone walking under it.
Those "perfect storm" events happen all the time, every day, in multiple contexts.
That's not even the worst part. Based on my own graph, if trends continue like they have over the past year then in the year 2250 I'm going to have 234 wives. I need to start planning for that now.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I agree with Dilbert's creator, Scott Adams:
The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science
What if someone's standing on the North Pole?
Then the sun rises in the spring and sets in the fall.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The current climate change is an event happening since roughly 100 years, or lets make it 150.
During that period there was no change in the sun. So: the sun has nothing to do with it.
We have on the other hand sun spot cycles which usually are about 11 years long, with an sunspot maximum at one end and a minimum at the other end. This again has a neglectible influence on the climate. However due to xrays etc. they influence the high atmosphere and the weather.
The temperature difference of the sun surface between a minimum and a maximum is not even 1%.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Fallacy of argument by trusting in "authority".
Appeals to authority are not generally a fallacy. Thye are only fallacious if the authority is not an expert on the topic being considered. So, for example, referring to consensus view of practising climate scientists on global warming is not fallacious, but referring to the views of a retired mining middle manager on global warming would be a fallacious appeal to authority.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I don't get your argument.
Regardless of which side of the equator you are: the sun always rises in the east.
East is defined by the place/side where the sun is rising.
http://www.etymonline.com/inde...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That is wrong. As long as you are not standing precisely on the pole the sun will always rise in the east.
If you are standing precisely on the pole you could argue that the rising point is south, however: http://www.etymonline.com/inde...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In many places in the world the sun rises and sets in the North or the South.
I don't know why you want to nitpick about bollocks like this.
Those places are not "many". There are exactly two places. And if you want you can make them a bit bigger by drawing a 1km circle around them.
Outside of those circles the sun rises in the east. Because: that is the definition of east.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In all fairness, there's nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is going to be fine. Give it another couple million years and it will once again be full of all kinds of diverse life in every corner, with hardly any indication that we were ever here beyond a thin little geographic layer containing traces of plastic and other things. The planet is going to be fine. We aren't, but the planet is under no threat. The push to solve climate change is a push to help people, not the planet. We're trying to avoid the next great extinction event which causes the conditions to change so much that we can't live any more, but the planet will survive that event and life in general will make a full recovery within a few million or tens of millions of years, we just won't be part of it.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Preferably added together
... and with a little extra for good measure.
Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people.
He wasn't. He was a dictator with an apparatus to suppress its citizens. Just like Stalin, Mussolini and plenty of other "rulers" on all sides during that time period.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I don't care about your "facts" and "definitions". I have alternative facts that show the sun rises in the west!! You sound just like one of those know-it-all academics.
Next you'll probably try to convince me that homeopathy isn't real and that it's just water, and that all the people who believe otherwise are wrong.
Are we already on the fourth stage of climate change denial? That's unfortunate, because the last stage isn't a very good one if it's true.
Believing otherwise is just setting yourself up for disappointment.
Yeah, and believing that we can't fix it guarantees disappointment when the consequences come.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You're a moron. There aren't any actual efforts to mitigate the issue. In case you haven't noticed, we just elected to decrease regulations on coal and build more coal-fired plants, not nuclear.
China and India are working on cleaning up their shit. Sure they've got a long way to go still, but its the US that's currently the ones saying "fuck it lets cook the planet." By the time Trump finishes his second term, it'll be China telling us to get with the program.
The sun is not cooling since the 1980ths, but since roughly 1998.
No idea why you want to spread your idiotic world view with links like that ....
You should read the articles, and try to comprehend them. Hint: the word "myth" in the title of your first linked article should be a give away. (*facepalm*)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
without the humans
Nonsense! The humans aren't the problem, but their machines. We have to let humans evolve up to pre-industrial-revolution-times and don't let them get any further than that (by killing anyone becoming intelligent enough?).
We also need other earths with parallel low-CO2 industrial revolutions to model the perfect conditions under which our industrialisation stage might have been reached.
Other than that, your idea seems promising! Why hasn't anyone started to work on it yet?
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
ha that's laughable . Obama was as left as it gets. son was everyone that voted for him.
I'm serious. Clinton and Obama coopted the Republican agenda, claimed it as their and implemented those policies. The Republicans are out of ideas.
It becomes a political agenda when the solution is implementing a carbon tax or a cap and trade program.
We should deal with crisis in the order that they each threaten our extinction. Climate change is the first on the list in terms of immediacy. Later we can deal with other problems that are further out in time.
Are you kidding? What about nuclear weapons and starting wars here and there willy-nilly.
My study indicates we'll be in another ice age by the end of the century.
Which one of us is right?
I call bullshit on your study. It's not thermodynamically possible to be in another ice age in only 83 years.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
Always look at page 2! "[Abdussamatov's] views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University.
Stephan
Everybody in the field pays attention to the Sun. We know when Solar output varies. Currently, it isn't varying significantly, so the temperature increases are from some other cause or causes. So far, the only one to account for them is the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuel.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You should break down what fields those were found in. There's a lot of BS in social sciences but not so much in physical sciences.
Now, which pineapple do you choose?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Just like to step in and add Apple's trashcan Mac Pro design to your "industry came up with complete disaster" list.
Thanks.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
We had a carbon tax in Australia, back in 2012. Started out at A$23/tonne and increased slowly, with initially-large (90%) waivers for major polluters that were also set to phase out over time. Proceeds from the tax were largely returned directly to the population via tax cuts to offset the small projected price bump, with the rest invested in carbon-neutral energy alternatives and climate mitigation.
The (right-wing) opposition, egged on by our big coal sector, swore up & down that it would lead to spiraling inflation and collapse small businesses, and blamed it for large electricity price hikes. In reality of course, the economic impact was hardly noticeable. Most prices barely changed, the average tax cut easily covered the electricity rises (which had started before the tax and were almost entirely due to long-overdue grid upgrades), "green power" plans became more popular, and CO2 emissions dropped slightly. A year went by, the carbon price increased to $24.15, and these trends continued as projected.
But the right-wing scare campaign intensified, terms like "wrecking ball", "python squeeze", and "axe the tax" were thrown about, and the carbon tax became a major political issue - enough to tip the scales at the next election, despite polling consistently showing that ~60% of Australians wanted climate action. The tax was quickly repealed, and CO2 emissions started climbing again.
But the biggest casualties were the politicians themselves, with both parties dissolving into chaos and every single prime minister in the last ten years getting replaced before they could even sit out a full term. Right now we have a centre-right guy who internally replaced an unpopular hard-liner PM just before election - reversing the leadership spill from 2009 where he was ousted by the hard-liner - while a near-identical leadership reverse happened to the centre-left party while they were in power, over this same issue. Result: Australian trust of politicians, poor at the best of times, hits a two-decade low.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Wasn't that Clinton's strategy against the deplorables? Those deplorables sure are good at striking back when insulted too much. Might want to be careful there or you might get a couple of decades of climate deniers in the whitehouse.
Which hockey stick graph are you talking about? Here is a list of over 40 hockey stick graphs. Are you saying they're all debunked or just Mann's original one?
The IPCC doesn't do any such thing. The IPCC Charter and IPCC Document Submission Guidelines forbid it accepting or analysing any material that shows natural climate variability. It is only allowed to accept or analyse documents that show human-induced climate change.
As a species homo sapiens may well survive but that doesn't mean shit to a lot of individuals who won't survive.
Is it fear mongering when Trump has been hard at work undoing everything that was done to reduce CO2 emissions?
Remember in the 60s or 70s when Global Cooling was a concern? Or how in the 80s and 90s we were going to have major cities around the globe "within the next 30 years".
I'm quite doubtful that the clathrate gun is going to suddenly destroy the world in 30 years time. And I actually believe in global warming. What hope do you have for getting through to climate denialists?
Sometime in the next 200-500 years there will be no way to protect coastal cities. The last time CO2 was over 400 ppm sea level was over 70 feet higher than it is now. It may just be a matter of how fast the polar ice caps melt. Are you going to build 100 foot high levees around the whole coast?
A 1950's Supreme Court decision ruled that Social Security is a government program, Congress can cancel the program at any time, and keep the money.
Of course if they did that they wouldn't keep their jobs come the next election.
Hotter sun plus normal fluctuations in the climate equal kill all humans to save the planet.
I thought that, "All Scientists" said that the Sun had nothing to do with climate change and this is all due to humans?
Then you weren't paying close enough attention to what they have actually said. That is that in the ~200 years this current climate change has been going on the Sun has not changed enough to be a major factor. But maybe that's to complicated for you to grasp.
Sheesh! They never said that it couldn't be a factor, just that the current solar variation wasn't enough to be a major factor.
After climate change the next extinction level problem is the Y10K problem. When four digit years need to be expanded to five digit years.
Nah. The next extinction level problem is the 2038 problem. It actually strongly resembles the Y2K problem in that there are oodles and oodles of bits of embedded electronics that people have forgotten exist that count time with a 32 bit time_t. Tons of 20 and 30 and 40 year old industrial processes are controlled by embedded systems that are going to lose their tiny minds. These are boards that no one dares to replace because they're not entirely sure what they do anymore. The developer is dead, the documentation is lost, and it Just Works. And replacing it requires hiring both an expensive electrical engineer and an expensive software engineer, to design and build and test and install a fix for something that.. isn't broken? Yeah, it'll be a great time to be an electronics consultant. In 2035.
Sort of, yes... although it's less a matter of physical impossibility than a practical one.... the problem is less about fixing global warming than changing the minds of people who either do not care or simply do not believe in the facts behind global warming. You cannot change another person's mind by hoping they will see your point of view and when they've already shown resistance to change when presented with enough facts to ordinarily convince someone who had retained a healthy dose of scientific skepticism, it's evident that the only thing that will ever convince them (if anything) is first hand experience of the consequences of their indecision.
Of course, none of the people alive today are going to live long enough for that to really happen, so by the time it actually might be enough to convince them that they should have listened, it *WILL* be too late.
And it's pretty hard to be disappointed when you are already expecting the worst.
So maybe we should be trying to prepare ourselves for that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sure. Once Coal and Big Oil stop getting subsidies from the government: https://www.desmogblog.com/201...
Then why don't we go right ahead and give renewable energy the same amount in subsidied that coal and big oil have gotten for the last umpteen years and let them build their infrastructure before finally pulling them off the US government's teat.
After all, fair's fair. Right? We're all about capitalism and letting companies stand on their own two feet.
I didn't say we should stop what we are doing... I said that what we are doing isn't going to stop it, and preaching more of the same stuff isn't going to change the minds of those that it might need to.
You see, most people believe whatever the hell they want to believe, or whatever makes them the most comfortable. Facts and science won't make an iota of difference to this.... only the cold, hard, first-hand experience of the consequences of failure will do that, and because nobody who is alive today will live long enough to really see that to any great degree, and by the time we are looking at enough changes to actually change people's minds, it *really* will be too late to physically change it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm not a denier, or a believer, or whatever you want to call me, but it's not the arrogance and ego (yes I'm sure there's a few who feel butthurt when you challenge their beliefs, fuck them). It's the immediate sense of survival. Most people don't have global warming on their priority list of things to do to stay alive because it's not naturally obvious to them that something bad is happening.
On top of that, how many times have we been told as a people "Oh this is going to be really bad, you just watch." then, nothing. Not to say its the case with this, but people don't care about the subject so much as they care about how it makes them feel. "Great, they're talking doomsday again, fuck this shit I have groceries to do so I can feed my kids." See where I'm going with this?
Even when it comes knocking on their doorsteps in the form of a massive hurricane, global warming will be the last thing on their minds. Its all about survival. If your survival isn't immediately threatened, you aren't naturally inclined to react. Generally, of course. We're all different.
At this point, it almost looks as though a fair amount of folks just see this as a scam to increase government/corporate power. Is it a conspiracy? Meh. Sounds like daily business to me. Whether it's true or not, there's a certain story about a dam breaking and people not moving, even when breakage is imminent. Cognitive dissonance is it? I forget.. too early. Coffee time!
I tend to rant.
We _DON'T_ have the tech.
We _CAN'T_ leave the fossil fuel in the ground. The transportation sector sees to that. There is no "renewable" fuel that will put an 18 wheeler across the country, a ship across the ocean, or an airliner across the sky at a price that WE CAN AFFORD. It has to be affordable or we can't do it. The Navy has been flying some jets on bio-diesel, which we may or may not have enough farmable land to eliminate fossil fuels entirely, but at $6 a gallon. We can't afford that, and we're not going to be able to afford that. Meanwhile, there's been armies of scientists attempting to find battery chemistry significantly better than lithium and they're getting nowhere. Having a Tesla at its going price does the guy working for $50K a year absolutely no good, and yes, he HAS to have auto transportation. That's how our society runs. We need cars, we need trucks, we need those ships and planes. There's nothing we can do about until and unless we find the "magic" battery. The magic battery is cheap and high capacity and cheap and rugged enough for automotive use and cheap and recharges efficiently and maybe quickly (if it doesn't, we'll exchange it for a charged one) and cheap and light enough for automotive use and cheap and small enough for automotive use. And cheap. We don't have that battery. We many never have that battery because it may not be possible to build it.
One thing's for damned certain, this is going to be solved in a laboratory or not at all. It won't be solved by some government making fossil fuels expensive. That will not make the magic battery magically materialize, it will only pauperize the citizenry and cast more and more people into poverty, killing millions. What's more dangerous than smoking? Living in poverty is more dangerous than smoking. Smoking will take 7 years off your life. Living in poverty is worth 10 fewer years due to things like not being able to afford the best medicine, not being able to live in a house and dying of exposure or criminal activity while living on the street, not being able to afford enough food, etc. Politicians can force us to live on the street, but they can't solve using fossil fuels with any law. We have to burn them just to survive.
Those that are scared silly for the future have 1 option, and it isn't marching up and down Pennsylvania Avenue with a sign, sandals, and long hair. It is to get their PHD in electrochemistry and maybe one in materials science, get their butts into a lab somewhere, and invent for us the magic battery. THEN we can use all those wonderful solar and wind electric plants to do trucks, ships, and airplanes as well as cars. Again, the magic battery may be impossible. If so, we're going to have to get good at geo-engineering, something that also is not going to be solved by some tax or law or anything, but in a laboratory.
"1) Ban all internal combustion engines"
That one right there will kill 90% of the population of the USA, because we all need IC engines to live. We have to get to work, grow and transport food, etc. and IC engines are the only way we have to do it. Without them, 90% would starve, with the only survivors being those that are OK with cannibalism.
The biosphere as we know it has already been irreparably damaged. But if you lead with that, people will just throw up their hands even more than they are now. You have to give people hope that they can save their lifestyle, even though they can't because it's much too late now. But they might be able to save the lives of their miserable offspring if they get cracking.
I say they because I have no offspring, and plan to continue that. It won't be me that has to deal with the worst of it. It'll be their kids.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
without the humans
Nonsense! The humans aren't the problem, but their machines.
Good call! And yes, this is exactly why we need many duplicate Earths with many different conditions, against which we can separate the signal from the noise. Earth is a complex system, and the more we have the more chance we have of really determining cause and effect on a large scale.
You are dead right, we are all so much more well informed and make quality critically thought choices always!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
For those who cannot be bothered: an estimated 1400 child molestations since the 90s, covered over and allowed by the local law and council, because they basically didnt want to create a fuss that could perhaps have 'given oxygen to racism' by saying the perps were Pakistani.
Instead, like good little PC sheep, the people in charge turned their back on the child victims, and let it continue for over 20 years.
Thank god our culture has improved so much!
It's impossible to predict what CO2 levels will be in 200-500 years or what technologies will be available. I've not heard any legitimate source predicting 70ft sea level rises this century. I don't think worrying what will happen in 500 years time is worthwhile right now considering it's pie-in-the-sky.
500 years ago, European's had just started training with China. I don't think they could have predicted the relative near short-term future where they'd be forced to import Opium, let alone, Apple, Android, the tech revlolution, or that they'd be supplying Walmart with everything on their shelves 500 years later.
We have a decent guess for the next 50 years- we know the challenges we face in the short-medium term. We should focus on that.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
just because he removed a regulation doesnt mean the people still cant buy the better products.... we dont need a babysitter
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
In other words, it becomes a political agenda when anything is suggested that might actually work to reduce carbon emissions? I assume you would also agree that it 'becomes a political agenda' when the solution is increasing vehicle mileage standards - or tax rebates for solar installations - or...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
It's just an argument that deniers make up to justify their selfishness and so they don't have to change a single thing about their lifestyle or lift a single fucking finger to help the planet, which in their arrogance and ego they think they are entitled to do with as they please because they're "human", like they somehow earned that status themselves.
Pray tell, what do you expect the average human to do? They already live as close to "work" as they can afford. Nobody likes to spend time sitting in traffic. Even if all average individuals lowered their lifestyle to walking to work (16 miles each way!), not use refrigerators (one of the most wasteful ways we use energy), etc, the overall impact would be close to zero.
Manufacturing, industry, and transportation are the lion's share of CO2 emissions. Long story short, it is the governments of the planet that might have any chance at dealing with this. Every time I have voted, the results are opposite of what I voted for.
So go ahead and sneer at me for being lazy, self-indulgent, and greedy. If it makes you feel better beating on the average individual, then go for it. It will not matter but will engender bad feelings. Good job making the world unpleasant on top of being fucked climatically. Good luck on fixing it. :)
Should I grab the popcorn now?
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
1. US and EU emissions are way down. Especially in the job-creating Blue cities as we build warehouses and plants with solar and wind, more efficient and cheaper than the 18th century inefficient ones in the Red areas. Adapt or die.
2. China is converting 80 percent of all their coal plants to cogeneration. It was my idea, I know people. Getting rid of all coal plants that can't be converted (which were the worst polluters). Installing scrubbers (80s tech, actually) in areas with water and other things to cut emissions. Twice the energy output. India is doing the same, but not quite as fast.
3. You too can stop giving Big Government your money for electricity and heating and cooling and take control of the levers of production. When replacing your roof or building a home (almost anything built since 2004 is compatible) install a full solar roof. They even work in Northern BC and Alberta. Yes it works when cloudy. My electric bills are tiny. The main cost is labor and permits, so do the whole thing.
Actions. Not mealy mouthed excuses by people who want us to be slaves to fossil fuel mavens in Russia and Saudi Arabia.
This is what will make the difference. It's not hard. It's cheaper. It literally saves $.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Should read "Last ditch attempt to get funding by making fantastical claims fails, only appears on slashdot"
One would think the people doing Climate Science would have figured out that making fantastic dire predictions is one of the reasons they have lost credibility, and that they are doing far more damage to the planet than all the factories put together. Your anger should be directed at them, but it never is. If you care about the planet call for a new approach to research that doesn't promote collective group think.
Murphy was an optimist
If you need anything else like a part-time god (or devil) for one of the earths, just let me know; but bear in mind that I will be an avenging one (not negotiable).
Serious now. I have seen something quite weird with Slashdot today which never saw before: you wrote your reply hours ago, but I didn't get the warning in my RHS panel until some minutes ago?! Additionally, I have been seeing the same funny message in the lower bar during the whole day (curiously, something related to earth)?! Other than that, the site has been working fine. It was just with my account or have you also seen something like that?
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Running into oil? Discoveries peaked in the 60s.
Peak oil only applied to Texas oil wells and was fallaciously extrapolated globally without due diligence. Laymen continue to regurgitate the claims today.
Peak Oil theory is based on a 1956 paper done by the late Marion King Hubbert, a Texas geologist working for Shell Oil. He argued that oil wells produced in a bell curve manner, and once their “peak” was hit, inevitable decline followed. He predicted the United States oil production would peak in 1970. A modest man, he named the production curve he invented, Hubbert’s Curve, and the peak as Hubbert’s Peak. When US oil output began to decline in around 1970 Hubbert gained a certain fame.
The only problem was, it peaked not because of resource depletion in the US fields. It “peaked” because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap Middle East imports, tariff free, at prices so low California and many Texas domestic producers could not compete and were forced to shut their wells in.
Let's get rid of the police then. All they do is babysit society and we don't need that.
Do you have any idea how many coal plants China is nixing plans on building? Or how many nuclear plants they're building? They're pushing extremely hard for renewables, given their budget is a tenth of ours.
I thought water vapors called simply as clouds mostly influence greenhouse effect.
Anyone who believes that 25,000 terawatyears energy that the Earth gets from our star Sun annually, can be even slightly affected by humanity's output of 25 terawatyears annually (burning oil, coal and nuclear fuel), has not properly studied mathematics, biology and physics.
Of course the amount of heat produced by humans as you note is of practically no consequence. No one is claiming that. It's water vapor and CO2 and other greenhouse gases slowing down the loss of infrared radiation emitted by the Earth after it absorbs energy from the visible light from the Sun that is causing the heating.
It becomes clear that your climate science denialism is driven by your fear of possible economic consequences from responding to the problem more than any understanding of science. You also ought to consider the possible economic consequences if the climate scientists are right.
Global warming happens, no doubt about that, like global cooling. Every day and night. By some 15-20 degrees of Celsium. Where are climate fear-mongers explaining how that is possible?
Cute. The obvious answer is the Sun heats the day side of the planet and on the night side energy is being lost to the black sky. But that is a cycle that's been going on for the whole 4.5 billion years of the planet's existence and has never been a cause of climate change. For individual places on Earth it varies seasonally but repeats year after year and on a long term basis (tens of thousands of years) it varies due to the Milankovitch cycles but when you're talking about a climatologically significant period (30 years) it has essentially no effect.
(Previous post with the quoting fixed up and missing text added.)
I thought water vapors called simply as clouds mostly influence greenhouse effect.
Water vapor and clouds are two different things when it comes to climate effects. You have to consider them separately. There is of course a relationship between water vapor and clouds as either one can become the other as atmospheric conditions change but their effects are not the same.
Anyone who believes that 25,000 terawatyears energy that the Earth gets from our star Sun annually, can be even slightly affected by humanity's output of 25 terawatyears annually (burning oil, coal and nuclear fuel), has not properly studied mathematics, biology and physics.
Of course the amount of heat produced by humans as you note is of practically no consequence. No one is claiming that. It's water vapor and CO2 and other greenhouse gases slowing down the loss of infrared radiation emitted by the Earth after it absorbs energy from the visible light from the Sun that is causing the heating.
It becomes clear that your climate science denialism is driven by your fear of possible economic consequences from responding to the problem more than any understanding of science. You also ought to consider the possible economic consequences if the climate scientists are right.
Global warming happens, no doubt about that, like global cooling. Every day and night. By some 15-20 degrees of Celsium. Where are climate fear-mongers explaining how that is possible?
Cute. The obvious answer is the Sun heats the day side of the planet and on the night side energy is being lost to the black sky. The energy flux is net positive on the day side and net negative on the night side. But that is a cycle that's been going on for the whole 4.5 billion years of the planet's existence and has never been a cause of climate change. For individual places on Earth it varies seasonally but repeats year after year and on a long term basis (tens of thousands of years) it varies due to the Milankovitch cycles but when you're talking about a climatologically significant period (30 years) it has essentially no effect.
Common man can plant more trees
Casteism
No there won't be 70 feet of sea level rise this century. Most likely it will be between 3 and 5 feet this century but it could be more if there is a catastrophic collapse of some of the ice sheets on Antarctica or Greenland, maybe 10 feet. Even 3 feet will cause its problems particularly in southern Florida and along the Gulf Coast.
But like I said the last time CO2 was over 400 ppm sea level was over 70 feet higher and that may be unstoppable in the long run.
You also don't understand sarcasm, apparently.
I tend to rant.
Whereas, I agree, stopping "70"ft sea rises with levees or any current known/predicted technology would be impossible, I still think we should be preparing for the one+ meters we can safely say will probably hit in the next 50 or so years.
If it ever got as bad as 70ft- let the people in the future decide what to do about that, we can't, and we can't accurately say it will be that bad. If it ever reached even a fraction of 70ft whole cities would have to be migrated (assuming we don't have some super amazing technology that holds the sea back with magnetic walls ).
We can protect major population centers from the immediate future if we start now. Problem is, certain politicians make it a political point to say global warming isn't happening, so they don't make moves to protect what we can protect.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I've seen delayed email notifications before, but not really noticed the "stuck" message at the bottom of the page.
It currently says "Programmers do it bit by bit"...
Yes, I see the same now. Note that I haven't ever seen that weird behaviour before (using Slashdot since over 2 years ago?). Anyway, I guess that it was just a curious output triggered by a kind of buggy sub-part under very specific conditions.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
No, there is no difference at all. It's lunacy to think that the rightwingnuts are going anywhere any time soon, and in fact, we just elected them into power here in the US.
This could actually be the death rattle though. Prior to the election, when Trump looked like losing the Republicans were all asking themselves how they ended up in such bad shape. Just because they won, doesn't make the organisation any healthier, if anything it promotes the nutbags which will send the ship to the bottom faster than any Democrat strategy could.
The concept of East and West doesn't map to the poles. All directions are some combination of North/South and up/down. At the South Pole, the sun rises and sets in the North, and moves clockwise; at the North Pole, the sun rises and sets in the South, and moves counter-clockwise.