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Massive Government Report Says Climate Is Warming and Humans Are the Cause (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: It is "extremely likely" that human activities are the "dominant cause" of global warming, according to the the most comprehensive study ever of climate science by U.S. government researchers. The climate report, obtained by NPR, notes that the past 115 years are "the warmest in the history of modern civilization." The global average temperature has increased by about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit over that period. Greenhouse gases from industry and agriculture are by far the biggest contributor to warming. The findings contradict statements by President Trump and many of his Cabinet members, who have openly questioned the role humans play in changing the climate. The report states that the global climate will continue to warm. How much, it says, "will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally." Without major reductions in emissions, it says, the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit relative to pre-industrial times. Efforts to reduce emissions, it says, would slow the rate of warming.
Twitler will have it pulled.
News for 'tards; Jewish propaganda.
Jeezuz, the trolls are getting pathetic. Do you think you can sow doubt by sounding like a third grader on Ritalin? Thanks for playing though.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked. How has this been allowed to go on without anyone warning us?
You are welcome on my lawn.
"the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit"
It's ok, we just build some more coal power stations, turn up the air-con, and it's all good..
I suspect that
Translation: I don't actually know this, but I want to say something that sounds smart (to me at least), so I'm going to move my head aside far enough to pull this statement out of my ass.
on Ritalin
I think you mean off Ritalin.
Want to see something cool?
Even with your cherry picked data, guess what?
http://init.sh/wp-content/uplo...
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
We're talking about average temperature - daily temperatures that swing wildly by up to 20 degrees F or more every day. If that averages out to a half a degree higher per year on average, it's absolutely measureable.
"The assessments are required by an act of Congress; the last one was published in 2014. "
So we have these laws requiring the government workers to model climate change and make assessments of it, those models are used by military and civil planners to anticipate flooding, food shortages, etc. Driven by the best models the scientists can build from all the data.
And we have Scott Pruit, head of the EPA, climate change denier, essentially driven by Hannity of Fox News, who in turn is simply sponsored propaganda of a dying coal industry. Pruit repeats basic flawed logic and misdirections to pretend its not happening.
Notice the split? Scott isn't working from the science or the data from under him, he's working from the sponsored commentary on Fox News. But then that's just paid for propaganda, it's not science. So you have one group working from real data and models that bypass his agency, and his agency working from PR puff pieces written by industries looking for favors.
That's not healthy.
What if the head of the Defense Department did that? Suppose US was at war with Russia and Russia hired Hannity to push its propaganda. Instead of making choices based on all the data and science the government could muster, you'd have a military undermined from the top by its own boss. You can see that now with the Russian cyber attacks against USA, Fox is doing a full on deflection. Not a denial, a deflection. They know Russia is doing that, yet trying to get their viewers to ignore it as a non-story.
I thought he was being generous with 'third grader'.
Actually, tons of people are building coal plants. The Chinese are planning 700 more coal plants:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
Here in the Netherlands all electric trains ride on wind energy.
-- Cheers!
Cue the level headed debate with a focus in facts, solutions and mutual respect.
Ok. Feeding the troll here, but I have a super serial question then:
Obviously when we dump shit into the atmosphere, it creates a net positive increase in temperature. Even if it's not the primary contributor, why the fuck are you retards so hell bent on doing nothing about it?
What's the harm in reducing emissions? If we're not causing it then cutting emissions can't hurt. If we are causing it, then cutting emissions will help. Seems like a win-win to me.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Ahh, so you're moving the goalposts now. It's no longer about long term trends, but that the news is claiming it's the "hottest year on record"
You do you. Good job!
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Yeah, globally it is cooler than 2016 and may or may not end up being cooler than 2015 but that's all. 2017 is going to end up being the 2nd or 3rd warmest year in the temperature record.
Most people don't need to drive 9000 miles. 20 to 50 a day will work. We can still use some fossil fuels but not more than can be absorbed by the environment. Energy can be stored in many ways. My favorite Idea is to use excess production of wind and solar to pump water into reservoirs (fishing anyone?) and then release as needed, e.g. at night.
Battery tech keeps getting cheaper and more capable. We can already move submarines for a week on lithium batteries. Over time more batteries will show up in heavy equipment.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Nope. You can't legislate or decree away reality. Reality always wins.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Here we go:
https://www.nrdc.org/trump-wat...
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
That's poetic in a way. Riding on the wind.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Double my expenses? Sure. I've lived in a country where most of my expenses were up to 5x what I'm currently paying in the USA. Medicine? Don't take any. Insurance? that's already 4x the norm for the rest of the world here. How far would I be willing to go? Whatever it takes. You short term thinkers have no place in the world. Most of the things you take for granted, and complain that they are already too expensive, like gasoline and electricity, are downright dirt cheap by the rest of the world's standards. I say remove the government subsidies in the USA and let you people discover what it's like in the rest of the civilized world.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Typical /. response.
A. Study produced by eminent scientists based on lots of research, taking many man-years of effort to produce, shows clear conclusion.
B. Random /. poster, misrepresents article, then says: "nope, I know better".
[Misrepresentation is pointing out the article doesn't explicitly say that most CO2 is produced by humans, but ignores the clear statement at the beginning of the article that says: 'It is "extremely likely" that human activities are the "dominant cause" of global warming,' ]
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
You realize the USA has some of the most aggressive environmental protection than all of the world, right?
Do you realize that Americans emit twice as much CO2 per capita as China, and eight times as much as India? Expecting them to make equal cuts is ridiculous. The cuts need to be where the waste is.
List of countries by per capita CO2 emissions
As Einstein said, everything is relative...
Einstein never said that. He said that inertial motion is relative. Rotational motion is not inertial, and is not relative. Objects move linearly relative to other objects. But objects rotate in an absolute sense.
If you are locked in a black box, there is no way to determine if you have constant linear velocity. There is also no way to distinguish between gravity and acceleration. But you can detect rotation by using a Foucault pendulum or other scientific instruments.
This doesn't tell the full story.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-08/14/c_136525357.htm
China is also halting the construction of many new coal plants as well.
In addition China is also closing down a lot of plants that were inefficient and polluting too much in favor to newer versions. Lastly, a lot of these coal "plants" that are being constructed are actually just an expansion of another coal plant that already existed.
So here's the discussion and I'll keep it brief.
When you have "elites"; UN, Government Officials, Corporate Tycoons; all proposing a carbon tax in order to reduce CO2 emissions. It takes a really special kind of a-hole, who's lived such an ivory tower kind of life that they've never experienced a discussion with a truly innovative and intelligent person, to think a tax is actually going to save the world.
Literally, the reason why that one gets proposed is because innovation in energy sourcing and energy transmission technologies threatens an established elite and they know it. You make energy cheap all of a sudden people can move around more, fly in machines, communicate freely, foreign countries catch on and bring their holy wars here just for fun. That tax, by the way, you and I get to pay by living in abject poverty with lifespans of maybe 30 years, and that's after engaging in warfare against foreign countries who don't follow along or who decide "good the Americans aren't polluting as much? That means we can pollute more!".
In the business world there's a saying; first generation builds a business, 2nd runs it, 3rd ruins it. This is no different.
Add to this we have an epic media oligopoly that literally has drowned out any reasonable debate, and a public school system that teaches affinity for news brands instead of news literacy. Finally, add to this the public's been taken advantage of for generations by one scam after another becoming law; the public doesn't know how to ascertain the accuracy of information and that has produced a situation where people are just plain angry and distrustful. You won't get anywhere with them coming off as a selfish uppity yuppie liberal who wants to maintain their perfect little habitat and thinks they are so much better than everyone else.
Frankly, understanding our manufacturing processes well enough to eliminate pollution while at the same time cleaning up the mistakes of past generations is something that has to happen, But before that can happen, you have to move beyond "the climate change debate", which is as sullied as the "Hillary Clinton should be in jail" or the "Trump is a traitor" debates. The new discussion needs to be "0 generational debts"; what are we leaving our kids?
Of course, with marriage rates at a record low, with about 20% of women and around 25% of men never having kids or getting married in the US, meaning about a quarter of society is completely disinterested in the long-term interests of "someone elses little sh!t", combined with record immigration levels, that's going to be a really hard sale in a democracy just from the voting numbers alone.
So installing Wind and Solar is a compromise and passes the buck. Real solutions in energy generation and energy transmission are needed and no amount of self-aggrandizing regulatory pressure is going to make those happen. You have to fix the societal and government issues and restore our country to an actual republic and restore free markets first. Well over 50% of the population want this, the problem now is leadership.
If you want to do something about it, start up a PAC and begin advertising to people they are making an investment with an ROI for certain laws. E.G. You get 10 to 20 million people to make a $10 a month donation to the EFF, you can be pretty certain telco's don't have that kind of money for political discussions, and those 10-20 million people, after 4 or 5 years of investing in the EFF, will see a lower bill. You can do the same thing, but package environmentalism into it; e.g. we can decide not to do business with China and instead of business here so we can encourage the market to innovate which creates jobs and opportunities for US Citizens. You begin innovating, all of a sudden investments start to look good.
Using facts as an argument... How rude.
Why not reduce emissions? I'm a skeptic: CO2 is a minor problem - there is exactly zero evidence of positive feedbacks. Nonetheless, you are absolutely right - there is no reason not to reduce emissions. However, it is a question of price. Where emissions can be reduced with a reasonable effort, then absolutely, there is every reason to do so. However, I disagree with efforts that are disproportionately expensive.
What I'm not seeing - from either side - is any attempt to produce a prioritized list. Either it's "OMG we're all gonna die - let's destroy civilization in order to save it", or else its "go away, don't bother me".
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
First of all, the problem with the treaties is that because the large polluters (US included) have such a varying level of enerfy infrastructure the treaties signed are not binding. The Paris agreement is about common emission goals that countries ought to strive to reach, there are no mechanisms in it to impose sanctions on nations that fail to meet theirs. So to speak of 'exemptions' in such a treaty is nonsense to begin with, you can't be 'exempt' from sanctions that do not exist in the treaty. Would it be good to have some kind of sanction system in place? Yes, yes it would, but if you think the US government would ever agree to internationally binding treaties that would impose sanctions on US trade should its goals not be reached, you're occupying an entirely different political reality than I am.
Second of all: why do you think it'd be realistic not to account for the fact that massive infrastructure overhaul will not happen immediately and give these countries realistic timeframes in the treaties? China at the moment gets roughly 2/3rds of all its energy from coal and has 4 times the population of the US with increasing private car ownership and you think giving them 13 years time to turn their greenhouse emisions downward (the paris agreement limit for when China's promised it will reach peak CO2 emissions is 2030 and they've also agreed to reduce their carbon intensity by 60 % by the same date, which means they have 13 years time to essentially redo the majority of their energy production) is somehow excessive? Wtf?
Thirdly, do you realize that China has very much woken up to the fact that it is within their own national interests to cut down on emissions? The level of pollution in many Chinese megacities is so bad (quivalent to smoking 1.2 packs of cigarettes just for breathing the air) its having significant adverse health effects leading to increased health care costs and declined productivity if they are not addressed. It's a major issue in domestic Chinese politics because the people don't like the status quo at all, which means if they keep making things worse they'd push the country towards increasing political instability which is certainly not something they want. The idea that China will just keep building polluting tech even though they're already struggling with massive pollution issues is not based in reality. They're building massive amounts of nuclear power plants and heavily focusing on renewables, but as is obvious to anyone with half a brain, this level of change will take a few years to accomplish. They're currently on the track to meeting their 2030 goals.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Here in the Netherlands all electric trains ride on wind energy.
No, they don't. All that "100% wind" comes down to reality is about whom do they pay their electricity bill, nothing more.
To elaborate on why it's impossible for NS to run on "100% wind":
1. It gets its electricity simply from the grid and thus it is impossible to control or even to tell where the actual electricity does come from - however, knowing the actual dutch electricity mix, an overwhelming majority of it comes from burning coal.
2. Wind is a rather unreliable source of power - it may happen that the actual power usage of the trains exceed the actual power output of all the contracted wind farms (as the latter number may very well drop down to practically zero) and thus it would be very inconvenient to really run trains with just wind-generated electricity.
Real life is overrated.
If you are locked in a black box, there is no way to determine if you have constant linear velocity. There is also no way to distinguish between gravity and acceleration. But you can detect rotation by using a Foucault pendulum or other scientific instruments.
That's not entirely correct, I think. Acceleration is constant across the entire black box, but gravitational force depends inversely on the squared distance to the attracting mass, i.e. the force should be slightly different at the top and bottom of the box.
Translation: You want me to pay for your low-cost lifestyle by externalizing your costs.
Fuck off.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
that's a pretty stupid point. it seems pretty fucking obvious that it takes more energy to keep 1.4 billion people alive than it does 300 million. ignoring reality is not going to win anyone to your stupid misguided side.
China's emissions per year has been falling, and they canceled all new coal power plants 2 years ago.
"Per capita rates are a red herring" - only to those that are total wasters. China's population is many times larger than most places so their total pollution is bound to be larger, just imagine if its "per capita" usage was the same as the USA. They are also leading the world in solar and also shutting down polluting factories, they are working on their problem. Those 700 coal power stations are around the world, not just china. China has big paws in Africa and many other small struggling nations.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
all you are doing is inviting mass migration to your area as it gets too hot, dry and a lack of water in those hotter areas.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
my heart bleeds for the oil companies who have poisoned the world for decades and kudos to the renewable industry for picking up those profits (mind you oil companies are getting into renewables to keep themselves relevant)
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
It was also debunked, 3/4ths of that paste is drivel that has no basis in facts, and the last 1/4th require you to have quit studying science after learning step 3 of the scientific method.
Reports of China's coal-fetish are greatly overstated.
https://www.americanprogress.o...
TL;DR version is that a lot of those plants won't get built or will be white elephants. China is aiming for 1000GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030 as part of its Paris agreement, although so far they are exceeding that by a wide margin.
Same with their nuclear programme. Basically everything that wasn't already being built has been cancelled. As their battery production ramps up basically everything other than renewables is looking shakey, with profitability looking increasingly unlikely.
And even the coal plants they are building are better than the US ones, because they have stricter emissions standards for them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The American public is strongly influenced by lobbyists without being aware of it.
On a conference we've hosted in July, I've seen research on the disinformation infrastructure of the US oil companies. The researchers used web scraping and data mining software (basically the same as what intelligence agencies would do, just on a smaller scale) to trace the funding and organization of the networks of the petrochemical industry in the US. The graph of their network is huge. There are more than a hundred different lobby organizations, including fake research institutes, strongly biased "think tanks", and various P&R institutions cleverly disguised as interest groups that are all directly sponsored by millions if not billions of dollars from the petrochemical industry. It's a complicated network, but all of these organization have as their main purpose to further the interests of their sponsors. But some of them are very sneaky about it, you wouldn't realize their real agenda by looking at their web page.
The US chemical and petrochemical industry and corresponding political groups spends a lot of money on this in the US. It's no wonder that the perception of ecological topics is so different in the US from the rest of the world. I believe that they spend way less in Europe and other regions but have to admit that I haven't been able to check that - the research I've seen was only about the US.
We burn carbon in order to do useful things. We measure the usefulness of things with money. "Waste" means burning carbon without doing something useful.
So the relevant metric isn't a country's total CO2 emissions, or CO2 emission per capita, but CO2 emission per dollar of GDP. If one country emits more CO2 per GDP than another one, you can decrease CO2 emissions by moving production from the former to the latter, while maintaining the same total production.
And on that score, the US is around the middle of the pack, producing value of $2,291 per ton of CO2 emitted. China is one of the worst, at $435/ton. European countries (Germany, Netherlands, UK, etc.) are around $4000/ton.
GP's post is slightly inaccurate in that China haven't cancelled all of their plants, but they have massively scaled back. In the meantime Trump has pulled us Out of the Paris Accord and is actively planning To ramp up coal use.
Tell me again which country is the bad actor?
You're right. The environment doesn't care who you are or where you arbitrarily draw some boundary. So we're back to what is *your* emission, and guess what, it's a fuckload higher than those of your Chinese counterpart.
It's not a "fuck you". It's reality. It's physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics. Do you think mother nature has a personal vendetta against you when an acorn falls from a tree and hits you in the head? Or a seagull decides to drop a deuce on you while flying overhead?
~X~
If you don't like NPR, here are some other sources:
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-climate-real.html
http://blog.ucsusa.org/rachel-licker/what-is-the-national-climate-assessment-the-most-comprehensive-report-on-climate-change-in-the-u-s
http://www.themorningsun.com/article/MS/20170822/LOCAL1/170829886
And links to the actual document:
PDF file draft as of June 2017: https://assets.documentcloud.o...
New York Times link to the draft report: https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
National Academy of Sciences Review of the Draft report: https://nas-sites.org/americas...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
US is around the middle of the pack, producing value of $2,291 per ton of CO2 emitted. China is one of the worst, at $435/ton
The numbers are distorted because a lot of the US/Eur manufacturing is outsourced to China.
A Chinese factory makes a widget for $5 that gets sold in the US for $35. All the CO2 produced to create the widget is counted as China's emissions towards the $5, while the US claims $30 added value for zero CO2 emissions.
That's just silly. They interview Republicans, conservatives, even David Duke for cryin' out loud. And this morning I heard the reporter challenge a Democratic senator on a point about the GOP tax plan. There's a reason NPR was rated as more balanced than most news organizations back in 2011 or so, even leaning slightly right.