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More Than 15,000 Scientists From 184 Countries Issue 'Warning To Humanity' (www.cbc.ca)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: More than 15,000 scientists around the world have issued a global warning: there needs to be change in order to save Earth. It comes 25 years after the first notice in 1992 when a mere 1,500 scientists issued a similar warning. This new cautioning -- which gained popularity on Twitter with #ScientistsWarningToHumanity -- garnered more than 15,000 signatures. William Ripple of Oregon State University's College of Forestry, who started the campaign, said that he came across the 1992 warning last February, and noticed that this year happened to mark the 25th anniversary. Together with his graduate student, Christopher Wolf, he decided to revisit the concerns raised then, and collect global data for different variables to show trends over the past 25 years. Ripple found: A decline in freshwater availability; Unsustainable marine fisheries; Ocean dead zones; Forest losses; Dwindling biodiversity; Climate change; Population growth. There was one positive outcome, however: a rapid decline in ozone depletion. One of the potential solutions is to stabilize the population. If we reduce family size, consumption patterns don't rise as much. And that can be done by empowering girls and women, providing sexual education and education on family planning.

405 comments

  1. So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, other than driving a Prius and moving to a sardine can style apartment in the inner city, what realistically can people do as something against AGW? There is tons of talk, but all of it seems to just be blaming people.

    It reminds me of the town I live in, where water rationing was killing property values, because the older oak trees were dying. However, it was found that the golf court down the road was using 75% or more of the water, so all the losses in dead trees and cracked foundations due to ground shrinkage did nothing. Similar with the rice paddies.

    The people who can do something won't... and promptly blame it on the people who can't do anything about AGW.

    1. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The average prole can do little. His eco footprint is already nearly insignificant because he can't even afford running the damn AC anymore.

      Those that do have the eco footprint of an elephant also seem to think they can buy themselves another earth and to hell with the rest. Get rid of them and we're solving a lot of ecological (and probably economical) problems.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, other than driving a Prius and moving to a sardine can style apartment in the inner city, what realistically can people do as something against AGW?

      Shout down anti-nooks wherever you find them so we can replace coal and natural gas with clean, cheap reliable base load supply.

    3. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Ichijo · · Score: 1

      First let's tell our cities to stop subsidizing the roads with sales taxes and stop forcing developers to build more parking than the market thinks is financially optimal. Freedom, low taxes, and low shelf prices are all good things, right?

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    4. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1, Troll

      So, other than driving a Prius and moving to a sardine can style apartment in the inner city, what realistically can people do as something against AGW?

      How about having no more than one child? A lot of our problems would be greatly reduced (if not eliminated entirely) if the planet had fewer humans.

    5. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Encourage abortion for those that continue to poduce with no way of paying for them.

      Uh, just to point out the obvious, a simpler and cheaper solution would be just to make sure that birth control is available to those who want it.

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    6. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      So, other than driving a Prius and moving to a sardine can style apartment in the inner city, what realistically can people do as something against AGW? There is tons of talk, but all of it seems to just be blaming people.

      Ideally, there's a bunch we could be doing if we really wanted to:

      1) Do the R&D and start building SkyTran systems in metro areas to reduce the usage of fossil-fuel burning cars and the amount of traffic.

      2) Push for more electric and hybrid vehicles. Ideally, non-hybrid vehicles should be flatly illegal for new sales; the tech is out there, and even mild-hybrid systems are available and not very expensive to add at the factory and would make a good difference. Better yet, Prius-style hybrid powertrains (or maybe Volt-style) should be standard. Create tax incentives for more battery-electric vehicles: families with two cars should have one that's all-electric for commuting. And incentives for people to dump gas guzzlers (particularly older ones) in favor of something more efficient. Here in the US, it'd help a lot if stupid states and localities wouldn't charge huge personal property taxes on new cars, which just encourages people to stick with old junkers that pollute more and burn more gas.

      3) Push for more solar energy adoption: every big-box store and shopping mall roof should be covered in solar panels, and every large parking lot at those places should be too. (As a bonus, shoppers' cars won't get so hot in the summer.) Same goes for large employers with big parking lots and buildings. There's a lot of wasted rooftop and parking lot space that can be used for this to generate power that'll offset the power used in A/C by those big buildings. Solar power of course works best in the daylight, and in the summer, but that's also when you're using A/C the most in the southern climates. In the north, we could be using solar thermal collectors to collect solar heat in the winter to offset heating costs. Various government/tax incentives can be used to encourage all this.

      4) Improve other mass-transit systems. Hire some competent management for the DC Metro, contract the Japanese to build Shinkansen trains (particularly in the Northeast Corridor), etc. If you want to see how public transit is *supposed* to work, take a trip to Japan. Why can't Americans work this competently?

      5) Encourage people to move to "sardine can style apartments". You make fun of it, but it's a real solution. The problem is that nice apartments like that also cost a fortune, which is why people move to the suburbs and commute, burning lots of gas. There's got to be a lot that government can do to fix this problem and encourage people to move closer to town. I'd rather live right in the city and ride my bike around, and I really don't care about having tons of square footage (but I want more than a shoebox...) but I'm not a multi-millionaire so it's not feasible for me in many metro areas. You shouldn't have to be rich to live ecologically. Perhaps banning ownership by non-resident foreigners, not allowing any one person to own too many units in an area, not allowing people to own properties without actually occupying them or renting them out, etc. could be tried, along with some kind of policies to encourage building more high-rises, and to prevent SanFran-style NIMBYism from blocking construction.

      That's just a few things off the top of my head.

      The problem is that we're just too dysfunctional to do enough of this stuff before it's too late, so I think we might as well just throw in the towel and maybe some billionaires should start thinking about buying up some cheap land in mostly lawless countries, hiring a private mercenary army, and building big domed cities.

    7. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Informative

      https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

      https://www.washingtonpost.com...

      The problem is, you're telling the wrong audience. Western societies are already having depopulation problems.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    8. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vote out Presidents who install (and Senators who vote to confirm) anti-science folks to run the EPA. They don't think our environment really needs government protection, especially if there is a buck to be made.

    9. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      So, other than driving a Prius ...

      The average person in the world has NO car. So if you drive a Prius you are already producing much more than your fair share of CO2.

    10. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      seem to think they can buy themselves another earth and to hell with the rest.

      No, they think they can buy themselves enough firepower to send "the rest" to hell and off their lawn. And guess what? They're right.

    11. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by silas_moeckel · · Score: 0

      1 Sure wait till you see what they look like in a few years of use.

      2 Push push push, sure makes GM piles of cash oddy when the incentives drop so does the pricing. Incentives are just a HUGE handout to car makers and to a lesser extent the upper middle class. Let them compete on their own and stop disturbing the market to push one pet project or another. FU to cannot sell any more ICE cars.

      3 Solar is fine just remember you have to account for no solar or wind and still have enough peeking plants to deal with demand. This is a huge spot where incentives are inflating the market.

      4 Sounds good to me, having worked DOT this is mostly the nimblies that you have to contend with. Once destination to destination is significantly shorter via mass transit it gets used.

      5 Again FU sardine cans are no place for families to live.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    12. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Pavlov reflex?
      AGW isn't even mentioned in the article.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    13. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      We don't need to do much.
      Population will stabilize itself.
      The earth isn't going anywhere, it'll do just fine.
      Maybe we will just get rid of ourselves, that's all.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    14. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by slashrio · · Score: 0

      You mean anti corrupt science?
      If you see the amounts of government subsidies going into AGW research, science has to corrupt itself in order to keep getting funds.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    15. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Rather than shouting anyone down, do what China does, ignore the yammerheads and Just Fucking Build It. This applies to carbon-free energy sources and it also applies to projects that cut energy demand, like regional high speed rail.

      If we really intend to phase out fossil fuel usage by some reasonable year like 2050, there is no other way.

    16. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be a special kind of stupid.

    17. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by tezbobobo · · Score: 1

      ... and the people of Africa, Asia and Latin America and a minute carbon footprint compared to the West. How do you think it is that the entire population of Africa has a smaller carbon footprint than the US?

    18. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Voted for mod points!!

    19. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      But ... but who's gonna do all the work then?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    20. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck you. I’ll emit however much carbon dioxide I damn well please. If someone living in a third works shit hole thinks it’s unfair then they can go fuck themselves.

    21. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > How about having no more than one child?

      Why are you typing this in English? Everyone who speaks English already doesn't have many kids on average. Try translating your message to a society that "needs" that advice.

    22. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by fortfive · · Score: 1

      Driving a prius does some, but not nearly as much as taking your bicycle or public transit, even just part of the trips you do.

      Personal automobiles are the single most per capita damaging activity carried out by Americans, who carry out most of the damage overall.

      Remember it isn't just the fuel--it's the tires, the manufacture and disposal, and the roads, which mean lots more fuel consumption, asphalt.

      And it's not just carbon loading that cars cause. They also are highly detrimental to wildlife, produce many, many toxics at each of their various life stages.

      And then there's the traffic casualties, the health and interpersonal costs of driving so many miles per week, the social costs of car-centric land development. Sprawl and congestion have become so great as to more than offset the flexibility and other benefits that having a car in every garage was ever supposed to provide.

      Car ownership, even of a really fuel-efficient car, is still and individual environmental and social dick punch..

    23. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are a selfish cunt and a parasite.

      It is your mentality that has totally fucked this world.

      Fuck you.

    24. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be a special kind of stupid.

      Unfortunately no: it's a very common kind of stupid.

    25. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fertility rates correlate strongly with economic prosperity. Reducing poverty is one of the most effective ways to reduce fertility. Unfortunately, we have a dominant economic system that is hell-bent on producing as much inequality as possible.

    26. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AGW isn't even mentioned in the article.

      Say what? The very first sentence reads: " More than 15,000 scientists around the world have issued a global warning: there needs to be change in order to save Earth." Do you mean the word 'anthropogenic' isn't used in the article? I mean it's only about a "[g]rowing middle class and its carbon footprint." Sheeesh!

      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.

      You mean "Trump!!", the new "Hitler," I take it ... for the purposes of invoking Godwin's Law.

    27. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Robots operated by RaspberryPi's.

      Haven't we had this discussion before a while back? Something about a beowulf cluster of arduinos running the post-apocalypse world for rich people after they kill us all off.

    28. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Population growth is the highest in what is commonly referred to as 3rd world countries. I doubt the majority of these people know about or can even obtain birth control drugs and prophylactics. The ME countries seem to be in a perpetual culling process to contain population growth. If population growth is not slowed down the world will run out of resources needed to support ever growing population growth. And as resources become even more scarce expect economy collapses to kick off the global resource wars. Wars that will be make any wars going on today look like minor disagreements. Combine this with global warming and you are looking at a worldwide population cull. It is estimated that over 80 million people were killed in WW1 and WW2. Expect the number of killed in WW3 to be in the billions. If nuclear weapons get thrown into the mix expect only a few million survivors. The whole limited resources and global warming problem has been kicked down the road for those in the future to handle. Today we see meaningless "international" treaties which are only political in nature and contain no enforcement method even if these treaties included anything that would actually solve the global warming problem. The Paris Accord does not and will not produce the results the politicians bray about. The US has steadily decreased it's carbon footprint over the past 10 or so years. The use of Solar, Wind, Natural gas, and bio-fuels is growing every year. Why should the US waste time and resources pandering to the international community? We have been fed the bullshit about international trade deals and cooperating with the international community that nobody challenges the true usefulness of this type of international politics. The US gives away more than they get in return in all of the multi-lateral treaties. The treaties related to trade benefit the corporations who basically write these deals and sends to the government for their signature. Congress is to fucking stupid they probably don't understand the treaty they are voting to approve. All they know is what their biggest campaign donors tell them when they are given their marching orders.

    29. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Charcharodon · · Score: 0

      A better solution would be to mandate birth control for those that can't afford it.

    30. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      1. Asia's carbon footprint is larger than the north American continent and European continent combined.

      2. The US population is entirely developed within civilization while large chunks of Africa still have mud huts as the pinnacle of civil achievement.

      3. The US has winter. Keeping out cold that can kill in an hour or two is carbon expensive. Ask Canada.

      4. Do we really know what their carbon footprint is or is it just estimated? Does anyone there give a shit.

      5. The US still produces things of value that others consume while the carbon output stays on the US. Africa doesn't produce anything of value at all outside of BBC nature documentaries.

    31. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      ... and the people of Africa, Asia and Latin America and a minute carbon footprint compared to the West.

      That is changing fast. Their economies are growing quickly, and their energy consumption is going up. So if they start reducing their population growth now, it will have a big impact in the future.

      Many 3rd world women would like to have smaller families. They don't have access to contraceptives, for legal and cultural reasons, and end up having kids that they don't even want. Getting contraceptives to the people that need them is way more cost effective than any other form of CO2 reduction

    32. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by slickwillie · · Score: 1

      You're right. Thorium to the rescue.

      Well, except in the US.

    33. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A better solution would be to mandate birth control for those that can't afford it.

      It won't happen. I'm as leftist as anyone, but population control like that isn't going to happen, nor do I support it. That being said, making it readily available (free) is fine, and far cheaper than it not being readily available, Also, I'm not too sure if we should give a tax credit for more than say 3 children. Maybe full tax credit for the first two and half for the third, and that's it?

      Actually come to think of it, this is a lot of what the right wing nut jobs whine about. It was hobby lobby that threw a fit about paying for birth control and ruined part of the ACA. Blocking birth control is just going to make it more likely for there to be more abortions or kids raised in broken homes that end up trapped in poverty. Also, simply put health care is just part of ones salary. Your employer has no business whatsoever controlling what you use it on. People having access to birth control saves us money and reduces the burden on the government and environment.

      For the right wing guys who think Trump was the only chance they had to lower the number of abortions, well his attempts at gutting the ACA and its birth control mandate stand a good chance of reversing the trend on abortions. We were at our lowest ever in 2014, which is the latest data I found. What will we be at in another 3 years?

      On another note, I'm more inclined to support things like school uniforms and more required schooling these days. Put people on an equal foot, as best you can.

    34. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      ignore the yammerheads and Just Fucking Build It

      A lot easier to do when there's one political party that you compete to be a part of, instead of two parties competing for the lowest common denominator.

      Not saying we should be like China, just maybe we wouldn't have these problems if "Get all the uneducated to vote for me" wasn't a winning strategy.

    35. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      <georgecarlin>but it's suggestive as hell</georgecarlin>

    36. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 1

      [About 15.5 old-style tweets, not counting "... ...", with approximately zero useful information]

      That's more then 140 characters, Mr. President!

      --

      Stephan

    37. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Twitler, is that you? Did you already claim these scientists are producing alternative facts and the real one should be obtained from The Bible and Fox News?

    38. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is that better?

      The stats show that birth control doesn't need to be forced on people to significantly reduce birth rates. Availability is all that is necessary, and it doesn't involve taking freedom away or inciting rebellion.

    39. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Are you suggesting we sterilize the poor? That's not going to go over well. Even if it's just long term birth control like those implants under the skin or something. You are going to have to convince people that have problems buying enough food to take their birth control pills on time, or abstain from sex, or always use barrier birth control. You can give them the pills but they might take them how they are supposed to, or they might sell them to some transgender or more well to do teen that doesn't want a kids and not have to tell their parents of the birth control.

      Anyone that wants a condom can get one. I've been to a college student health center, there's just fish bowls on the tables full of condoms for people to take. Certain churches will hand them out too. Planned Parenthood and other women's health centers, offer them free. They are cheap to get most anywhere, Truck stops, bars, pharmacies, most grocery stores.

      Much of the same goes for birth control pills, they are cheap or free many places. Then we get back to people that may not be the best educated, intelligent, or just unreliable, to have to take the pills when they are supposed to.

      Then again on abstinence, some of these people (mostly females, let's not kid ourselves) have only one skill that they can trade in for enough money to sustain them.

      Even if we could make a mandate, there is still enforcement. How would a birth control mandate be enforced?

      Birth control is free or cheap for anyone that wants it. What we need are people that want it.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    40. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pay black women $1000 to sterilize themselves. It would reduce violent crime and poverty by 48% within two decades.

    41. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Says the guy with a penis in his mouth.

    42. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by houghi · · Score: 1

      What I do is buy as many almond product as possible to help the Californian farmers in moments of draught.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    43. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      In fact the whole world is nearing the ideal stable or even slightly decreasing fertility rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      We fixed this already. Education by charities and governments works. The only reason that population is still increasing is that people are living longer.

      Now we just need to concentrate on things like clean energy and sustainable farming.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    44. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Vote. Vote for people who will join the Paris agreement, who will enact legislation that reduces emissions on a national level.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    45. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

      you cant fit 10lbs of stuff into a 5lb bag. get another bag or move to the moon.

    46. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Something changed in the UK and probably elsewhere. Back in the 1930s we built a nationwide electricity grid. Big ugly pylons all over the place. Before that we built a nationwide rail network, and after that we built motorways all over the place.

      There were protests but the will to get those things built for the benefit of the nation was there. Now we have an opportunity to build infrastructure that is clean and benefits everyone and that few people would object to, but the will is lacking.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    47. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by edgedmurasame · · Score: 0

      2) Push for more electric and hybrid vehicles. Ideally, non-hybrid vehicles should be flatly illegal for new sales; the tech is out there, and even mild-hybrid systems are available and not very expensive to add at the factory and would make a good difference. Better yet, Prius-style hybrid powertrains (or maybe Volt-style) should be standard.

      And incentives for people to dump gas guzzlers (particularly older ones) in favor of something more efficient.

      Only if you're going to exchange them for large, American-sized-and-priced vehicles (think Crown Vic size) vehicles. Until then, no sale.

      Improve other mass-transit systems

      Unlike Japan, the US has the land for cars. They make transportation available without regard to platform rating, surprise costs, timetables, destination restrictions, or other pesky things that mass transit still gets wrong in the US. One can just jump in and go.

      Encourage people to move to "sardine can style apartments".

      Unlike Japan, the US has the land for large homes. The US tried sardine cans and ended up having to demolish many of them due to crime and neglect. That, and I dont mind having a V6, gas-powered car, which is available instantly for any destination and time - w/o surge pricing. It doesn't care too much aside from modest maintenance.

      --
      "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
    48. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by edgedmurasame · · Score: 0

      Personal automobiles are the single most per capita damaging activity carried out by Americans, who carry out most of the damage overall.

      Yet they are here to stay. If you want to make any headway, put efficiency in an American-tolerable form factor (Tesla S) and price point (read: not anywhere close to $30k)

      --
      "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
    49. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      It would actually be a socialist thing to introduce parenting licences in conjunction with social services support. Unfit to raise a child and you are unfit to have a child. Now how do you enforce that, threat of death, threat of sterilisation, really nasty stuff. There is a way, a whole lot of pregnancy relate to nothing more than laziness and excessive use of intoxicants, with absolutely no desire to have a child or raise it properly. So an easy incentive, incorporate birth control medication with very cheap intoxicants of what ever variety they prefer, the will slowly but surely self destruct by their own preference and simply not have any children during that process. No force, no violence, they are happy and the rest of society has a substantially reduced future burden. If you do not substantively contribute to society, you should not really be burdening society with your likely not to contribute to society genetic offspring. Voluntary birth control is easier if you provide an incentive, you can even up social security payments if they never had children (they are individually entitled to more support because they have not added a burden to society).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    50. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      I will. Provided I ever get to.

      Sadly, in this kind of democracy, while we get to choose between the candidates, the corporations get to choose what candidates there are in the first place. I think it's called the separation of powers or something like that, to separate you from the power.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    51. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just to ask the obvious question: Once they "produced", how is birth control going to help? Shouldn't birth control be used "pre-production"?

    52. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by sudon't · · Score: 1

      Encourage abortion for those that continue to poduce with no way of paying for them.

      Uh, just to point out the obvious, a simpler and cheaper solution would be just to make sure that birth control is available to those who want it.

      Right, and never mind this has nothing to do with the problem being discussed anyway. One thing about right-wingers that never ceases to amaze me is, they can’t stand to see some poor person get a little help from society, but have no problem giving millions to already wealthy people. They seem to think one comes out of their paycheck, but the other doesn’t.

      --
      -- sudon't

      Air-ride Equipped

    53. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Leave Canada out of this. We are doing our part for the Paris accord.

    54. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      USA != democracy

    55. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should take a look at charitible donations between the left and the right. Ill give you a hint, it isnt even close. The left talk about helping people, the right actually do it. Its a neighbors job to help the poor. Not the governments.

    56. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've heard this before. Just read about what Canada did with the CO2 emissions after they signed the Kyoto accord.

    57. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      So, other than driving a Prius and moving to a sardine can style apartment in the inner city, what realistically can people do as something against AGW? There is tons of talk, but all of it seems to just be blaming people.

      Exactly. I'm shocked you didn't get modded into oblivion for expressing this.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    58. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by gnick · · Score: 1

      It isn't the poor people, at least not in the 1st world, they are all sitting at home on welfare.

      There are plenty of poor people in the U.S. that work very hard. They certainly aren't " all sitting at home on welfare." You can't believe everything you read on Breitbart.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    59. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by tbannist · · Score: 1

      There are some excellent stories centered around liberal/socialist/not clear plots to force birth control of some kind on people. Usually it's a disease of some kind that renders 95% of people sterile. Of course there's usually a twist that the right "kind" of people are excluded.

      Ferret

      It's funny, the clearest example that I can remember of that was written by a Tea Party activist author. Strangely enough in his version all the liberals are bombed from space, and (almost) all the non-whites are killed by a genetically engineered plague that also turns white women blond and into unthinking and insatiable nymphomaniacs. Of course, in his fantasy world, the destruction of all the world's cities, the murder of three quarters of the earth population and turning women into uncontrollable rutting animals triggers the biggest economic boom in history, because apparently the earth only needs rural white conservative men.

      I actually wish that was the worst thing about that novel, but the main character was also an unbearable Mary Sue (Gary Stu) and the author became bored halfway through the novel's climactic battle (which wasn't very climatic anyway, because of the Mary Sue) and basically finished with "and then they killed the other half of the alien fleet". Sigh.

      Not a fan. But it might be up your alley.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    60. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by XXongo · · Score: 0

      The first thing to do, though, is to get the fanatic right wing to stop with the "abstinence only, because birth control of any kind is against the will of god" thing.

    61. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by tbannist · · Score: 1

      According to this article, that's not true. The original research apparently didn't do a good job of identifying conservatives or liberals. More recent research finds that political affiliation has no impact on the amount of giving, but rather it impacts the type of giving. Conservatives are more likely to donate to churches and liberals are more likely to donate to secular charities. In the end, that reduces the impact of a lot of conservative charitable giving because around 75% of church donations used to maintain the church. On the other hand, secular charities should be spending 75% or more of the raised funds on the actual charitable work.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    62. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are some excellent stories centered around liberal/socialist/not clear plots to force birth control of some kind on people. Usually it's a disease of some kind that renders 95% of people sterile. Of course there's usually a twist that the right "kind" of people are excluded.

      Ferret

      This is typical: liberals say "give people access to birth control," and the conservative nuts go off on "liberal/socialist/not clear plots to force birth control of some kind on people".

      It's funny, the clearest example that I can remember of that was written by a Tea Party activist author.

      Yep. Common trope on the right, birth control = liberals want to kill us all.

    63. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get rid of them? You little peice of human trash! Maybe you're related to Stalin or Hitler.

    64. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Muros · · Score: 0

      1. Asia's carbon footprint is larger than the north American continent and European continent combined.

      Asia's landmass is 28% larger than North America's and Europe's combined, and it's population is 3.4 times that of North America and Europe combined. What exactly is your point?

      2. The US population is entirely developed within civilization while large chunks of Africa still have mud huts as the pinnacle of civil achievement.

      Again, not sure what your point is. Are you saying that because colonial policies in Africa impoverished the entire continent, we should now keep them at the same level relative to us forever?

      3. The US has winter. Keeping out cold that can kill in an hour or two is carbon expensive. Ask Canada.

      You don't "keep cold out", you keep heat in. Insulate your damn house.

      5. The US still produces things of value that others consume while the carbon output stays on the US. Africa doesn't produce anything of value at all outside of BBC nature documentaries.

      Like what? The Kardashians? The new reality TV show "Whitehouse"?

    65. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lost an argument on the internet? Throw insults to regain your dominance and authority!

      Or not. It doesn't work that way. Is little tezbobobo mad? Yes, he is. Time for his nap.

    66. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Duh it's a corporate republic government.

    67. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Eldaar · · Score: 1

      Given that methane has about 23 times greater of a greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, cutting back on methane is also very important. And a large chunk of methane comes from agriculture, specifically the belches and farts of ruminant animals, though mostly cows.

      If farmers raised fewer cattle, that would cut down on methane emissions. So eating less beef and less dairy can help reduce demand for cow products, and thus discourage raising so many of them, in turn decreasing methane emissions.

      You can also call your member of the House of Representatives and your Senators, and urge them to pass cap and trade. You can protest in favor of such measures.

      You can drive your car less often, and bike places if that's feasible - or take public transit, or carpool. You can buy fewer goods if you don't really need them, since the energy it took to make that good probably came from a fossil fuel.

      There are surely other things one could do, but these are some easy ways for a person in a developed country to realistically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    68. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of years ago living in Albuquerque there was a water shortage and so the city enacted some efforts to curb use. Things like not washing your car in the middle of a hot day, having allocated watering days and times, and fining those that used more than their fair share.

      It wasn't two weeks later that headlines came out fingering upper city officials and celebrities using 10x the water of others. The fees meant absolutely nothing to them since they were wealthy enough to not care. A $100 fine would ruin some people, be was shrugged off by others.

      Now if those same people were facing jail time, or a much steeper penalty (thousands or tens of thousands) for repeated offenses, then we might see some changes being made.

    69. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should take a look at charitible donations between the left and the right. Ill give you a hint, it isnt even close.

      That is quite true. If you ignore the claims that giving money to churchs is charity, then the evil liberals are much more charitable.

    70. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      That something in the US is the spoiled, coddled, asshole baby boomers took over.

    71. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0

      I said vote for someone who supports the Paris agreement (and was voted flamebait for it, because Slashdot really values the free and open marketplace of ideas). At the last election you had a choice between a candidate who supported Paris and one who did not. At the coming elections you have a choice between a party that supports Paris and one that does not.

      In what sense have you not had an opportunity to vote for a candidate who supports Paris and environmental responsibility?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    72. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The average person can stop consuming so much for starters. There's a lot you can do but all of it breaks down this consumer/producer economic system we're so accustomed to. You basically have to at a cultural level, lower your standard of living expectations (which is why it will never happen--greed and self-preservation).

      The less product you buy, the less your energy footprint is. Everything you purchase requires loads of energy. Once demand for said products drops, they'll disappear off the market and all the supplemental energy used in the production chain will follow.

      The fact of the matter is, population growth will inevitably lead to a tipping point at a global level. As overall life expectancy increases and birth rates continue to grow faster than death rates, it will happen since Earth has finite surface space. All we can really hope to do is slow these rates down until we hopefully make new discoveries and develop new technologies that allow us to keep ahead of these problems (clean energy supplies, population management, etc.).

      The biggest issue were currently aware of as a species are caused from the effects of climate change. Most your climate change denier groups are preparing for such changes, they're just not acknowledging it because the institution they stand behind has much to lose from vast public acceptance. In recent history, the tobacco industry played this game for a long time, companies heavily dependent on lead and lead addatives did the same thing. They promote science when it's to their benefit but dispute and ignore it when it's not all under self-preservation.

    73. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Much the same in the UK. Whenever anyone tries to build anything they start moaning about the green belt and objecting to anything that might devalue their houses. They fucked the economy and need that property to remain valuable to provide for their retirement and the inheritance their kids need to buy their own insanely expensive shed to live in.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    74. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pay a global carbon tax so they can have a universal slush fund....

    75. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry. Nature is going to sort us out in short order. It's only a matter of time before antibiotics are not effective against super bugs. That will wipe millions. Then if one assumes the next world war is at least as bad as the previous then there you go....less humans.

    76. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Opportunist · · Score: 0

      First, I didn't. Not everyone lives in the US.

      But second, if I had to vote in the last US election, I honestly would have stayed at home. There was simply no viable candidate that was worth my vote.

      Then again, I'd have that problem in pretty much any election in the US. All things considered, I usually could not vote for either of the (usually two) offered candidates. What kind of choice is this? It's like the choice between shooting and hanging, what kind of fucked up choice is it if the end result is the same and not choosing the result is not an option?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    77. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      That's why sensible laws are written not with fixed fines but with fines based on your income. That's how a speeding ticket can cost more than your car.

      Don't want to tell them how much you make? No problem. They'll "estimate". And trust me, you do not want them to. I think the formula is roughly "estimate annual income = how much someone in such a position could possibly make in a lifetime times however pissed the judge is at you"

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    78. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These same people claimed we already run past the tipping point years ago. So were they lying then or are they lying now? One way or the other they are lying.

    79. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      seem to think they can buy themselves another earth and to hell with the rest.

      No, they think they can buy themselves enough firepower to send "the rest" to hell and off their lawn. And guess what? They're right.

      LOL, no, they're really not. Even if they could stockpile enough ammo to fend off thousands, Galt's Gulch will always be a myth.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    80. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      It isn't the poor people, at least not in the 1st world, they are all sitting at home on welfare. Currently they are enjoying better lifestyle than 3/4 of the rest of the planet while breeding like rabbits.

      And this is the utterly misguided and provably incorrect statement. People in the 1st world aren't breeding like rabbits. It's more like corncrakes. Without immigration, most 1st world countries would have shrinking populations. Population growth also isn't majority Chinese, nor Indian (might as well pop those bubbles too) The majority of population growth through 2050 is projected to be in Africa. I give you wikipedia merely because it correlates and summarizes relatively succinctly all the points made across numerous other studies and reports I've come across over time. Feel free to dispute it.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    81. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      It isn't the poor people, at least not in the 1st world, they are all sitting at home on welfare. Currently they are enjoying better lifestyle than 3/4 of the rest of the planet while breeding like rabbits.

      History shows that it's actually the middle class that will come for the rich. They have more to lose than the poor and enough resources and wherewithal to organize.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    82. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by BeerMilkshake · · Score: 1

      A. Gasohol

      1. If your vehicle in not FLEX-fuel and has EFI (every car after 2006, some before) you can purchase a specialized computer for a couple hundred dollars so you can run on any blend of ethanol and gasoline.
      2. Run on alcohol. Burning a gallon of ethanol produces 1/2 the CO2 that burning gasoline produces. Yes alcohol gets 25% less range so you need to burn more but you're still cutting vehicle emissions by approx 25% Burning alcohol is better for the engine too.
      3. Find a source of cheaply-produced ethanol or make your own.

      B. Energy from Wasted Oil-Based Plastic

      Build a pyrolytic converter to break down waste plastic into oil. This is a cheap and simple process that can break down all waste plastic even the stuff the recyclers wont take like plastic grocery-shopping bags. It can be profitable too.

      C. Energy Recovery from Poop

      Thanks to good living standard, human waste is very rich in energy. Anyone could build a biodigester for the home to break down solids into methane which can then be burned for heat/hot water etc. and reduce the homes energy needs. Some cities are doing this at scale already.

      D. Habit of Accumulation

      Look at the average home and notice how the basement and attic are filling up with cheap crap that was used once or once every ten years. Do we really need all that stuff? Could we rent more? It would be cheap and easy to set up a 'flea market' in every major city so people could exchange crap for crap directly.

      E. Air Travel Habits

      With Facetime/Hangouts/Skype etc do we REALLY need to fly so much? A few years ago a volcano erupted in Iceland and the resulting ash/CO2 cloud shut down air travel in Europe for a week. It was the first carbon-neutral eruption in history

      F. Stupid Business Models

      Someone was shipping ice cubes to Iceland. Seriously. How many business models currently only work because oil is "cheap". Including military ops around the world in that.

      G. Electricity Generation

      Gas-fired power plants ought to be replaced with 4th-gen nuclear (or Thorium or whatever). Yes horrifically expensive but compared to the Billions we spend every month on war for oil its a long-term bargain.

      Of course none of this will happen as long as the fossil-fuel industry remains in charge of the government and industry, and has the deep pockets to finance FUD campaigns and prevent the people from agreeing to change.

    83. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 2

      For the right wing guys who think Trump was the only chance they had to lower the number of abortions, well his attempts at gutting the ACA and its birth control mandate stand a good chance of reversing the trend on abortions. We were at our lowest ever in 2014, which is the latest data I found. What will we be at in another 3 years?

      The right doesn't actually care about abortions. Well, the ones who have drunk the Kool Aid might. But the anti-abortion movement is more about controlling women's sexuality than it is about saving "babies". You have already made the point that they are working against themselves by opposing easy contraception, if their goal is to reduce the number of abortions. But that's because it's about shaming those dirty, dirty sluts, making it more risky to be a dirty, dirty slut, and making sure they are saddled with a child as punishment for being a dirty, dirty slut.

      After all, judgement and self-righteousness feel so good!

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    84. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sigh.

      Big news, 15000 knee-jerk scientists got on the bandwagon and signed a petition. And the all the millenia handwringers got upset. We just gotta do SOMETHING!

      Sigh.

    85. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pay black women $1000 to sterilize themselves. It would reduce violent crime and poverty by 48% within two decades.

      We tried that with your mother, but it turns out she just took the cash and had you anyway. What an untrustworthy bitch!

    86. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      You mean anti corrupt science? If you see the amounts of government subsidies going into AGW research, science has to corrupt itself in order to keep getting funds.

      How about you direct your extreme cynicism towards the fossil fuel industry, which has a massive financial incentive to deny the reality of AGW? You seem rather focused on alleged corruption on one side, while ignoring the corruption on the other.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    87. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      We don't need to do much. Population will stabilize itself. The earth isn't going anywhere, it'll do just fine. Maybe we will just get rid of ourselves, that's all.

      This is correct. The Earth will be just fine. It has survived much worse. AGW will only wipe out our own civilization. You'd think preserving our own civilization would motivate people.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    88. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No we don't have depopulation problems. Our population keeps on increasing despite the low birthrate numbers. We have to thank the open border policy for that. While my country had only a birth rate of 1.4 child every women since the 80s, and high emigration numbers, the population still increased from 9.1 million to 11.7 million (from 1980 to 2015). The number of native people is rapidly declining (from 8.9 million to 7.4 million), while the number of immigrants (from 200.000 to 4.3 million) is rapidly increasing. In the big cities the majority of the generation under 14 year are children from immigrants who don't have any interest in our native culture. The number one language among that generation in the large cities has become Arabic.
       
      In 2050 our problem will not be finding a new home after global warming has destroyed our home, but finding a new home for those who refuse to convert to Islam. We are the new heathens. Heathens coming from Dutch/German 'heide' which means 'from the country side'. Look how history repeats itself. The old 'heathens' used to be the non Christian people who live on the country side, compared to the Christianized city dwellers. By 2050 the city dwellers are Muslims and the non Muslims will be found on the country side, the 'heide', a bunch of heathens...

      But lets not worry to much about the open border policy, just keep on repeating that the white people are destroying the world. Lets continue to import the entire world and lets continue to blame white people for all problems in the world. Most European countries don't have the option to vote something completely different like Americans did with Trump. We will be stuck with our political elite until it ends into yet another destructive revolution or world war like happened over and over again in our history...

    89. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by cthulhu11 · · Score: 2

      The average prole can act with his fork. ie., stop ignoring the massive effects of animal agriculture.

    90. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /. respects a free and open marketplace of ideas? Surely, you gest or donâ(TM)t regularly read /. or are a troll or ate a frakking fool! (I vote for the later.). /. has never been open or free. Grow up and joun the Adults!

    91. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > just maybe we wouldn't have these problems if "Get all the
      > uneducated to vote for me" wasn't a winning strategy.

      I strongly suspect that your idea of uneducated vs mine vs. others might likely be different....in which case we end up calling everybody else stupid. Which doesn't really help.

      Ferret

    92. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by innovatetocreate · · Score: 1

      Exactly- if they are so smart, how about a real plan?

    93. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I may speak for all of us republicans, fuck the planet. Fuck america. Fuck the world. Fuck everybody.

    94. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Ferretman · · Score: 1

      That actually sounds like an interesting story....I'll look it up.

      I wouldn't say the politics of the writer was particularly obvious to my reading, though it was in a collection of stories and beyond the premise I don't recall a great deal about it. I think the MacGuffin there was a bio-engineered virus by People Who Knew What Needed To Be Done (rather like the main villain in the first Kingsman movie). I vaguely recall the whole thing discovered by a researcher or doctor who found out just a little too late and the main villain being shot by the nominal good guys. I think it was set in a rain forest.

      Sounds like it's very much your story though.

      Ferret

      --
      Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
    95. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Ferretman · · Score: 1

      I myself was just trying to share that I'd read a decent story with the premise alluded to....not everything is political or a choice between Hitler and Stalin.

      Ferret

      --
      Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
    96. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Charcharodon · · Score: 1

      You've been watching old Corey Haim movies "Prayer of the Roller Boys"

    97. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haters gonna hate, and racists gonna race.

    98. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perfect example. Mellenials fly more than any other generation, yet pretend to care the most about the climate. The want the Paris Agreement or anything that doesnâ(TM)t require THEM to make the sacrifice. Itâ(TM)s an issue overrun with hypocrisy like few others.

    99. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > How about having no more than one child? A lot of our problems would be
      > greatly reduced (if not eliminated entirely) if the planet had fewer humans.

      Generically that's a good overall plan. The good thing is that people who live in rich, capitalistic countries already show a trend towards having fewer children. I could see nations enacting some kind of tax break or (potentially but less likely) escalating taxes after the first kid (though that would probably cause more legal issues).

      So if we want to lower population growth down the road, making people in those cultures/countries richer and freerer looks like the route to go.

      Ferret

    100. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha what?

    101. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back in the 30's rich people stood to gain obvious benefits like government contracts by running over the little people, and ignoring the little people was a fast way to a lot of wealth.
       
      Today, clean energy is a direct competitor that stands to make dirty energy completely obsolete, and the dirty energy rich people object strenuously. It's a lot harder to run someone over roughshod when they're able and willing to spend a billion dollars on roadblocks.

    102. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Alternately, a short jail sentence. I wouldn't really notice a $100 fine, but I would notice a day in jail.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    103. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Birth control where you are is free and/or cheap, sure. Same as where I live. However, there are places in the US that try to get rid of Planned Parenthood and other women's health facilities. Moreover, there are places in the world that are not in the US, and not all of them have readily available birth control, for whatever reason.

      The problem isn't the US population. Last I checked, our fertility was under replacement rate, offset by immigration. The problem is in undeveloped countries, where access to birth control can be difficult and expensive.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    104. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Could you be more specific about what he got wrong?

    105. Re: So... what can the average prole do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then vote for a third party. Better that than sitting on your thumbs and blaming others

    106. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      B. Energy from Wasted Oil-Based Plastic

      Build a pyrolytic converter to break down waste plastic into oil. This is a cheap and simple process that can break down all waste plastic even the stuff the recyclers wont take like plastic grocery-shopping bags. It can be profitable too.

      Just curious, if this is true, then why wouldn't recylcers take them if they could make a profit from it?

    107. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Ok, let's fight both corrupt sides.
      Now what does that say about the truth or untruth of AGW?

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    108. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      You cited the right skeptic at the right place. :)

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    109. Re:So... what can the average prole do? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Did you misread the word 'warning' as 'warming'?

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  2. 50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by jfdavis668 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The 15,000 scientists are overruled by the 50,000 US coal miners.

    1. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm actually somewhat surprised there are still this many remaining.

    2. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Those 15,000 scientists probably have a bigger carbon footprint and have little interest in changing that.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    3. Re: 50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      What? Move off campus into a productive job after graduating?

      Certainly not!

    4. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      The 15,000 scientists are overruled by the 50,000 US coal miners.

      Well, if those 15,000 scientists met up with the 50,000 on the streets . . . at least we could make progress on the overpopulation problem by about 65,000.

      And we could offer the spectacle on pay-per-view, like the Connor McGregor / Floyd Mayweather fight. We could spend the profits on fixing ocean dead zones . . .

      . . . or just blow it Vegas on whores, coke and blackjack, since we are all doomed to die anyway because of Unsustainable marine fisheries; Ocean dead zones; Forest losses; Dwindling biodiversity; Climate change; Population growth.

      Wow! Some scientists took some time to write an actual letter about this?!?!?! Now I am relieved . . . we are saved.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    5. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those 15,000 scientists probably have a bigger carbon footprint and have little interest in changing that.

      Looks like we have 15,00 volunteers for euthanasia.

    6. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
      None of the 50,000 coal miners want their kids to become coal miners.

      Every thing the coal industry had has been stripped and sold. From profitable mines, to equipment, to river front real estate, to scenic valleys, to pension funds to ... every last thing the coal industry had has been stripped and raided and stolen and sold away.

      The last thing remaining is the vote of these desperate people, stuck in a dead end job, too old to retrain, in isolated communities. A country as rich as ours should be able to take care of them. After all the coal industry built America, they contributed significantly to the wealth we are enjoying today. We should be able to buy any mine that is losing money, keep all the miners on the payroll to properly shut the mine down, cap off, and close it. Absorb them all into fish and wildlife service and park service and do conservation work till they all retire. There are not that many left, and we need their expertise to close the mines safely.

      But that is not going to happen. Their vote is valuable, and keeping them angry and desperate is the way to get it.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    7. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Highly unlikely since they live under the same government and policies as the rest of the coal miners.

      But herp derp, lets keep making excuses from steering the car away from the brick wall in front of us.

    8. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The coal companies basically screwed over the coal miners, their families, and the communities that they lived in.

      Now the coal companies are saying "bail us out! Jobs jobs jobs!"

      But even bailing out the coal companies wouldn't bring the jobs back-- they mine coal now using mountaintop removal and a handful of people operating heavy equipment; not with a thousand coal miners supporting families.

      The jobs aren't coming back.

    9. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      The 15,000 scientists are overruled by the 50,000 US coal miners.

      Goddamn right. Those egghead scientists ain't so smart. It's not like they're rocket scientists. Well, OK, some of them are, but not all of them, so screw them. If I cain't dig coal, how'm I supposed to get the Black Lung like my daddy and his daddy before him? Us Crowder's been on this hill since eighteen and twenty and ain't no goddamn scientist with his fancy calculus gonna get us off'n this hill. And by the way, any chance we can get the age of consent down to 12? I'm looking to run for the United States Senate, and I don't want to run into problems like my uncle Roy in Alabama, who is a good and Godly man.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    10. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, educating women about reproduction and educating communities about the long term economic and social impacts of having offspring = euthanasia.

      Does it hurt to be so stupid?

    11. Re: 50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol, that post made me laugh. According to Moore..."I don't recall ever doing anything like that, but if I did I won't deny it"...i may borrow that one from good ol' Mr. Moore...who has Moore problems than he know what to do with.

    12. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      The 15,000 scientists are overruled by the 50,000 US coal miners.

      Do us all a favor and go back to your coal mines and never come out again. Eliminates unnecessary population and their carbon footprint. If we're lucky, no one left will know how to dig doom out of the ground to burn up.

    13. Re: 50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Have you ever worked in the private sector? They expect results!

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    14. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Either there are so few that it would be a pittance to pay their salaries, or there are so many their vote is valuable. Which is it? You've said two things.

    15. Re:50,000 coal miners order cease and desist by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      These are exactly the people who voted against their own best interest last year.

  3. Empowering girls and women for global warming? by cayenne8 · · Score: 0, Troll

    If we reduce family size, consumption patterns don't rise as much. And that can be done by empowering girls and women, providing sexual education and education on family planning.

    Ok...I thought "No meant NO".....what more empowerment does it require?

    Say no, and quit spreading your legs unless you want to risk having a kid, even with "protection", you can't be 100% sure.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Empowering in this context is education - not just sexual and family planning, but education to help them start working. In most of the world, this is still not the norm - women are expected to stay at home and have babies. "No means no" is not going to change anything in such cases - there will be change when women actually get a chance to study, work and experience life outside the narrow set of rules they are expected to follow in many parts of the world.

    2. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      If your solution to the problem is the rely on young, hormone-driven women saying "no" after millions of years of evolution and 6 or 7 stiff drinks has programmed them to say "yes, yes, oh my god yes!" then you might as well start getting your affairs in order. They care about being popular and getting laid and Facebook, they don't give the slightest shit about your 'world problems.'

    3. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by skids · · Score: 1

      Take a moment to realize that what is being referred to here is not the developed world, where population tends to stabilize, even though footprint increases. It's the post-agrarian/tribal cultures that have large families and isolationism deeply ingrained in their traditions. It takes slow, patient work to untangle the Gordian knot of religion/mores/entrenchment. Also when you try to change someone's culture it takes a whole ass-ton of humility to not get run out on a rail. So, the bible-thumping anti-birth-control missionaries of the last several centuries were plainly a highly suboptimal approach.

    4. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My reaction to that statement was somewhat different. Educate EVERYONE about sex and the consequences, and no I don't mean the US's current version of abstinence only bullshit. Real education. AND stop spreading the fear that birth control is against baby Jesus. I mean, the ultimate cure it to stop spreading the story of baby Jesus, but we have to start somewhere.

      Yeah, yeah, go forth, be fruitful and multiply was a great idea when we weren't tetering on the brink. But we're well past the sustainable population problem and fast approaching the unsustainable over-population point. And people panic when they hear certain countries have either stabilized or actually started to decline population. We shouldn't panic, we should emulate them unless its precipitated by a massive health crises. Those that have done it through better education and caution when planning families? Fuck yeah. You're at least trying, whether it was intentional or not.

    5. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're missing the point. This isn't about women in the first world, this is about women in places like Africa where they're still not, normally, educated at all beyond about 3rd grade.

      The evidence on this is circumstantial, but the correlation is extremely strong: the more educated women (specifically) get, the more the birth rate declines. This is true independently of questions like religion or economics, which you might expect to be complicating factors - turns out they really don't matter much, compared with the sheer number of years of formal schooling that the majority of girls get.

    6. Re: Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is the energy footprint for stay-at-home moms less? It very well could be. A single income household is less likely to have two cars. Three times as many adults drive a vehicle to work (the otherwise-childcaring adult and the child care worker) when both parents work outside the home.

    7. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They want to entice them into the rat race. That will dramatically lower birth rates, just look at Japan. The problem though is that it will only work in developed countries. That won't do much to stop the population growth. It might contribute to shifting political power though.

    8. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh you bet, empowering women ABSOLUTELY pulls birth rates down.

      Have you ever tried DATING one of these empowered women? Its more pleasant to snuggle up with a porcupine!

      And safer too, both financially AND legally.

    9. Re: Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Empowering girls and women is a buzz phrase. It fixes all problems. If only we could get more empowered women to connected on social media and code AI apps for the cloud we could finally solve this population problem. #getWithTheTimes.

    10. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Also when you try to change someone's culture it takes a whole ass-ton of humility to not get run out on a rail. So, the bible-thumping anti-birth-control missionaries of the last several centuries were plainly a highly suboptimal approach.

      What are you talking about? From what I've read, the bible-thumping anti-birth-control fundamentalist missionaries are highly successful in Subsaharan Africa. They're the reason in fact that some countries there passed "kill the gays" laws.

    11. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Nobody is going to educate those women, they might find out whom better to vote for, and they might find out about the HGC laced tetanus vaccines that the WHO is issuing to them. And already issued in the 1990's in Mexico and The Philippines.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    12. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      You're talking about American women, not women in general.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    13. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If your solution to the problem is the rely on young, hormone-driven women saying "no" after millions of years of evolution...

      Young men are expected to control themselves or else spend years in prison.

      Why do young women need to be empowered because they can't control themselves?

    14. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...there will be change when women actually get a chance to study, work and experience life outside the narrow set of rules they are expected to follow in many parts of the world....there will be change when women actually get a chance to study, work and experience life outside the narrow set of rules they are expected to follow in many parts of the world.

      The problem is that far too many who do experience/achieve all that *still* prefer to stay at home and raise kids. It's instinctive natural human behavior.

      Choice must be removed by taking child conception, gestation, birth, education, socialization, etc out of the hands of "parents" completely. Children should be created in-vitro with specific genetics and raised in government-run creches. "Freebirths" and their parents would need to be be criminalized and forced to occupy the same space of nearly-universal scorn and hatred as do rapists of children. One raised in such a way would never know or have 'parents', only a genetic line and your closest 'sibkos' (co-siblings in the government creche).

    15. Re: Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #metwo

    16. Re: Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is the energy footprint for stay-at-home moms less?

      Short term thinking if the idea is to slow the rate of population growth. The formula to lower the birth rate is tried and tested: Educate and employ girls and women; Give women access to reproductive (incl. contraceptive) health. But maybe you have a point for stay-at-home dads.

    17. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that far too many who do experience/achieve all that *still* prefer to stay at home and raise kids.

      No "far too many" don't actually. Falling birth rates in countries with high levels of female work force participation are in fact so pronounced they are posing serious demographic challenges to policy makers.

      It's instinctive natural human behavior.

      As it is for men to pull out our dicks and masturbate whenever, wherever we want. Thankfully some of us --those not employed in the film industry --are capable of resisting our natural instincts.

    18. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Uh, what?
      Are you trying to suggest that the pre-existing cultures didn't already hate gays, like every other culture did? The number of cultures accepting of homosexual behavior through history is vanishingly small.

      Almost every religion - including the frequently-in-the-majority Islam - ban homosexual behavior. It's a cultural value thousands of years old. Trying to blame on it on recent Christian missionaries just highlights your own bigotry.

    19. Re: Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #Mewtoo

    20. Re: Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not less compared to someone who didn't have a child. A single child is the same carbon footprint as driving 10 hummers to work every day. A child has 3-4x the footprint as an adult. Hugely inefficient.

    21. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That seems like a big claim, given that the ability to sustain education is dependent on so many other factors.

    22. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Oh bullshit, you fucking liar. Go read about it; there's plenty of journalistic reports of Christian missionaries fanning the flames.

    23. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Ok...I thought "No meant NO".....what more empowerment does it require?

      It would be nice if "no meant NO" in all cases, but that currently doesn't seem to work always. Also, empowerment includes access to family planning methods and education.

      Say no, and quit spreading your legs unless you want to risk having a kid, even with "protection", you can't be 100% sure.

      You know what children with mothers have? Fathers. If you keep your pants zipped, guess what? No children! Are you so misogynous that this didn't occur to you?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    24. Re:Empowering girls and women for global warming? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      That sounds awful! Where is it that young men go to prison for years for consensual sex?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  4. Just girls and women, eh? by grasshoppa · · Score: 0, Troll

    How about "empowering" boys and men too? Give them a heads up on the legal dangers to themselves and their future children if they participate in the rigged game of marriage ( at least in the west ).

    But hell, I guess as long as women are looked after it's all A-OK.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    1. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The reason is the observation that the lengthened basic education for women leads to the age of the first birth being higher. This leads to lower number of children, on average. Only a few years more education for women can lead to stabilization of the number of children per family to two, for example. On the other hand, some nations seem to be afraid of going extinct within a few hundred of years. So, for each according to their needs and solutions according to their problems.

    2. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So...uh...does that imply that in countries like Japan where birth rates are too low and still declining that they should just stop allowing girls to go to school?

      I think that will fly over like a led balloon.

      But of course that's not what you meant. Really, if what they want are babies, then they should pay for them. That's how everything else works. Make the price worth it, and the babies will start showing up. If old people aren't willing to cough up the necessary cash to build the next generation...well...then they don't deserve a next generation.

    3. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      One thing that'd help is a cheap, reliable, and reversible contraceptive for men. They're doing trials of such a thing now that blocks the sperm ducts.

      Honestly, I think marriage is just a bad institution all around, for everyone. It worked somewhat OK back in the days when women were 2nd-class citizens, but not any more, as proven by the high divorce rate and the huge number of single mothers and kids with divorced parents. We need to re-think the whole thing.

    4. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about "empowering" boys and men too? Give them a heads up on the legal dangers to themselves and their future children if they participate in the rigged game of marriage ( at least in the west ).

      Your idea is fundamentally unsound in an evolutionary strategy sense.

      Think about how/why the divergence of the sexes originally happened. You've got a big, expensive gamete that has to be maintained to term, and an enormous number of tiny, super-cheap gametes. The dudes are using a love-'em-and-leave-'em strategy, whereas the chicks are having to actually face costs. (Maybe with some help, maybe not.)

      Yes, in our society we have marriage and child-support and various structures to try to get the boys to pay about half (very roughly, let's not digress into all the costs!), but society's laws aren't what's in your head when you're breathing hard and thrusting toward that warm, wet sweetness-- er, excuse me. Yet a female of any species (this isn't even a human thing) has evolutionary reasons to have awareness of those costs hard-wired in her brain, always on. That doesn't mean they're objective or don't get horny, but they're going to be more conscious, due to the fact that historically (and I'm talking about millions of years, not mere hundreds) they were who was ultimately on the hook for those costs.

      I guess what I'm saying, is that women already have more incentive to think about it, and due to that, they do so more easily. And they're more in control. Marketing to them specifically, is a way to play your strengths.

      To put it another way, the man [nearly] always wants sex (because, why not? what's the downside?) whereas the woman justifiably has a more nuanced weighing-the-plusses-and-minuses situation going on.

      And to put that another way, it's why sexual selection tends to do such bizarrely-extreme things to males (e.g. fancy tail plumage, bigger antlers, etc .. and yes, your dick is part of that).

    5. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      I feel hurt by your expression of micro-aggression by assuming there's only 2 genders.
      I feel shut out.
      Wheeeehhhhhh, sue you...

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    6. Re: Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This just in...a birth date of 2 will lead to a loss of humanity. The reason is that a portion of those born never get to the age of procreation much less having 2 offspring. You need 2.# offspring...so who decides who makes the fraction up?

    7. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing says "I love you" more than Heinlein-style cohabitation contracts, eh?

    8. Re: Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with your logic is that it's missing the "logic" part. Your assumption that women being second class citizens somehow enabled marriage stability is asinine. What enables a marriage is both people supporting each other and not having one be dominate over the other. Anyone who faults the institution rather than the parties which make up the institution needs to reexamine a few things...perhaps in their own life.

    9. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as there's Time Enough for Love.

    10. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #metoo

    11. Re: Just girls and women, eh? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Oh bullshit. The divorce rate is proof that marriage doesn't work. Blaming it on the people isn't productive when more than half the people who try it fail at it; it's the institution.

    12. Re:Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And to put that another way, it's why sexual selection tends to do such bizarrely-extreme things to males (e.g. fancy tail plumage, bigger antlers, etc .. and yes, your dick is part of that).

      You are forgetting that in human specie, it is females who are extremely modified in terms of secondary sexual characteristics. It seems that throughout history we didn't mind sharing (or at least snatching, pumping out thoroughly, and finally filling in anew) hotties, as opposed to courting a dog each. And we are preferentially selected for our tendency to do so ("bad guy" appeal - you have to justify your horniness to them, as a warrant that sons you conceive would choose women with lot of sex appeal, so that your granddaughters ... you get the picture)

    13. Re: Just girls and women, eh? by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Oh bullshit. The divorce rate is proof that marriage doesn't work.

      No. The divorce rate is proof that highly incentivising one party to break a contract will cause that one party to break that contract.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    14. Re: Just girls and women, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By that logic, I guess you also have proof that introductory physics doesn't work, since more than half the people who try it fail at it. But hey, don't blame the people, that's not productive.

    15. Re: Just girls and women, eh? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Are you a fucking moron? Intro physics isn't something that most of the population *needs* to do; courses like that are intentionally designed to weed out people who don't have the aptitude or discipline to get a degree in that field. Marriage is pushed by assholes like you to be the answer for everyone, yet more than half the attempts fail, so it's clearly not the panacea it's been sold as.

  5. Malthusian and authoritarian "solutions" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is wrongthink on slashdot, I know, but...isn't it funny how all of the "solutions" to this non-problem tend to be malthusian and authoritarian in nature?

    1. Re:Malthusian and authoritarian "solutions" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Education is "Malthusian and authoritarian." Incredible. You're a fucking moron.

    2. Re:Malthusian and authoritarian "solutions" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is making people pay for their own conscious choices, instead of continuoing subsidizing them, "malthusian and authoritarian?" You sound like a radical left-wing hippie who resents having to get a job and pay your bills. Let me guess: are you a Republican?

    3. Re: Malthusian and authoritarian "solutions" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, if you've ever been to a public school you'd know it is an extremely authoritarian institution.

  6. And the solution is? No? How about the problem? by sheph · · Score: 1, Troll

    Get back to me when 15,000 scientists agree on what the problem is with concrete evidence as opposed to this is what we think. Then we can start arguing about what the solution should be. This is how real science is supposed to work.

    --
    I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
  7. Missing the obvious other solution by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you actually look at some of the statistics published at COP25, you'll see that US and EU emissions are down but GDP is up.

    The most rapid growth in emissions is in India, which still has less emissions per person than China does. The rapid increase in pollution, greenhouse emissions, and climate impacts is mostly due to China and India, but even if we reduce it now, some of the gasses take 100 years to clear out of the atmosphere, although other shorter lived gasses are more impactful but have shorter lifespans.

    The most obvious other solution is not population growth, which isn't driving either of those top two contributors to the environment, but is literally faster phasing out of harmful energy and food usage including farming, by more efficient energy sources and cracking down on illegal overuse of pesticides and crop waste burning. Note that crop waste can be processed into stored fuel with minimal impacts, but the open burning of crop waste accelerates many other processes.

    Solution for this means artificial price supports for crop waste, so that it is converted into appropriate fuel, and reducing all tax exemptions and exclusions for all fossil fuels.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Missing the obvious other solution by swb · · Score: 1

      Solution for this means artificial price supports for crop waste, so that it is converted into appropriate fuel, and reducing all tax exemptions and exclusions for all fossil fuels.

      Is that all? I'm sure we'll get right on that.

    2. Re:Missing the obvious other solution by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Solution for this means artificial price supports for crop waste, so that it is converted into appropriate fuel, and reducing all tax exemptions and exclusions for all fossil fuels.

      Is that all? I'm sure we'll get right on that.

      If by we you mean China and India, it's something Brazil has done already, and various EU countries.

      You have to realize the impacts include New Delhi pollution becoming so bad that some airlines refuse to fly there anymore. Inaction has consequences.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    3. Re:Missing the obvious other solution by Onthax · · Score: 1

      By China i think you mean the world We are shipping our emissions overseas by buying things built there instead of locally, We can't hold them responsible if we are the ones causing the emissions by buying overseas.

    4. Re:Missing the obvious other solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is slashdot. The 'solution' here is to ignore it. Make up pathetic conspiracy theories. Stuff like that.

      Slashdot is a climate denial echochamber. You'd get better discussion of it on somewhere like Ars Technica, because their readership is more mature and less liable to believe just what they want to believe because of cognitive dissonance.

    5. Re:Missing the obvious other solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The obvious solutions:

      Stop buying synthetic clothing - it's made from fossil fuels and it's polluting the environment with micro plastics every time you use the washing machine.
      Be aware that things you purchase have an environmental impact.
      Mines exist because we like to shop.
      Try to buy products without packaging or with recyclable packaging.
      If you decide to have children, only replace yourselves.

      Demand monetary and banking systems be fixed, lobby your local members, banks are allowed to create money, they're stealing from the wealth of society when they do, monetary systems require growth, locking humanity into the never ending spiral of inevitable doom.

      Honestly I don't think Climate change is a thing, having spent years studying thermodynamics, greenhouse gas theory makes no sense and has become highly politicized.

      We need to realize that we need to conserve earths resources for future generations, lets be honest and focus on things that have the biggest impact that we can change, lets avoid the political charged topics so we can make progress.

      City people are very disconnected from mother earth, often they just don't understand, they're caught in an artificial environment created by humans.

    6. Re:Missing the obvious other solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop buying synthetic clothing - it's made from fossil fuels and it's polluting the environment with micro plastics every time you use the washing machine.

      Actually, a lot of things are now being made from vegetable and other fibers which decompose (not just break down, but are organic, like "rubber" made from mushrooms).

      Try to buy products without packaging or with recyclable packaging.

      A lot of things are now made to be recycled or reused. Just return the product to the seller. For example, a lot of shipping material is now made to be compostable or recycled.

      Demand monetary and banking systems be fixed, lobby your local members, banks are allowed to create money, they're stealing from the wealth of society when they do, monetary systems require growth, locking humanity into the never ending spiral of inevitable doom.

      Or, far easier, use a credit union. Money stays locally, you pay less in interest, and some credit unions like BECU and TechCU are bigger than most regional banks. All credit unions allow you to withdraw money without a fee at all other credit union ATMs. They have credit and debit cards too.

  8. Another Potential Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Global Pandemic - works for me.

    No muss, no fuss, and results have a high probability of "success".
    Mother Nature can ( and will ) handle it.

    1. Re: Another Potential Solution by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      Mother Nature can ( and will ) handle it

      This is likely to be true despite the psychologically uncomfortable truth. When the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid/comet hitting the planet, there were harsh conditions followed by what we experience today. The planet will bounce back. It's not going to die. It's us, like the dinosaurs, that would go extinct.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  9. Corelating ozone depletion with female empowerment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Troll

    And people sit there and wonder why there's an anti-science sentiment that keeps growing...

  10. Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientists, by Kogun · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the science on AGW was wrong, because they were in the minority. Now, I guess, 15,000 scientists are presumably the majority, so AGW must be right? Is that how science works?

  11. Single child policy for the whole Africa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That would probably solve one of the problems neatly.

    1. Re: Single child policy for the whole Africa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Growing up without brothers or sisters or aunts and uncles is a serious problem.

  12. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by BronsCon · · Score: 1

    These snowflakes are crying liberal tears because global warming melts snowflakes.

    Slight correction, those aren't tears. You said it yourself, they're melting.

    --
    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  13. Let it fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you'll have your population control wish. Any other solution is just a fantasy.

  14. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by mysidia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nope. If the theory disagrees with experiment, then it is Wrong. It doesn't matter how many voices sign the petition for the theory; it must still be rejected.

  15. "Save the EARTH"?!?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Earth will be just fine.

    Humanity, on the other hand....

  16. sexual education, really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "And that can be done by empowering girls and women, providing sexual education and education on family planning."

    Seriously? Yea that could work in oh about 50 years when it's wayyyy too late already.

    Great idea. Maybe we can solve CO2 in the atmosphere by teaching our kids smoking is bad, or something.

    Are you freaking kidding me.

    1. Re: sexual education, really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the guy hadn't been admitted to grad school he would have gone into another career. Perhaps becoming a car salesman. Then his proposed solution might be to buy more cars from Ford.

      But not getting laid, and all those coeds out on campus... clearly there needs to be a sex angle in it.

    2. Re:sexual education, really? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      No, in 50 years population will have stabilized.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    3. Re: sexual education, really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most these "scientists" are grad students struggling with their sexual identity. Their only exposure to sexuality in their lives are anonymous encounters with older men in urine splashed bus station bathrooms.

  17. 15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Among those included in this list of Climate Scientists:

    Davis, Joanne - Australian
    Daweti, Nokuthula - Student
    de Clercq, Deon - Earthling
    Hamilton, Ava - independent documentary producer/citizen scientist
    Jara, Andrea - Colombian
    Thapa, Lal - Asst. Professor of Alien Invasion

    It is very hard to take this (or their agenda) seriously when they won't even do the basic science of vetting a list of "scientists".

    1. Re: 15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you found 6 out of the 15,000 then cry wolf. Hmmmm. We don't believe you, you need more people.

    2. Re:15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep

    3. Re:15000 Scientists by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Being a Colombian and Earthling is not mutually exclusive to being a scientist. In fact, most scientists are probably Earthlings, I'd bet (despite their odd hair and unfashionable clothing). Are you complaining about the wording of labels, or something deeper?

    4. Re:15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jabba the Hutt?

    5. Re:15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      U be a nigga.

    6. Re:15000 Scientists by Gussington · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It is very hard to take this (or their agenda) seriously when they won't even do the basic science of vetting a list of "scientists".

      This would carry more weight if:
      You weren't AC
      You cited your source, because I searched and can't find the official list of names to verify

    7. Re:15000 Scientists by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This would carry more weight if:
      You weren't AC
      You cited your source, because I searched and can't find the official list of names to verify

      Well, here I am and here's the source -- amazingly enough, one click on a link from TFA. You didn't search very hard at all, did you?

      There are tons more fun ones, like:

      Thalmayer, Isaiah: Restoration Project Manager, Point Blue Conservation Science
      Swanson, Diana: medicine
      Swanson, John: Social Sciences - Psychology, Retired
      Swanson, Patrick: Professor, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University

      It's crystal-clear this is just 15k+ random people signing a feel-good petition. Any claim that these signatories are "scientists" in general, much less ones in appropriate fields to make authoritative comments about the subject matter, is unadulterated horseshit.

    8. Re:15000 Scientists by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Those scientists got their degrees from Clown College.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    9. Re:15000 Scientists by Gussington · · Score: 1

      It's crystal-clear this is just 15k+ random people signing a feel-good petition. Any claim that these signatories are "scientists" in general, much less ones in appropriate fields to make authoritative comments about the subject matter, is unadulterated horseshit.

      Now that I have a source to verify I agree. And this is how it should work. Make claims, provide evidence, win friends and influence people...

    10. Re:15000 Scientists by Gussington · · Score: 1

      Are you complaining about the wording of labels, or something deeper?

      Well it does seem a little odd that these people are supposed to be 'scientists', who you know, have a reputation for rigour, yet can't demonstrate a high school level science by not referencing sources correctly. I mean come on, I don't doubt the actual science, but this looks as dodgy as fuck.

    11. Re:15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently how it works is this:
      Make claims, based on evidence provided in the source article
      Get insulted because someone cant do their own reading of the article and you didn't give them a user name to respond too. Everyone knows information is only good if it's coming out of certain peoples mouths.
      Point out the information is there in the article, mollify the asshole by logging into an account, because that matters for some reason.
      Receive no apology or admission of laziness from the person who insulted you because they couldn't be arsed to read the article they are responding too.

      You ain't winning any friends, BTW.

    12. Re:15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I especially liked the signature of Max Headroom with a listed discipline of "Cokeologist".

    13. Re:15000 Scientists by thelandp · · Score: 1

      > There are tons more fun ones, like:
      > It's crystal-clear this is just 15k+ random people signing a feel-good petition

      It's ok everyone, it's ok! Relax. Turns out not all the 15000 people are climate scientists. Therefore we can all just take it easy, safe in the knowledge that the earth is fine, and we can go back to consuming resources like there no tomorrow.

      > It's crystal-clear this is just 15k+ random people signing a feel-good petition. Any claim that these signatories are "scientists" in general, much less ones in appropriate fields to make authoritative comments about the subject matter, is unadulterated horseshit.

      I call bullshit on your horseshit. Scanning the list, there's a lot of PHD's, professors - that sounds like scientists to me. Also re field of study, the vast majority of them look like they are natural sciences, which is totally appropriate. Sure there are some that don't list the field or the level, or else list something which is in an unrelated field, but that seems like it's pretty rare in the list actually.

      If you did filter the list down to just those with post-graduate qualififations, and also in natural sciences, at rough glance it seems like the list would still have at least 10000 people. Why is the list with extra people any less convincing?

      Then again, I'm guessing in your case either list would still not be convincing.

      --

      -- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
    14. Re:15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't believe it was scientists who composed the list itself. And I agree the list should be vetted by independent groups.

    15. Re: 15000 Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet here's you attempting to trivialise and wave away their actual scientific claims, despite decades of rigorous hard evidence that's just as easy for you to find.

      Your deflections are as transparently obvious as your hypocrisy.

  18. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You will never understand how science works, so quit asking.

  19. The actual message that was signed by FeelGood314 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    http://scientistswarning.fores... I really wish reporters would link to the actual articles they talk about. Sort of like when they jump all over someone's statements but don't actually quote what the person said.

  20. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There is a very simple explanation for why the number of scientists was reported. One can only hear "the science isn't settled; there is still a lot of disagreement" so many times before you just assume you have to emphasize the degree of consensus every single time AGW comes up.

  21. Coupling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It disturbs me when people can't stick to a factual message and have to immediately propose controversial solutions.

    Consensus of scientists:
    "Warning! There are observed things that are influencing the world's ecology and climate in severe ways we aren't prepared to handle!"

    Everyone with a working fucking brain:
    "Oh, then we should analyse this to see what would be a viabl..."

    Small subset of scientists:
    "We need social change that fits with our perceptions to be pushed on everyone!"

    *audience scatters into bickering factions who couldn't decide shit about shit if the known world depended on it (and it does by the way)*

  22. At least someone is mentioning the real issue by BigChigger · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Which is too damn many people. Of course now someone will scream "racism" just because its mentioned.

    1. Re:At least someone is mentioning the real issue by Josh+Coalson · · Score: 1
      Stabilizing population is necessary but not sufficient. The current global economy is structured in a way that absolutely depends on exponential growth of production and consumption, and hence exponential growth of the population. We have major recessions when GDP growth drops to a lower-but-still-positive rate. If we went straight to a zero population growth rate tomorrow, very soon there would be a catastrophic economic meltdown.

      This is a big problem I have with singularity-ists: what they see as an exponential hockey-stick graph is actually just the first half of a sigmoid where resource constraints start to kick in. There are no productivity advancements on the horizon that can maintain the current economic system long-term with a stable population. Humanity is in for a world of hurt in the next few decades; the only variable is how many of us will come out the other end, which will be largely determined by how we address this obvious problem now.

    2. Re:At least someone is mentioning the real issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two many damn scientists! In 25 years they've multiplied from 1,500 to 15,000. At this rate they'll over run the world in less than a 1000 years!

    3. Re:At least someone is mentioning the real issue by slashrio · · Score: 1

      It would really have been funny if there wasn't that stupidly eye hurting spelling error.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  23. And a million smarmy /.ers by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    who keep yelling at them to update their skills. Because if it's one thing I know about folks in their 40s who have to work for a living it's that they love going back to school while working full time. Just sayin'.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:And a million smarmy /.ers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Over 800k coal miners were employed at the height of the industry in 1923. That number has trended continually downward for nearly 100 years.

      Anyone pinning their hopes on coal mining continuing to be a viable career and not going to school to train in other fields is going to learn just how difficult it is to be unemployed in the USA. And then shortly after, they'll learn that slashing the budgets for Medicaid,Food Stamps and other assistance programs for the needy in order to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy was also a terrible idea.

      The coal industry is staggering around on its last legs. It will never be revived to become a major source of energy again. Anyone who thinks it will needs to take a good long look at the history of the industry.

    2. Re:And a million smarmy /.ers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-coal-retraining-insight/awaiting-trumps-coal-comeback-miners-reject-retraining-idUSKBN1D14G0

      And they bury their head in the sand despite attempts to help them.

      Some people are stubborn enough to not admit that the house is on fire despite being consumed by the fires already around them. Unfortunately, others have to share space with these idiots.

    3. Re:And a million smarmy /.ers by interkin3tic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't give a flying fuck what they do or whether they like it or not. Their shitty job is negatively impacting the globe for generations to come.

      They can update their skills, or retire, or take opiates and watch soap operas until they die, eat a bullet... it's up to them.

      "Continue destabilizing the planet because I like my job" isn't an option I'm willing to let them have. I really don't care about the consequences for them. Climate change isn't something we thought up last year, scientists have been talking about it for the last 40 years at least. Current coal miners knew about it before they bumbled into the profession. Personal responsibility much?

      Large parts of them have opposed the easy transition and instead whine about the war on coal and conspiracy theories. They're now facing a hard transition through their own choices. The fact that they're slightly more fucked than the rest of us is at least something to smile about.

    4. Re: And a million smarmy /.ers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      25 of those 40 years science largely focused on avoiding a new Ice Age. Anyways people like you we can do without.

    5. Re:And a million smarmy /.ers by edgedmurasame · · Score: 1

      I don't give a flying fuck what they do or whether they like it or not. "Continue destabilizing the planet because I like my job" isn't an option I'm willing to let them have

      The feeling is mutually held - as they have mouths to feed, a life to live, and 200+ years of viable energy. Getting in the way of their meal ticket is the fastest route to losing scientific progress. Continuing to have out-of-towners put their desires ahead of locals isn't an option they will let you have.

      --
      "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
    6. Re:And a million smarmy /.ers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I don't give a flying fuck what they do or whether they like it or not.
      >Their shitty job is negatively impacting the globe for generations to come.

      You must be *loads* of fun at parties.....

      Ferret

    7. Re:And a million smarmy /.ers by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      Blah blah blah "I'm going to ignore the fact that they chose to have those kids and chose to get a job destroying the planet."

      Personal responsibility. Their choices lead to their predicament they're in, my choices did not lead to climate change

    8. Re:And a million smarmy /.ers by Do+You+Smell+That · · Score: 1
      I'm not sure I follow.

      "200 years of viable energy" - this is like claiming that a fleet of horses and some fields will keep your area/businesses competitive for the next 200 years... in the middle of the Industrial Revolution.

      "Getting in the way of their meal ticket is the fastest route to losing scientific progress." - how is depriving people of income they're used-to and still-attempting-to make on a practically price-obsoleted commodity either "getting in the way of their meal ticket" (from the prior example, you sound a bit like a literal luddite, wanting to preserve inefficient old methods over "the reality of labor (energy) pricing") or going to "lose scientific progress" (just a thought - inventing, perfecting, and engineering replacement energy sources is very much 'scientific progress')?

      --
      I'm not good at making signatures...
  24. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why do we not reject every climate model? All of them have been proven wrong in the last decade.

  25. Population is a problem, but not how you think by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    The huge problem you have is most first world countries that at this point are taking large steps to protect the environment (in no small part by pushing those concerns off to other countries that handle manufacturing and power generation) actually have negative population growth.

    That would seem to solve the problem you are laying out, except for one thing - a lot of the countries with positive population growth are not really that concerned about the environment.

    If you really think about this long term, that is a huge issue for environmental protection - the future belongs to the people that show up. If you care about the environment, you should probably be encouraging people who feel the same to have more, not fewer, children. Otherwise we may do well now, only to find in fifty years environmental concern is non-existent.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Population is a problem, but not how you think by bingoUV · · Score: 0

      Education drives both - the lower population growth rate, and concern for the environment. This same race in the US and Europe produced a larger proportion of CO2 that is in the atmosphere today, than whole of Asia and Africa combined.

      If you care about the environment, you should probably be encouraging people who feel the same to have more, not fewer, children

      Are you saying this "feeling" is genetically transmitted ? Anyway, eugenics detected.

      --
      Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
    2. Re:Population is a problem, but not how you think by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      Education drives both - the lower population growth rate, and concern for the environment.

      Partially correct, but mostly wrong. It is wealth that drives both lower birth rates and concern for the environment, because people have the freedom to choose a healthier environment. When you are starving and cold it doesn't matter how much you know, you start to accept far more easily that you can cut down trees for heat, or dump chemicals in a stream because at least that means work... the proof of this is evidences by the horrific environmental damage caused by former Soviet republics, which were plenty well educated but starving and poor.

      Are you saying this "feeling" is genetically transmitted ? Anyway, eugenics detected.

      It is cultural, not genetic. So the simple facts are that cultures that do not value the environment are having lots more children than cultures that do. As I said, the future belongs to the people that show up - and the values they hold. That's got nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with what they are taught.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    3. Re:Population is a problem, but not how you think by bingoUV · · Score: 1

      It is cultural, not genetic. So the simple facts are that cultures that do not value the environment are having lots more children than cultures that do. As I said, the future belongs to the people that show up - and the values they hold. That's got nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with what they are taught.

      So then why do you say " If you care about the environment, you should probably be encouraging people who feel the same to have more, not fewer, children". More children doesn't mean anything concerning the values the children hold.

      The people you say care most about the environment today are the "more, not fewer, children" , of the ones who filled the atmosphere with most of its anthropogenic CO2 of today.

      --
      Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
  26. Trouble is that means tax raises by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    or in India's case just plain collecting taxes in the first place. Crop burning's already illegal in India. They do it anyway. You'd need money for enforcement and to pay the enforcers well enough they don't just become corrupt. The only place you're gonna get that kind of money is the ruling elites and good luck getting money out of them.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  27. Mixing politics with science by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Solution for this means artificial price supports for crop waste, so that it is converted into appropriate fuel, and reducing all tax exemptions and exclusions for all fossil fuels.

    And there you go, mixing your political position with the scientific conclusion. This is what causes science denial.

    Does the science mandate your position? Are there better solutions available?

    I strongly suspect that the best solution is to turn our attention to improvements in technology. This is already happening in the US with the onset of electric vehicles - this will reduce fossil fuel consumption considerably, and serve as a model and testing ground for other nations.

    We then have to find energy sources to replace our current fossil fuel use.

    I strongly suspect that the best solution will be rooftop solar. This is already happening in the US with the cost of rooftop solar dropping precipitously over the last 15 years.

    Both of these solutions would dramatically reduce our carbon footprint, and both would benefit from improvements in technology.

    Perhaps we should look to science to solve the problem, instead of identity politics?

    1. Re:Mixing politics with science by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      You should have read the entire post, I addressed that.

      Actually, there are scientific journals such as Energy Policy, which evaluate the different policy impacts. Some of the best scientific papers published in those come from China and India.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:Mixing politics with science by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's interesting that the US and Europe and Japan are now being left behind in electric vehicle technology. The US is still in love with fossil fuels, Europe wasted a lot of effort on diesel and cheating, and Japan bet heavily on hybrids. China is building a lot of EVs, building massive battery factories, patenting EV tech like crazy and building up supply lines.

      European manufacturers are starting to import Chinese EV technology for their own cars. Japanese companies are scrambling to pivot towards EVs, realizing that they won't be selling many gearboxes in 10-15 years. And the US market just seems to be waiting to see how Tesla and GM do and hoping that fossil cars remain the thing for now.

      At the moment trade barriers keep Chinese vehicles from flooding Western markets, but eventually they will just do what everyone else does and open factories in Europe and the US.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Mixing politics with science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My house is 100% solar powered, and it's definitely doable in many circumstances. If you don't want a battery backup it's a slam-dunk; in my case I have no grid connection at all so I have several days' of battery storage as well.

      Solar by itself, just feeding the grid during the day and pulling from it at night, works pretty well. There are issues with baseline power generation which typically mean coal- or gas-fired power plants of course, but if you're seeking Green Absolution then at least you can tell yourself it's less CO2. There are mega batteries of various types being developed or in the pilot stage, though I'm unsure if the benefits outweigh the costs--you definitely have to figure out how to recycle these things if nothing else.

      Electric vehicles are quite promising and I'm looking forward to them. They'll have to double the range and s have a zero off their pricetags before they'd work for me unfortunately, but at least that tech is proceeding at an increasing pace it seems like. I have some concerns about plugging in 100,000 cars for overnight charging though; seems like that is a LOT of power draw that doesn't get called on overnight while folks are sleeping. I can definitely see some grid upgrades (which the US badly needs anyway) being necessary to make that part of it work.

      Love my solar and being off-grid. It wasn't my choice but I wouldn't have it any other way now.

      Ferret

  28. Re:Corelating ozone depletion with female empowerm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcome to Marxism, comrade.

  29. NOT WORTHY OF /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The linked article is virtually devoid of any kind of meaningful data. Who keeps putting junk like this on /.?

  30. Not saving the earth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They've already done the analysis. You're just proposing delay.

    We're at least 10 years late for action, and it's not to "save the Earth" it's to save humanity. The Earth will be just fine after it's latest extinction event.

    I find the amusing part is that most of the people suggesting a wait and see/do nothing agenda are the ones with the most kids/grandkids; why do they have them if they don't give a shit if they live or die if it's inconvenient?

    1. Re: Not saving the earth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spoiler alert: their kids/grandchildren will die, just like you, just like me, just like everyone.

    2. Re:Not saving the earth. by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Nobody cares whether humanity will go extinct.
      Every individual that's alive is proof that humanity isn't.
      And every individual that isn't born obviously won't care shit.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    3. Re: Not saving the earth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you volunteering to be euthanized? You're going to die eventually.

    4. Re:Not saving the earth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the worst logic since:
      - All cats have 4 legs.
      - Dogs have 4 legs.
      - Dogs are cats.

  31. Re: And the solution is? No? How about the probl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The forestry scientists who started this campaign should instead have been working toward bigger and better forests. To, you know, convert more of that CO2 back into oxygen.

  32. Re: Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scienti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The way science works is that the more we learn, the more we find out we don't know. A very important part of the scientific process is skepticism.

  33. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm a Libertarian, following Ayn Rand's wisdom, which is the best thing that has ever happened to this country, and glad it is in practice in our government now.

    However, I would never roll coal.

    Diesel is way too expensive to waste. Especially a dually, where you need the power at the wheels, not going out the stacks.

  34. Warning to Millennials by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are too many if you and your presence is harming the planet. Please stop having sex so that population rates can decline to more sustainable levels (maybe if you set a good example the njiggers will follow).

  35. Please Continue by Kunedog · · Score: 1

    Climate change activists should wholeheartedly welcome greater Social Justice influence and mission creep into their movement. Its proven track record of swaying public opinion can only have a positive impact on the debate.

    Warmist regards,
    ExxonMobil

  36. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You flunked out of law school. Poe's Law school.

  37. We are killing the ocean by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    There is an excellent documentary on Netflix called Mission Blue

    The problem is that we've let greed over-rule sustainability. All the environmental disasters we are seeing are just the natural consequences of choosing false profits over scientific prophets.

    This begs the question though -- What can the average citizen do to make an impact? The article mentions stabilize the population as one possible solution. What are others?

    1. Re:We are killing the ocean by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Get educated and vote green.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    2. Re:We are killing the ocean by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I through away all my scientific journals and now get all my information from Netflix and Slashdot.

    3. Re:We are killing the ocean by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On an individual level: have less than replacement level kids and stop eating meat.

  38. but, but, but. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What if we end up spending all this time and money to make the air, water, and soil cleaner and it ends up being a hoax? How would we sleep at night. . .

  39. The real problem: The wrong people care by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The people and organizations who should care, because they have the money, power, and influence to do something about it: Rich people, global corporations.
    Why they don't care: Short-term profits, keeping shareholders happy, is more important than what'll happen a couple hundred years from now. That's 'someone else's problem to deal with', and these people will all be dead and gone by then; why, so far as they're concerned, should they even care?
    Who else is standing in the way of doing something about this: Dominionists, and fundamentalist religious organizations. So far as they're concerned, The Earth is a 'temporary' home for humanity, and is therefore expendable, as is all other life on it. Dominionists in particular are more interested in accelerating the destruction of the Earth, because they fervently believe that the sooner they can bring about the Apocalypse, the sooner Zombie Jesus will 'return' to the Earth to 'take them all home'. So anything they can do to make Earth uninhabitable faster is all to the good so far as they're concerned.

    Then there's the Average Person; they're too busy just trying to deal with their day-to-day lives (and in some cases, too literally trying to stay alive) to even think about anything that's going to happen even 10 years from now, let alone several hundred years from now. Again, that gets waved off as 'someone elses problem', because they'll all be dead and gone before that even happens. Sure, they think about what their theoretical grandchildren may have to deal with -- so maybe they turn off the lights when they leave a room for more than a few minutes, or put off that errand they need to do until later. But it's all a drop in the bucket that really has no effect, not even if everyone does the same.

    Overall there needs to be top-down actions taken, world-wide, in every country that creates a large enough fraction of the total problems. Seeing as we can't seem to get enough nations to agree on how to handle problems a fraction of the size and scope, good bloody luck with that. Add to that resistance the fact that The Rich, the aforementioned religious types, rich, influential religious types, and disinterested greedy corporations aren't going to be cooperative, and the likelihood that anything more than just 'feel-good', overall ineffective things being done becomes rather small. What we really need to have happen first, is a change of hearts and minds across the board; we need everyone to actually give a damn, right down to the core of their being. If someone's got a recipe to make that happen, I'm all ears.

    1. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Been forever since I had mod points (or bothered to log in to comment), but hear hear. You hit the nail on the head. Thanks for posting.

    2. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://images2.imgbox.com/72/3a/mDx6aaIh_o.png

    3. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If someone's got a recipe to make that happen, I'm all ears.

      Maybe we could restart the evolution of our own brains (grey matter). It's been several or more thousand years. Perhaps it's time now.

    4. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember when AIDS was going to kill us all? And Magic Johnson was going to die of AIDS because HIV caused AIDS and Magic had HIV? Remember when the WHO recanted and said AIDS wouldn't be an epidemic after all? Science is nice, but it's a process, not a result. Just because science said Magic was doomed, doesn't mean he was... /shrug

    5. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Orbital Mind Control Lasers

    6. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Naomi Klein does, it's called totalitarian communism.

    7. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What you really want is a Dictatorship to order people how to live? Because thats what is sounds like.

    8. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm going to THROW A FIT because someone is telling me that people shouldn't shit all over the ONE PLANET WE HAVE that supports human life!

      That's what you sound like. Knock it off.

    9. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have a good point and I'm not trying to argue, just point out that, it's not 100s of years from now any more. By the end of this century, sea level could be > 4 feet higher. That makes this much more urgent.

    10. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While you've nicely identified a collection of people you can demonize ("The Rich"), you don't really seem to be actually proposing to do anything that doesn't euthanize huge swaths of the planet, take thing away from huge swaths of the planet, and/or actually accomplish anything that anybody reading your post would want their government to actually do to them.

      Yes it's important to mitigate impacts to the planet if only for the guys who follow us a billion years from now, but have some sense of proportion.

      Ferret

    11. Re:The real problem: The wrong people care by jediborg · · Score: 1

      well as a libertarian I have to disagree a 100% on top-down actions (presumably taken by governments) that will 'solve' this problem. You say the regular everyday people are too busy with thier own lives to do anything to stop this problem, and yet we have seen articles here on slashdot about the surprisingly fast adoption of solar cells in America alone, the amazing progress we have made with the adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles, low-power light bulbs, not to mention the 'sustainability movement' that has been massively successful in getting companies to reduce carbon emissions by focusing on cost savings in the sales pitch instead of environmental concerns.

      and even though our president refused to sign the paris climate accord, dozens of cities have taken the torch and run with it to push for initiatives that reduce carbon emmisions. If anything, the climate change treaty failure has galvanized the public even more to 'take action' and reduce waste, thereby proving that top-down government forced 'solutions' are completely unnecessary to stop this problem. Especially when you consider that the only 'government solutions' to this problem have been either a) A carbon tax that would vastly punish small time producers way more than giant co-orporations, because that’s how all the taxes in America work or b) 'carbon credits' from the same people who brought you 'sub-prime mortgages and derivatives' and would have the same incentives for corruption and back-room dealing

  40. Perfection is not possible, but also not neccssary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Say no, and quit spreading your legs unless you want to risk having a kid, even with "protection", you can't be 100% sure.

    100% is not necessary. In fact, for 90% of the population, 90% reliability is good enough.

    The insistence "don't ever do anything unless you can reach 100% certainty" is one of the real problems in this country.

  41. Re: Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scienti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A teltale sign of an intellectually corrupt mind is to try to pass denialism as "skepticism".

    Anti-vaxers and fucking flat-earthers also try to play the card of the "poor persecuted skeptics" all the time.

  42. Copy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thanks scientists. Your assessment is noted.

    Ferret

  43. Re:And the solution is? No? How about the problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Since you're not going to listen to concrete evidence, why in the world would we spend our time painstakingly putting it together for you to ignore?

    Case in point: did you actually read the actual "Warning To Humanity" article that you're dismissing (it's here)?

    If you won't bother to read the evidence in a three- page article with only nine graphs, why in the world would we think you'd care if we gave you the thousand pages of evidence you ask for?

  44. Re: Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scienti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Giving the number of scientists that support it shows no consensus without revealing the total population. Numerator without denominator == useless.

  45. Here is the missing link by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    The summary fails to link to the actual article; instead it links to articles talking about the article.
    The article in question is here:
    http://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/sw/files/Ripple_et_al_warning_2017.pdf

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  46. I Need Another Sweater! by boudie2 · · Score: 1

    Snow in the forecast for tonight where I'm at. Save the earth? That's up to the people with the money. They're only interested in making more. Sorry.

  47. access to education and voluntary family planning by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I see, it's always get rid of someone else's children, isn't it ? We can just "empower girls and women" in THOSE cultures to abort their babies.

    It's odd that when an article suggests reducing the rate of population growth, a certain subset of radical conservatives immediately starts shouting "We need to abort their babies!"

    What the actual article says is taking the step of:

    (h) further reducing fertility rates by ensuring that women and men have access to education and voluntary family-planning services, especially where such resources are still lacking;

    So, why is it that you suddenly start shouting about abortion?

    Do you want to actually reduce the rate of abortion? That turns out to be really simple: abortion rates decrease when people have access to birth control. Simple.

    Boy, it would be really convenient of all these simple cultures would just stop procreating in the first place. Maybe the WHO could just pay some group to just sterilize them, like they did in Kenya? But you know what would really "eliminate" the problem? What if we just eliminated those humans, so they don't burn all those fuels without scrubbers, and pollute those lakes, and cut down the forests for fields to grow food? After all, those leftists are looking out for the "greater good", so it's ok if it's nonconsentual.

    What part of "access to education and voluntary family planning" is it that you are referring to here?

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  48. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

    Actually yes, we just can't bear to admit that. What we call "objective truth" is merely a reflection of how many credible people believe in that claim being true. And it's even worse than that: it's how many people who *we believe* are credible do *we believe* they believe a claim is true. If it sounds like turtles all the way down it is: just try to trace the claim of "97% scientists agree" to its roots in reality and you'll see it's based on a long chain of implicit trust based on implicit credibility. (Who did they poll? What was the poll? Did scientist accurately report their convictions? Who reported the news? etc. etc.)

    That doesn't mean our scientific knowledge is not useful -- on the contrary, whether it is useful is the (only) criteria to go by. But it means it is acquired statistically, as if humanity were one giant neural network. If you need a confirmation, here's a quote (supposedly) from Max Planck who (we believe) had enough experience to see the pattern: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

  49. yah yah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More socialists power grabs a coming.

    Climates been changing since there was an other, man ain't got jack to do with it unless we unload all our nukes.

  50. The Limits to Growth: 1972 by SysEngineer · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Club of Rome published this book in 1972. It is based on a computer simulation of using resources and population to evaluate how long humanity can exist in this system. At that time the tipping point was about 2030. The model used has been re-evaluated many time since. The latest study has added social stability and things are not looking good.

    Corporation and the rish have not done anything for the last 45 years, do you really think thay would do anything now "to reduce their profits"?

    1. Re:The Limits to Growth: 1972 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about not buy their products. Its a voluntary transaction.

  51. Governments: the #1 cause of non-natural death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about we discuss the real threat to peace? Governments killed more people in the 20th century than any other non-natural cause.

    http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/death-government-primary-fact-20th-century

    1. Re:Governments: the #1 cause of non-natural death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am confused. If TFA says "more people" = bad, is then "Governments killing people" = good ?

    2. Re:Governments: the #1 cause of non-natural death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      No.

      Learn some logic.

    3. Re:Governments: the #1 cause of non-natural death by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      There's not much logic involved in this thread.

  52. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

    I'm a Libertarian, following Ayn Rand's wisdom, which

    Ayn Rand was not a libertarian (with or without a capital L)-- she was an "Objectivist," a philosophy which she coined and led.

    Rand hated libertarianism, and did not hesitate to say so: "Libertarians combine capitalism and anarchism. That’s worse than anything the New Left has proposed. It’s a mockery of philosophy and ideology... So the Right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the libertarian movement."

    (Ayn Rand, Ford Hall Forum, 1971)

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  53. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by slashrio · · Score: 1

    Ayn Rand was a banker's shill, out to destruct the family and religion in order to impose more bankers-favorite 'morality' onto the people.
    All those atheist women-empowering individualism preaching shills are out to destroy the corner stones of society:
    family, religion, unity.
    Loosely connected Individuals are much easier to control and subdue than tight families with high moral values.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  54. Re: Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scienti by slashrio · · Score: 1

    I'm extremely skeptical about your two last statements.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  55. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by slashrio · · Score: 1

    Strange thing is that I've never seen a letter of 20,000 mathematicians stating that the value of pi isn't 3, when some state was going to pass a law that pi=3.
    Or a letter of 10,000 physics that supported (or rejected) Einsteins views.
    Was it maybe because in those cases solid proof was actually available?

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  56. Re: low taxes, and low shelf prices by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    I'm not convinced about low taxes, and low shelf prices and they need not go hand in hand with freedom. Gotta be free to set a high price if you want. I buy generic Excedrin, though there are obviously those who don't for example, And I'm not too thrilled over other people's freedom to poison me.

  57. Re: Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scienti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Depends on the definition of "scientists" used.

    The GW alarmist counted high school students, politicians and people without a single day of real world work experience as "scientists".

  58. Re:And the solution is? No? How about the problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wait, you mean use the Scientific Method? No, we can't do that.

    Besides out of these 15,000 scientists how many are experts in climatology? You're field of study is in molecular biology, that's great but is has nothing to do with the weather.

  59. Population, unity by myid · · Score: 2

    Isaac Asimov said that the biggest threats to humanity were 1) overpopulation and 2) humanity's habit of splitting itself into groups, and deciding that you are or are not a part of their group. I agree with him.

    Here are an Asimov interview and speech on overpopulation and human unity.

    1. Re:Population, unity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Splitting into groups is most common reaction to scarcity (and scarcity is just overpopulation from opposite angle): "There is not enough for everyone, so let's gang up, us stronger minority, and keep all the resources to us only, to assure that we don't starve, and the other group is not our concern. We will fight them off if they try to get some."

    2. Re:Population, unity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even chimpanzees fight wars in such situations. Maybe the 2% genetic difference could give us the advantage we need to avoid such fate?

  60. Yawn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article is right on, man. But first I need another cup of latte made with fair trade coffee and soy milk, along with another gluten free non-dairy sorghum bean curd pudding.

  61. Boil it down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Think you can veg out ? It ain''t just cabbage, palsy. Too many nibbers, Kfirs and slants. EOF.

  62. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well spoken. A rock solid (re)publican fascist position and I approve. Smash-face either libtoons or progressives today and have a much better tomorrow.

  63. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actuallyon Einstein you kinda did. Anti-jewish people hated him. And tell me where the Big Math companies making billions pushed anti-maths paranoia because they would be ruined if pi didn't change value?

    Or are you just congenially retarded?

  64. Feminist appeal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >And that can be done by empowering girls and women

    I think this underlines how politically motivated these scientists really are. Why even mention such a thing in this article? It takes two people to have sex you know.

    1. Re:Feminist appeal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seems that wymyn and bitches and girls need their asses kicked. I'm sick of their menses and constant bitching and bellyaching. Fuck them all in the mouth and the ass and teach them a lesson. Smack the bitches around and put them in their place.

  65. Dumbest group of smart people I have ever seen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Only some of the things they talk about are even remotely scientific-ish. While I could argue with "their purpose" or their merits of their augment to do so would be ceding the point that whole endeavor is subjective, non-specific feel good jargon.
    "I disagree in principle and price" so I'm not going to negotiate on price

    The population boom has been trending negative for decades non-uniformly. Birth rates are trending toward negative worldwide - without any idiot intervention. Its questionable if the negative trend can be stopped at all.... so replace quasi threat with another.
      Family size is highly specific; who decides whether me or my children are justified to exist? Where is the science? The levels of arrogance and ignorance are thoroughly interlaced.
    Global warming is not a uniform effect so how to you assign cost? Not science! If you though Brexit, Greek dept, healthcare, or taxes was a mess just wait...

    Large powerful groups are the most likely to shirk responsibility, with the "solution" then becoming a noneffective political bludgeon used force the common "plebs" into accepting a loss of control to the powerful.

  66. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by bongey · · Score: 1

    Do explain that theory of more than two biological sexes or that one were a guy thinks he is really a girl trapped in males body,declares himself a woman and his ugly ass ends up on Vogue?

  67. Save the Earth? The Earth will be fine by See+Attached · · Score: 1

    How about we change the words around some to get the point home.. Lets keep the Earth Inhabitable. The earth will be fine. George Carlin was right!

    --
    Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
  68. Re:access to education and voluntary family planni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It doesn't take a radical fucking conservative to look out the window and see that depopulation has already hit white countries, hard. All the GP is saying is that these kind of propaganda campaigns always seem to be targeted at midde-to-upper class white guilt-types in the first world, you know, the ones who are already well below replacement rate for their own kind?

    We're already killing our babies at astronomical rates, how about point the culture-destruction cannon at someone else for a change?

  69. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Kogun · · Score: 1

    Millions of adherents of astrology, not to mention religious zealots would applaud your explanation. You also give legitimacy to polls conducted by Fox News and every other agenda-driven group seeking to influence opinion through the bandwagon effect.

    I choose to believe that science is not a democracy.

  70. Big problem with lowering human population by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whenever a country's population starts to decline, the reaction is panic.

    Supposedly Europe is taking in floods of immigrants because Europeans are not having enough children.

    The prospect of declining population in Japan is also causing some serious concern.

    Unless we accept a "Logan's Run" or "Soylent Green" solution, then lower population will mean fewer, and fewer, young people supporting more, and more, old people.

  71. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Ayn Rand was a banker's shill, out to destruct the family and religion.

    No. That is completely wrong.

    Please don't misunderstand: there is a lot of valid criticism against Ayn Rand. But you are completely off base.

  72. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

    If you will believe me I am as uncomfortable with that as you seem to be. But I've been sitting on it for a while and have only found confirmations for it. If that is indeed true ("true") then the sooner we accept it the less we'll fall for bad science. "That" being the idea that our objective knowledge is acquired, held, and maintained as a statistical process, not as our ever closer understanding of the mind of God which was a line of reasoning that started with Newton.

    Far greater minds have claimed things to that end -- this is a quote from Philip K Dick: "In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law — in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy." I believe it is custom of our brain matter that also determines how we know what we know.

    That said I also like to believe that what makes us different from a simple biological (or mechanical) deep learning network is how we decide to pursue one thing or another, before it is knowledge.

  73. You're missing the point by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    yelling at them to update their skills while giving them little to no support to do so, especially when they're already in dire economic straights is _not_ helping. Worse, I'm not even sure people want to help. If you just look down on them you don't have to worry about your taxes going up to support them while they retrain. Or for make work public works projects while we wait for the economy to catch up. You can safely abandon them and feel none the worse for it. Because it's their fault for not updating their skills, and not because the entire manufacturing base of our country collapsed in the wake of NAFTA and free trade with China...

    You do know that their blue collar guys, right? Most of them would fit in just fine building infrastructure or in manufacturing if we did such things.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:You're missing the point by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Clinton wanted to allocate money for retraining. But, no, easier to fall for the sweet lies.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  74. Did you read the article? by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    They reject training because a) there are no jobs and b) retaining while working full time is fucking _hard_. They've been abandoned, they know it, and they don't know what to do. So they voted Trump because, hey, what have they got to lose, right? Sure, he's already pushing the bad stuff of the TPP into other bills, but again, they've got nothing to lose. What is it people say about people with nothing to lose? Oh, right, they think clearly and rationally and make sound decisions. I think that was it.

    And yes, I know I'm feeding trolls, but fact is lots of folks think like you. They need to stop that. You need to stop that. It's what got us in this mess in the first place.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  75. I bet you... by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 1

    I could get more than 15k random signatures on a statement saying that AGW is horseshit.

    That's pretty much the corollary to what these folks did.

    In both cases people would rightly ask, "so what?"

  76. Conflicting goals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Population growth slows as a society's wealth increases. Many western societies have slowing population growth.

    Increasing the wealth of developing nations usually requires industrialization - and that typically increases greenhouse gas emissions.

    If you want to slow population growth - you need to industrialize emerging nations - and I'm not sure renewables are up to the short term task.

  77. Unlike A Virus by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    We know we are harming our Host and how, and we are really trying to help Her recover. I would like it if one day we could have more of a symbiotic relationship. Where we can help as well. Some of those "Green Cities" being built is really a Flower in the Hair of Mother Earth. :)

    --
    [($)]
    1. Re:Unlike A Virus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get with the times and update your post with gender neutral pronouns.

  78. How about "self-centered twit" instead? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Which is too damn many people. Of course now someone will scream "racism" just because its mentioned.

    It takes 30 people in developing countries to consume the same amount of resources as you do, BigChigger.

    The problem isn't their overpopulation. It's your overconsumption.

    1. Re:How about "self-centered twit" instead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The problem isn't their overpopulation. It's your overconsumption.

      Says the guy who is literally using more resources than 98% of the rest of the planet just by having access to the internet and using it.

      Not saying everybody can't use fewer resources, etc., but your post there feels a bit too moral-high-ground-preachy to me.

      Ferret

    2. Re:How about "self-centered twit" instead? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Says the guy who is literally using more resources than 98% of the rest of the planet just by having access to the internet and using it.

      This cartoon neatly address that particular line of "reasoning".

      http://ficko-magazin.de/wp-con...

  79. Africans aren't the problem. You are. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    It takes 30 of them to consume the same amount of resources that you do.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01...

  80. Banning lead paint & asbestos was "political" by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    This is what causes science denial.

    You mean it's your excuse of the moment. If it wasn't this, it would be something else - that's how denialism works.

  81. Too late by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    It's too late. The evolutionary experiment with intelligence is coming to an end. So be it.

  82. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    Religion is based on the rejection of reason. At best, anything good that comes from religion alone is blind chance.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  83. Re:access to education and voluntary family planni by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 1

    It doesn't take a radical fucking conservative to look out the window and see that depopulation has already hit white countries, hard.

    Well, the country I live in is only white in small parts, and mostly in wintertime. I'll give you Greenland, but what other countries are predominantly white?

    --

    Stephan

  84. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by blindseer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Once you explain that theory then try a stab at explaining this. I saw a YouTube video of a young woman that claims she's a gay man. So she's a woman that cuts her hair short and wears baggy clothes, likes to fuck dudes, and demands to want to use the men's restroom to pee. Preventing this women from using the men's room so she can try to get a peek at some guy's dick is now some outrage. If that's what we should be outraged about then I'm thinking we're doing pretty good.

    We've been so well fed, clothed, and healthy now that the outrage is not that this lady has to shit in the street, it's that she has to shit in the women's restroom. We've run out of things to be outraged about that we have to go to new extremes to invent them.

    Am I saying that global warming is an invented problem? I'm saying that thought has crossed my mind. It's real easy to get a bunch of signatures that something must be done. It's real hard to actually do something about it. When these people start doing something about global warming instead of just get more signatures then I'd find the problem more convincing.

    Do we really need more convincing of the problem? I think we got it already. This outrage has got so bad now I'm wondering if they "protest too much".

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  85. Population growth wouldn't be a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it wasn't for SJWs importing people from third world countries.
    Most of the civilized world already has negative population growth.
    Somehow politicians keep saying that's bad though, because it means they can't keep up their social security ponzi scheme.

  86. 15000 scientists demand a nuclear winter? by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

    more interesting would be how many supposed scientists were actually putinbots selling penis enlargement equipement. man made global warming is soooo much nicer than the man made nuclear winters from the last few times humanity worked out the atom, I never understood what all the fuss is about.

  87. More than 15,000 scientists ... by eminencja · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The bigger the number the more true the reasoning...
    In the old days we would have need only _one_ scientist, one with a sound argument. There was one Pitagoras, one Tales, one Copernicus, one Einstein.
    15ooo scientists - this is a disgrace.

    1. Re:More than 15,000 scientists ... by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      There was one Pitagoras

      Pythagoras perhaps?

      --
      We'll make great pets
    2. Re:More than 15,000 scientists ... by eminencja · · Score: 1

      Not if you live in the hispanic world...

    3. Re:More than 15,000 scientists ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > > There was one Pitagoras
      > Pythagoras perhaps?

      Yeah, but "Pitagoras" clearly sounds niftier....

      Ferret

  88. Re:access to education and voluntary family planni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eastern European excluding Russia. Had no colonies, haven't exploited other races, emigrated in throngs to USA to avoid war, famine and oppression of old European empires, never were rich in hundreds of years of existence, dying out from depopulation right now, forced to accept other poor bastards from Middle East and Central Asia, which will never assimilate into their culture.

  89. The overpopulation myth? by Togden · · Score: 1

    As I understand it, in almost all western countries, post industrialization, population grows at diminishing rates until it falls. While China and India are behind Europe and North America, they are predicted to follow the same trend, and ultimately stabilize global population. I couldn't find a text article about this, but I see it on this youtube video. Kurzgesagt - Overpopulation

  90. The free lunch is almost eaten up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unfortunately, a statement gets accepted as true only by deconstructing it to a set of claims both parties agreed are true, and they may just never agree all of them are true, especially if one party wants to keep certain other equivalent claim firmly false. Deniers don't give a shit about if global warming is true or mankind-induced, they just don't want to change certain behaviour they are very attached to. It was never an honest argument, it was never supposed to be able to end in either of two outcomes. For deniers it is just a litigation, and defence will without any reasonable doubt show that defendant never borrowed the Ming vase from the plaintiff, he returned the vase in perfect condition and the vase already had the crack on it when defendant borrowed it.

    But it is very simple really. At one point those who can do something but won't will find out that solving their own part of problem on their own is no longer within their reach, and then they will scream bloody murder and demand that society as whole do something to save their property and their well-being. So, they will come around, eventually.

    There is a large social stratum of well-off people who will lose their comfortable position when world as whole becomes poorer due to accumulated damage and they will sink down among the poor. It will sort-of take care of their reckless consumption. Every dynamic system, even non-linear ones, eventually reach some area of relative long-term stability. Middle class is the scourge of the world - the world never could sustain too many rich wannabes pretending they all are entitled to life of nobility, and yet it became a profitable business in previous decades to provide lifestyle of elites to ever deeper top layer of the poor. It all floated on an environmental denialism bubble. Ravaged environment will correct all that. We have seen the rise of unanticipated new professions, and future will see disappearance of many of them, for being non-essential and not viable any more.

  91. Population? Watch Hans Rosling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is certainly not something to be overly upbeat on, but as (the much-missed) Hans Rosling repeatedly pointed out at TED and similar (in his inimitable, elegant and very understandable style), WHO statistics say that we're actually already broadly on track to stabilize population. The biggest reason it's still rising, according to him, is not rising birth rates - birth rates are apparently comparatively stable - but rising average lifespan. And that's an effect that will diminish over time. (Basically, it used to be that the vast percentage of the population was young; nowadays just as many are young, but increasingly they get to be old too. And the more they stick around while the next generations grow up, the bigger the population gets. But once almost everyone is living to a ripe old age - that's it. No more growth that way.) His estimate, in one lecture at least, was a stable population at about 11-12 billion on current trends. And, perversely, he also pointed out that the best way to keep the overall stable population low, was to improve the living standards of people in less-developed countries.

    Whether or not 11-12 billion is sustainable is a different discussion.

  92. It's going to be okay! by zifn4b · · Score: 1

    Earth is going to survive. Once all the humans are dead, everything will gradually return to normal. Humans are arrogant to think they can kill the planet. They can kill themselves and perhaps all life on it but they can't kill the planet.

    --
    We'll make great pets
    1. Re:It's going to be okay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Everything" will not include the extinct species who fell with us.

    2. Re:It's going to be okay! by tbannist · · Score: 1

      Earth is going to survive. Once all the humans are dead, everything will gradually return to normal. Humans are arrogant to think they can kill the planet. They can kill themselves and perhaps all life on it but they can't kill the planet.

      I'm sure that we could if we really wanted to. Of course, how hard we have to work the kill the planet depends on what you mean by killing it. Killing off all life on the planet? Not too hard, actually. All we need to do is trigger a run-away greenhouse effect that turns the planet into a new Venus. Some people are worried that we're already on the path to doing that. Of course, if you mean destroying the planet by reducing it to an asteroid field (like say the Death Star did) that's quite a bit more challenging. I'm still sure we could do it, but we'd have to do it deliberately and methodically. Maybe weakening the mantle strategically and then using a gigatonnes of nuclear explosions to rip the Earth's core open? I'm not sure that's the best approach but I'm sure it could be done.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    3. Re:It's going to be okay! by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      "Everything" will not include the extinct species who fell with us.

      It also doesn't include the rock beneath our feet.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    4. Re:It's going to be okay! by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      I'm sure that we could if we really wanted to. Of course, how hard we have to work the kill the planet depends on what you mean by killing it. Killing off all life on the planet? Not too hard, actually. All we need to do is trigger a run-away greenhouse effect that turns the planet into a new Venus. Some people are worried that we're already on the path to doing that. Of course, if you mean destroying the planet by reducing it to an asteroid field (like say the Death Star did) that's quite a bit more challenging. I'm still sure we could do it, but we'd have to do it deliberately and methodically. Maybe weakening the mantle strategically and then using a gigatonnes of nuclear explosions to rip the Earth's core open? I'm not sure that's the best approach but I'm sure it could be done.

      Very good. I believe none of the things you mentioned are logically equivalent to what is being referred to as "killing the planet" by climate change alarmists. That's precisely the point.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  93. Quick search if the signatories is interesting by cbeaudry · · Score: 1

    http://scientistswarning.fores... 1345 students (more because of language/spelling) 33 Veterinarians 96 Anthropologist Not to mention the many names with no qualifications mentioned at all. And this is after 5 mins skimming the surface of the list. This list is a joke.

  94. Re:And the solution is? No? How about the problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We all know the problem is people. I leave the solution to you. Captcha was overdose. (theres one)

  95. Nonsensical by david.g.holt · · Score: 0

    100% of all the worlds problems start and end with homo sapiens. In order to appease everyone this species must be removed.

  96. B.S. report 332 by david.g.holt · · Score: 0

    15,003 scientists says "Chicken Little" so majority rules. Right? Scientifically, right? isn't that how science works?

  97. EPA Evidence the United States is not the problem by zifn4b · · Score: 1

    https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio...

    Our carbon dioxide emissions have been declining since 2005 and continue to do so. Direct your bitching to the rest of the world.

    --
    We'll make great pets
  98. Re:EPA Evidence the United States is not the probl by zifn4b · · Score: 1

    More information, China has double our emissions:

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

    Chinese emissions are going up, United States emissions are going down:

    https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio...

    Send this petition to the Chinese folks.

    --
    We'll make great pets
  99. Re: access to education and voluntary family plann by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you're doing better than Africans and not part of the 1% you should feel guilt.

  100. Mandate [Re: So... what can the average prole do?] by XXongo · · Score: 1

    Uh, just to point out the obvious, a simpler and cheaper solution would be just to make sure that birth control is available to those who want it.

    A better solution would be to mandate birth control for those that can't afford it.

    If by "mandate" you mean "force birth control on people whether they want it or not"-- no.

    If by "mandate" you mean "mandate that birth control be available for everybody who can't afford it," -- yes, that would be a good idea.

  101. Ahh yes, Water by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's been brewing for years, the fresh water crisis.

    Wonder who's been investing and changing laws so you can't, for example, capture your own rainwater and use it (California?)

    Good to know the charade from global warming is over.

  102. God blessed them and said. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Be fruitful and multiply". I live by this motto every day. I have a very large family and it's a blessing to have so many brothers and sisters and sons and daughters.

  103. Population control by Computershack · · Score: 1

    Its already happening in the first world. In most of the richest nations there is a declining birthrate with governments worried about the financial consequences that brings. It is places like the Third World where they're still pumping them out at a ridiculous rate where the issue lies.

    --
    I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
  104. Warming [Re: And a million smarmy /.ers] by XXongo · · Score: 2
  105. Climate models work remarkably well by XXongo · · Score: 2

    Except that the climate models have, overall, worked remarkably well.

    Here is the first and best-referenced of the global climate models, dated from 1967, and a comparison of the model against the data for the following fifty years: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly-3c0854932a4a.

    The model fit the data remarkably well over a time span of fifty years.

  106. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Vogue is not a scientific journal peer-reviewed by scientists, so it's not a scientific theory,
    and they misuse the word "theory" in general, because the word theory refers to philosophically a
    contemplative or speculative rationally justifiable understanding ("hypothesis") regarding natural things.

    To be scientific; there must be specific predictions arising from the theory that can be proven false in order to invalidate the theory.
    To be rational, evidence from a logical proof or induction is required, not merely a subjective assertion or belief.

    Merely THINKING you are a Guy or a Gal does not make you one, much the same way as THINKING you are
    Aristotle or an Elephant doesn't make you one --- you must show something tangible for a theory such as "more than two biological sexes".

  107. Someone Has Guts by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    Rarely do we see anything that hints at the root cause. Finally someone dares mention the cause. Pollution, by definition is a consequence of human activity as is the destruction of nature. We have already passed the load limit for humans on this planet. Only by establishing a much lower population rate can we hope to preserve anything at all. That is going to mean some very strict and highly enforced laws do we have any hope at all. The US, for example might choose a number of 60,000,000 as our population target. Strict birth controls must be applied. We may also need to issue reproduction permits based upon academic as well as physical attributes of potential parents. Obviously some emotional pain and changes in what is seen as moral or good behavior must be tolerated. Considering that the alternative is death and desolation mandatory birth control becomes a highly moral alternative. People who think that simply evermore science and technology can keep society rolling along are worshiping a false God.

  108. Roots [Re:Obviously, back when it was only...] by XXongo · · Score: 1

    If it sounds like turtles all the way down it is: just try to trace the claim of "97% scientists agree" to its roots in reality

    OK, I traced it. The 97% figure came from the several references: J. Cook, et al., "Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming," Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 11, No. 4, 13 April 2016. DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

    It states: "The number of papers rejecting AGW [Anthropogenic, or human-caused, Global Warming] is a miniscule proportion of the published research, with the percentage slightly decreasing over time. Among papers expressing a position on AGW, an overwhelming percentage (97.2% based on self-ratings, 97.1% based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on AGW.”

    Another reference is J. Carlton et al., "The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists," Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 10, No. 94, 24 September 2015. Their results show a 96.7% agreement on anthropogenic contribution to rising temperatures among the group who indicated that 'The majority of my research concerns climate change or the impacts of climate change.'" (The agreement was "only" 91.9% when the group was expanded to all scientists and not just climate scientists.)

    A slightly later paper by Cook et al. included a table summarizing fourteen other surveys of scientists, is here: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

    And a nice site summarizing what scientific societies say is here: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

    and you'll see it's based on a long chain of implicit trust based on implicit credibility. (Who did they poll? What was the poll? Did scientist accurately report their convictions? Who reported the news? etc. etc.)

    Questions which are all answered.... if you had done the work that you suggested: "trace the claim to its roots."

    That doesn't mean our scientific knowledge is not useful -- on the contrary, whether it is useful is the (only) criteria to go by. But it means it is acquired statistically, as if humanity were one giant neural network. If you need a confirmation, here's a quote (supposedly) from Max Planck who (we believe) had enough experience to see the pattern: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

    The greenhouse effect isn't a "new scientific truth". It's been known and pretty well understood for well over a hundred years. It is the tool we use to understand planetary temperatures.

    1. Re:Roots [Re:Obviously, back when it was only...] by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      This is good work, and I will take a look at this in detail. Without going outside of your post let me point out some of the turtles:

      - The number of papers expressing support for AGW is 97%, but that is not necessarily the same as the number of actual scientists. Pro-AGW scientists may be more prolific.
      - More importantly, whether each of these papers is pro-AGW, strongly pro-AGW, neutral, or against, is the researcher's judgement call. Sometimes/often papers tend to be reserved in making forceful conclusions unless the climate is favorable for it. Can you verify each one of the aggregate researcher's judgement calls? If you do, how can the rest of us be sure that your judgement calls are valid?
      - The research including a survey still suffers from all the problems that plague research with surveys.

      I am not saying that the AGW claim is necessarily false, I am not even saying that the 97% claim is necessarily false, all I'm doing is pointing out to the chain of uncertainties to show that we acquire knowledge statistically and not by being enlightened.

      What is the utility of my claim then? It is to say that we would do well to not take at face value those scientific claims that do not seem to be backed by significant statistical processes, for the lack of a better word, and to not be swayed by the apparent simplicity of their models. Quantum physics is blessed with easy repeatability (which is why it's so successful), others are not so lucky. (Even if it has an ugly model.) I am not saying we should ignore those claims, but rather use them as a hint to do more repetitions until we establish those claims as likely true or likely not.

  109. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If that's what we should be outraged about then I'm thinking we're doing pretty good.

    I do have to agree, we are now talking about micro-aggression and stuff like that. I have to say that if you need to put the prefix micro- in front of the thing you are upset about, then things must be getting pretty ok.

    Not perfect, but ok.
    https://xkcd.com/470/

  110. Re: Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scienti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What would be the point? Then you'd just claim that all or most of the people who didn't sign on to the warning don't agree with it. And besides, your premise is false. If I say "30 people came to my party" there doesn't have to be a denominator to determine that it's still a well attended party.

  111. Effective population control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is one and only one tool to reduce population growth that actualyl works: Female empowerment. When women study, have careers and decide themselves about their bodies and reproductive decisions.

    So hopp hopp all you malthusians out there, become hardcore feminsits. It's the only way to safe the world.

    Or wait, are you actually not interested in saving the world but tribalist ethno-facists who want more babies with your skin color and less imigrants in your part of the world?

    1. Re: Effective population control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Empowering an Amazon women society is not the answer.

  112. Pi [Re:Obviously, back when it was...] by XXongo · · Score: 1

    Strange thing is that I've never seen a letter of 20,000 mathematicians stating that the value of pi isn't 3,

    There isn't a relentless and well-funded campaign to assert that mathematicians are liars who are perpetrating a hoax about the value of pi, nor a publicity campaign by the fossil-fuel companies to convince the public that there is no consensus about the value of pi because a trillion-dollar industry might make less profit if people knew that the value of pi was well known.

    1. Re:Pi [Re:Obviously, back when it was...] by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Ah, those fossil fuel bastards again.
      Don't worry about them.
      Soon there'll be no more fossil fuel and everybody will drive electric cars and 'fuel' their homes with solar and wind energy.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  113. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    [citation needed]

  114. Alien invasion [Re:15000 Scientists] by XXongo · · Score: 1

    Among those included in this list of Climate Scientists:

    A small correction: the people asked to sign were to be "scientists from any scientific discipline", not specifically climate scientists.

    Davis, Joanne - Australian Daweti, Nokuthula - Student de Clercq, Deon - Earthling Hamilton, Ava - independent documentary producer/citizen scientist Jara, Andrea - Colombian Thapa, Lal - Asst. Professor of Alien Invasion
    ...

    ON that last one: you conveniently left out most of the reference in order to highlight the phrase "alien invasion." Looking at the list, the full information following the name is:
    Thapa, Lal Asst. Professor, Plant Ecology, Microbial Interaction, Climate Change, Alien Invasion Central Department of Botany, Tribhuvan University Nepal.

    In the context of plant ecology, the phrase "invasion" means "invasion of a alien (that is, non-native) plant species into an ecology."

    I think I'll give a person whose native language is Nepali the benefit of the doubt in not necessarily realizing that "alien invasion" might mean something different to slashdot readers than to plant ecologists.

  115. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by tbannist · · Score: 1

    I choose to believe that science is not a democracy.

    The scientific method is not democratic, but perhaps unfortunately, the acknowledgement and cataloguing of scientific knowledge appears to be. I suppose that's why replication is important. Scientific experiments and even the scientific method are fallible. People can draw the wrong conclusions from experiments. They can design experiments that don't work well, and they can get fluke results. So we need to be able to verify what facts are true, and refine the models that we use to explain the facts in the face of new evidence. However, that's a process that is inherently democratic as it deals with our shared understanding of the universe and the way it works. Of course, it's also a meritocracy, as well, since while everyone could vote on whether a scientific fact is true (and often do, see anti-vaxxers and climate change denial, for example), the scientific community respects the carefully reasoned and explained presentation of facts by experts who have a publication record. And when multiple respected experts agree that a particular fact is true, it becomes accepted as part of the body of knowledge of science. Of course, it is always important to remember that those accepted truth are not sacrosanct. They are not the anointed words of holy men. They can and will be challenged, and occasionally those challenges will overturn an old model or improve upon it. But it is human nature to resist change, so those attempts may be met with undue scepticism, but the application of the scientific method should ultimately reveal the truth.

    --
    Fanatically anti-fanatical
  116. Re:access to education and voluntary family planni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    False. If they were really conservative they wouldn't want ANY abortion. It is only the liberals that support abortion of any kind. You just wanted to rail on conservatives though, so I'm sure you already knew that.

  117. Re:access to education and voluntary family planni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're already killing our babies at astronomical rates, how about point the culture-destruction cannon at someone else for a change?

    We are not killing babies, you fucking zealot.

  118. Re:access to education and voluntary family planni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not one word was written about aborting babies. What was probably implied was family planning and , yes, that probably means 1 child. Moroon....(spelled on purpose because it fits )

  119. Fair enough by Loyd_G · · Score: 1

    ...as long as the scientists signing also acknowledge that the 1992 predictions and forecasts as to the impact of global warming (it's name at the time) by 2017 were, how shall we say, WILDLY erroneous. Or maybe I am writing this in an underwater home in a world with no polar ice caps and just don't realize it.

  120. Yah Right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And they all flue an airplane.
    Then they said, "Give us more money so we can study it.".

  121. the more things change ... by epine · · Score: 1

    A friend of mine dragged me to an evangelical church service back when I was an undergraduate in the early 1980s. This was back when televangelism was relatively rare, but this church—in Toronto—had cameras, and consequently often featured A-list itinerant men of the cloth (they were almost all men). One name I now recall was Hal Lindsay.

    Whoever it was, the argument went like this: the plot of the number of diseases known to medicine was shaped like a hockey stick, with the heal of the hockey stick representing God getting extra super pissed off (almost certainly the usual homosexual suspects, et. al.) and come to Jesus quickly now, while there's still time. So why are the diagnostic manuals now thick enough to erect a stairway to heaven? Is it because anal intercourse kicked evolution into overdrive? As if crusty peckers haven't been a breeding ground for hundreds of millions of years already? Or is it because we invented the gas chromatograph, the electron microscope, the CAT scan, the MRI, genetic sequencing, and principle component analysis?

    No surprise, the climate debate has likewise experienced narrative thickening over the last two decades.

    Total annual births were highest in the late 1980s at about 139 million, and are now expected to remain essentially constant at their 2011 level of 135 million, while deaths number 56 million per year and are expected to increase to 80 million per year by 2040.

    Note that this is an absolute peak in the early 1980s. We're not even talking a mere relative peak. The earth is still reeling from this major shock to biomass distribution. Seven billion gangling apex predators all crowded together on slender seashores is a whole new ball of wax. Of course, one finds the evidence of this everywhere. Earth has had almost no time to adjust yet. And then we go around using pristine baselines, or prior composition, against which to measure decline.

    Even if the earth isn't going to hell in a handbasket—either due to crusty peckers or crusty pecker aftermath—humanity's adolescent population spurt was really going to trash the joint for a couple of generations, any way you slice it. Seriously, if you extrapolate manhood from the age of 16 to 21, the only possible response is to televise REPENT NOW. Around age 21, men stop growing and start thinking (a slow process, with little to show for it in most cases until the late 20s).

    Now we have 15,000 signatures that Animal House is an ecological eyesore. I really don't know what to make of this. It was plainly apparent back in the early 1970s that whatever came next was not going to be pretty, even if you regarded The Late, Great Planet Earth as being full of shit, and The Population Bomb as an alarmist wheeze.

    Charles Rubin has written that it was precisely because Ehrlich was largely unoriginal and wrote in a clear emotionally gripping style that it became so popular. He quotes a review from Natural History noting that Ehrlich does not try to "convince intellectually by mind dulling statistics," but rather roars "like an Old Testament Prophet."

    Gardner says, "as much as the events and culture of the era, Paul Ehrlich's style explain the enormous audience he attracted." Indeed, an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson helped to propel the success of the book, as well as Ehrlich's celebrity.

    Desrochers and Hoffbauer go on to conclude that it seems hard to deny that using an alarmist tone and emotional appeal were the main lessons that the present generation of environmentalists learned from Ehrlich's success.

    The problems certainly demand attention, and more attention is probably better than less attention (we're still such a shallow, squirrel-obsessed species) and you can certain

  122. Re:access to education and voluntary family planni by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    Not one word was written about aborting babies. What was probably implied was family planning and , yes, that probably means 1 child. Moroon....(spelled on purpose because it fits )

    I'm not sure to whom you are addressing your comment. The Anonymous Coward post that my reply was addressing stated:

    We can just "empower girls and women" in THOSE cultures to abort their babies.

    That explicitly does include a word about "aborting babies". So, I assume your comment was addressed to AC?

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  123. Population decline is NOT the answer! by jediborg · · Score: 0

    Lets consider the things we may need to actually tackle this problem. We need humans to improve and build more solar cells. We need more researchers and engineers to design fusion reactors that are reliable and safe. We need construction workers to build the fusion reactors. We may need to start mining asteroids for materials instead of mining the earth, that will take humans to design and build rockets, humans to mine the asteroids, and humans to build the mining machines that we use. Humans are a valuable resource, economists call it the 'labor force' more humans means more inventions, more discoveries, and more laborers to turn those inventions into products and discoveries into opportunities.

    By taking measures to reduce the population we may actually reduce the technological advancement of the human race. That might prevent us from solving this crisis we face. The population exploded in the last 100 years because we developed new farming, distribution, and construction methods that allows us to support more humans with even less resources. I expect this trend to only continue. Just like the people of 1800's new york couldn't fathom a city with a population greater than 1 million, because they wouldn't have enough horses for all those peple and the pollution caused by the horses would be insurmountable, so to do we look at our current predicament and assume that population increases on this planet will ruin everything. The people in 1800's new york couldn't fathom the automobile that would enable a greater population, so too we cannot fathom or predict the tech advances that will sustain even more humans on this planet without destroying the environment

  124. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Loyd_G · · Score: 1

    Actually, Ayn Rand hated EVERYTHING that wasn't Ayn Rand (and I am not even sure that she didn't actually hate herself too). That said, she did paint a pretty accurate indictment of coerced collectivism. But her proposed cure was quite flaky.

  125. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is so much conflicting information about Rand. But like the old Internet wisdom says, when in doubt, go read the fucking publications. I better do just that.

  126. Challenged [Re:Roots [Re:Obviously, back when...]] by XXongo · · Score: 1
    Too often, however, the net result seems to be supporting a position of "we would do well to not take at face value those scientific results which threaten the profit of oil companies, or other billion dollar industries."

    ...
    I am not saying we should ignore those claims, but rather use them as a hint to do more repetitions until we establish those claims as likely true or likely not.

    Good God, how many repetitions do we have to do? We've done hundreds. Do you want thousands? Millions?

    Literally hundreds of institutions on five continents are and have been repeating the work and running the models; the source codes for all the analysis tools are open-source and available to anybody; tens of terabytes of data is acquired every year (you do know that climate science is supported by data, right?; thousands of pages of documentation are available explaining exactly what and how the work was done; and they all agree on the overall consensus.

    Let me suggest the opposite: the understanding of anthropogenic global warming is, at this point, the most well validated scientific theory in the history of science . Scientific theories are validated when they are challenged and meet the challenge, and no theory has ever been challenged as long or as relentlessly as anthropogenic global warming.

    If there is any theory anywhere which has been challenged, and challenged, and challenged-- this is it.

  127. Atomatic Fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need do nothing, extreme population control is coming. Read about the Georgia Guidestones; I have seen & touched them. Even if the UN fails to kill populations down to only 500 million people on the earth, another simple solution is already working.
    Progressive governments are importing Muslims. Muslims out breed civilized people and kill people plus they kill Muslims. After over 1000 years of killing, it is not reasonable to think they will not reduce populations of EU, USA & India.
    Only China controls spread of Koran & so limits killing.

  128. Re:Challenged [Re:Roots [Re:Obviously, back when.. by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

    I think that's an overstatement, surely you'd agree that the Newtonian physics is the most well validated theory in the history of science -- it got the most mileage.

    But that aside, and I don't doubt the huge amount of work involved, this is an opportunity to educate a layman: can you tell me what testable predictions does the theory make? Are any of those predictions (experiments really) simple enough for a lay person to follow?

  129. Re:Challenged [Re:Roots [Re:Obviously, back when.. by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

    I did a search regarding testability and found this from pro-AGW people who acknowledge that the theory is too complex and it cannot be falsified as a whole, only its individual components can. https://skepticalscience.com/a... (Pasting the best part below.)

    This is fair, but I think it also shows that it is a natural block from people accepting it in order to make radically different decisions in life -- eat vegan, have fewer children -- based on such theory. Unless climate science can demonstrate almost prophetic powers like physics can, it will remain a partisan issue.

    Post from the link:

    falsifiability is a strange concept of limited use in science, despite its popularity. The reason is that when we test any hypothesis, we must make background assumptions both about other conditions, and about how our instruments work. These background assumptions then form auxilliary hypotheses which are tested alongside the hypothesis we actually desire to test. As a consequence, if our test gives a negative result, we do not falsify any individual hypothesis (including the one we wanted to test). Rather we falsify the conjunction of the hypotheses. We show that not all of them can be true together. This is known as the Duhem-Quine Thesis, after its two independent "discoverers".

    To illustrate this, consider Dikran Marsupial's test of "global climate change theories" from 2 above. He claims that a centenial negative trend in temperatures would falsify the theory. Of course, if that centenial trend coincided with a 50% reduction of solar physics, the theory would not be falsified. Dikran is quite aware of this, and covered himself with the auxilliary clause that the trend occured "in the absence of any other change in the forcings that could explain it".

    In very simple theories, we can radically reduce the number of auxilliary hypotheses making the particular hypothesis of interest more amenable to falsification in a "crucial test". We can also vary our experimental methods so that we are testing the theory with different auxilliary hypotheses. Thus, for very simple hypotheses, we can reduce the impact of the Duhem-Quine Thesis, but we can never entirely avoid it.

    Because AGW is a complex theory with many auxilliary hypotheses, it is difficult to develop "crucial tests", ie, any individual test that will show it to be false. In fact, in the very short term it is impossible. What we can do is develop "crucial tests" for important elements of the theory, but not for the whole theory at once. We can also measure relative likilihood with respect to competing theories. Doing so, we can show that AGW easilly is a superior theory to its competitors. But we cannot pick a single experiment to falsify the theory, so you will not find much discussion of falsification with respect to AGW.

    When you do, it is often for critics of AGW who take a farcically simplistic view of falsification to declare that "AGW is falsified". Spencer and Christy played this game for a while, declaring the UAH satellite temperature index falsified AGW. Then (on several occasions) they were embarrassed when it was shown that their auxilliary hypothesis that they had eliminated all significant errors from their temperature record was what was false, and that UAH tends to confirm rather than falsify AGW.

    Lucia Liljegren has played a similar game, several times declaring that the recent temperature record falsifies IPCC predictions. She has neglected, however, the IPCC auxilliary hypothesis of neutral ENSO conditions*. She has merely falsified the conjunction of hypotheses that (CO2 forcing is increasing & climate sensitivity is in the IPCC range & ENSO fluctuations do not effect global temperatures & ....). As her third, tacit, auxilliary hypothesis is known to be false, her results are massively uninteresting. (She also uses a very simplistic definition of falsification in which events with a 1in 20 probabi

  130. Re:Challenged [Re:Roots [Re:Obviously, back when.. by XXongo · · Score: 1
    To a large extent, global circulation models predict the boring stuff that most people don't even think about-- the diurnal temperature variation, for example (which is highly affected by the greenhouse effect-- much more than the average temperature), and the variation of temperature with altitude and with latitude-- the models are constantly compared to the radiosonde data. The models are actually global circulation models, and the main thing that they work at predicting is the atmospheric circulation-- where does the air move, and how much? This is basically what drives weather. Cloudiness and the cloud altitudes are another thing that GCMs predict. Basically, all of these are predictions that are compared to data to verify the model.

    If I were looking for predictions that lay persons could compare to data, I'd go for measuring the upwelling and downwelling infrared flux from balloon experiments-- these days lots of students do high altitude balloons, and that would be a cool measurement to do.

  131. Re:Challenged [Re:Roots [Re:Obviously, back when.. by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

    I'll remember that thank you. I'm assuming from your references you may be a climate researcher yourself. FWIW I should let you know that my beef is not with your profession. I trust you do your work honestly and competently and as best you can. My distrust is with the people who are *not* climate researchers but who use a set of talking points about climate to either, as I see it, profit or get fame from it (Al Gore comes to mind), or to label their (usually conservative) opponents as dumb anti-science people, or merely to virtue signal, without doing anything whatsoever for the cause they profess to care. Whereas I for example drive very little, fly very little, and eat mostly vegetarian. I am convinced their smug scientism hurts your work more than it helps.

    If I were a climate researcher I'd hang in there, history is full of people doing work that wasn't always appreciated but they knew it was the right thing to do it anyway, and maybe I'd try to find a way to make it all closer to the mind and heart of the common man.

  132. Run-of-the-Mill Moral Panic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I do not own a car. I do not fly. My carbon footprint is in the lowest 1%. Nobody cares. Do they ever thank me? You know they donâ(TM)t. They only criticize me for not talking the talk. In 2017, you can pollute all you want, but as long as you say the right words, you are a-ok with âoeprogressivesâ. Itâ(TM)s not about the climate. Never has been, never will be. Here in Seattle, traffic is up, Sea-Tac airport just set another passenger record, and the City Council banned plastic straws. The other day, I got lectured by a woman in the grocery store line because I had the audacity to request a bag. I was walking and the stop was unplanned, yet I get the eco finger wag. I cut through the parking lot afterward, and eco woman almost hit me with her SUV. Self-described âoeprogressivesâ take more flights each year, and fly more miles each year than do âoeconservativesâ. Like most moral panic, the concern is fake, and quite demonstrably so. Itâ(TM)s gotten far past the point of absurdity.

  133. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about learning about science instead of just spouting ignorant cynicism?

  134. Re:Challenged [Re:Roots [Re:Obviously, back when.. by XXongo · · Score: 1

    I'll remember that thank you. I'm assuming from your references you may be a climate researcher yourself.

    A reasonable assumption, but not quite-- I'm in the next field over, so I work with the atmospheric optical models, but not climate. I do know some of the climate guys (mostly the ones doing atmospheric transmission and scattering, not the ones you would have ever heard of) and occasionally even work with them (but not on the Earth's atmosphere).

    FWIW I should let you know that my beef is not with your profession. I trust you do your work honestly and competently and as best you can. My distrust is with the people who are *not* climate researchers but who use a set of talking points about climate to either, as I see it, profit or get fame from it (Al Gore comes to mind), or to label their (usually conservative) opponents as dumb anti-science people, or merely to virtue signal, without doing anything whatsoever for the cause they profess to care.

    Thanks. I'll accept your compliments on behalf of my colleagues next door.

  135. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Do you agree that women's minds and men's minds are alike, that there are no significant systemic differences? No? In that case, why would it be a stretch of imagination to think that, in rare cases, male minds can be born in female bodies or vice versa?

    Two biological sexes would mean classifying everyone as biologically male or biologically female. That mostly works, but reality is more complicated. People are born with genotypes other than XX and XY, and sometimes with two sets of sex organs.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  136. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If there are no differences, then how can there be such a thing as a "male mind" or a "female mind"?

  137. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Save yourself some time. Skip Atlas Shrugged and go read The Little Red Hen

  138. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    I've found that, typically, people who claim there are differences and that they explain modern behavior have at least the same politics as those who deny that transsexuals can exist. Clearly there are differences, or there wouldn't be transsexuals, but there's a lot of other crap going on that obscures what would happen with ideal behavior.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  139. Re:Bunch of Damn Snowflakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a born atheist, I can tell you that you have utterly failed to understand religion. Its like you are stuck in the Bill Maher reductive to the point of eliminating all meaning level of analysis. That in itself is a rejection of reason. Don't let yourself be the ignorant monster you think you are fighting.

  140. i always liked yang , zakharov or deirdre much bet by KingBenny · · Score: 1

    ter https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill. CEO Nwabudike Morgan "The Ethics of Greed"

    --
    Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  141. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or, quite possibly, there are just 'minds.'

    Minds are tied to the brain (if not directly created by it) so the mind is clearly influenced by the body.

    Everyone has to discover for themselves who they are, and if that means finding a role that fits inside what society deems gender roles to be, then great. If they find themselves outside those roles, they have to make a place for themselves.

    I'm of the opinion that there's room for all kinds of people in the world, and they all have a right to be in it whether they are accepted or not, but there are innumerable reasons (many not related to gender) that society will reject you and you just have to cope with that. Being on the fringe doesn't mean you get to demand that society change to suit your image of yourself.

  142. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    But why shouldn't we accept people who fit into society and aren't threats? What harm does it do?

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  143. Re:Obviously, back when it was only 1,500 scientis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We should. Unfortunately that is only the ideal, not the current reality. But I'm not prepared to tell the world it has to change because I'm unhappy with it; that's the SJW's approach and it not only doesn't work, it makes everyone unhappier.