Theory of gravity describes a phenominon that we all experience. Theory of CO2 induced global warming describes a phenominon that is conspicuously absent.
The laser has an advantage in shooting down missles over 'inherently practical' weapons systems. The laser beam moves at the speed of light, which greatly simplifies targeting of a moving target.
I live in Baltimore and WOrk in northern Virginia, and the only place I can't get service is in the parking garage at my office. They're better than AT&T for everywhere but the parking garage. I haven't had much experience with the cust service, though.
The northern alliance seems quite willing to assume what we regard as their right to lead Afghanistan, and I don't imagine that it could be worse than the Taliban.
It's amazing to me how so many people around here don't regard this thing we have as worth defending.
Your suggestion for dealing with bin Laden, et al?
You should add that some Greeks tried to show that the earth moved around the sun, but since they couldn't detect parallax (sp) motion in the stars, they rejected that theory.
ANyhow, Our country does not have the guts to let farms fail as they should. More efficient farming has allowed for other industries to grow and become dominant in our economy. If those subsidies were so damaging, why does our economy continue to grow?
Next:
Organic farming is the single most profitable agricultural field today. It does not rely at all on subsidies (most subsidies are given to the argicultural megacorps -- independent farmers can't keep up with the govt hoops to jump through and paperwork). Of course, its so profitable because it is the "alternative", so they charge a premium -- if everyone used normal methods it would likely be no more or less profitable than modern/chemical farming.
Two words: conspicuous consumption.
Next:
On the general safety of Organic vs. high yeild farming: Prove it.
On the specific point about agent orange, please do tell us what the rate of cancer and other diseases amongst Viet-nam vets is, and what the rate amoungst the general population is. Make sure to check up on the vets who, as an initiation ritual into the unit that sprayed the defoliants, DRANK AGENT ORANGE BY THE CUP. They should all be dead, right?
Finally, as to whether you're in danger even if you eat only organic food and bottled water and travel everywhere on your bike... (I hope you didn't *FLY* to Equador- you know how much CO2 and air pollution that produces! You must have taken a bus since they are safer. Must have been some trip.) To this I say: You're living on borrowed time, bub. In ancient times, you'd have been lucky to see 21, and today we don't consider a person an adult until the turn 21. Technology has enabled you live long enough to become scared of the tiniest theoretical risks. If you don't want to participate, don't.
Organic farming takes more land to produce the same amount of food.
Are you going to be in charge of killing people so that the population matches our food production, or are you just going to let them starve? Or are we going to turn the 1/3 of land area used for agriculture and bump it up to 2/3 of land area? Are you going to shoot the farmers in brazil who burn down the jungle so that they can grow their own food because they can't afford your boutique organic food?
Any long term plan that doesn't take into account that there will be 9 billion people in the world in 2040 is quite idiotic.
Anyway, you want an economic arguement?
You started this thread by asserting:
If we stopped dumping chemicals into our farmland and went back to organic farming (which requires more manual labor ) there would be a lot more low-wage jobs available (hint: those are the jobs that are disappearing in the search for a higher GDP)...
Is that what we need? More backbreaking manual labor? More low wage jobs? Are these low wage jobs going to be able to feed a family after food prices increase?
You then said:
Or will they tell me that we have boosted the economy somehow by increasing agricultural output by poisoning the ground, then having tax subsidies go to those same companies that have eliminated normal farming (for increased production!) for them to not sell the output because they produce too much?
I think it is important to note that all the greenhouse doomsday scenerios rely upon positive feedbacks. There are also negative feedbacks. Without understanding both the positive and negative feedbacks, we really can't say that we understand climate enough to model it. Take them away and you have an underwhelming half degree warming from doubled CO2. You will always have models biased toward weighting the effects we understand and minimizing the effects we don't understand.
Farm subsidies are stupid. Paying people to not use land is stupid. Price controls are stupid. These factors may well be partly responsible for the state of modern farming, but technology would have advanced without them. In the absence of the subsidies, organic farming would be even less viable.
Romantic notions about outdated methods are great for hobbies, and the methods should be remembered for many reasons, but modern methods are cleaner, more efficient, and safer.
Incidentally, they may tell you "that we have boosted the economy somehow by increasing agricultural output by poisoning the ground, then having tax subsidies go to those same companies that have eliminated normal farming (for increased production!) for them to not sell the output because they produce too much?" and they'd be partly right. After all, agriculture has become a much smaller portion of our economy, yet still manages to feed us. This frees up many people and resources to pursue other things, indeed, it requires them to.
Lots of people who take global warming as it is presented by the media do ask to prove a negative.
There is a ton of evidence for climate change, but who would expect that a system as complex as the earth to be static?
If it would take 10000 years to cool down, why should we expect it to only take 30 years to heat up? After all, direct CO2 warming is suppossed to be rather small, and positive feedback mechanisms are suppossed to amplify it. So positive feedbacks are fast and negative feedbacks are slow?
From the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program's website:
In order to understand energy's role in anthropogenic global climate change, significant reliance is being placed on General Circulation Models (GCMs). A major goal of the Department is to foster the development of GCMs capable of predicting the timing and magnitude of greenhouse gas-induced global warming and the regional effects of such warming. DOE research has revealed that cloud radiative feedback is the single most important effect determining the magnitude of possible climate responses to human activity. However, cloud radiative forcing and feedbacks are not understood at the levels needed for reliable climate prediction.
When they figure out the clouds, and ocean mixing, the sun, and the many other factors glossed over in the current models, then I'll trust the models. The right thing to do now is to study, not create meaningless treaties.
Slashdot Mirror
Theory of gravity describes a phenominon that we all experience. Theory of CO2 induced global warming describes a phenominon that is conspicuously absent.
'sign' 'ratify'
The laser has an advantage in shooting down missles over 'inherently practical' weapons systems. The laser beam moves at the speed of light, which greatly simplifies targeting of a moving target.
I live in Baltimore and WOrk in northern Virginia, and the only place I can't get service is in the parking garage at my office. They're better than AT&T for everywhere but the parking garage. I haven't had much experience with the cust service, though.
Varies by state.
Easy wars don't tend to have to be fought.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/images/ANC_surrou ndings/Frames_index.html
Cough. Me thinks Cheney was mistaking the cemetaries in France. Me thinks you were just lying.
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/1999/index.cf m?docid=431
d ex .cfm?docid=721
Reading the whole thing I still can't imagine that they could be worse than the Taliban.
There's also a report for the year 2000:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2000/sa/in
The northern alliance seems quite willing to assume what we regard as their right to lead Afghanistan, and I don't imagine that it could be worse than the Taliban.
It's amazing to me how so many people around here don't regard this thing we have as worth defending.
Your suggestion for dealing with bin Laden, et al?
And you hit the escape key with your nose?
The escape key must be positioned more convieniently on the keyboard you use.
You should add that some Greeks tried to show that the earth moved around the sun, but since they couldn't detect parallax (sp) motion in the stars, they rejected that theory.
The models proported to support HEG are demonstrably wrong, yet they get past peer review.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Stupid keyboard.
ANyhow, Our country does not have the guts to let farms fail as they should. More efficient farming has allowed for other industries to grow and become dominant in our economy. If those subsidies were so damaging, why does our economy continue to grow?
Next:
Organic farming is the single most profitable agricultural field today. It does not rely at all on subsidies (most subsidies are given to the argicultural megacorps -- independent farmers can't keep up with the govt hoops to jump through and paperwork). Of course, its so profitable because it is the "alternative", so they charge a premium -- if everyone used normal methods it would likely be no more or less profitable than modern/chemical farming.
Two words: conspicuous consumption.
Next:
On the general safety of Organic vs. high yeild farming: Prove it.
On the specific point about agent orange, please do tell us what the rate of cancer and other diseases amongst Viet-nam vets is, and what the rate amoungst the general population is. Make sure to check up on the vets who, as an initiation ritual into the unit that sprayed the defoliants, DRANK AGENT ORANGE BY THE CUP. They should all be dead, right?
Finally, as to whether you're in danger even if you eat only organic food and bottled water and travel everywhere on your bike... (I hope you didn't *FLY* to Equador- you know how much CO2 and air pollution that produces! You must have taken a bus since they are safer. Must have been some trip.) To this I say: You're living on borrowed time, bub. In ancient times, you'd have been lucky to see 21, and today we don't consider a person an adult until the turn 21. Technology has enabled you live long enough to become scared of the tiniest theoretical risks. If you don't want to participate, don't.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Organic farming takes more land to produce the same amount of food.
Are you going to be in charge of killing people so that the population matches our food production, or are you just going to let them starve? Or are we going to turn the 1/3 of land area used for agriculture and bump it up to 2/3 of land area? Are you going to shoot the farmers in brazil who burn down the jungle so that they can grow their own food because they can't afford your boutique organic food?
Any long term plan that doesn't take into account that there will be 9 billion people in the world in 2040 is quite idiotic.
Anyway, you want an economic arguement?
You started this thread by asserting:
If we stopped dumping chemicals into our farmland and went back to organic farming (which requires more manual labor ) there would be a lot more low-wage jobs available (hint: those are the jobs that are disappearing in the search for a higher GDP)...
Is that what we need? More backbreaking manual labor? More low wage jobs? Are these low wage jobs going to be able to feed a family after food prices increase?
You then said:
Or will they tell me that we have boosted the economy somehow by increasing agricultural output by poisoning the ground, then having tax subsidies go to those same companies that have eliminated normal farming (for increased production!) for them to not sell the output because they produce too much?
Our country
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I must say I agree that global warming is not going to kill millions of people.
The rest of your post was as your sig indicated, rather useless.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
You really should step back and think about this whole issue. You're really starting to look like an idiot.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
There are models that predict everything. I can make a model that predicts whatever I want it to.
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Buy all the organic food you want.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I think it is important to note that all the greenhouse doomsday scenerios rely upon positive feedbacks. There are also negative feedbacks. Without understanding both the positive and negative feedbacks, we really can't say that we understand climate enough to model it. Take them away and you have an underwhelming half degree warming from doubled CO2. You will always have models biased toward weighting the effects we understand and minimizing the effects we don't understand.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
He did present an analogy. He says so himself http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/07/09/16222 12&cid=512
You can't model cloud cover until you know what causes coulds.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Farm subsidies are stupid. Paying people to not use land is stupid. Price controls are stupid. These factors may well be partly responsible for the state of modern farming, but technology would have advanced without them. In the absence of the subsidies, organic farming would be even less viable.
Romantic notions about outdated methods are great for hobbies, and the methods should be remembered for many reasons, but modern methods are cleaner, more efficient, and safer.
Incidentally, they may tell you "that we have boosted the economy somehow by increasing agricultural output by poisoning the ground, then having tax subsidies go to those same companies that have eliminated normal farming (for increased production!) for them to not sell the output because they produce too much?" and they'd be partly right. After all, agriculture has become a much smaller portion of our economy, yet still manages to feed us. This frees up many people and resources to pursue other things, indeed, it requires them to.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Lots of people who take global warming as it is presented by the media do ask to prove a negative.
There is a ton of evidence for climate change, but who would expect that a system as complex as the earth to be static?
If it would take 10000 years to cool down, why should we expect it to only take 30 years to heat up? After all, direct CO2 warming is suppossed to be rather small, and positive feedback mechanisms are suppossed to amplify it. So positive feedbacks are fast and negative feedbacks are slow?
From the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program's website:
In order to understand energy's role in anthropogenic global climate change, significant reliance is being placed on General Circulation Models (GCMs). A major goal of the Department is to foster the development of GCMs capable of predicting the timing and magnitude of greenhouse gas-induced global warming and the regional effects of such warming. DOE research has revealed that cloud radiative feedback is the single most important effect determining the magnitude of possible climate responses to human activity. However, cloud radiative forcing and feedbacks are not understood at the levels needed for reliable climate prediction.
When they figure out the clouds, and ocean mixing, the sun, and the many other factors glossed over in the current models, then I'll trust the models. The right thing to do now is to study, not create meaningless treaties.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I don't imagine that the Brotherhood of Climate Modelers meets in the basement of the UN HQ and hatches secret plans to scare the public.
Smart people are just as biased as everyone else. People are always biased toward their interests.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I'm not attacking any scientist. I like scientists, I like science.
Scientists are people. They always have been and always will be biased. That science advances is largely due to the limited lifespan of scientists.
My career is not relevant, Asshole.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I suggest you look into taking an economics class at your local community college.
Surfing the net and other cliches...