What killed the nuclear power industry in the US more than anything else is that they couldn't compete with coal on price. It has little to do with the "anti-nuke environmental movement". On top of that the risk of the plants makes the private sector unwilling to lend money for the construction of reactors without government guarantees backing them up and unwilling to insure the reactors (beyond normal industrial insurance coverage) at all so the government has to cover that as well.
So contrary to your contention it is capitalism that has kept the plants from being built. It's too risky for the cost.
Yes, science is always subject to revision. But you shouldn't waste a scientists time with non-scientific arguments or rehashing old arguments that have already been examined and found wanting. Unless you can bring something new to the discussion and back it with actual evidence you're wasting their time.
Your friends who think the world is going to end aren't listening to science any more than you are. The report says that at current rates of CO2 emissions we will reach the agreed on limit of 1 trillion tons in 2040 but if we were to get serious about reducing the carbon intensity of our civilization we move that date out further into the future easing the rate of change somewhat. On the other hand If we do nothing but keep increasing CO2 emissions we move the date sooner in our future.
30 years is the classical climatological period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. That is long enough for many cyclic things like ENSO and solar cycles to average out so the long term climate trends are discernible. Of course there are many climatological effects that take place over far longer periods such as the cycles of glaciation/deglaciation that have been occurring for over a million years but a 30 year average is long enough to define the current state of the climate.
This isn't about science and hasn't been for a long time. It's about human nature. We don't like change, so when we've got an established way of doing things and no reason obvious enough in our daily lives to switch to a different way of doing things, we won't do it. In many cases, when we finally get it through our stupid thick heads that we need to change, it's far too late.
What is clear is that changes are coming*. If we're not willing to change ourselves voluntarily then climate change and it's effects on the natural world will force change on us whether we want it or not. The choice is ours, proactively address the issue in a comprehensive fashion or let the natural changes drive us to address the effects piecemeal.
*To be honest the changes have already started but so far the effects are relatively small.
There is absolutely a statistically significant trend in Antarctic ice, both in minimums and maximums.
I don't think that sentence says what you meant to say. The NSICD link doesn't say anything about Antarctic sea ice minimums and as I understand it the Antarctic sea ice minimum is essentially zero every year so there probably isn't a trend there.
Perhaps you could offer some actual evidence that Michael Mann is a bad scientist. As far as I can tell he is held in high regard by his peers in paleoclimatology and in the end they're the only ones who really matter in judging his work.
Climate change/global warming is a slow motion catastrophe. By the time the average person realizes it's really going to be bad it's far to late to do much about it.
How many times do James Hansen, Michael Mann and the other ring leaders both past and present have to be wrong before you admit the truth to yourself?
At least it will have to be more times than the number of times some climate contrarian has misinterpreted what they've said in order to claim it was wrong.
I think I'll just patiently wait for the actual release of the final report in a few weeks rather than speculating on what they say. I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you.
You're already paying for it in the form of expensive emergency room care when they can't pay and the hospital ups its rates to cover the uncompensated care.
The sea ice in the Arctic is mostly constrained by the land that surrounds it and once it freezes up to that land in the winter winds have less effect in that regard. Since the Antarctic sea ice is not constrained by land the ice near the edge can still be affected by wind even in the middle of winter when freezing conditions are good.
It looks rather like the "global-warming-is-man-made-sound-the-alarms" people have been cherry picking. First it was the higher temperatures. Then when the temperatures did not support their theories,
While the slope of temperature increase in the atmosphere is lower than it was in the 1980's and 1990's, the 2000's was still the hottest decade in the modern temperature records and 2005 & 2010 are tied for the hottest year in most of them (1998 still is hottest in HADCRUT3). The oceans are still warming and the ice is still melting. None of this is a surprise to climate scientists who realize that natural variability can overcome the forcing of greenhouse gases for a decade or more. The oceans, where over 90% of the heat of global warming goes anyway are still warming and the next time we get a moderately strong El NIno (which reduces the heat going into the ocean) you can bet we will set a new global temperature record (unless we coincidentally get a large volcanic eruption).
it was "well global warming causes extreme weather!". When THAT got disproven,
You've got a little bit of truth in this because global warming doesn't cause any kind of weather in and of itself. What is does is affect the context within which weather occurs. So for instance if the climate is warming then the high temperature events will be a little warmer and the peaks a little higher. There is more energy in the system to drive weather. There is more water vapor in the atmosphere to drive precipitation.
it was "look-look-look, all the ice is melting!" Now that THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself,
When you look at natural ice on the Earth it can be divided into a number of categories. The ice sheets (Greenland & Antarctica), the lesser ice fields and glaciers, the ice shelves (the tongues of glaciers floating on the sea) and sea ice in the Arctic and in the Antarctic. Of all of those kinds of ice the only one that has had a net increase is the Antarctic sea ice which is a very small portion of all of that ice. The net volume of all of the ice taken together is on a strong downward path.
Until you understand the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic you really can't understand why the two react differently to stimulus. Simply stated the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continents while the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean. That is one reason why the sea ice in the Arctic tends to persist over the summer while the sea ice in Antarctica melts completely away over the (southern hemisphere) summer every year. Because of those differences don't expect wind to have same effects on the Arctic sea ice as it does on the Antarctic sea ice.
It looks rather like the "global-warming-is-man-made-sound-the-alarms" people have been cherry picking. First it was the higher temperatures. Then when the temperatures did not support their theories, [Stee-rike one!] it was "well global warming causes extreme weather!". When THAT got disproven, [Stee-rike two!] it was "look-look-look, all the ice is melting!" Now that THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself, [Stee-rike three, ye're outta here!]
... what will the GW people predict next?
Something that you will again totally misunderstand the meaning of.
There's nothing insightful about the AC's comment. Instead it just demonstrates a very shallow understanding of of the subject that shows the AC has no idea what they are talking about.
While last year was a new record low for Arctic sea ice very few people in the cryology field thought it "would be gone in a few years with cataclysmic results". It's true though that late summer Arctic sea ice could be gone sometime in the 2020's and it's impossible to rule out cataclysmic results from that at this time. This summer the Arctic sea ice is no where near a record high but has merely moved back to the general declining path it's been on after last year's exceptional melt.
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.
To expect them to predict in detail the weather next year or even in 10 years is expecting too much. What they're predicting is what the average weather will be over a 30 year period given a specific input scenario. If you don't understand that in the first place you have no business commenting on the subject.
Just for the record James Hansen has a PhD in Astrophysics and started out studying the atmosphere of Venus and other planets before turning his attention to the Earth. Physics is a broad field that covers a lot of territory from quantum dynamics to mechanics to climate physics and no person can know it all in detail.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, except for the instantaneous massive rise in sea level dropping such a large ice cube would cause.
What killed the nuclear power industry in the US more than anything else is that they couldn't compete with coal on price. It has little to do with the "anti-nuke environmental movement". On top of that the risk of the plants makes the private sector unwilling to lend money for the construction of reactors without government guarantees backing them up and unwilling to insure the reactors (beyond normal industrial insurance coverage) at all so the government has to cover that as well.
So contrary to your contention it is capitalism that has kept the plants from being built. It's too risky for the cost.
All science is up for debate all the time, ...
Yes, science is always subject to revision. But you shouldn't waste a scientists time with non-scientific arguments or rehashing old arguments that have already been examined and found wanting. Unless you can bring something new to the discussion and back it with actual evidence you're wasting their time.
Your friends who think the world is going to end aren't listening to science any more than you are. The report says that at current rates of CO2 emissions we will reach the agreed on limit of 1 trillion tons in 2040 but if we were to get serious about reducing the carbon intensity of our civilization we move that date out further into the future easing the rate of change somewhat. On the other hand If we do nothing but keep increasing CO2 emissions we move the date sooner in our future.
30 years is the classical climatological period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. That is long enough for many cyclic things like ENSO and solar cycles to average out so the long term climate trends are discernible. Of course there are many climatological effects that take place over far longer periods such as the cycles of glaciation/deglaciation that have been occurring for over a million years but a 30 year average is long enough to define the current state of the climate.
This isn't about science and hasn't been for a long time. It's about human nature. We don't like change, so when we've got an established way of doing things and no reason obvious enough in our daily lives to switch to a different way of doing things, we won't do it. In many cases, when we finally get it through our stupid thick heads that we need to change, it's far too late.
What is clear is that changes are coming*. If we're not willing to change ourselves voluntarily then climate change and it's effects on the natural world will force change on us whether we want it or not. The choice is ours, proactively address the issue in a comprehensive fashion or let the natural changes drive us to address the effects piecemeal.
*To be honest the changes have already started but so far the effects are relatively small.
There is absolutely a statistically significant trend in Antarctic ice, both in minimums and maximums.
I don't think that sentence says what you meant to say. The NSICD link doesn't say anything about Antarctic sea ice minimums and as I understand it the Antarctic sea ice minimum is essentially zero every year so there probably isn't a trend there.
And you just conveniently ignore that he qualified it by starting out " At this rate, ... ".
The sun is a variable cephid star, what does that imply.
And you lost credibility with me for that ridiculous statement. The Sun is definitely not anything close to being a Cephid.
Perhaps you could offer some actual evidence that Michael Mann is a bad scientist. As far as I can tell he is held in high regard by his peers in paleoclimatology and in the end they're the only ones who really matter in judging his work.
Climate change/global warming is a slow motion catastrophe. By the time the average person realizes it's really going to be bad it's far to late to do much about it.
How many times do James Hansen, Michael Mann and the other ring leaders both past and present have to be wrong before you admit the truth to yourself?
At least it will have to be more times than the number of times some climate contrarian has misinterpreted what they've said in order to claim it was wrong.
+1 Funny. Good catch.
And you think the same principle doesn't apply to private businesses?
I think I'll just patiently wait for the actual release of the final report in a few weeks rather than speculating on what they say. I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you.
You're already paying for it in the form of expensive emergency room care when they can't pay and the hospital ups its rates to cover the uncompensated care.
The sea ice in the Arctic is mostly constrained by the land that surrounds it and once it freezes up to that land in the winter winds have less effect in that regard. Since the Antarctic sea ice is not constrained by land the ice near the edge can still be affected by wind even in the middle of winter when freezing conditions are good.
Not so unmeasured since the advent of the the ARGO Floats.
Hmm... I guess y'all want a more serious answer.
It looks rather like the "global-warming-is-man-made-sound-the-alarms" people have been cherry picking. First it was the higher temperatures. Then when the temperatures did not support their theories,
While the slope of temperature increase in the atmosphere is lower than it was in the 1980's and 1990's, the 2000's was still the hottest decade in the modern temperature records and 2005 & 2010 are tied for the hottest year in most of them (1998 still is hottest in HADCRUT3). The oceans are still warming and the ice is still melting. None of this is a surprise to climate scientists who realize that natural variability can overcome the forcing of greenhouse gases for a decade or more. The oceans, where over 90% of the heat of global warming goes anyway are still warming and the next time we get a moderately strong El NIno (which reduces the heat going into the ocean) you can bet we will set a new global temperature record (unless we coincidentally get a large volcanic eruption).
it was "well global warming causes extreme weather!". When THAT got disproven,
You've got a little bit of truth in this because global warming doesn't cause any kind of weather in and of itself. What is does is affect the context within which weather occurs. So for instance if the climate is warming then the high temperature events will be a little warmer and the peaks a little higher. There is more energy in the system to drive weather. There is more water vapor in the atmosphere to drive precipitation.
it was "look-look-look, all the ice is melting!" Now that THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself,
When you look at natural ice on the Earth it can be divided into a number of categories. The ice sheets (Greenland & Antarctica), the lesser ice fields and glaciers, the ice shelves (the tongues of glaciers floating on the sea) and sea ice in the Arctic and in the Antarctic. Of all of those kinds of ice the only one that has had a net increase is the Antarctic sea ice which is a very small portion of all of that ice. The net volume of all of the ice taken together is on a strong downward path.
Until you understand the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic you really can't understand why the two react differently to stimulus. Simply stated the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continents while the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean. That is one reason why the sea ice in the Arctic tends to persist over the summer while the sea ice in Antarctica melts completely away over the (southern hemisphere) summer every year. Because of those differences don't expect wind to have same effects on the Arctic sea ice as it does on the Antarctic sea ice.
You need to get your smeller fixed.
It looks rather like the "global-warming-is-man-made-sound-the-alarms" people have been cherry picking. First it was the higher temperatures. Then when the temperatures did not support their theories, [Stee-rike one!] it was "well global warming causes extreme weather!". When THAT got disproven, [Stee-rike two!] it was "look-look-look, all the ice is melting!" Now that THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself, [Stee-rike three, ye're outta here!]
Something that you will again totally misunderstand the meaning of.
There's nothing insightful about the AC's comment. Instead it just demonstrates a very shallow understanding of of the subject that shows the AC has no idea what they are talking about.
While last year was a new record low for Arctic sea ice very few people in the cryology field thought it "would be gone in a few years with cataclysmic results". It's true though that late summer Arctic sea ice could be gone sometime in the 2020's and it's impossible to rule out cataclysmic results from that at this time. This summer the Arctic sea ice is no where near a record high but has merely moved back to the general declining path it's been on after last year's exceptional melt.
Climate scientists are trying to predict climate, not weather. The World Meteorological Organization's definition of climate is:
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.
To expect them to predict in detail the weather next year or even in 10 years is expecting too much. What they're predicting is what the average weather will be over a 30 year period given a specific input scenario. If you don't understand that in the first place you have no business commenting on the subject.
Which is why the criminals responsible for this whole charade renamed it 'climate change'.
Wow! I guess they must have had a lot of foresight then to publish this paper in October of 1970:
"Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change" by George Benton.
Just for the record James Hansen has a PhD in Astrophysics and started out studying the atmosphere of Venus and other planets before turning his attention to the Earth. Physics is a broad field that covers a lot of territory from quantum dynamics to mechanics to climate physics and no person can know it all in detail.