I think "nor your progeny" is a bit overstated. Reading the Wikipedia article it looks like the progeny can still inherit from the deceased person anything they willed to them directly but not the slayers share of the inheritance through the slayer.
We're going to have to quit meeting like this;) Meaning we could go back and forth forever and not resolve anything.
I think you're a bit over the top on the eugenics thing. There are elements of your argument that are true but I don't see some sort of vast worldwide conspiracy over it.
Panic is not a word I'd use to describe my feelings about anthropogenic climate change. I just think we can and should do better than we are. I think you are making a lot of assumptions about the ease of adaption to it without a lot of real world evidence to support your position. If your assumptions turn out to be wrong then where are we? Better to be cautious and try to limit the amount of change as much as possible.
Although there may have been some small inholdings before Yellowstone became a park the land was already owned by the government. High altitude remote land like that had no economic value except for some fir trapping at the time.
One infelicitous result of removing Saddam Hussein was that he and Iran didn't get along. Replacing him freed Iran to pay more attention to other things.
The human population of the Earth has increased by about 2.7 times since I was born in 1952 (2.6 billion to 7 billion). That obviously can't continue. The Earth is finite so there has to be a limit. If we don't do something to limit population growth on our own the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will take care of it for us. What Malthusian eugenics? Other than China and the occasional laws in the past on forced sterilization for certain groups I'm not aware of any government restricting births. While there is a correlation between population growth and growth in anthropogenic causes of climate change the real link is to the increase in fossil fuel use for energy. Our technology has progressed to the point where we can get most of that energy now from non-fossil fuel sources. It'll take 30-40 years to build up that infrastructure but it's starting to happen right now. It's time to stop fouling our own nest with fossil fuels.
Interesting article. I don't think the author would agree with your interpretation of his article (I've read him before). The problem is not so much the amount of change that's occurred and will occur as the rate at which it's happening. If the change we've caused and will cause over the next couple hundred years were spread out over 5000 years it wouldn't be much of a problem. The natural systems that sustain all life on Earth including humans would have time to adapt without the kind of disruption that rapid climate change causes. CO2 fertilization is nice in theory but in the real world CO2 is not the only thing limiting plant growth. Water and soil are both more important than CO2. The further north you go the poorer the soil is generally and it takes a long time (on human terms) to build up good soil. The more chaotic the weather gets because of the rate of climate change the more difficult it is to raise crops and sustain yields. I don't think adaption is going to be nearly as easy as you seem to think.
I don't see them making constant appeals to politics, instead they are merely defending their science against political attacks. On top of that if they see a problem that is going to affect them and their children why shouldn't they speak up? What is this problem that isn't a problem to you? That CO2 increases in the atmosphere are not a problem? The simple physics of CO2 would say otherwise.
An appeal to authority is not a fallacy if the authorities are in fact experts on the subject. There is very little evidence that they are biased toward anything but good science. You can call them biased but the physical facts on the ground bear out what they are saying. When they don't I'll start disbelieving them.
I think a steady droning noise is something you can tune out without much problem. It's the sudden or variable noises in the middle of your swing that are going to cause the problems.
Once they have the grant money, why would they care?
Do you think the researchers are paying themselves from the grants? No, they pay for instruments or instrument time to collect data, transportation to the data collection sites, research assistants to help collect the data, computer time to analyze the data and all other things necessary to their research . The researchers are for the most part paid by the institution that employes them and not from the grant. Do you think they're getting rich? PhD's are generally well paid in the low 6 figures but they're not really rich. If they wanted to get rich they're smart enough they could have gone into finance.
In some sense they are always wrong in that they're seldom precisely right. You paraphrase George Box's aphorism that "Models are always wrong but some are useful". You measure the success of a model by comparing it to reality and so far they're holding up pretty well. Climate models are far from perfect but I challenge you to find something that works better.
Really? I don't see 20' of water covering downtown Manhattan yet. And I certainly don't see the ice age that was predicted for this time back in 1974.
That just shows how little you pay attention to what the climate scientists actually say. No scientist who is knowledgeable about cryology ever said Manhattan would be under water by now. And no, Al Gore didn't say that either. You need to pay attention to the time frame that they put on those statements. The last IPCC report in 2007 said sea level was expected to rise about 0.35 m (14") by the 2090-2099 time frame but more current estimates are for SLR by 2100 is about 1 m (3+ feet). At the rate we're going we might hit 20 feet of SLR around the year 2200.
They didn't predict an ice age for now either. At best it takes several hundred years for an ice age to develop. There was a lot of hoopla in the news about global cooling in the 1970's but if you look at scientific publications from 1965 to 1979 there were over 6 times as many papers on global warming as there were on cooling.
Not much of one at all, if you have ever studied the effect of CO2 on plant growth (and) Only if we're not smart enough to take advantage of the increased growing season in the north.
CO2 is far from the only factor in plant growth, in particular soil is important. The further north you go the poorer the soil is and it takes time to build up good soil. Climate change will change rainfall patterns which may or may not help. You probably never have been involved in farming. I have. It's not that simple.
When Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations".
LOL. If you want to say that our whole economic system is a conspiracy I'm not going to argue with you. In some ways I think it is.
But science is measured against the physical world. The physical world has characteristics that can't be faked and scientists know that. Do you think they want to be like the emperor with no clothes when their falsification is discovered? I believe very few scientists are willing to take that risk. I've seen no evidence that grants are biasing the science. It seems like if the case could be made for that it would have by now. You can cruise over to the National Science Foundation and browse all of the grants they make. Let me know if you find bias.
What makes you think I said scientists were infallible? I don't just start with the assumption that they failed. I think when they are wrong most of the time it's honest mistakes and not attempts to make the science something it isn't.
The effect on the human species MUST come before the science, or the science will become a factor in our extermination.
It's true that some technological development may be the downfall of the human race (I worry most about something out of some bio-lab) but it's also true that we ignore what science tells us about the physical world at our own risk.
If you think that scientists are in it for the money and presenting false conclusions about climate change then how is it that most of the things they thought would happen are happening on schedule if not ahead of schedule? There's not much they've got wrong so far.
That's a pretty big assumption that global warming will increase food production. It may but there will probably be many years of adjustments to our agricultural system to get there. More likely as long as the climate system remains in a state of flux it will be more difficult to sustain the yields we're currently getting.
As I said, the level of conspiracy required to support your positions is not credible. When did the conspiracy start? After all the first person to state that a rise in CO2 in the atmosphere would cause a rise it temperatures was Svante Arrhenius in 1896. Papers on the potential for global warming from the rise of CO2 were starting to be published in the 1950's. In 1967 the subject was presented to President Lyndon B. Johnson as something we would have to deal with eventually. Despite the supposed global cooling scare of the 1970's there were only 7 papers published on global cooling compared to 44 on global warming from 1965-1979. So when did this conspiracy get started?
I'm not saying there aren't people trying to take advantage of the situation but very few if any scientists are. It's just not credible that thousands of scientists around the world are all in on a conspiracy to falsify the evidence. They're smart enough to know that they couldn't get away with it forever. The reality of what happens on the ground would overtake their mendacious statements within 2 or 3 decades. So far they've been more right than wrong.
For me the primary question is scientific, not political. For you it seems the politics is informing your opinion of the science and that's backwards.
I didn't say that I don't like it, just that it's not enough by itself to fully mitigate the problem. Hunger is more of a political problem than a supply problem.
My question to you is how could climate scientists expect to get away with falsifying their science? Any science that is based on the physical characteristics of nature as climate science is is subject to verification by other scientists. If what they are saying is politically motivated then sooner or later their deception will be found out and their scientific reputations trashed. I can't believe in the 25 years since the IPCC was formed that among all of the scientists around the world who are studying climate there aren't any who aren't willing and able to call them out on it if they found something fundamentally wrong. I know there are some contrarians like Lindzen and Spencer but they mostly just nibble around the edges and haven't produced anything that would overturn the fundamental findings of the mainstream. In the end any scientist worthy of the title has to follow where the evidence leads regardless of their own biases or they will lose their career.
It would be more accurate to say that humans aren't the only cause of climate change. As for the amount of it that is anthropogenic a couple of years ago a knowledgeable climate scientist estimated human influences cause 80-120% of climate change.
We're adding carbon to the atmosphere (and carbon cycle) in a matter of a few centuries that took plants millions of years to capture. Planting rain forests will help but doesn't come close to being a complete solution.
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas but the water released by burning fossil fuels is not an issue. Because water can precipitate out of the atmosphere there is a balance between the liquid and gaseous states so any imbalance will quickly be corrected.
There's not enough oxygen in the atmosphere to make the atmosphere "nothing but carbon dioxide". Still, if the level of CO2 in the atmosphere reaches even 1% we will be well and truly screwed.
Slashdot Mirror
To put this in perspective it's like a year is 2.67 days longer than it was before.
I think "nor your progeny" is a bit overstated. Reading the Wikipedia article it looks like the progeny can still inherit from the deceased person anything they willed to them directly but not the slayers share of the inheritance through the slayer.
Nevertheless the EPA has saved this country far more than it has cost us.
We're going to have to quit meeting like this ;) Meaning we could go back and forth forever and not resolve anything.
I think you're a bit over the top on the eugenics thing. There are elements of your argument that are true but I don't see some sort of vast worldwide conspiracy over it.
Panic is not a word I'd use to describe my feelings about anthropogenic climate change. I just think we can and should do better than we are. I think you are making a lot of assumptions about the ease of adaption to it without a lot of real world evidence to support your position. If your assumptions turn out to be wrong then where are we? Better to be cautious and try to limit the amount of change as much as possible.
Make that fur trapping.
Although there may have been some small inholdings before Yellowstone became a park the land was already owned by the government. High altitude remote land like that had no economic value except for some fir trapping at the time.
I first heard about it a couple years ago on the Thom Hartmann show.
One infelicitous result of removing Saddam Hussein was that he and Iran didn't get along. Replacing him freed Iran to pay more attention to other things.
The human population of the Earth has increased by about 2.7 times since I was born in 1952 (2.6 billion to 7 billion). That obviously can't continue. The Earth is finite so there has to be a limit. If we don't do something to limit population growth on our own the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will take care of it for us. What Malthusian eugenics? Other than China and the occasional laws in the past on forced sterilization for certain groups I'm not aware of any government restricting births. While there is a correlation between population growth and growth in anthropogenic causes of climate change the real link is to the increase in fossil fuel use for energy. Our technology has progressed to the point where we can get most of that energy now from non-fossil fuel sources. It'll take 30-40 years to build up that infrastructure but it's starting to happen right now. It's time to stop fouling our own nest with fossil fuels.
Interesting article. I don't think the author would agree with your interpretation of his article (I've read him before). The problem is not so much the amount of change that's occurred and will occur as the rate at which it's happening. If the change we've caused and will cause over the next couple hundred years were spread out over 5000 years it wouldn't be much of a problem. The natural systems that sustain all life on Earth including humans would have time to adapt without the kind of disruption that rapid climate change causes. CO2 fertilization is nice in theory but in the real world CO2 is not the only thing limiting plant growth. Water and soil are both more important than CO2. The further north you go the poorer the soil is generally and it takes a long time (on human terms) to build up good soil. The more chaotic the weather gets because of the rate of climate change the more difficult it is to raise crops and sustain yields. I don't think adaption is going to be nearly as easy as you seem to think.
I don't see them making constant appeals to politics, instead they are merely defending their science against political attacks. On top of that if they see a problem that is going to affect them and their children why shouldn't they speak up? What is this problem that isn't a problem to you? That CO2 increases in the atmosphere are not a problem? The simple physics of CO2 would say otherwise.
An appeal to authority is not a fallacy if the authorities are in fact experts on the subject. There is very little evidence that they are biased toward anything but good science. You can call them biased but the physical facts on the ground bear out what they are saying. When they don't I'll start disbelieving them.
I think a steady droning noise is something you can tune out without much problem. It's the sudden or variable noises in the middle of your swing that are going to cause the problems.
Well, since RealClimate is run by some of the leading climate scientists that you rail against you should read it more. Know thy enemy.
Once they have the grant money, why would they care?
Do you think the researchers are paying themselves from the grants? No, they pay for instruments or instrument time to collect data, transportation to the data collection sites, research assistants to help collect the data, computer time to analyze the data and all other things necessary to their research . The researchers are for the most part paid by the institution that employes them and not from the grant. Do you think they're getting rich? PhD's are generally well paid in the low 6 figures but they're not really rich. If they wanted to get rich they're smart enough they could have gone into finance.
In some sense they are always wrong in that they're seldom precisely right. You paraphrase George Box's aphorism that "Models are always wrong but some are useful". You measure the success of a model by comparing it to reality and so far they're holding up pretty well. Climate models are far from perfect but I challenge you to find something that works better.
Really? I don't see 20' of water covering downtown Manhattan yet. And I certainly don't see the ice age that was predicted for this time back in 1974.
That just shows how little you pay attention to what the climate scientists actually say. No scientist who is knowledgeable about cryology ever said Manhattan would be under water by now. And no, Al Gore didn't say that either. You need to pay attention to the time frame that they put on those statements. The last IPCC report in 2007 said sea level was expected to rise about 0.35 m (14") by the 2090-2099 time frame but more current estimates are for SLR by 2100 is about 1 m (3+ feet). At the rate we're going we might hit 20 feet of SLR around the year 2200.
They didn't predict an ice age for now either. At best it takes several hundred years for an ice age to develop. There was a lot of hoopla in the news about global cooling in the 1970's but if you look at scientific publications from 1965 to 1979 there were over 6 times as many papers on global warming as there were on cooling.
Not much of one at all, if you have ever studied the effect of CO2 on plant growth (and) Only if we're not smart enough to take advantage of the increased growing season in the north.
CO2 is far from the only factor in plant growth, in particular soil is important. The further north you go the poorer the soil is and it takes time to build up good soil. Climate change will change rainfall patterns which may or may not help. You probably never have been involved in farming. I have. It's not that simple.
When Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations".
LOL. If you want to say that our whole economic system is a conspiracy I'm not going to argue with you. In some ways I think it is.
But science is measured against the physical world. The physical world has characteristics that can't be faked and scientists know that. Do you think they want to be like the emperor with no clothes when their falsification is discovered? I believe very few scientists are willing to take that risk. I've seen no evidence that grants are biasing the science. It seems like if the case could be made for that it would have by now. You can cruise over to the National Science Foundation and browse all of the grants they make. Let me know if you find bias.
What makes you think I said scientists were infallible? I don't just start with the assumption that they failed. I think when they are wrong most of the time it's honest mistakes and not attempts to make the science something it isn't.
The effect on the human species MUST come before the science, or the science will become a factor in our extermination.
It's true that some technological development may be the downfall of the human race (I worry most about something out of some bio-lab) but it's also true that we ignore what science tells us about the physical world at our own risk.
If you think that scientists are in it for the money and presenting false conclusions about climate change then how is it that most of the things they thought would happen are happening on schedule if not ahead of schedule? There's not much they've got wrong so far.
That's a pretty big assumption that global warming will increase food production. It may but there will probably be many years of adjustments to our agricultural system to get there. More likely as long as the climate system remains in a state of flux it will be more difficult to sustain the yields we're currently getting.
As I said, the level of conspiracy required to support your positions is not credible. When did the conspiracy start? After all the first person to state that a rise in CO2 in the atmosphere would cause a rise it temperatures was Svante Arrhenius in 1896. Papers on the potential for global warming from the rise of CO2 were starting to be published in the 1950's. In 1967 the subject was presented to President Lyndon B. Johnson as something we would have to deal with eventually. Despite the supposed global cooling scare of the 1970's there were only 7 papers published on global cooling compared to 44 on global warming from 1965-1979. So when did this conspiracy get started?
I'm not saying there aren't people trying to take advantage of the situation but very few if any scientists are. It's just not credible that thousands of scientists around the world are all in on a conspiracy to falsify the evidence. They're smart enough to know that they couldn't get away with it forever. The reality of what happens on the ground would overtake their mendacious statements within 2 or 3 decades. So far they've been more right than wrong.
For me the primary question is scientific, not political. For you it seems the politics is informing your opinion of the science and that's backwards.
I thought iPhones were supposed to have rounded corners. How can they stand on edge? /snark
The level of conspiracy required to support your suppositions is not credible.
I didn't say that I don't like it, just that it's not enough by itself to fully mitigate the problem. Hunger is more of a political problem than a supply problem.
My question to you is how could climate scientists expect to get away with falsifying their science? Any science that is based on the physical characteristics of nature as climate science is is subject to verification by other scientists. If what they are saying is politically motivated then sooner or later their deception will be found out and their scientific reputations trashed. I can't believe in the 25 years since the IPCC was formed that among all of the scientists around the world who are studying climate there aren't any who aren't willing and able to call them out on it if they found something fundamentally wrong. I know there are some contrarians like Lindzen and Spencer but they mostly just nibble around the edges and haven't produced anything that would overturn the fundamental findings of the mainstream. In the end any scientist worthy of the title has to follow where the evidence leads regardless of their own biases or they will lose their career.
It would be more accurate to say that humans aren't the only cause of climate change. As for the amount of it that is anthropogenic a couple of years ago a knowledgeable climate scientist estimated human influences cause 80-120% of climate change.
We're adding carbon to the atmosphere (and carbon cycle) in a matter of a few centuries that took plants millions of years to capture. Planting rain forests will help but doesn't come close to being a complete solution.
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas but the water released by burning fossil fuels is not an issue. Because water can precipitate out of the atmosphere there is a balance between the liquid and gaseous states so any imbalance will quickly be corrected.
There's not enough oxygen in the atmosphere to make the atmosphere "nothing but carbon dioxide". Still, if the level of CO2 in the atmosphere reaches even 1% we will be well and truly screwed.
Hmm... I just heard a whoosh pass over my head. I should have known better.