I didn't say that. What I meant to strongly imply is that DDoS is totally counterproductive and accomplishes less than nothing. Someone else on here pointed out that airing dirty laundry of the bad guys might at least accomplish something. All this DDoS attack does is stir up the public's fear of anarchy and crime so that their elected representatives can scare them into supporting some nasty bit of freedom-stealing legislation that affects all of us.
Beating down SOPA by rallying all the sheep in the world was a triumph. This DDoS thing is a textbook example of shooting oneself in the foot for no purpose.
Mod parent up. This is really stupid. Any hacker who thinks he can keep his tracks covered forever should think again. Nothing like a little public outrage to fuel some kind of suspending-habeas-corpus-body-snatching legislation like the Patriot Act and these little twats will end up being waterboarded somewhere in Egypt. Lil' hacker buds would do well to remember that meatspace is not cyberspace.
It's obvious that you believe global warming is not a serious problem. What's disconcerting is that I get the feeling that you would oppose CO2 regulation even if global warming were a serious problem.
This absurd leap from green initiatives to "centrally planned economies" is baffling. I suppose you are right that the Soviet Union and China are responsible for some pretty bad environmental problems (Chernobyl, smog on Shanghai) but we are not talking about "centrally planned economies." Are you trying to say that the EPA has resulted in worse environmental problems? That I utterly fail to see.
How, exactly, do green initiatives harm the environment? Wind, solar, and hydroelectric power cause environmental damage? That's a bit of a stretch, don' you think? Have you ever actually seen smog? Breathed it?
That does seem interesting, although that first link appears to be a highly biased source. Obviously, it would be good to see this tree ring research replicated in other countries.
You also neglected to address the other graph which covers 650,000 years.
If we are to ask for scientific proof from skeptics refuting climate change, we are also required to ask it from the climate change believers. If you have links to reputable studies, please provide them.
It's interesting that relativity was mentioned in this context. Everyone should know that there was a tremendous amount of resistance to both the special and general theory of relativity. People were astounded that newtonian physics was being refuted. It was only once observation after observation in support of einstein's theory came to light (e.g. a long unexplained anomaly in mercury's orbit, gravitational lensing, etc.) that the theory was accepted. It took years. And then later Einstein and Niels Bohr got into it over quantum theory. Scientific fact has historically been controversial when it matters.
cold fjord, you should know that any given link you might provide from the senate.gov website is hardly a neutral source. The link you provided, in fact, is specifically the republican-dominated minority version of the environment and public works committee. I.e., Inouye who is beholden to the petroleum lobby. Do us a favor and refrain from using a senate resource to try and make a point as it will merely be political bullshit on one side or the other. If I were trying to bring political bullshit, I would refer you to the majority page at the same exact site. What I mean is this: please don't be a retard.
If you want to bring facts into discussion, please do find the data from those 400 (or is it 650?) scientists which proves the world is not getting warmer. As I recall, the research conducted by global warming skeptic Richard Muller (funded by the Koch family) agreed that the earth has in fact grown warmer. More here. If you can actually find such graphs, let's take a look at them and assess them base on their merits. Please don't bother linking senate.gov or the national review and I won't bother linking huffington post or moveon.org.
Welcome to Bjorn. Anyone with established mathematical credentials is welcome in the debate. The wonderful thing about mathematics and statistics is that they follow clearly from initial assumptions. Not so with politicians, religious nuts, and petroleum industry lobbyists. These are the plague in the United States.
I don't think models predicting the future are even required to see there is an upward trend. Again, this is from NASA. AFAIK, they are fairly reputable, being the only organization on earth ever to have put people on the moon and rovers on Mars. You don't need models to see what's happened in the past. You also don't need a model to extrapolate from such a graph. It's not cyclical at all.
But maybe I'm wrong. Don't listen to me at all. Listen to the scientists (and not the politicians or evangelicals).
Show me where it says a religion class has anything to do with proving anything about what actually happened. Religion classes (and English classes and art classes and medieval poetry classes, etc.) are not about science or proving facts. They are part of that onanistic exercise in pondering some pecular aspect of our culture that we refer to collectively as "the humanities".
As I understand it, there's plenty of evidence for a warming trend. In that sense, climate change is a fact. The acrimonious debate (for people with enough mental capacity to get past a knee-jerk reaction) revolves around two questions 1) whether or not it is caused by human activity, and 2) whether it in fact represents a continuing trend and therefore a crisis for humanity. Neither point 1 nor point 2 has been proved definitively but many minds much more knowledgeable about the facts than I seem to think so. Unfortunately, this doesn't really seem like a provable proposition. Given the complexity of the environment, one might as well try to prove that String Theory is correct. I support and admire the scientists who struggle to understand/explain/prove either String Theory or climate science.
I also applaud people who argue in favor of Green technologies -- but not to the point of lying or distorting facts. Increased efficiency, energy alternatives, recycling -- these are all good things for humanity. Exploring the alternatives brings more bounty to humanity at large so that we can have a reasonable expectation of supporting all 7 billion people on the planet regardless of whether there is a looming climate crisis or not.
As to whether you believe in climate change being caused by humanity, what's the harm in believing it if it means we make less of an impact on the climate? A few bucks here and there? Cleaner air? Less of a dependence on the Middle East? If the climate hazard is real and we are causing it, denying it is absolutely, most definitely shooting ourselves right in the foot.
But yes let us get past denying that the climate is in fact warming and start figuring out why.
I agree that bullshit can be used to push a political agenda because people want money (q.v. 'weapons of mass destruction', 'the war on terror', and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). But to say "it's not science" is ludicrous. On what do you base this assertion? How long, exactly, have you studied astronomy and/or meteorology and/or climatology? I'm dying to know where you found definitive proof to out the lie of this sham/conspiracy called "climate change."
Climate change is in no way a "constant". The rate at which it changes is not constant. The rate at which the rate of change itself changes is also constant.
ER, meant to say The rate at which the rate of change itself changes is also not constant
Climate change is in no way a "constant". The rate at which it changes is not constant. The rate at which the rate of change itself changes is also constant.
Your 'easy' test is so easy because it's useless. A very long history of solar observations has established that the sun has a cycle of its own that is approximately 11 years (which exceeds the suggested length of your test) and this cycle is not entirely predictable or consistent. There are also factors like volcanic activity, dust storms, etc. Furthermore, accuracy of models is beside the point. Historical data has illustrated an upward trend for years. Temperatures are generally climbing so the world has in fact gotten generally warmer since accurate records have been kept. This has nothing to do with modeling and is based on observation. Warming is an empirical fact. NASA has some compellinggraphs. I'd wager these are more factual than Glenn Beck or Fox News or whoever brings you your news.
I can appreciate the desire to keep one's head in a hole about it. Denial is a natural impulse. Saying "the models aren't good enough" doesn't disprove anything. It certainly doesn't change the observed facts. If you want to say it's getting warmer because god wants to punish us, that's up to you. If you want to say it's not getting warmer, then you are just plain wrong.
You are wrong. Culpability for the problem of climate change admits of degrees. Outright denial of the problem without any proof or reason except some unsupportable personal conviction is particularly vile and selfish.
Would you agree or disagree that "there is no climate change" is a valid talking point? To "go after" people who say "there is no climate change" is valid because these people are morons. The geological record shows that climate changes constantly and to deny it without scientific reasoning is unscientific and backwards and should be assailed. Furthermore, to refute that humankind can cause climate change with an empty and baseless statement of religious conviction is not science, it's idiocy.
Long live the debate as to whether humans can cause climate change! Bring the facts! Leave the religious voodoo mumbo jumbo in church/synagogue/mosque/temple/whatever.
Oh come on. You can't deny global warming! Otherwise, how can you possibly explain the worldwide decline in the pirate population. Obviously the surge in pirate activity in Somalia is the FSM showing us that He loves us and wants to preserve the constant climate as His promise to us.
Creationist beliefs are not scientific. They are religious. It's fine to put them in a history class or a religion class, but they don't belong in a science class.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like somebody's stolen porn movies got pwned IRL by the DOJ.
We should all just roll over and do nothing
I didn't say that. What I meant to strongly imply is that DDoS is totally counterproductive and accomplishes less than nothing. Someone else on here pointed out that airing dirty laundry of the bad guys might at least accomplish something. All this DDoS attack does is stir up the public's fear of anarchy and crime so that their elected representatives can scare them into supporting some nasty bit of freedom-stealing legislation that affects all of us.
Beating down SOPA by rallying all the sheep in the world was a triumph. This DDoS thing is a textbook example of shooting oneself in the foot for no purpose.
Mod parent up. This is really stupid. Any hacker who thinks he can keep his tracks covered forever should think again. Nothing like a little public outrage to fuel some kind of suspending-habeas-corpus-body-snatching legislation like the Patriot Act and these little twats will end up being waterboarded somewhere in Egypt. Lil' hacker buds would do well to remember that meatspace is not cyberspace.
It's obvious that you believe global warming is not a serious problem. What's disconcerting is that I get the feeling that you would oppose CO2 regulation even if global warming were a serious problem.
The idea that regulating CO2 is the same sort of effort as regulating SO2 is ludicrous
Not if CO2 does actually cause global warming and global warming is actually a danger. In that case, it would be necessary.
This absurd leap from green initiatives to "centrally planned economies" is baffling. I suppose you are right that the Soviet Union and China are responsible for some pretty bad environmental problems (Chernobyl, smog on Shanghai) but we are not talking about "centrally planned economies." Are you trying to say that the EPA has resulted in worse environmental problems? That I utterly fail to see.
How, exactly, do green initiatives harm the environment? Wind, solar, and hydroelectric power cause environmental damage? That's a bit of a stretch, don' you think? Have you ever actually seen smog? Breathed it?
That does seem interesting, although that first link appears to be a highly biased source. Obviously, it would be good to see this tree ring research replicated in other countries.
You also neglected to address the other graph which covers 650,000 years.
Well-put!
And you forgot to mention warfare. Apparently wars happen most frequently where you have a large, idle male population.
If we are to ask for scientific proof from skeptics refuting climate change, we are also required to ask it from the climate change believers. If you have links to reputable studies, please provide them.
It's interesting that relativity was mentioned in this context. Everyone should know that there was a tremendous amount of resistance to both the special and general theory of relativity. People were astounded that newtonian physics was being refuted. It was only once observation after observation in support of einstein's theory came to light (e.g. a long unexplained anomaly in mercury's orbit, gravitational lensing, etc.) that the theory was accepted. It took years. And then later Einstein and Niels Bohr got into it over quantum theory. Scientific fact has historically been controversial when it matters.
cold fjord, you should know that any given link you might provide from the senate.gov website is hardly a neutral source. The link you provided, in fact, is specifically the republican-dominated minority version of the environment and public works committee. I.e., Inouye who is beholden to the petroleum lobby. Do us a favor and refrain from using a senate resource to try and make a point as it will merely be political bullshit on one side or the other. If I were trying to bring political bullshit, I would refer you to the majority page at the same exact site. What I mean is this: please don't be a retard.
If you want to bring facts into discussion, please do find the data from those 400 (or is it 650?) scientists which proves the world is not getting warmer. As I recall, the research conducted by global warming skeptic Richard Muller (funded by the Koch family) agreed that the earth has in fact grown warmer. More here. If you can actually find such graphs, let's take a look at them and assess them base on their merits. Please don't bother linking senate.gov or the national review and I won't bother linking huffington post or moveon.org.
What the fuck is your point?
Welcome to Bjorn. Anyone with established mathematical credentials is welcome in the debate. The wonderful thing about mathematics and statistics is that they follow clearly from initial assumptions. Not so with politicians, religious nuts, and petroleum industry lobbyists. These are the plague in the United States.
I don't think models predicting the future are even required to see there is an upward trend. Again, this is from NASA. AFAIK, they are fairly reputable, being the only organization on earth ever to have put people on the moon and rovers on Mars. You don't need models to see what's happened in the past. You also don't need a model to extrapolate from such a graph. It's not cyclical at all.
But maybe I'm wrong. Don't listen to me at all. Listen to the scientists (and not the politicians or evangelicals).
Show me where it says a religion class has anything to do with proving anything about what actually happened. Religion classes (and English classes and art classes and medieval poetry classes, etc.) are not about science or proving facts. They are part of that onanistic exercise in pondering some pecular aspect of our culture that we refer to collectively as "the humanities".
As I understand it, there's plenty of evidence for a warming trend. In that sense, climate change is a fact. The acrimonious debate (for people with enough mental capacity to get past a knee-jerk reaction) revolves around two questions 1) whether or not it is caused by human activity, and 2) whether it in fact represents a continuing trend and therefore a crisis for humanity. Neither point 1 nor point 2 has been proved definitively but many minds much more knowledgeable about the facts than I seem to think so. Unfortunately, this doesn't really seem like a provable proposition. Given the complexity of the environment, one might as well try to prove that String Theory is correct. I support and admire the scientists who struggle to understand/explain/prove either String Theory or climate science.
I also applaud people who argue in favor of Green technologies -- but not to the point of lying or distorting facts. Increased efficiency, energy alternatives, recycling -- these are all good things for humanity. Exploring the alternatives brings more bounty to humanity at large so that we can have a reasonable expectation of supporting all 7 billion people on the planet regardless of whether there is a looming climate crisis or not.
As to whether you believe in climate change being caused by humanity, what's the harm in believing it if it means we make less of an impact on the climate? A few bucks here and there? Cleaner air? Less of a dependence on the Middle East? If the climate hazard is real and we are causing it, denying it is absolutely, most definitely shooting ourselves right in the foot.
But yes let us get past denying that the climate is in fact warming and start figuring out why.
I agree that bullshit can be used to push a political agenda because people want money (q.v. 'weapons of mass destruction', 'the war on terror', and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). But to say "it's not science" is ludicrous. On what do you base this assertion? How long, exactly, have you studied astronomy and/or meteorology and/or climatology? I'm dying to know where you found definitive proof to out the lie of this sham/conspiracy called "climate change."
Climate change is in no way a "constant". The rate at which it changes is not constant. The rate at which the rate of change itself changes is also constant.
ER, meant to say The rate at which the rate of change itself changes is also not constant
Climate change is in no way a "constant". The rate at which it changes is not constant. The rate at which the rate of change itself changes is also constant.
Your 'easy' test is so easy because it's useless. A very long history of solar observations has established that the sun has a cycle of its own that is approximately 11 years (which exceeds the suggested length of your test) and this cycle is not entirely predictable or consistent. There are also factors like volcanic activity, dust storms, etc. Furthermore, accuracy of models is beside the point. Historical data has illustrated an upward trend for years. Temperatures are generally climbing so the world has in fact gotten generally warmer since accurate records have been kept. This has nothing to do with modeling and is based on observation. Warming is an empirical fact. NASA has some compelling graphs. I'd wager these are more factual than Glenn Beck or Fox News or whoever brings you your news.
I can appreciate the desire to keep one's head in a hole about it. Denial is a natural impulse. Saying "the models aren't good enough" doesn't disprove anything. It certainly doesn't change the observed facts. If you want to say it's getting warmer because god wants to punish us, that's up to you. If you want to say it's not getting warmer, then you are just plain wrong.
Well-said! Let us *pray* then that religion doesn't get in the way of science! ;)
you are as much of the problem as any "denier"
You are wrong. Culpability for the problem of climate change admits of degrees. Outright denial of the problem without any proof or reason except some unsupportable personal conviction is particularly vile and selfish.
Would you agree or disagree that "there is no climate change" is a valid talking point? To "go after" people who say "there is no climate change" is valid because these people are morons. The geological record shows that climate changes constantly and to deny it without scientific reasoning is unscientific and backwards and should be assailed. Furthermore, to refute that humankind can cause climate change with an empty and baseless statement of religious conviction is not science, it's idiocy.
Long live the debate as to whether humans can cause climate change! Bring the facts! Leave the religious voodoo mumbo jumbo in church/synagogue/mosque/temple/whatever.
Oh come on. You can't deny global warming! Otherwise, how can you possibly explain the worldwide decline in the pirate population. Obviously the surge in pirate activity in Somalia is the FSM showing us that He loves us and wants to preserve the constant climate as His promise to us.
Creationist beliefs are not scientific. They are religious. It's fine to put them in a history class or a religion class, but they don't belong in a science class.