What the scientists actually said was that action on climate change was "premature" because of the "large scientific uncertainties" and the "severe impact of climate change policies on the world's economies".
They DID "take action" on climate change, they hired a PR firm to lie for them.
Their scientists also told them that drilling for oil is uncertain and fraught with risks, but that didn't stop them from "taking action".
There is little reason to believe that massive government intervention at this point is would be either beneficial or effective in the long run, and it would certainly be quite harmful in the short run.
I know, right? the government made an effort to save lives on the road, and over the decades it's only saved about a million lives, really just nothing at all.
My argument is relevant because Exxon is being criticized. But they're going to be criticized no matter what. They "ignored" warnings. But if they had taken action instead, there's no reason to think they'd be treated any better or be better off in any way.
So if exxon had invested their outrageous profits in solar energy and become the #1 vendor of solar panels, nobody would think any differently of them?
Investing in solar during the 70s wouldn't have generated a return for another 30+ years.
Energy companies invest ALL THE TIME in new chemical technologies that won't be profitable for decades.
There was plenty of time to wait and see if the prediction turned out to be correct and if some alternative energy source would come along to save the day.
plenty of time? exxon has ALREADY missed the boat on solar panel research.
just think how much more sales they would have today if they had heeded their own research and put some profits into solar panels. The long term outlook for solar panels is better than the long term outlook for oil. Don't believe me? Ask the saudis, with all the oil in the world they are still investing heavily in solar. Watch the world bypass the USA as it adapts solar and leaves us in the dust.
Would people buy solar panels made by Exxon? Why would anyone expect Exxon would be good at making solar panels? Why would an Exxon executive think Exxon would be good at making solar panels?
When you tell yourself a story about Exxon making solar panels, does it seem like a believable story?
Shell, Arco, and BP are all making and selling solar panels, why not?
What were they supposed to do to not be accused of "ignoring" warnings? Can you describe the decision-making process you wish they'd followed?
They are an energy company, not an oil company. Just imagine if they had invested heavily in solar technology. All that money we are paying to the Chinese for solar panels, we could be paying it to them instead. BUT NO.
A survey of peer reviewed scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 show that few papers predicted global cooling (7 in total). Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming (Peterson 2008). The large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than 1970s scientists predicting cooling, the opposite is the case.
I've found one of the biggest problems can be convincing programmers that they should even try to have less bugs.
Why don't you actually practice the "modern programming technique" you say you know, and convince the "programmers" to write their own unit tests? You claim expertise in the area and yet you don't even mention the #1 technique for reducing bugs and educating developers about them: write their own damned tests. It's much more effective than your nonsense.
The article doesn't say much.......just a few quotes, for me it's hard to get a real idea of what the speaker was trying to convey.
One thing the MMM points out is that some engineers are 10 times more efficient than others. The obvious solution is to teach the "others" to do the things the efficient programmers do.
This is like saying we can all hit home runs like David Ortiz if we only take the time to learn how he does it
Slashdot Mirror
That's all it takes to become the #1 vendor of solar panels?
it's how they became the #1 vendor of oil
What the scientists actually said was that action on climate change was "premature" because of the "large scientific uncertainties" and the "severe impact of climate change policies on the world's economies".
They DID "take action" on climate change, they hired a PR firm to lie for them.
Their scientists also told them that drilling for oil is uncertain and fraught with risks, but that didn't stop them from "taking action".
There is little reason to believe that massive government intervention at this point is would be either beneficial or effective in the long run, and it would certainly be quite harmful in the short run.
I know, right? the government made an effort to save lives on the road, and over the decades it's only saved about a million lives, really just nothing at all.
My argument is relevant because Exxon is being criticized. But they're going to be criticized no matter what. They "ignored" warnings. But if they had taken action instead, there's no reason to think they'd be treated any better or be better off in any way.
So if exxon had invested their outrageous profits in solar energy and become the #1 vendor of solar panels, nobody would think any differently of them?
what evidence can you show that your stupid argument has any relevance whatsoever?
It's silly to be fanatical when there are no viable solutions.
yeah, it's better to lie back and allow death to take over instead of trying to fight back
In the end, I have faith in the species to adapt or to invent technologies that actually will be helpful.
The "species will adapt" by going extinct, mother nature will shrug and life will go on without humans
Investing in solar during the 70s wouldn't have generated a return for another 30+ years.
Energy companies invest ALL THE TIME in new chemical technologies that won't be profitable for decades.
There was plenty of time to wait and see if the prediction turned out to be correct and if some alternative energy source would come along to save the day.
plenty of time? exxon has ALREADY missed the boat on solar panel research.
Similarly, no one has a fission engine on their car.
people are using energy from nuclear fission to power their cars, whether or not the reactor is attached to the car is irrelevant.
It seems like environmentalists still complain about Shell, Arco, and BP.
the concepts of "more" and "less" are apparently too complex for you?
they price that into their product.
just think how much more sales they would have today if they had heeded their own research and put some profits into solar panels. The long term outlook for solar panels is better than the long term outlook for oil. Don't believe me? Ask the saudis, with all the oil in the world they are still investing heavily in solar. Watch the world bypass the USA as it adapts solar and leaves us in the dust.
Would people buy solar panels made by Exxon? Why would anyone expect Exxon would be good at making solar panels? Why would an Exxon executive think Exxon would be good at making solar panels?
When you tell yourself a story about Exxon making solar panels, does it seem like a believable story?
Shell, Arco, and BP are all making and selling solar panels, why not?
No, people filling up their tanks made the decision for them.
Exxon could have stopped refining oil and nothing in the world would have changed.
yeah, if they had gone into the solar panel business, we could be selling solar panels to china, but no.
What were they supposed to do to not be accused of "ignoring" warnings? Can you describe the decision-making process you wish they'd followed?
They are an energy company, not an oil company. Just imagine if they had invested heavily in solar technology. All that money we are paying to the Chinese for solar panels, we could be paying it to them instead. BUT NO.
The fact that one guy at one company
BULLSHIT
A survey of peer reviewed scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 show that few papers predicted global cooling (7 in total). Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming (Peterson 2008). The large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than 1970s scientists predicting cooling, the opposite is the case.
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf
To be fair, there was great uncertainty about those findings at the time. We have struggled to build good models to the day.
Their research into where to drill for oil also had great uncertainty, but that didn't stop them.
I've found one of the biggest problems can be convincing programmers that they should even try to have less bugs.
Why don't you actually practice the "modern programming technique" you say you know, and convince the "programmers" to write their own unit tests? You claim expertise in the area and yet you don't even mention the #1 technique for reducing bugs and educating developers about them: write their own damned tests. It's much more effective than your nonsense.
The easiest way to improve efficiency for the younger IT crowd is to take their smartphone away.
That way their thumbs can be used on a keyboard instead of in IM's.
Smartphones waste more time than smoke breaks do. I smile every time a tapatalker gets walked out.
it's even easier to just ignore them and fire them when they fail their performance review
An environment that's the epitomy of Rapid Application Development. Can you have any non-trivial code working by morning on that thing?
i made no such assertion, but the parent did
If you've got one third of your engineers working at it, why not work on improving the effectiveness of all the employees?
Because the other employees are already actually doing their jobs. Do you see the empty wastebasket? Does your paycheck show up on time?
Yes, communication is a huge cost. Use it as much as needed, but nor more! Excess communication is expensive! If you don't get it, read the book!!
MMM today is like reading "the idiot's guide to the volkswagen beetle" and expecting to be able to fix a modern car.
The article doesn't say much.......just a few quotes, for me it's hard to get a real idea of what the speaker was trying to convey.
One thing the MMM points out is that some engineers are 10 times more efficient than others. The obvious solution is to teach the "others" to do the things the efficient programmers do.
This is like saying we can all hit home runs like David Ortiz if we only take the time to learn how he does it
One of the prime examples of this is Android which tries to solve the near trivial problem of "application launcher"
If it's SO trivial then why has Microsoft re-written theirs a half-dozen times?
Choose whatever language you want. None of you are even competitive with me when I choose C# under Visual Studio with a notebook full of pseudocode.
gee, that's great. now get your code running on MSP430 and PIC32. Can you have it working by morning?
The Mythical Man Month is still extremely relevant on this topic. It's hard for me to take anyone seriously on this topic unless they've read it.
Should we take you seriously? It's clear you didn't bother to RTFA.