In the context of this statistics discussion, I think you may be missing his point. Of course what Bin Laden wants is absurd and deserves to be fought, but is taking over two countries and sending daily drone strikes into a third country the correct amount of response?
There have been several reports (one from the CIA if I recall correctly) that estimate that our two wars and the drone strikes are creating more terrorists than they are killing. We seem to be making things worse.
Watch the movie Restrepo when you get a chance. Just came out on Netflix. It follows one unit in the early days of the Afghanistan war. Pertinent to this discussion is the part of the story describing their mission with the highest US casualties. It was just after bombing a house full of innocent people. They quite literally turned up the heat on themselves through one act. That, I think, is our war on terror in a nutshell.
Although each of the proxy temperature records shown below is different, due in part to the diverse statistical methods utilized and sources of the proxy data, they all indicate similar patterns of temperature variability over the last 500 to 2000 years. Most striking is the fact that each record reveals a steep increase in the rate or spatial extent of warming since the mid-19th to early 20th centuries.
I obvious don't have the time (or possibly the scientific background) to understand those other 5 studies, but NOAA seems fairly certain that they are all similar results, given different methods and different proxy data.
If you use the link I provided it links to other sources, including one graph of 10 independent temperature data sets, and they all pretty much line up, showing that our warming is indeed anomalous.
Do you have better information than http://www.grist.org/article/the-hockey-stick-is-broken/ That the hockey stick is "unmitigated bollocks"?
It doesn't seem that black and white to me. Regardless, do what grists suggests: if you don't like it, throw it out, it doesn't change the other mountains of evidence, nor all the newer temperature graphs, that while having more variability than the hockey stick, all still agree that our current warming is anomalous.
I'm not qualified to judge the accuracy of your linked study or mine, but it seems to me that if models were completely worthless, scientists wouldn't be working on them....
They mention in their own paper that there were several criticisms from scientists about their methodology. The only one they linked to is this one: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/08/hypothesis-testing-and-long-term-memory/
The realclimate argument against their methodology seems fairly sound to me.
And remember, peer reviewed doesn't necessarily mean that the results are good.
You might be interested in this list of answers to many of those questions you have. http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/
Here's what I don't get about reasonable skeptics though. Like you said, we can basically agree that the Earth is getting warmer and humans are contributing to it.
The magnitude of change, at what rate it is occurring, and what the effects will be for temperature X rise are not that well understood. There are lots of predictions, but they all have fairly large margins of error. I agree with you on that.
But what I don't get, is the attitude that we shouldn't do anything about oil until those margins of error are tiny or the predictions are near 100% accurate, given a couple things:
1. There are many reasons for cutting back and eventually not using oil (dependency on foreign oil, limited resource, pollution, etc..). 2. Many smart folks have thought out how we can stop using oil fairly quickly (30-40 years) with virtually no economic impact. See Amory Lovins at Ted Talks
So regardless of the state of climate science, why not start now? I think some of the "believers" are getting frustrated at the lack of action, and are cranking up the rhetoric hoping for some movement, any movement (federal level), and in return, all they seem to get are old weak arguments, or the more reasonable argument you put forth (lots of margin of error).
But even you argument, about the degree of severity, has to conclude that not changing our ways will eventually cause us problems. If you know you are running towards a cliff, even if you don't have any idea when you'll arrive, why not start working on changing your course?
I support labeling people "deniers" when they make blanket statements like this:
"The bottom line is that we don't really know what's going on."
There are thousands of reports that make it quite clear that scientists have a fairly good understanding of what the heck is going on. Yes, there are margins of error, estimates, and ranges of effects.... but yes, they really do know what is going on.
This new study is one among thousands. I think anyone is way premature to conclude anything new from this study until it has been further reviewed and the plant growth effect has been run through other models. I wasn't able to read the full study, but the abstract didn't seem to indicate any consideration of run-away effects either. And as other above have pointed out, their conclusion is based on CO2 stabilizing, after which plants catch up and then mitigate the effect. That means that CO2 output would have to become stable first, which it isn't: CO2 output worldwide continues to increase.
I'm guessing that those articles only look at the mass produced beef that is shipped all over the country.
The beef we buy (and that most of Portland OR uses) comes from local sources, who in addition to being free range, organic, etc.. etc.. practice carbon offsets and sound environmental practices on the lands they manage.
I'd be curious to know what percent of total carbon/methane cattle produce when they are more naturally raised, not shipped across the country, etc.
Ocean acidification is even more BS than global warming.
We know atmospheric CO2 was hundreds of times higher when this planet had corals and shellfish. Our oceans are alkaline and it would take a tremendous amount of acid to change them just 0.1.
Ocean acidification is even less studied than GHG. It didn't even exist until a year or two ago.
I take it you didn't bother to look at the references?
The very first one is 2005, the next 2003. I haven't read enough reviews of the studies to know whether they are valid or not, but just a cursory glance at the references refutes your claim that that "it didn't even exist until a year or two ago".
That might be part of it, but I think much of the black/white (no grey), love/hate binary pattern in US politics has been fabricated intentionally from a variety of fully funded sources.
Heritage foundation, cato institute, paid bloggers, and dozens more "think tanks" are in continual spin mode. Finding real unbiased facts about any given issue has gotten difficult for the average citizen (or at least time consuming, which means the majority won't bother with) due to all the spin.
If every point of view can claim an equal amount of "proof" it naturally leads to us/them mentalities, and to the rise of fox news/msnbc which thrive on the ratings that this competition of ideas produces.
Take the very simple questions like:
Does cutting taxes always stimulate an economy and produce jobs? If so how much for each point cut? If in some situations it does not, why and under what circumstances?
Surely we have enough historical data and enough (truly unbiased, non political ) PhD's in economics to get an answer to that set of questions. But try using google to get an answer, or heaven forbid watch the news to try to find the answer. I'll guarantee that you won't be able to get anything accurate (if you do, you aren't using generic terms that most people would use and likely have google skillz:))
In the absence of real objective facts from unbiased reporters, and with each side feeling confident in their set of evidence for "whatever", we've moved almost to a faith based system. At least for average Americans. It is two ideologies, and people subscribe to them in a very similar fashion to choosing a religion.
Without greyness, everything naturally becomes extreme:
Small government: good in every way for all aspects, all the time, the smaller the better! Low taxes: Should be zero taxes! Smaller is always better! etc.. etc..
I don't think anyone foresees the death of large screens. Maybe just a change in what is feeding the screen the video. What if your smart phone could stream video to your TV or pc monitor, accept input from a blue tooth keyboard or mouse, and run full virtual desktops of the OS of your choice, at PC speeds.
Certainly won't happen in 18 months, but I can see it happening within my lifetime.
Exactly. At some point in the near future (10,20,30 years?) something the size of your phone will do "everything". You might have a keyboard, mouse, and 52 inch screen at home, but your smart phone could be the cpu/video/storage driving all of it.
I just read about vmware creating virtualization software for android phones. I could see my phone booting up a full version of linux, switch to a full version of windows, switch back to phone, etc... That is one more reason to support open platforms. If small hand held devices are someday able to be just as powerful as desktop PC's, it won't have much advantage to the end user if they can't take advantage of that power to run desktop software.
Personally, I think music artists should only get paid by doing concerts.
Digital copies of their music should be distributed far and wide, for free, as advertising for the live shows. Radio plays music for free over the air. The difference between radio and file sharing is only separated by convenience. It is much more convenient to get the specific song you want, when you want it, then to wait for it to play on the radio.
I would be willing to pay a convenience fee to whatever services is streaming and/or storing the music, but the copy of the music, in and of itself, should not have any value. Once something can be copied with zero effort, it is foolish to rely on that copy as your source of revenue. The same should apply for movies. Make the content available through reasonably priced, convenient channels (netflix, hulu, etc.. ) and I'll gladly pay a convenience fee. But the copy of the movie should not have any inherent worth.
Movie theaters with full meals, nicer chairs, and beer, do very well here in Portland. http://www.mcmenamins.com/
They don't play the latest movies though. I'm assuming it is too costly to have the latest blockbuster. They wait a while, then show it. Movie studios shooting themselves in the foot again.
Make going to the movies an experience again (pub theaters, kid theaters with play areas, etc..) and rely on that showing (concert) to make your money.
It is hard to quantify, but I wouldn't discount the impact that world financing has on death and destruction.
The world bank and the IMF, if you agree with their critics, have held nations in poverty for decades. The many people that have died due to malnutrition, disease, etc., that far outweighs what was done in Iraq.
Of course what happened in Iraq was horrible, but I don't think we should turn a blind eye to financial systems that make or break countries.
The only complaint I have about netflix is the time it takes for content to be available. Take 'destination truth season 4' for instance. Still not available on netflix, but Hulu has it.
I'm not sure why netflix can't make the same agreements with content providers that hulu does.
VOD - I would assume that the shell uses a solid explosive with a very high velocity.
And I'd be willing to bet that there are more like 40 fragments. (88mm shell has ~100 fragments) even if you think that the size is directly proportional to the shrapnel number, it is more like 30 fragments. I'd guess they designed it to have smaller fragments, but more numerous than its 25mm size would normally produce, using the 88mm as a reference) Even without shrapnel, if this thing is accurate to a meter, the explosive force alone is going to seriously injure and likely kill.
I'll look into the claims you raised later (and comment), but I'm curious if you can point to a president that you think was good?
If you cannot find striking differences between Obama and GWB I truly am curious if you think that any president in our history has been beneficial for the average american.
I'm curious what Obama has done (besides stretch timetables which you mentioned) that puts him anywhere near the same level of "crappiness" as GWB? There are some pretty long lists of accomplishments in the first two years. For instance: google for list of obama accomplishments. The first link thehistoricalcontext. (I'd paste the link but for some reason chrome in ubuntu 8.04 is acting weird right now....)
Assuming your issues aren't things like "health care reform was socialism grr grr bark bark". If that's the issue, don't bother responding. I'm tired of that debate hehe:) I'm a public option type person so I don't like how health care ended up either.
Don't various tea party rallies around the country actively try to recruit Sarah Palin to give speeches?
Likewise, the primary wins of O'Donnell and Joe Miller, due to people who admit to supporting the tea party, clearly shows that these are in fact the desired representatives of many in the tea party (for those states).
Is this a 'real' tea party organization? http://teapartypatriots.org
If so, they seem to think that the recent election was a "win" for them. If so, the new freshman republicans do represent their views. Now, have you seen those views? Look up some of the things that people like Allen West are saying. Or anti-evolution reps like Sandy Adams from Florida.
None of them believe that global warning is an issue (for various reasons), most are extremely close to fundamentalist christians, etc..
I know you aren't taking sides, but I thought I'd point out that yes, Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell do represent, by request of the tea party, the tea party.
And to various posters above claiming that the tea party, overall, isn't nuts, I'd say this: The stated general principles, smaller government, more freedom, free-markets, etc.. are all sane ideas worth talking about. The problem is that those sane ideas normally come along with a host of idiotic, ignorant, and sometimes scary ideas.
There don't seem to be very many true conservatives in existence (at least in the public spotlight) anymore. The republicans were so effective at pushing the country to the right, that I believe they have permanently injured their party's ability to govern. Take the START treaty for example.
Slashdot Mirror
In the context of this statistics discussion, I think you may be missing his point. Of course what Bin Laden wants is absurd and deserves to be fought, but is taking over two countries and sending daily drone strikes into a third country the correct amount of response?
There have been several reports (one from the CIA if I recall correctly) that estimate that our two wars and the drone strikes are creating more terrorists than they are killing. We seem to be making things worse.
Watch the movie Restrepo when you get a chance. Just came out on Netflix. It follows one unit in the early days of the Afghanistan war. Pertinent to this discussion is the part of the story describing their mission with the highest US casualties. It was just after bombing a house full of innocent people. They quite literally turned up the heat on themselves through one act. That, I think, is our war on terror in a nutshell.
I see 5 that are not Briffa Jones or Mann.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png
NOAA's summary:
Although each of the proxy temperature records shown below is different, due in part to the diverse statistical methods utilized and sources of the proxy data, they all indicate similar patterns of temperature variability over the last 500 to 2000 years. Most striking is the fact that each record reveals a steep increase in the rate or spatial extent of warming since the mid-19th to early 20th centuries.
I obvious don't have the time (or possibly the scientific background) to understand those other 5 studies, but NOAA seems fairly certain that they are all similar results, given different methods and different proxy data.
If you use the link I provided it links to other sources, including one graph of 10 independent temperature data sets, and they all pretty much line up, showing that our warming is indeed anomalous.
Do you have better information than http://www.grist.org/article/the-hockey-stick-is-broken/
That the hockey stick is "unmitigated bollocks"?
It doesn't seem that black and white to me. Regardless, do what grists suggests: if you don't like it, throw it out, it doesn't change the other mountains of evidence, nor all the newer temperature graphs, that while having more variability than the hockey stick, all still agree that our current warming is anomalous.
I'll see your one study, and raise you several more that say the opposite hehe.
http://www.grist.org/article/climate-models-are-unproven/
I'm not qualified to judge the accuracy of your linked study or mine, but it seems to me that if models were completely worthless, scientists wouldn't be working on them....
They mention in their own paper that there were several criticisms from scientists about their methodology. The only one they linked to is this one: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/08/hypothesis-testing-and-long-term-memory/
The realclimate argument against their methodology seems fairly sound to me.
And remember, peer reviewed doesn't necessarily mean that the results are good.
You might be interested in this list of answers to many of those questions you have.
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/
Here's what I don't get about reasonable skeptics though. Like you said, we can basically agree that the Earth is getting warmer and humans are contributing to it.
The magnitude of change, at what rate it is occurring, and what the effects will be for temperature X rise are not that well understood. There are lots of predictions, but they all have fairly large margins of error. I agree with you on that.
But what I don't get, is the attitude that we shouldn't do anything about oil until those margins of error are tiny or the predictions are near 100% accurate, given a couple things:
1. There are many reasons for cutting back and eventually not using oil (dependency on foreign oil, limited resource, pollution, etc..).
2. Many smart folks have thought out how we can stop using oil fairly quickly (30-40 years) with virtually no economic impact. See Amory Lovins at Ted Talks
So regardless of the state of climate science, why not start now? I think some of the "believers" are getting frustrated at the lack of action, and are cranking up the rhetoric hoping for some movement, any movement (federal level), and in return, all they seem to get are old weak arguments, or the more reasonable argument you put forth (lots of margin of error).
But even you argument, about the degree of severity, has to conclude that not changing our ways will eventually cause us problems. If you know you are running towards a cliff, even if you don't have any idea when you'll arrive, why not start working on changing your course?
He didn't state it quite right:
See here for a more detailed explanation: http://www.grist.org/article/co2-doesnt-lead-it-lags/
Seems interesting, I'll look into that further.
At first glance though, I'm not sure how those systems would combat misinformation.
I support labeling people "deniers" when they make blanket statements like this:
"The bottom line is that we don't really know what's going on."
There are thousands of reports that make it quite clear that scientists have a fairly good understanding of what the heck is going on. Yes, there are margins of error, estimates, and ranges of effects.... but yes, they really do know what is going on.
This new study is one among thousands. I think anyone is way premature to conclude anything new from this study until it has been further reviewed and the plant growth effect has been run through other models. I wasn't able to read the full study, but the abstract didn't seem to indicate any consideration of run-away effects either. And as other above have pointed out, their conclusion is based on CO2 stabilizing, after which plants catch up and then mitigate the effect. That means that CO2 output would have to become stable first, which it isn't: CO2 output worldwide continues to increase.
I'm guessing that those articles only look at the mass produced beef that is shipped all over the country.
The beef we buy (and that most of Portland OR uses) comes from local sources, who in addition to being free range, organic, etc.. etc.. practice carbon offsets and sound environmental practices on the lands they manage.
I'd be curious to know what percent of total carbon/methane cattle produce when they are more naturally raised, not shipped across the country, etc.
Ocean acidification is even more BS than global warming.
We know atmospheric CO2 was hundreds of times higher when this planet had corals and shellfish. Our oceans are alkaline and it would take a tremendous amount of acid to change them just 0.1.
Ocean acidification is even less studied than GHG. It didn't even exist until a year or two ago.
I take it you didn't bother to look at the references?
The very first one is 2005, the next 2003. I haven't read enough reviews of the studies to know whether they are valid or not, but just a cursory glance at the references refutes your claim that that "it didn't even exist until a year or two ago".
That might be part of it, but I think much of the black/white (no grey), love/hate binary pattern in US politics has been fabricated intentionally from a variety of fully funded sources.
Heritage foundation, cato institute, paid bloggers, and dozens more "think tanks" are in continual spin mode. Finding real unbiased facts about any given issue has gotten difficult for the average citizen (or at least time consuming, which means the majority won't bother with) due to all the spin.
If every point of view can claim an equal amount of "proof" it naturally leads to us/them mentalities, and to the rise of fox news/msnbc which thrive on the ratings that this competition of ideas produces.
Take the very simple questions like:
Does cutting taxes always stimulate an economy and produce jobs? If so how much for each point cut? If in some situations it does not, why and under what circumstances?
Surely we have enough historical data and enough (truly unbiased, non political ) PhD's in economics to get an answer to that set of questions. But try using google to get an answer, or heaven forbid watch the news to try to find the answer. I'll guarantee that you won't be able to get anything accurate (if you do, you aren't using generic terms that most people would use and likely have google skillz:))
In the absence of real objective facts from unbiased reporters, and with each side feeling confident in their set of evidence for "whatever", we've moved almost to a faith based system. At least for average Americans. It is two ideologies, and people subscribe to them in a very similar fashion to choosing a religion.
Without greyness, everything naturally becomes extreme:
Small government: good in every way for all aspects, all the time, the smaller the better!
Low taxes: Should be zero taxes! Smaller is always better!
etc.. etc..
Curious: Is it common outside the US to be able to take all your days at once? Once a year, a month long vacation?
I don't think anyone foresees the death of large screens. Maybe just a change in what is feeding the screen the video. What if your smart phone could stream video to your TV or pc monitor, accept input from a blue tooth keyboard or mouse, and run full virtual desktops of the OS of your choice, at PC speeds.
Certainly won't happen in 18 months, but I can see it happening within my lifetime.
Exactly. At some point in the near future (10,20,30 years?) something the size of your phone will do "everything". You might have a keyboard, mouse, and 52 inch screen at home, but your smart phone could be the cpu/video/storage driving all of it.
I just read about vmware creating virtualization software for android phones. I could see my phone booting up a full version of linux, switch to a full version of windows, switch back to phone, etc... That is one more reason to support open platforms. If small hand held devices are someday able to be just as powerful as desktop PC's, it won't have much advantage to the end user if they can't take advantage of that power to run desktop software.
Personally, I think music artists should only get paid by doing concerts.
Digital copies of their music should be distributed far and wide, for free, as advertising for the live shows. Radio plays music for free over the air. The difference between radio and file sharing is only separated by convenience. It is much more convenient to get the specific song you want, when you want it, then to wait for it to play on the radio.
I would be willing to pay a convenience fee to whatever services is streaming and/or storing the music, but the copy of the music, in and of itself, should not have any value. Once something can be copied with zero effort, it is foolish to rely on that copy as your source of revenue. The same should apply for movies. Make the content available through reasonably priced, convenient channels (netflix, hulu, etc.. ) and I'll gladly pay a convenience fee. But the copy of the movie should not have any inherent worth.
Movie theaters with full meals, nicer chairs, and beer, do very well here in Portland. http://www.mcmenamins.com/
They don't play the latest movies though. I'm assuming it is too costly to have the latest blockbuster. They wait a while, then show it. Movie studios shooting themselves in the foot again.
Make going to the movies an experience again (pub theaters, kid theaters with play areas, etc..) and rely on that showing (concert) to make your money.
If it damages the USA, who is solely responsible for maintaining peace and democracy in the world, then yes, yes it is.
LOL
I don't think that is a joke. Haven't you seen This documentary?
It is hard to quantify, but I wouldn't discount the impact that world financing has on death and destruction.
The world bank and the IMF, if you agree with their critics, have held nations in poverty for decades. The many people that have died due to malnutrition, disease, etc., that far outweighs what was done in Iraq.
Of course what happened in Iraq was horrible, but I don't think we should turn a blind eye to financial systems that make or break countries.
I realize that issue. I just am curious why the networks wouldn't want another revenue stream.
Neflix "Premium" or something, where some portion of the monthly few is shared with the content providers based on number of views.
The only complaint I have about netflix is the time it takes for content to be available. Take 'destination truth season 4' for instance. Still not available on netflix, but Hulu has it.
I'm not sure why netflix can't make the same agreements with content providers that hulu does.
VOD - I would assume that the shell uses a solid explosive with a very high velocity.
And I'd be willing to bet that there are more like 40 fragments. (88mm shell has ~100 fragments) even if you think that the size is directly proportional to the shrapnel number, it is more like 30 fragments. I'd guess they designed it to have smaller fragments, but more numerous than its 25mm size would normally produce, using the 88mm as a reference) Even without shrapnel, if this thing is accurate to a meter, the explosive force alone is going to seriously injure and likely kill.
I'll look into the claims you raised later (and comment), but I'm curious if you can point to a president that you think was good?
If you cannot find striking differences between Obama and GWB I truly am curious if you think that any president in our history has been beneficial for the average american.
I'm curious what Obama has done (besides stretch timetables which you mentioned) that puts him anywhere near the same level of "crappiness" as GWB? There are some pretty long lists of accomplishments in the first two years. For instance: google for list of obama accomplishments. The first link thehistoricalcontext. (I'd paste the link but for some reason chrome in ubuntu 8.04 is acting weird right now....)
Assuming your issues aren't things like "health care reform was socialism grr grr bark bark". If that's the issue, don't bother responding. I'm tired of that debate hehe:) I'm a public option type person so I don't like how health care ended up either.
Don't various tea party rallies around the country actively try to recruit Sarah Palin to give speeches?
Likewise, the primary wins of O'Donnell and Joe Miller, due to people who admit to supporting the tea party, clearly shows that these are in fact the desired representatives of many in the tea party (for those states).
Is this a 'real' tea party organization? http://teapartypatriots.org
If so, they seem to think that the recent election was a "win" for them. If so, the new freshman republicans do represent their views. Now, have you seen those views? Look up some of the things that people like Allen West are saying. Or anti-evolution reps like Sandy Adams from Florida.
None of them believe that global warning is an issue (for various reasons), most are extremely close to fundamentalist christians, etc..
I know you aren't taking sides, but I thought I'd point out that yes, Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell do represent, by request of the tea party, the tea party.
And to various posters above claiming that the tea party, overall, isn't nuts, I'd say this: The stated general principles, smaller government, more freedom, free-markets, etc.. are all sane ideas worth talking about. The problem is that those sane ideas normally come along with a host of idiotic, ignorant, and sometimes scary ideas.
There don't seem to be very many true conservatives in existence (at least in the public spotlight) anymore. The republicans were so effective at pushing the country to the right, that I believe they have permanently injured their party's ability to govern. Take the START treaty for example.
How did they find out that you bought a smartcard writer?