Even just bringing in the same dollars as it did back in the late 90s would be a problem, even using inflation adjusted dollars. There are more Americans now and the GDP is larger.
When you look at receipts and spending in GDP terms, it clear there's a revenue problem. It's not an either or situation, you know. You can have both problems at the same time. In fact, Bush managed to create both problems simultaneously by lowering revenue and increasing spending.
They're very relevant. Ending the Bush tax cuts would cut the deficit to less than half of what it is, and given the current activities of the "job creators" whom it would effect, it would have next to no impact on the economy. They're not spending that money creating jobs. Do you know what they're doing with that money? They're loaning it back to the government and charging interest on the loan. That's exactly how stupid the Bush tax cuts are.
California's problems have to do with a provision (a state constitutional amendment?) that any tax increase must be passed by referendum, but if the referendum fails, the program(s) the tax increase was supposed to pay for remain in effect. In theory, this should lead to a minimalist government, in practice it leads to unfunded programs. Because, as a group, the voters vote for the programs and against paying for them.
I'd argue that when the 'cushioning' costs resources, and relies on essentially wagering by the government about which industries to non-competitively subsidize - then no, the cushion is not worth the cost in terms of what it does to the economy.
Except the cushioning usually doesn't have to cost much in the way of resources. For example, a revenue neutral carbon tax* would accomplish several goals at once, encourage a reduction in carbon emissions, signal a long-term rise in fuel prices and soften the blow when oil prices head for another peak, and encourage the development of alternative energy sources without subsidies.
We survived the transition to electricity, we survived the transition from horse to cars, and we've survived other greatly dislocating transitions;
Humanity will survive the transition, unless someone literally goes nuclear over it (and maybe even then).
human economies are extraordinarily resilient and successful when they are LEFT ALONE. Yes, it can be savage to individuals, but the overall best-result-greatest-number is generally to leave the market alone
Actually, I doubt that has been shown to be true. In fact, Keynsian economic theory is based on the idea that economies do not function best when left alone. The Austrian school disagrees, of course, but they remain a fringe group in the field of economics.
(not that our politicians can or have done so in the last 40 years, so I admit my point is so nearly utopian as to be valueless).
I think even Keynsians are entirely willing to admit that government power can be used for good or ill in the marketplace. In fact, applied in the wrong ways, it can achieve the opposite of the desired results and make things worse in general. The U.S. is probably the place this is most likely to happen, because of the massive flaws in the current electoral system. In addition to Gerrymandering which renders congressional representatives unaccountable to voters, congressional representatives are continually for sale to the highest bidders. They generally spend between 2-6 hours every day asking for money, which means they inevitable become more intimately familiar with how their votes will influence their re-election funding than how the votes will affect their constituents. In fact, in most congressional districts, primary challenges are a larger threat than general elections.
* A revenue neutral tax gather revenue from one activity and then uses it to reduce one or more other taxes, for example, income tax could be reduce by lowering one or more rate categories or increasing the basic exemption.
I know you're an idiot troll, but just in case anyone with a half a brain is interested, the dust bowl was caused by a combination of drought and poor farming practices. Since North American farmers no longer follow the same destructive practices that caused the dust bowl, we're not likely to see it happen again, even though this drought is worse than the one that created the dust bowl.
So here's your notice, the drought is worse (less than 1/10th the rain in the 30's), but the U.S. Government took action long ago to prevent another dust bowl from occurring.
Well, my "microclimate", meaning the southern half of the United States, just spent a summer with temperatures several degrees warmer than usual and we got no more freakish weather than usual. The winter before that was a few degrees colder than normal, and still no hurricanes over land. So, in a single year, I've seen periods warmer than usual and cooler than usual with no freakish behavior. I think we'll be OK with a 1.6 degree increase over the next 100 years.
Actually, no. There was a lot of freakish behaviour, I don't know how you are able to ignore it*. More than half of the continental United States was affected by either drought or flood last year, a record level of both. In particular, Texas had the worst drought since they started keeping temperature records. On the flooding side, I saw an article indicating that Atlanta had an estimated 500 year high flood, if a one in 500 years event isn't unusual, I'm not sure what qualified for you. Maybe your community escaped the freakish weather, but there was plenty to go around.
It's not just the U.S. either, for the first time in it's history, most of Canada had a green Christmas. Australia had record setting flooding. In fact there was so much rain and flooding this past year that the evaporation that fuelled the flooding actually lowered the sea level slightly.
* Although my guess would be a combination of Fox News, confirmation bias, and ignorance.
It's us. It's not just correlation, it's multiple lines of evidence that all point to human caused climate change. Coincidentally, you argument that it's not necessarily us is falling out of favour even with people in denial, it used to be one of the top 10 arguments, now it's not even in the top 50 most frequently used arguments.
Because some the reports that I've seen say agriculture production had already fallen due to negative climate change effects. For instance, this report says that many of California's tree crops may die off because the "winter chill" which protects the trees from some pests will no longer consistently occur. As I understand it, the reason that actual output hasn't fallen is because technological advancements are (so far) outpacing the negative climate related effects.
A warmer climate means you get a longer growing season in the northern areas that are already the most productive. This is good for places like the US.
I can't find it right now, but there was an article that said over 50% of the U.S. mainland was afflicted by either flooding or droughts this year. As the average temperature increases, the average amount of area covered by those conditions will increase. Neither condition is good for growing crops. It doesn't take much land area consumed by drought to negate all changes from a "longer growing season".
Near the equator in areas where it's already too hot for most cereal crops, additional CO2 will make tree farming much more profitable - trees grow better due to additional CO2 fertilization.
As far as I'm aware, additional CO2 has a negligible effect on plant growth, few plants are struggling to get more carbon, they tend to be limited by competition, pests, water, and sunlight first. Even in perfect greenhouse conditions, additional carbon dioxide seems to only boost growth by a few percent (~3%).
Frankly, that sounds like a collection of random incorrect talking points. Now, if we accept the Republican complaint that it will cost 60% more than projected, then Obama care will cost $240 million or almost 1/12th what the Bush tax cuts cost. Perspective, it's important and you don't appear to have any.
What? If the methodology is poor, how can you trust the conclusion?
I didn't say anything about trusting the conclusion. I'm saying the results might still be correct despite methodological errors. This should be obvious and not at all controversial. You still have to show that the results are wrong, you can't just say there are errors therefore the opposite of the conclusion is true.
The parent has already listed several examples. Wishing they didn't exist doesn't make them go away.
As for the stations, you should read Watt's paper, in which he answers the questions you asked. Many of the sites were set up in suitable locations, then were encroached upon later, making the sites unsuitable. But, those sites were NOT compensated for. When taken as a whole, the stations have a margin of error greater than the temperature change they are said to demonstrate.
1) The paper Watts co authored concluded there was no statistically significant difference between temperature trends for good sites and bad sites. The Best project found the opposite of what they expected to find. They found that heat island affected sites were understating global warming slightly.
2) McIntyre's paper was rendered unimportant by Wahl and Ammon who demonstrated that McIntyre appeared to have cherry-picked data in his paper to get his results and beyond that, using alternate statistical methods which didn't suffer from the same supposed flaw, the same hockey stick graph was consistently reproduced from the data.
3) I suppose if McIntyre's claims are true, he should publish an article showing that the data has been inverted and that it has a material impact on the work, because as far as I can tell the only place that information has been published is McIntyre's blog and Watt's blog. That doesn't exactly meet the requirement of peer reviewed literature.
The list goes on and on, i know each has been hyped as "the last nail in the coffing of AGW", but they never are. Sometimes they're not even real. The problem is that mistakes are bound to be made, that's why there's independent confirmation of results. Take a look at the big picture each arrow is an independent area of study withing climatology. All of 14 of the areas of study have arrived at the same conclusion, the world is warming. Look at figure 6, there are 12 different lines of evidence that indicate that the warming is anthropogenic.
It would require a large amount of very significant evidence to overturn anthropogenic global warming at this point. Considering that it's greatest critics rarely publish any of their criticisms, mostly because they never even try to publish anything, it seems highly unlikely that it will happen.
When most people talk about "running out of oil" they're talking about "running out of economically affordable oil". There's little reason to that be pedantic about it. There is still the problem that fossil fuel demand is relatively inelastic. I only get a new car once every 10-12 years, for example which means I'm committed to a certain amount of fossil fuel consumption based on my vehicle and commuting distance. I have to absorb any cost increases. After 10 years, I will once again be able to make an educated guess on what my relative costs will be.
If supply drops significantly below demand for a protected period (which it can because of the inelasticity of demand), then we could once again face shortages and gas rationing. There is a point at which we will not run out of oil, because as I understand it, we can actually manufacture artificial oil, but that oil will be much more expensive than current renewable energy sources. It will be economics that force people to change their behaviour, the question is whether it's in our best economic interests to have governments begin the preparation for the inevitable decline in supply and spiralling prices. By slowly raising prices now, it sends a signal to consumers that prices will continue to rise, rather than having it come as a sudden surprise when the gas price at the pump doubles over the course of a few months. Is it better to let the market destroy those people not smart enough to see the price spikes coming or is it better to cushion that blow and encourage the development of alternate systems to reduce the life changing impacts of those changes?
I'd suggest reading Skpetical Science's Newcomers page. It might help get you up to speed on what's true and what's not. Most of their debunking pages have multiple levels of technical detail so you can read whatever level your comfortable with and get more detail, if something catches your interest.
and warmer temperatures can lead directly to more precipitation.
The vast majority of the "more precipitation" will occur in areas that receive "enough" and area which don't receive "enough" will get either less or lose more to the warmer temperatures. Warmer temperatures tend to make dry areas drier and wet areas wetter. The most obvious results are more droughts and more floods. Neither of which are good for agriculture and residences.
You've actually made an error here. More icecap melt = more freshwater now and less later. See the thing about glaciers is they're made up of a finite amount of ice. When it's gone, some areas that were previously fertile will begin the desertification process.
Warmer temperatures also don't tend to deposit the water in ways that humans appreciate. It means more extreme droughts and more extreme flooding. The U.S. 2011 is a pretty good example. Parts of the north eastern U.S. were experience massive flooding while Texas was experiencing the worst drought it's ever had. Take a look at this. 56% of the Unites States experienced either flooding or drought in 2011.
Eventually a warmer earth may result in better food production, but we have to figure out ways to adapt to flooding, droughts and ways to upgrade land that has poor topsoil because it has not been viable for food production for millennia. The biggest problem is that the new land that could eventually grow crops is going to be offset by the loss of a lot of coastal areas where people like to live. Those people are going to be mostly moving into prime agricultural land, because cities tend to be located where we could grow food. That's how they became cities in the first place. So we're going to lose some of our best land and exchange it for land that needs a lot of work to upgrade to productive.
Lastly, more CO2 has a marginal effect on vegetation because most plants aren't CO2 limited, they tend to be limited by other factors. Increasing the amount of CO2 available to those plants has no appreciable effect.
Lastly, I'm curious which free societies don't have food production or drinking water problems?
This is actually very truthy, because it's approximately 99.5% of biologists who believe in the theory of evolution and only about 97% of climatologists. Of course, the 2.5% difference is probably within the margin of error for both studies.
Actually, climate change denial tends to be cultural and not intellectual. The intellectual arguments are used to rationalise the belief, but doesn't inform it. That's why there the major people who deny it is happening rarely publish any evidence to support their assertions. Climate change is a severe challenge to libertarian and neo-conservative ideologies because it's a serious problem generated by free markets. That's an identity destroying problem, and that is the real reason they oppose it. Even the Heartland Institute has admitted the problem isn't the science, it's the ideological implications. If they were to believe in it, they'd have to admit that they've devoted their careers to doing the wrong thing. They're opposed to it because it can't be right because then they'd be wrong.
Some of the deniers are very scared of Climate Change because it challenges their core beliefs. Imagine for a moment what it means for someone who worships the free market as an infallible divine hand to be suddenly forced to confront an issue so big that the not only can't solve it, but the free market created it in the first place. A problem that could kill millions or even billions of people and worst of all create a problem that costs more to solve than early government intervention would.
Climate change is kryptonite to libertarians and conservatives. It exposes the fact that their ideology is as flawed as communism*.
* This should be no big surprise, the father of modern libertarianism was a former communist ideologue. Surely, he decided, if capitalism isn't the problem with everything, then government must be the problem with everything.
If it's politics then why did the right-wing funded group come to the same conclusion as the (supposedly) left-wing funded groups? If it was all politics you'd think they would have come up with different answers.
Of course, you're just repeating the back pedalling done by Anthony Watts after he publicly promised to accept the findings no matter what they were. Seems he changed his mind about accepting the results once he found out what they were. Suddenly, the scientist he declared was beyond question or reproach became a vile sell out once he disagreed with Watt's cherished beliefs. Of course, if Watts were to accept Mueller's results it would negatively impact Watt's celebrity status and his income, so it's hardly surprising that he had to choose not to believe them.
Yes, like "ignore that man's research, it was funded by an oil company and his opinion was bought".
Actually, it's "We should call that man back before the congressional hearing because he was being deceptive during his testimony when he claimed that he didn't received funding from oil companies. As it turns out his wholly-owned company receives over 40% of it's funding from oil industry lobby groups".
Testifying on such matters while concealing that you have a conflict of interest is serious, especially when you are specifically asked about it and deny that conflict of interest exists.
Or they start pointing the finger at research that dissagrees with theirs but cannot be right because of who paid for it, ignoring that they are getting money to study a problem
There is really not much research that has been published that doesn't agree with AGW, and most of the research that has been submitted that is against AGW has been published. Most of the anti-AGW papers have been published in journals that don't use peer review and the papers have often been shown to have reached the opposite conclusion due to some fundamental mistake. Frequently when the errors are corrected, the results of the research actually support the mainstream view of global warming.
Your hyperbole and accusations aside, AGW is very well established. If you want to learn more about it, try reading about it.
You don't need to come up with different facts and evidence to dispute a conclusion if you can show that the work done to reach the conclusion is effectively 1+1=3
Actually, you do. Even if the methodology is poor, the conclusion might be correct.
when it comes to Mann, Jones, Hansen, and co. those guys have repeatedly been shown to have used poor methodology
Actually, they haven't.
You might try, for example, Anthony Watt's work in photographing the locations of the various weather stations used to create the temperature record and discovering them located in places like parking lots.
It's interesting, but is it relevant? How much of an effect is there on temperature trends based on this positioning? As it turns out, not much. You see a poorly site temperature gage tends to be poorly sited on the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. There is a discontinuity when the site goes from well sited to poorly sited, but that's relatively easy to identify and can be compensated for. It's not great, but it's not a fatal problem either.
What Jones, Mann and co. are engaged in isn't science. It's religion.
Actually, it is science and it's not always pretty. It doesn't become "not science" because Jones doesn't Watts or Mann is being a jerk. Every investigation into their work has shown that despite whatever interpersonal issues may exist, the work is solid and has been independently verified three or four times over, even by (real) sceptics who were sure they were mistaken.
That's because the talking point about "grant money" gets circulated because it tests well with focus groups. It has no basis in reality, but it fits well into the anti-government, anti-science bias of modern republicans.
Essentially, your proposal to use NDAs in place of copyright suffers from the same flaw that prevents DRM from working
Fair enough.
I certainly support the idea that copyright shouldn't be as long as it currently is, but I don't think that "today's fast paced technological world" has anything to do with this. Morally, why should the author of a book receive less in a "fast paced technological world" than in years gone by?
What makes you think they're receiving less? I think they're receiving more and receiving it sooner. They don't need as long to earn the same amount as they used to and, I think the earnings fall off faster they used to. Done appropriately there should be little loss of revenue, because even with a small loss on the long tail, the main body of earnings should be greater than it used to be.
However, the governments need to stop bowing to the wishes of the content industry.
Absolutely, my concern is that only way to curtail the corruption of copyright may be to abolish it completely, because of that I'm not convinced that copyright remains a net good for society. The content industry is always going to try and use it's money to influence legislation to benefit themselves, but I'm not aware of any governments where there is a similarly powerful voice to advocate for the rights of the people. Of course, that may be the real issue that democratic governments need to be redesigned to have a powerful advocate to prevent public goods from being given away to lobbyists.
Slashdot Mirror
Even just bringing in the same dollars as it did back in the late 90s would be a problem, even using inflation adjusted dollars. There are more Americans now and the GDP is larger.
When you look at receipts and spending in GDP terms, it clear there's a revenue problem. It's not an either or situation, you know. You can have both problems at the same time. In fact, Bush managed to create both problems simultaneously by lowering revenue and increasing spending.
Exactly.
They're very relevant. Ending the Bush tax cuts would cut the deficit to less than half of what it is, and given the current activities of the "job creators" whom it would effect, it would have next to no impact on the economy. They're not spending that money creating jobs. Do you know what they're doing with that money? They're loaning it back to the government and charging interest on the loan. That's exactly how stupid the Bush tax cuts are.
California's problems have to do with a provision (a state constitutional amendment?) that any tax increase must be passed by referendum, but if the referendum fails, the program(s) the tax increase was supposed to pay for remain in effect. In theory, this should lead to a minimalist government, in practice it leads to unfunded programs. Because, as a group, the voters vote for the programs and against paying for them.
I'd argue that when the 'cushioning' costs resources, and relies on essentially wagering by the government about which industries to non-competitively subsidize - then no, the cushion is not worth the cost in terms of what it does to the economy.
Except the cushioning usually doesn't have to cost much in the way of resources. For example, a revenue neutral carbon tax* would accomplish several goals at once, encourage a reduction in carbon emissions, signal a long-term rise in fuel prices and soften the blow when oil prices head for another peak, and encourage the development of alternative energy sources without subsidies.
We survived the transition to electricity, we survived the transition from horse to cars, and we've survived other greatly dislocating transitions;
Humanity will survive the transition, unless someone literally goes nuclear over it (and maybe even then).
human economies are extraordinarily resilient and successful when they are LEFT ALONE. Yes, it can be savage to individuals, but the overall best-result-greatest-number is generally to leave the market alone
Actually, I doubt that has been shown to be true. In fact, Keynsian economic theory is based on the idea that economies do not function best when left alone. The Austrian school disagrees, of course, but they remain a fringe group in the field of economics.
(not that our politicians can or have done so in the last 40 years, so I admit my point is so nearly utopian as to be valueless).
I think even Keynsians are entirely willing to admit that government power can be used for good or ill in the marketplace. In fact, applied in the wrong ways, it can achieve the opposite of the desired results and make things worse in general. The U.S. is probably the place this is most likely to happen, because of the massive flaws in the current electoral system. In addition to Gerrymandering which renders congressional representatives unaccountable to voters, congressional representatives are continually for sale to the highest bidders. They generally spend between 2-6 hours every day asking for money, which means they inevitable become more intimately familiar with how their votes will influence their re-election funding than how the votes will affect their constituents. In fact, in most congressional districts, primary challenges are a larger threat than general elections.
* A revenue neutral tax gather revenue from one activity and then uses it to reduce one or more other taxes, for example, income tax could be reduce by lowering one or more rate categories or increasing the basic exemption.
I know you're an idiot troll, but just in case anyone with a half a brain is interested, the dust bowl was caused by a combination of drought and poor farming practices. Since North American farmers no longer follow the same destructive practices that caused the dust bowl, we're not likely to see it happen again, even though this drought is worse than the one that created the dust bowl.
So here's your notice, the drought is worse (less than 1/10th the rain in the 30's), but the U.S. Government took action long ago to prevent another dust bowl from occurring.
Well, my "microclimate", meaning the southern half of the United States, just spent a summer with temperatures several degrees warmer than usual and we got no more freakish weather than usual. The winter before that was a few degrees colder than normal, and still no hurricanes over land. So, in a single year, I've seen periods warmer than usual and cooler than usual with no freakish behavior. I think we'll be OK with a 1.6 degree increase over the next 100 years.
Actually, no. There was a lot of freakish behaviour, I don't know how you are able to ignore it*. More than half of the continental United States was affected by either drought or flood last year, a record level of both. In particular, Texas had the worst drought since they started keeping temperature records. On the flooding side, I saw an article indicating that Atlanta had an estimated 500 year high flood, if a one in 500 years event isn't unusual, I'm not sure what qualified for you. Maybe your community escaped the freakish weather, but there was plenty to go around.
It's not just the U.S. either, for the first time in it's history, most of Canada had a green Christmas. Australia had record setting flooding. In fact there was so much rain and flooding this past year that the evaporation that fuelled the flooding actually lowered the sea level slightly.
* Although my guess would be a combination of Fox News, confirmation bias, and ignorance.
Of course they do, the TSA people are dealing with people, on the other hand the assistant manager deals with the important stuff, money.
Really? So your claim is that you are always corrected, even when the experts disagree with you? That explains so very much....
It's us. It's not just correlation, it's multiple lines of evidence that all point to human caused climate change. Coincidentally, you argument that it's not necessarily us is falling out of favour even with people in denial, it used to be one of the top 10 arguments, now it's not even in the top 50 most frequently used arguments.
[citation needed]
Because some the reports that I've seen say agriculture production had already fallen due to negative climate change effects. For instance, this report says that many of California's tree crops may die off because the "winter chill" which protects the trees from some pests will no longer consistently occur. As I understand it, the reason that actual output hasn't fallen is because technological advancements are (so far) outpacing the negative climate related effects.
A warmer climate means you get a longer growing season in the northern areas that are already the most productive. This is good for places like the US.
I can't find it right now, but there was an article that said over 50% of the U.S. mainland was afflicted by either flooding or droughts this year. As the average temperature increases, the average amount of area covered by those conditions will increase. Neither condition is good for growing crops. It doesn't take much land area consumed by drought to negate all changes from a "longer growing season".
Near the equator in areas where it's already too hot for most cereal crops, additional CO2 will make tree farming much more profitable - trees grow better due to additional CO2 fertilization.
As far as I'm aware, additional CO2 has a negligible effect on plant growth, few plants are struggling to get more carbon, they tend to be limited by competition, pests, water, and sunlight first. Even in perfect greenhouse conditions, additional carbon dioxide seems to only boost growth by a few percent (~3%).
Further Reading.
Frankly, that sounds like a collection of random incorrect talking points. Now, if we accept the Republican complaint that it will cost 60% more than projected, then Obama care will cost $240 million or almost 1/12th what the Bush tax cuts cost. Perspective, it's important and you don't appear to have any.
What? If the methodology is poor, how can you trust the conclusion?
I didn't say anything about trusting the conclusion. I'm saying the results might still be correct despite methodological errors. This should be obvious and not at all controversial. You still have to show that the results are wrong, you can't just say there are errors therefore the opposite of the conclusion is true.
The parent has already listed several examples. Wishing they didn't exist doesn't make them go away.
As for the stations, you should read Watt's paper, in which he answers the questions you asked. Many of the sites were set up in suitable locations, then were encroached upon later, making the sites unsuitable. But, those sites were NOT compensated for. When taken as a whole, the stations have a margin of error greater than the temperature change they are said to demonstrate.
1) The paper Watts co authored concluded there was no statistically significant difference between temperature trends for good sites and bad sites. The Best project found the opposite of what they expected to find. They found that heat island affected sites were understating global warming slightly.
2) McIntyre's paper was rendered unimportant by Wahl and Ammon who demonstrated that McIntyre appeared to have cherry-picked data in his paper to get his results and beyond that, using alternate statistical methods which didn't suffer from the same supposed flaw, the same hockey stick graph was consistently reproduced from the data.
3) I suppose if McIntyre's claims are true, he should publish an article showing that the data has been inverted and that it has a material impact on the work, because as far as I can tell the only place that information has been published is McIntyre's blog and Watt's blog. That doesn't exactly meet the requirement of peer reviewed literature.
The list goes on and on, i know each has been hyped as "the last nail in the coffing of AGW", but they never are. Sometimes they're not even real. The problem is that mistakes are bound to be made, that's why there's independent confirmation of results. Take a look at the big picture each arrow is an independent area of study withing climatology. All of 14 of the areas of study have arrived at the same conclusion, the world is warming. Look at figure 6, there are 12 different lines of evidence that indicate that the warming is anthropogenic.
It would require a large amount of very significant evidence to overturn anthropogenic global warming at this point. Considering that it's greatest critics rarely publish any of their criticisms, mostly because they never even try to publish anything, it seems highly unlikely that it will happen.
When most people talk about "running out of oil" they're talking about "running out of economically affordable oil". There's little reason to that be pedantic about it. There is still the problem that fossil fuel demand is relatively inelastic. I only get a new car once every 10-12 years, for example which means I'm committed to a certain amount of fossil fuel consumption based on my vehicle and commuting distance. I have to absorb any cost increases. After 10 years, I will once again be able to make an educated guess on what my relative costs will be.
If supply drops significantly below demand for a protected period (which it can because of the inelasticity of demand), then we could once again face shortages and gas rationing. There is a point at which we will not run out of oil, because as I understand it, we can actually manufacture artificial oil, but that oil will be much more expensive than current renewable energy sources. It will be economics that force people to change their behaviour, the question is whether it's in our best economic interests to have governments begin the preparation for the inevitable decline in supply and spiralling prices. By slowly raising prices now, it sends a signal to consumers that prices will continue to rise, rather than having it come as a sudden surprise when the gas price at the pump doubles over the course of a few months. Is it better to let the market destroy those people not smart enough to see the price spikes coming or is it better to cushion that blow and encourage the development of alternate systems to reduce the life changing impacts of those changes?
I'd suggest reading Skpetical Science's Newcomers page. It might help get you up to speed on what's true and what's not. Most of their debunking pages have multiple levels of technical detail so you can read whatever level your comfortable with and get more detail, if something catches your interest.
and warmer temperatures can lead directly to more precipitation.
The vast majority of the "more precipitation" will occur in areas that receive "enough" and area which don't receive "enough" will get either less or lose more to the warmer temperatures. Warmer temperatures tend to make dry areas drier and wet areas wetter. The most obvious results are more droughts and more floods. Neither of which are good for agriculture and residences.
You've actually made an error here. More icecap melt = more freshwater now and less later. See the thing about glaciers is they're made up of a finite amount of ice. When it's gone, some areas that were previously fertile will begin the desertification process.
Warmer temperatures also don't tend to deposit the water in ways that humans appreciate. It means more extreme droughts and more extreme flooding. The U.S. 2011 is a pretty good example. Parts of the north eastern U.S. were experience massive flooding while Texas was experiencing the worst drought it's ever had. Take a look at this. 56% of the Unites States experienced either flooding or drought in 2011.
Eventually a warmer earth may result in better food production, but we have to figure out ways to adapt to flooding, droughts and ways to upgrade land that has poor topsoil because it has not been viable for food production for millennia. The biggest problem is that the new land that could eventually grow crops is going to be offset by the loss of a lot of coastal areas where people like to live. Those people are going to be mostly moving into prime agricultural land, because cities tend to be located where we could grow food. That's how they became cities in the first place. So we're going to lose some of our best land and exchange it for land that needs a lot of work to upgrade to productive.
Lastly, more CO2 has a marginal effect on vegetation because most plants aren't CO2 limited, they tend to be limited by other factors. Increasing the amount of CO2 available to those plants has no appreciable effect.
Lastly, I'm curious which free societies don't have food production or drinking water problems?
This is actually very truthy, because it's approximately 99.5% of biologists who believe in the theory of evolution and only about 97% of climatologists. Of course, the 2.5% difference is probably within the margin of error for both studies.
Actually, climate change denial tends to be cultural and not intellectual. The intellectual arguments are used to rationalise the belief, but doesn't inform it. That's why there the major people who deny it is happening rarely publish any evidence to support their assertions. Climate change is a severe challenge to libertarian and neo-conservative ideologies because it's a serious problem generated by free markets. That's an identity destroying problem, and that is the real reason they oppose it. Even the Heartland Institute has admitted the problem isn't the science, it's the ideological implications. If they were to believe in it, they'd have to admit that they've devoted their careers to doing the wrong thing. They're opposed to it because it can't be right because then they'd be wrong.
Some of the deniers are very scared of Climate Change because it challenges their core beliefs. Imagine for a moment what it means for someone who worships the free market as an infallible divine hand to be suddenly forced to confront an issue so big that the not only can't solve it, but the free market created it in the first place. A problem that could kill millions or even billions of people and worst of all create a problem that costs more to solve than early government intervention would.
Climate change is kryptonite to libertarians and conservatives. It exposes the fact that their ideology is as flawed as communism*.
* This should be no big surprise, the father of modern libertarianism was a former communist ideologue. Surely, he decided, if capitalism isn't the problem with everything, then government must be the problem with everything.
If it's politics then why did the right-wing funded group come to the same conclusion as the (supposedly) left-wing funded groups? If it was all politics you'd think they would have come up with different answers.
Of course, you're just repeating the back pedalling done by Anthony Watts after he publicly promised to accept the findings no matter what they were. Seems he changed his mind about accepting the results once he found out what they were. Suddenly, the scientist he declared was beyond question or reproach became a vile sell out once he disagreed with Watt's cherished beliefs. Of course, if Watts were to accept Mueller's results it would negatively impact Watt's celebrity status and his income, so it's hardly surprising that he had to choose not to believe them.
Yes, like "ignore that man's research, it was funded by an oil company and his opinion was bought".
Actually, it's "We should call that man back before the congressional hearing because he was being deceptive during his testimony when he claimed that he didn't received funding from oil companies. As it turns out his wholly-owned company receives over 40% of it's funding from oil industry lobby groups".
Testifying on such matters while concealing that you have a conflict of interest is serious, especially when you are specifically asked about it and deny that conflict of interest exists.
Or they start pointing the finger at research that dissagrees with theirs but cannot be right because of who paid for it, ignoring that they are getting money to study a problem
There is really not much research that has been published that doesn't agree with AGW, and most of the research that has been submitted that is against AGW has been published. Most of the anti-AGW papers have been published in journals that don't use peer review and the papers have often been shown to have reached the opposite conclusion due to some fundamental mistake. Frequently when the errors are corrected, the results of the research actually support the mainstream view of global warming.
Your hyperbole and accusations aside, AGW is very well established. If you want to learn more about it, try reading about it.
You don't need to come up with different facts and evidence to dispute a conclusion if you can show that the work done to reach the conclusion is effectively 1+1=3
Actually, you do. Even if the methodology is poor, the conclusion might be correct.
when it comes to Mann, Jones, Hansen, and co. those guys have repeatedly been shown to have used poor methodology
Actually, they haven't.
You might try, for example, Anthony Watt's work in photographing the locations of the various weather stations used to create the temperature record and discovering them located in places like parking lots.
It's interesting, but is it relevant? How much of an effect is there on temperature trends based on this positioning? As it turns out, not much. You see a poorly site temperature gage tends to be poorly sited on the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. There is a discontinuity when the site goes from well sited to poorly sited, but that's relatively easy to identify and can be compensated for. It's not great, but it's not a fatal problem either.
What Jones, Mann and co. are engaged in isn't science. It's religion.
Actually, it is science and it's not always pretty. It doesn't become "not science" because Jones doesn't Watts or Mann is being a jerk. Every investigation into their work has shown that despite whatever interpersonal issues may exist, the work is solid and has been independently verified three or four times over, even by (real) sceptics who were sure they were mistaken.
That's because the talking point about "grant money" gets circulated because it tests well with focus groups. It has no basis in reality, but it fits well into the anti-government, anti-science bias of modern republicans.
Essentially, your proposal to use NDAs in place of copyright suffers from the same flaw that prevents DRM from working
Fair enough.
I certainly support the idea that copyright shouldn't be as long as it currently is, but I don't think that "today's fast paced technological world" has anything to do with this. Morally, why should the author of a book receive less in a "fast paced technological world" than in years gone by?
What makes you think they're receiving less? I think they're receiving more and receiving it sooner. They don't need as long to earn the same amount as they used to and, I think the earnings fall off faster they used to. Done appropriately there should be little loss of revenue, because even with a small loss on the long tail, the main body of earnings should be greater than it used to be.
However, the governments need to stop bowing to the wishes of the content industry.
Absolutely, my concern is that only way to curtail the corruption of copyright may be to abolish it completely, because of that I'm not convinced that copyright remains a net good for society. The content industry is always going to try and use it's money to influence legislation to benefit themselves, but I'm not aware of any governments where there is a similarly powerful voice to advocate for the rights of the people. Of course, that may be the real issue that democratic governments need to be redesigned to have a powerful advocate to prevent public goods from being given away to lobbyists.