That would be true if the number of people of each age was the same. But there are many more children than elderly, since the population is still rising.
Maybe the equipment needed to generate electricity from fossil fuels costs 50 cents per watt, but then you also need to buy the fossil fuels. I would expect the cost of fossil fuels would be measured in cents per Joule. If solar cells can produce electricity for 10 cents per watt with no fuel costs, I think we should work on scaling this up as fast as we can. We can all have more energy for less money than ever before! Of course, we also need to work on how to store energy produced on sunny days for use during the night and cloudy days.
No, you can make the temperature appear to be going down for short periods of time by carefully cherry picking the data. If the temperature actually went down, we would see the melting slow down instead of continuing to accelerate.
Where is someone suggesting to curtail economic activity? To reduce carbon dioxide emissions, we have been developing alternative energy sources and improving energy efficiency, both of which can benefit the economy. We're trying to avoid economic disaster, not cause it.
I've been reading the news, too, and I seem to recall many stories of climatologists underestimating the effects of global warming. take, for example, this article which lists many examples.
We're not trying to keep the temperature fixed at some ideal stable point. We're trying to avoid rapid catastrophic warming of several degrees Celsius in the space of a century or less.
Climatologists have been warning about warming for many decades and what we've observed is the warming that was predicted. That seems to be the opposite of "totally wrong" to me.
That's precisely the problem. The warming isn't going to cause much of a problem for most people old enough to post here. By the time the problems get too bad to ignore, we're already committed to even more problems, because the excess carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. That's why we keep getting these warnings, so we can avoid those problems before it's too late.
Animals breathing does not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, because the carbon they exhale was already in the carbon cycle. Plants removed it from the atmosphere within the past year or so, animals ate the plants, and then they released the carbon back into the atmosphere when they respired.
Exactly. That's why we want to switch from fossil fuels to energy sources that do not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, such as solar, wind, nuclear, biofuels, etc. "Not breathing" is not the answer to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, nor is moving back to caves or pre-industrial times.
Right, the nitpicking. Let me rephrase... 99.9% of the food we eat does not come from fossil fuels we dug up out of the ground. The carbon dioxide we exhale comes almost exclusively from carbon that is already part of the carbon cycle, so the problem with carbon dioxide emissions is not animals breathing.
How can you disprove intelligent design? It might be the case that there's some unknown intelligent agent introducing all the mutations in our genes. Go ahead and try to prove there isn't. While you're at it, prove Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny don't exist.
No, science never proves things correct. The point of science is to try to prove things wrong. You come up with a testable hypothesis and try to make an observation that disagrees with a prediction that it makes. When you fail to do so, you have gathered evidence that the hypothesis is correct, but you can never prove the hypothesis is correct without a doubt. This is why intelligent design (God did it), the idea that climate "just changes" (Nature did it), and string theory can be considered not science, because they make no predictions that can be tested -- any observation we can make is consistent with the hypothesis so it cannot be falsified.
Human beings and their behavior are what define what a currency is. For the money in your pocket to have value, a human needs to agree to exchange services and products for it. Otherwise, it's just colored paper with funny symbols and drawings on it.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be true if the number of people of each age was the same. But there are many more children than elderly, since the population is still rising.
Maybe the equipment needed to generate electricity from fossil fuels costs 50 cents per watt, but then you also need to buy the fossil fuels. I would expect the cost of fossil fuels would be measured in cents per Joule. If solar cells can produce electricity for 10 cents per watt with no fuel costs, I think we should work on scaling this up as fast as we can. We can all have more energy for less money than ever before! Of course, we also need to work on how to store energy produced on sunny days for use during the night and cloudy days.
No, you can make the temperature appear to be going down for short periods of time by carefully cherry picking the data. If the temperature actually went down, we would see the melting slow down instead of continuing to accelerate.
Where is someone suggesting to curtail economic activity? To reduce carbon dioxide emissions, we have been developing alternative energy sources and improving energy efficiency, both of which can benefit the economy. We're trying to avoid economic disaster, not cause it.
I've been reading the news, too, and I seem to recall many stories of climatologists underestimating the effects of global warming. take, for example, this article which lists many examples.
The warming we're seeing is not just recovering from an ice age.
We're not trying to keep the temperature fixed at some ideal stable point. We're trying to avoid rapid catastrophic warming of several degrees Celsius in the space of a century or less.
I'm not "making a case". You asked some valid questions and I tried to point you to a site that addresses those questions. Sorry!
https://www.skepticalscience.c... https://www.skepticalscience.c... https://www.skepticalscience.c...
The trouble is that the rate that we are emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere far exceeds the rate at which plants can absorb it.
Climatologists have been warning about warming for many decades and what we've observed is the warming that was predicted. That seems to be the opposite of "totally wrong" to me.
See the temperature escalator I mention above.
You're referring to the temperature escalator. According to the escalator, it's always cooling!
That's precisely the problem. The warming isn't going to cause much of a problem for most people old enough to post here. By the time the problems get too bad to ignore, we're already committed to even more problems, because the excess carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. That's why we keep getting these warnings, so we can avoid those problems before it's too late.
About a decade ago.
Joshua called me!
Regarding point 12, how is reducing carbon dioxide emissions going to deliberately cause deaths of many millions?
Animals breathing does not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, because the carbon they exhale was already in the carbon cycle. Plants removed it from the atmosphere within the past year or so, animals ate the plants, and then they released the carbon back into the atmosphere when they respired.
Exactly. That's why we want to switch from fossil fuels to energy sources that do not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, such as solar, wind, nuclear, biofuels, etc. "Not breathing" is not the answer to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, nor is moving back to caves or pre-industrial times.
Right, the nitpicking. Let me rephrase... 99.9% of the food we eat does not come from fossil fuels we dug up out of the ground. The carbon dioxide we exhale comes almost exclusively from carbon that is already part of the carbon cycle, so the problem with carbon dioxide emissions is not animals breathing.
We don't dig up fossil fuels out of the ground and eat them.
Oblig. xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/
How can you disprove intelligent design? It might be the case that there's some unknown intelligent agent introducing all the mutations in our genes. Go ahead and try to prove there isn't. While you're at it, prove Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny don't exist.
Well in that case I'm sure solitary confinement will show him the error of his ways.
No, science never proves things correct. The point of science is to try to prove things wrong. You come up with a testable hypothesis and try to make an observation that disagrees with a prediction that it makes. When you fail to do so, you have gathered evidence that the hypothesis is correct, but you can never prove the hypothesis is correct without a doubt. This is why intelligent design (God did it), the idea that climate "just changes" (Nature did it), and string theory can be considered not science, because they make no predictions that can be tested -- any observation we can make is consistent with the hypothesis so it cannot be falsified.
Human beings and their behavior are what define what a currency is. For the money in your pocket to have value, a human needs to agree to exchange services and products for it. Otherwise, it's just colored paper with funny symbols and drawings on it.