Because fuel keeps becoming more expensive. Because we obtain much of our fuel (oil) from an unstable part of the world. Because burning fossil fuels results in higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses and is acidifying the oceans. If we don't start investing in alternative energy sources until it becomes profitable, we'll be paying dearly for energy. Let's start investing now, so the price of alternative energy comes down and we can switch to them before energy prices skyrocket.
So Obama's to blame for $4/gallon gas? Was Bush to blame the last time we had $4/gallon gas? BTW, no one is asking anyone to suffer. We can switch to alternative energy sources without anyone suffering at all. Using corn for fuel doesn't use energy wisely; it takes nearly as much energy or even more energy to make ethanol from corn as you get from the ethanol. Using corn for energy is a waste of energy.
We can't just print money and use it to pay off the debt. For each extra dollar we print, we make every other dollar in existence worth less. This means is takes more dollars to be worth a particular value, so prices go up. This is called inflation.
In any case, the argument that the GP gave that we can't spend money on X because we're broke only applies to things that the person making the argument doesn't like. You'll never see them admit we don't have any money to spend on the military because we're broke. If we can spend over $600 billion per year on the military, surely we have a couple of billion per year to develop the energy sources we're going to need this century. If we spend a few billions of dollars every year on alternative energy, who knows, maybe we can spend tens of billions less on the military because we don't need to make sure the spice^Woil flows.
Can't tell if you're a troll or just misinformed. In any case, the story about how we detect it by whether is causes things to get heavier is BS. We detect it like any other heavy, short-lived particle -- by examining the particles that it decays into.
Yes, climate scientists are saying we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 85% to stabilize the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we emit much more than that, we will emit more carbon dioxide per year than the carbon cycle can absorb, and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to rise and the temperature will continue to rise. So we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80-90% at some point.
There is some disagreement about how much time we have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80-90% to avoid catastrophic warming (and by catastrophic, I don't mean "ZOFMG we're all gonna die!"). How long it takes us to reduce emissions will determine the concentration at which we stabilize, which will in turn determine how much the temperature rises. For example, if we stabilize at 550 ppm, we will have doubled the concentration of carbon dioxide. There is uncertainty about whether this will lead to a mere 1.5 degree Celsius increase (which isn't too bad) or a 4 degree Celsius increase (which would be pretty bad). The most reasonable course of action would be to play it safe, just in case the actual warming is on the high side of our estimates. If we start reducing carbon dioxide emissions and realize we don't need to cut them so quickly, we can always cut them more slowly. If we wait until we realize that we need to cut them dramatically or that we're already too late, then we're SOL.
I think your explanation of why the right wing doesn't want to accept global warming or that it makes sense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is because they think we'll suffer. You're essentially right in saying that we don't need to suffer at all, just change how we generate electricity.
You're missing the part efficiency plays, however. By using more efficient lighting and appliances, driving higher gas mileage cars, and living and working in buildings with more insulation, we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by simply not using as much energy in the first place. We'll hardly notice any difference, except for the different types of light bulbs or perhaps charging up the car instead of refueling it.
Why would we switch completely to solar? Coal is much cheaper, and it comes in handy for generating electricity at night when solar doesn't work. We'll probably keep some percentage of coal plants, as well as some percentage of nuclear plants, rather than completely switching to solar. Why would we not use them when the plants are already built and running, and they reduce our need for solar power generation and storage? We'll also likely need biofuels to power large aircraft and boats, too.
Who cares what environmentalists will be happy with? We're moving ahead with nuclear, wind, solar, and energy efficiency. There have been several programs on PBS recently (Beyond the Light Switch and Power Surge) that explain what we're doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Contrary to many people's opinions, these actions will not destroy the economy or result in us living in caves.
We don't have to stop greenhouse gas emissions, just reduce them significantly. We can still have all the infrastructure in place and being used for gathering and burning coal for electricity. Then if there's a drop in solar power, we can compensate for a short while by burning more coal until the sun comes back. In fact, the more we can use solar and the less we can use coal, the longer our emergency reserves will last.
That's because everyone else is like you and waiting for everyone else to take the first step. Eventually, there will be ISPs that can give out only IPv6 addresses, and then you all can't keep delaying any longer. If it's only when you need it that you find out that there are undesirable interactions or incompatibilities, you'll have no one to blame but yourselves. Luckily for us, it looks like Asia will be where this IPv4 address exhaustion starts, so we won't suffer the worst of the bleeding edge.
The character limit has nothing to do with it. We can't even get reasoned debate on Slashdot. Every time one "side" of the debate starts looking good, the other side just starts making things up so they don't "lose". People who agree with the "losing" side of the debate mod posts up based simply on whether they says what they agree with, not on the strength of the argument or evidence provided. We see it regularly with debates about patents, copyrights, and global warming. I think even debates about evolution here are modded more on whether they take a traditional scientific or religious approach, rather than the strength of the argument. When people have knee-jerk reactions, agreeing with and liking what they already believe and rejecting what they don't want to believe, you can't have reasoned debate.
I added loose women's houses, geohashing locations I visited, places where I've slept, the trees I admire most, and tons of sidewalk graffiti sites, but those damn dirty deletionists removed them all! How can it be useful if they remove such critical information?
Re:Sugar is not only toxic but it's addictive.
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
·
· Score: 2
Sugar is toxic, but fiber is the "antidote". It causes the sugar to be released into the bloodstream more slowly so the liver can metabolize it properly. If you eat food with sugar in its natural form, for example fruit, it's absorbed more slowly. You can get a rough idea of how quickly sugar from foods is absorbed by looking at their glycemic index. Essentially, whole fruits and vegetables have a low glycemic index, and precessed foods such as sugar, white bread, and white rice have a high glycemic index. People who maintain a low-GI diet have less incidence of diabetes and heart disease.
No, carbon dioxide was below 300 ppm for the past million years, until humans began burning fossil fuels. There are other factors that can cause warming other than an increase in greenhouse gasses.
Arrhenius estimated the amount of warming we see today without any observations about how an increase in greenhouse gasses affect global temperatures. Now that we do have observations, of course we use them to estimate the parameters more accurately. As we gather more observations we make our predictions more accurate. It has nothing to do with "proof" and everything to do with refining our models as time goes on, just as is done in the rest of science.
Anyone can come up with an alternative hypothesis. Any of the global warming bloggers could write a paper and publish it, or even post their research on their blogs. But they don't do that -- they spend their time nitpicking the research others are doing, just as the author of the article discussed in this story did. You'll never prove a hypothesis incorrect by nitpicking. You need to present data that falsify the hypothesis, or present an alternative hypothesis that explains the observations better. I don't see anyone doing that with AGW. They're trying, but the data to confirm their hypotheses never seems to materialize.
The idea is that instead of calling into question one researcher or one aspect of research, some people seem to think that showing any one statement is incorrect calls into question an entire institution or an entire area of research. This is the idea that most arguments against AGW come down to. You can find many comments in this thread along the lines of "some environmentalist once said so-and-so, so I don't believe any of this global warming BS!"
We're not trying to make the environment static by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. We're just trying to prevent the excessive warming that will cause the sea to flood coastal cities and droughts in populated areas.
1) I'm not asking for a "proof", just a hypothesis. One hypothesis I've heard is that the warming will cause an increase in humidity, which will cause extra clouds, and the clouds will reduce the sunlight warming the Earth. To my knowledge, however, we haven't observed this increase in clouds.
2) We certainly have proved the warming is happening. That's why we're so sure AGW is a good hypothesis, because observations confirm the predictions it makes. Without these observations, it would be mere speculation, as is the idea in #1.
Now if you have no evidence to falsify AGW and no alternative hypothesis to explain the warming, I have to accept the one hypothesis we do have evidence for.
We don't have to assume anything. We know humans produce carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and we know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We can observe the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and we can calculate how much warming we should expect from this increase in carbon dioxide. We observe the predicted warming.
If you're going to try to claim that humans are not the cause of the warming, you'll need to show:
1) Why the increase of carbon dioxide would not cause warming, and
2) What is causing the warming instead
No one has answers to either of these questions. That leaves only one hypothesis to explain our observations. If you have an observation that falsifies the hypothesis, or an alternative hypothesis that explains our observations, let's have it.
Slashdot Mirror
Because fuel keeps becoming more expensive. Because we obtain much of our fuel (oil) from an unstable part of the world. Because burning fossil fuels results in higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses and is acidifying the oceans. If we don't start investing in alternative energy sources until it becomes profitable, we'll be paying dearly for energy. Let's start investing now, so the price of alternative energy comes down and we can switch to them before energy prices skyrocket.
So Obama's to blame for $4/gallon gas? Was Bush to blame the last time we had $4/gallon gas? BTW, no one is asking anyone to suffer. We can switch to alternative energy sources without anyone suffering at all. Using corn for fuel doesn't use energy wisely; it takes nearly as much energy or even more energy to make ethanol from corn as you get from the ethanol. Using corn for energy is a waste of energy.
It's called the smart grid.
The oil companies aren't profitable enough as it is? I'm sure Exxon-Mobil can get by just fine without any subsidies.
We can't just print money and use it to pay off the debt. For each extra dollar we print, we make every other dollar in existence worth less. This means is takes more dollars to be worth a particular value, so prices go up. This is called inflation.
In any case, the argument that the GP gave that we can't spend money on X because we're broke only applies to things that the person making the argument doesn't like. You'll never see them admit we don't have any money to spend on the military because we're broke. If we can spend over $600 billion per year on the military, surely we have a couple of billion per year to develop the energy sources we're going to need this century. If we spend a few billions of dollars every year on alternative energy, who knows, maybe we can spend tens of billions less on the military because we don't need to make sure the spice^Woil flows.
Can't tell if you're a troll or just misinformed. In any case, the story about how we detect it by whether is causes things to get heavier is BS. We detect it like any other heavy, short-lived particle -- by examining the particles that it decays into.
Yes, the George C. Marshall Institute.
Yes, climate scientists are saying we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 85% to stabilize the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we emit much more than that, we will emit more carbon dioxide per year than the carbon cycle can absorb, and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to rise and the temperature will continue to rise. So we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80-90% at some point.
There is some disagreement about how much time we have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80-90% to avoid catastrophic warming (and by catastrophic, I don't mean "ZOFMG we're all gonna die!"). How long it takes us to reduce emissions will determine the concentration at which we stabilize, which will in turn determine how much the temperature rises. For example, if we stabilize at 550 ppm, we will have doubled the concentration of carbon dioxide. There is uncertainty about whether this will lead to a mere 1.5 degree Celsius increase (which isn't too bad) or a 4 degree Celsius increase (which would be pretty bad). The most reasonable course of action would be to play it safe, just in case the actual warming is on the high side of our estimates. If we start reducing carbon dioxide emissions and realize we don't need to cut them so quickly, we can always cut them more slowly. If we wait until we realize that we need to cut them dramatically or that we're already too late, then we're SOL.
I think your explanation of why the right wing doesn't want to accept global warming or that it makes sense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is because they think we'll suffer. You're essentially right in saying that we don't need to suffer at all, just change how we generate electricity.
You're missing the part efficiency plays, however. By using more efficient lighting and appliances, driving higher gas mileage cars, and living and working in buildings with more insulation, we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by simply not using as much energy in the first place. We'll hardly notice any difference, except for the different types of light bulbs or perhaps charging up the car instead of refueling it.
You're also off in how much we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We don't need to cut them in half; we need to reduce them by 80% or more. That's why Obama set a goal of 80% of our energy from non-emitting sources by 2035.
In that case, you'll only be trampled by the hungry hordes.
Why would we switch completely to solar? Coal is much cheaper, and it comes in handy for generating electricity at night when solar doesn't work. We'll probably keep some percentage of coal plants, as well as some percentage of nuclear plants, rather than completely switching to solar. Why would we not use them when the plants are already built and running, and they reduce our need for solar power generation and storage? We'll also likely need biofuels to power large aircraft and boats, too.
Who cares what environmentalists will be happy with? We're moving ahead with nuclear, wind, solar, and energy efficiency. There have been several programs on PBS recently (Beyond the Light Switch and Power Surge) that explain what we're doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Contrary to many people's opinions, these actions will not destroy the economy or result in us living in caves.
We don't have to stop greenhouse gas emissions, just reduce them significantly. We can still have all the infrastructure in place and being used for gathering and burning coal for electricity. Then if there's a drop in solar power, we can compensate for a short while by burning more coal until the sun comes back. In fact, the more we can use solar and the less we can use coal, the longer our emergency reserves will last.
That's because everyone else is like you and waiting for everyone else to take the first step. Eventually, there will be ISPs that can give out only IPv6 addresses, and then you all can't keep delaying any longer. If it's only when you need it that you find out that there are undesirable interactions or incompatibilities, you'll have no one to blame but yourselves. Luckily for us, it looks like Asia will be where this IPv4 address exhaustion starts, so we won't suffer the worst of the bleeding edge.
Once the boss needs to go to IPv6-only websites ... and it eventually will happen ... then it will be time for you to RTFM.
FTFY
The character limit has nothing to do with it. We can't even get reasoned debate on Slashdot. Every time one "side" of the debate starts looking good, the other side just starts making things up so they don't "lose". People who agree with the "losing" side of the debate mod posts up based simply on whether they says what they agree with, not on the strength of the argument or evidence provided. We see it regularly with debates about patents, copyrights, and global warming. I think even debates about evolution here are modded more on whether they take a traditional scientific or religious approach, rather than the strength of the argument. When people have knee-jerk reactions, agreeing with and liking what they already believe and rejecting what they don't want to believe, you can't have reasoned debate.
I added loose women's houses, geohashing locations I visited, places where I've slept, the trees I admire most, and tons of sidewalk graffiti sites, but those damn dirty deletionists removed them all! How can it be useful if they remove such critical information?
Sugar is toxic, but fiber is the "antidote". It causes the sugar to be released into the bloodstream more slowly so the liver can metabolize it properly. If you eat food with sugar in its natural form, for example fruit, it's absorbed more slowly. You can get a rough idea of how quickly sugar from foods is absorbed by looking at their glycemic index. Essentially, whole fruits and vegetables have a low glycemic index, and precessed foods such as sugar, white bread, and white rice have a high glycemic index. People who maintain a low-GI diet have less incidence of diabetes and heart disease.
You want to go to Titan? All it has is that run down amusement park.
No, carbon dioxide was below 300 ppm for the past million years, until humans began burning fossil fuels. There are other factors that can cause warming other than an increase in greenhouse gasses.
Arrhenius estimated the amount of warming we see today without any observations about how an increase in greenhouse gasses affect global temperatures. Now that we do have observations, of course we use them to estimate the parameters more accurately. As we gather more observations we make our predictions more accurate. It has nothing to do with "proof" and everything to do with refining our models as time goes on, just as is done in the rest of science.
Anyone can come up with an alternative hypothesis. Any of the global warming bloggers could write a paper and publish it, or even post their research on their blogs. But they don't do that -- they spend their time nitpicking the research others are doing, just as the author of the article discussed in this story did. You'll never prove a hypothesis incorrect by nitpicking. You need to present data that falsify the hypothesis, or present an alternative hypothesis that explains the observations better. I don't see anyone doing that with AGW. They're trying, but the data to confirm their hypotheses never seems to materialize.
The idea is that instead of calling into question one researcher or one aspect of research, some people seem to think that showing any one statement is incorrect calls into question an entire institution or an entire area of research. This is the idea that most arguments against AGW come down to. You can find many comments in this thread along the lines of "some environmentalist once said so-and-so, so I don't believe any of this global warming BS!"
We're not trying to make the environment static by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. We're just trying to prevent the excessive warming that will cause the sea to flood coastal cities and droughts in populated areas.
1) I'm not asking for a "proof", just a hypothesis. One hypothesis I've heard is that the warming will cause an increase in humidity, which will cause extra clouds, and the clouds will reduce the sunlight warming the Earth. To my knowledge, however, we haven't observed this increase in clouds.
2) We certainly have proved the warming is happening. That's why we're so sure AGW is a good hypothesis, because observations confirm the predictions it makes. Without these observations, it would be mere speculation, as is the idea in #1.
Now if you have no evidence to falsify AGW and no alternative hypothesis to explain the warming, I have to accept the one hypothesis we do have evidence for.
We don't have to assume anything. We know humans produce carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and we know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We can observe the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and we can calculate how much warming we should expect from this increase in carbon dioxide. We observe the predicted warming.
If you're going to try to claim that humans are not the cause of the warming, you'll need to show:
1) Why the increase of carbon dioxide would not cause warming, and
2) What is causing the warming instead
No one has answers to either of these questions. That leaves only one hypothesis to explain our observations. If you have an observation that falsifies the hypothesis, or an alternative hypothesis that explains our observations, let's have it.