Not picking on you personally, I just want to throw in a bit of dissent on the censorship assumption.:)
Quoth TFA: "The Climate Code," is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their "Seal of Approval" for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe. "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval"."
Now correct me if I'm wrong but nobody screams "censorship" when an incompetent doctor is kicked out of the AMA. What this guy is saying is that a malpracticing meterologist sould not be given a "seal of approval" from a meterological society. Getting kicked out of the AMA makes one unemployable as a doctor, I don't know of any law that says a weatherman must be qualified in any way to broadcast their interpretation of public weather data.
Censorship is removing ones right to speak freely, it has nothing to do with a scientific body maintaining standards amoungst the people to whom it lends credibility. I belive it comes under "freedom of association" but I don't pretend to be a lawyer.
I agree objects do not have intent, however human artifacts are always created with one or more intentions, in the case of guns it is obvious one of those intentions is to safely and efficiently kill or maim other people.
Speaking of intent, here in Australia you must sit a test to gain a license for a gun that must be registered. You must state a purpose for owning a gun, "self defense" is not a valid purpose, in the eyes of the law you intend to shoot someone regardless of the morals/legality of any particular situation. It is regarded as a sign of "fear" and trying to work out if that fear is justified just bogs everything down in an endless "what if" argument.
Sports such as hunting and pistol shooting are well catered for, I have participated in both activities with no intention of killing anything other than wild rabbits (rabbits are introduced vermin in this country). Handguns must be stored in a registered and regularly inspected armoury (usually at a gun club). Magazines for shotguns and rifles are illegal but you can store the single/double barrel variety at home. From most Australian's point of view, "African style" anarchy is what you eventually get without effective gun control. I realise the US has a different outlook, that's your perogative and your's alone, I am simply relating experiences from the land down under where I have seen gun control evolve over the last 4-5 decades, if polls are to be belived my personal opinion on our gun laws is a good match for 80+% of Australians.
"Thank god I own a gun, why just last night a roving band of coked up kids veered clear of me. I think it must have been the shiny gleam of my big NRA belt buckle that tipped them off."
Australia has had these laws for ~20yrs now, when the law and associated buy-back program was proposed there was an influx of "NRA belt buckle's" attempting to derail the process. There was considerable public outrage at "arms dealers" attempting to influence our internal affairs, the "belt buckle's" worked out that the public had been "tipped off", packed up their marketing material and slunk out of the country.
The intent of these laws is harm minimization based on epedemilogical research showing (among other things) that a gunshot wound is five times as leathal as a stab wound and far easier to inflict. The event that focused political attention was a heinous crime by a young but deranged individual with a high powered semi-auto who went human hunting and bagged 30-40 of them. None of this has made a significant difference to the overallcrime rate (although handguns have never been popular with Aussies anyway), however it has made a significant impact on public health, and just maybe, a greater proportion of a very tiny number of deranged individuals are forced to reload after each shot.
Hmmm, so please explain why the atmospheric N-Test ban has worked and continues to work? Why did France eventually give in when they had all the advantages of not complying? Your "optimal" course of action only applies to the US & Oz and is non-optimal in the mid to long term. Do I have faith that the commons will be protected from the greed and short-sightedness of a single but important market? No - please read my post again.
"Don't worry, your precious traitors (aka the Democrat party)..."
There is no point talking to extremist trolls such as yourself as it only gives your dick swinging bluster some undeserved measure of political credibility, but just for the record I don't live in the US.
Unfortunately as far as AGW goes, your Administration is enforcing ExonnMobil's will, not the "will of the nation", not even the will of most corporations. And yes I'm sure the rest of the planet will eventually "make you" bend to their will.
BTW: How's that oil war going with Iraq/Iran/Syria/Lebanon/Somalia/Sudan and assorted "stan" countries? Having trouble convincing other's an oil well is worth dying for?
"Just because everyone believes the rags we call newspapers does not mean global warming is man-caused by any means....and seeing that my weather forcaster can not even predict weather 10 days from now, how the heck am I supposed to believe doomsday predictions of 20 years from now? Am I supposed to believe that we can predict weather 20-30 years from now, but not 10 days?
"
Weather != Climate, read some more about it in the scientist's own words here and get back to us when you understand the basics.
"Number one, I call bullshit on the "declining harvest" allegation.
Here is some data in the form of maps, on Australia's agricultural problems and their connection to shifting weather patterns. Here are the rainfall and temprature outlooks from monthly weather predictions for the same periods, judge for yourself how well they match. For the EU and US, I don't have the links bookmarked and haven't investigated in as much depth, I suggest you look for yourself, NOAA and the Britsh MET office are good places to start, CSIRO for more on Australia. 2006 was a bad year for agriculture world wide and 2007 is shaping up to be worse (not to say that some reginos did not benifit but they were much smaller than the losses). For something really "alarming" look into the collapse of fisheries, particularly in the Atlantic.
As can be seen from the archives in my link, Australia is getting wetter in the NW, and drier in the SE (a recently expotential trend that started in the 50's), but over the entire continent the average rainfall is fairly stable (which BTW, is a good match for what climate models predict). While the NW may "one day" be arable land, at the moment it's mainly desert and mangroves. OTOH: The Murry-Darling basin that covers much of the SE is our "breadbasket", this year the river stopped and more topsoil than normal blew away. As just one example of the crop damage, this year our grain harvest is down 62%. That equates to roughly 17M tons lost from the world's 3rd largest producer.
"Number two, global warming would open up vast new tracts of land in Siberia and Canada to farming. Look at any globe."
This demonstrates my point about westeners and their understanding of where a hamburger comes from. What do you suggest we eat while we wait for the mud to dry into arable land? The "real" problem is over population: AGW, peak oil, the sixth great extinction are mearly symptoms, why aggravate the symptoms and hasten our own extinction?
Prove it.
This is not the kind of thing that can be resolved by a slashdot post, you need to either STFU or spend time and look for yourself, politicians will tell you everything is either fine, or can be easily fixed if you vote them into power. Since a "one stop shops" for these kind of statistics dosen't exist outside of expensive think tank reports, all I can do is steer you to available evidence. As evidence I suggest you look at historical supply/demand ratios in the international grain, livestock, seafood and fruit markets, particularly the historical stocks/use ratio's as seen in the second graph in this disscussion on wheat, that ratio in particular is a measure of how long before the cupboard is empty of that particular comodity and there won't be anymore if we decided to eat our seed crop. (I chose wheat since it is often used as grain feed for livestock in overcrowded or winter padocks) Philosophically I can't "prove" anything about the "real world" and neither can you, in the interest of my own spare time (and because it's how science works), before I go digging for more sources I would like to see some contra evidence.
While on the subject of proof, I suggest you look at the philosophy of skeptisim and think of climate, fisheries and agriculture predictions/observations as the biosphere's medical diagnosis/symptoms, nobody can claim certainty but I reckon smokers are only fooling themselves.
"It [Kyoto] was basically a bill that punishes the first world for pollution, while the worst offenders get a free pass."
The way I see it, by refusing to sign "the worst offenders" have given themselves a "free pass" at the expense of everyone else.
First up, Kyoto was never intended to be a silver bullet, it has a use by date of 2012 and was intended to get everyone on board and "level the playing field". As a prototype GHG treaty it was eventually accepted by virtually all nations, the only two dissenters (that still matter) are Australia and the US.
Second, although China may surpass the US one day, (either in total or per capita output), currently the US consumes 25% of global fossil fuels and has 3% of global population and where I live (Australia) has a similar per capita ratio.
Third, the developed world is "developed" due largely to the advantage we have gained over the 20th centry by burning FF's and in doing so we have used up a large chunk of the climates finite ability to "cope" with the extra CO2 (by "cope" I mean provide a habitat able to support humans and thier civilizations indefinitely).
Fourth, China, India, ect, have not burnt FF's in large amounts until recently and understandably demand some form of compensation in any "first cut" treaty to account for the capacity the developed world has already used (ie: in their eyes, "leveling the playing field").
Fifth, The claims of the US & Oz governments that they "will meet their Kyoto obligations anyway" is creative accounting at best, but I prefer to call it a lie.
AGW is a global problem that urgently requires a global treaty, in much the same way as atmospheric N-tests did in the 60's & 70's (BTW: the scientists had a rough time back then also, eg: Marsden from CSIRO who found plutonium spread throughout the atmosphere). I don't pretend to have the political answers but we won't get an answer until all parties come to the table in good faith, since that is unlikely we are probably doomed to be remembered as the Nero generation, that is if there is anyone left to remember.
I wouldn't mind this (myopic/insightfull?) "ruin the economy" meme as much had the US & Oz used economic models that were anywhere near the strength of the much maligned climate models, instead they used classic Friedman models and the associated basic assumptions that resources are infinite and pollution is sombody else's problem.
Take a close look at this "coventional" wisdom (well "conventional" to >3% of mankind) that Kyoto would "ruin the economy", what it really boils down to is: "it would ruining the fossil fuel market". I can only assume it will do this in much the same way as the ozone treaty ruined the CFC market, lead controls have ruined the paint and gasoline markets, and the atmospheric N-Test ban ruined the US military.
Global treaties to ensure global corporations and nation states at least attempt to preserve "the commons" is not some half-arsed socialist plot, it's plain common sense not to shit in ones own nest.
"They will adapt as our ancestors have before and our descendants will continue to do."
Because CO2 has a ~50yr time lag between release and full effect, "adapt or die" are the options we a choosing for our desendents who have no say in the matter and cannot undo what we have done. I don't see a lot of adapting going on, so I presume we have chosen "die".
The global harvest is declining, and it's only going to get worse. Since most westeners have never grown or slaughtered thier own food, the biggest problem they can imagine is adapting to rising sea levels.
In Japan you can by a house one room at a time, the rooms are placed on a large box metal base. There whole thing is built in a factory and fits together like lego on site, there are no traditional foundations, the base just sits ontop of the ground making the houses "earthquake proof". If you want an extra room you can just bolt one on.
Heh, we ran outta time for Stratford upon Avon and the Queen had booked St, Pauls for a birthday bash but we did see a naked cyclist casually ride by in the middle of Cambridge and the drive down the west coast of scotland blew me away. I was born near Manchester and emigrated to Oz in 1964, it's my first time back, we visited the history of my family name (we were the ruthless pricks who inhabited Ludlow and Wigmore castles). No offence but your takeaway sucks (what is the orange stuff on sandwiches and don't tell me it's cheese), the only decent food is breakfast in a B&B and lunch/dinner in a pub, so we met a shitload of locals many quite anebreated but all of them freindly enough.
BTW: Every where we went the drivers knew how to make eye contact when driving and I didn't see very many aggressive drivers, both can be a hassle here. Oh and if anyone reading this is going, DON'T pre-book your car, it costs a fortune to take it on the ferry to Ireland.
I see your living up to your username, good for you. Doesn't change the fact that hand guns are marketed as "self defense tools" to a demographic who are scared of their own shadow, and btw, it's an urban myth that guns make your dick look bigger.
Who here belives Google Earth displays or even has access to anything other than what they are permitted to by the military? So why is an intelligence officer moaning about something he knows won't change?
If the "bad guys" belive the maps are up to date then they are the maps they will use. I think this is an attempt by the "good guys" to direct enemy mortar fire into an empty padock. Now since the proffesional bad guys aren't stupid, any doubt about the currency of the images reduces Google Earth to the informational status of an old street map.
"I gotta be honest, I'd feel safer walking through any working class town in the South than the equivalent in Britain."
Hmmmm, I recently went on a fly/drive holiday to Britain and Ireland during world cup season. My partner and I drove 3500 miles in 5 weeks and stayed in pubs and B&B's. The only "problem" I saw was a couple of kids trying to rip the door of a phone box late at night, I stuck my head out of the window of our room and told them to fuck off, they didn't even answer back, they just ran.
"I'm pretty sure that those present at the signing of the Magna Carta would not approve of this."
Good grief man, the first parliment was composed of money lenders that collectively were more powerfull than the royalty of the day, if they could understand this system they would love it!
"Like gun control, if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them"
I live in Australia, when I was a kid in the 60's there were plenty idiots/outlaws with guns posing as ordinary people, nowadays they are virtually extinct and most Ausssies like it that way.
Children rearing chickens & rabbits for food was quite common in the west up until the 60's.
Is it just me or does the idea of "big rabbits" remind anyone else of the goodies "transitorised carrot" episode. It was a spoof of clockwork orange with "Big Bunny" directing the evil from a moonbase.
Might be better as an introduction to the subject, it certainly captures the imagination. There was also a slashdot story about it a little while ago, a few students reported having seen it in lectures.
"It's not a one-sided system. If the defense attorney wasn't utterly incompetent, the defendant wouldn't have lost the case."
The teacher in TFA shouldn't need a lawyer, any rational judge would be asking why the cops are wasting his time and who the fuck hired a wannabe Himmler as an investigator?
"...it seems like at any point in time people were certain that the end of the world was only a generation or two away."
Yes, there have always been doom-sayers who talk of the wrath of God and the day of judgement. However, for the last 50yrs or so we have had the potential to create our own apocolypse independently of any disgruntled God(s).
"I think it is about time everyone started to ignore anyone who claimed the world was about to end and listened to more rational voices."
What is "irrational" is having been taught to "duck and cover" when I was a kid in the 60's ( ie: a school desk is no match for an A bomb ). Your statement also implies Eienstien was irrational and should be ignored since he was amoungst the first to recognise we are no longer dependent on a vengefull God to wipe us all out. He was well aware that his science had assisted the less "rational" amoungst us to aquire the technology to create our own apocolypse, either deliberately or accidentally. Similarly "rational" but less famous people have spotted a few other problems since the 50's.
BTW: My money is on environmental apathy, but nukes might be used to speed things up a bit.
"Yeah... well... I come from the days when computers only ran at 1Mhz (Apple II and OSI) and we liked them!:-)"
There were no IC's in my electronics kit, but there was enough to build a "transistor radio", I turned into a teenager and didn't bother with electronics until my mid-twenties. I got hold of a second hand Apple 11, attached an audio cassett player, my monitor was "the" TV plugged in via the RF converter in "the" video recorder (luckily the wife liked reading and the kids were young:). I taught myself applesoft basic by programming Conway's game of life that I had read about in SA, where that lead distracted me from electonics for a couple more decades.
In case I decide to take it up in retirement, does anyone know a cheap way to make a 4-way mobile platform for an automotron?:)
I hate replying to my own post but I just wanted to mention that the colder minimums in the SE did severe damage to our fruit crops with unseasonal frost in Oct/Nov. I rent a unit by the bay and enjoy getting my "feet wet", but I don't want to contemplate wasting my retirement standing around all day in soviet style bread queues.
It has been said that diffence between civilization and anarchy is mearly three days without food. The problem needs "fixing" while:
1. We still have a heathy global economy (well at least it's healthy for those nations that have an economy).
2. The symptoms are only starting to show.
I say "symptoms" because climate forecasting is more like a medical diagnosis, it's probalistic like the 1/20 chance a smoker has of dying early from the habit. Somking (away from others) is loading the dice against yourself in the same way fossil fuels are loading the dice for all of us, I myself am a smoker in both a personal and planetry sense and I know perfectly well that one of the "problems" I can "fix" by myself, and the other I can't.
OTOH: If AGW does get "fixed", I predict in the year 2100 a vocal minority will still be claiming, "it was just another Y2K scam".
Slashdot Mirror
Not picking on you personally, I just want to throw in a bit of dissent on the censorship assumption. :)
Quoth TFA: "The Climate Code," is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their "Seal of Approval" for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe. "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval"."
Now correct me if I'm wrong but nobody screams "censorship" when an incompetent doctor is kicked out of the AMA. What this guy is saying is that a malpracticing meterologist sould not be given a "seal of approval" from a meterological society. Getting kicked out of the AMA makes one unemployable as a doctor, I don't know of any law that says a weatherman must be qualified in any way to broadcast their interpretation of public weather data.
Censorship is removing ones right to speak freely, it has nothing to do with a scientific body maintaining standards amoungst the people to whom it lends credibility. I belive it comes under "freedom of association" but I don't pretend to be a lawyer.
I agree objects do not have intent, however human artifacts are always created with one or more intentions, in the case of guns it is obvious one of those intentions is to safely and efficiently kill or maim other people.
Speaking of intent, here in Australia you must sit a test to gain a license for a gun that must be registered. You must state a purpose for owning a gun, "self defense" is not a valid purpose, in the eyes of the law you intend to shoot someone regardless of the morals/legality of any particular situation. It is regarded as a sign of "fear" and trying to work out if that fear is justified just bogs everything down in an endless "what if" argument.
Sports such as hunting and pistol shooting are well catered for, I have participated in both activities with no intention of killing anything other than wild rabbits (rabbits are introduced vermin in this country). Handguns must be stored in a registered and regularly inspected armoury (usually at a gun club). Magazines for shotguns and rifles are illegal but you can store the single/double barrel variety at home. From most Australian's point of view, "African style" anarchy is what you eventually get without effective gun control. I realise the US has a different outlook, that's your perogative and your's alone, I am simply relating experiences from the land down under where I have seen gun control evolve over the last 4-5 decades, if polls are to be belived my personal opinion on our gun laws is a good match for 80+% of Australians.
"Thank god I own a gun, why just last night a roving band of coked up kids veered clear of me. I think it must have been the shiny gleam of my big NRA belt buckle that tipped them off."
Australia has had these laws for ~20yrs now, when the law and associated buy-back program was proposed there was an influx of "NRA belt buckle's" attempting to derail the process. There was considerable public outrage at "arms dealers" attempting to influence our internal affairs, the "belt buckle's" worked out that the public had been "tipped off", packed up their marketing material and slunk out of the country.
The intent of these laws is harm minimization based on epedemilogical research showing (among other things) that a gunshot wound is five times as leathal as a stab wound and far easier to inflict. The event that focused political attention was a heinous crime by a young but deranged individual with a high powered semi-auto who went human hunting and bagged 30-40 of them. None of this has made a significant difference to the overall crime rate (although handguns have never been popular with Aussies anyway), however it has made a significant impact on public health, and just maybe, a greater proportion of a very tiny number of deranged individuals are forced to reload after each shot.
Hmmm, so please explain why the atmospheric N-Test ban has worked and continues to work? Why did France eventually give in when they had all the advantages of not complying? Your "optimal" course of action only applies to the US & Oz and is non-optimal in the mid to long term. Do I have faith that the commons will be protected from the greed and short-sightedness of a single but important market? No - please read my post again.
"Don't worry, your precious traitors (aka the Democrat party)..."
There is no point talking to extremist trolls such as yourself as it only gives your dick swinging bluster some undeserved measure of political credibility, but just for the record I don't live in the US.
"fossil fuels are the reason the developed world has a good fossil fuel market"
I'm sure there is a point there somewhere, care to elaborate?
Unfortunately as far as AGW goes, your Administration is enforcing ExonnMobil's will, not the "will of the nation", not even the will of most corporations. And yes I'm sure the rest of the planet will eventually "make you" bend to their will.
BTW: How's that oil war going with Iraq/Iran/Syria/Lebanon/Somalia/Sudan and assorted "stan" countries? Having trouble convincing other's an oil well is worth dying for?
"Just because everyone believes the rags we call newspapers does not mean global warming is man-caused by any means....and seeing that my weather forcaster can not even predict weather 10 days from now, how the heck am I supposed to believe doomsday predictions of 20 years from now? Am I supposed to believe that we can predict weather 20-30 years from now, but not 10 days? "
Weather != Climate, read some more about it in the scientist's own words here and get back to us when you understand the basics.
"Number one, I call bullshit on the "declining harvest" allegation.
Here is some data in the form of maps, on Australia's agricultural problems and their connection to shifting weather patterns. Here are the rainfall and temprature outlooks from monthly weather predictions for the same periods, judge for yourself how well they match. For the EU and US, I don't have the links bookmarked and haven't investigated in as much depth, I suggest you look for yourself, NOAA and the Britsh MET office are good places to start, CSIRO for more on Australia. 2006 was a bad year for agriculture world wide and 2007 is shaping up to be worse (not to say that some reginos did not benifit but they were much smaller than the losses). For something really "alarming" look into the collapse of fisheries, particularly in the Atlantic.
As can be seen from the archives in my link, Australia is getting wetter in the NW, and drier in the SE (a recently expotential trend that started in the 50's), but over the entire continent the average rainfall is fairly stable (which BTW, is a good match for what climate models predict). While the NW may "one day" be arable land, at the moment it's mainly desert and mangroves. OTOH: The Murry-Darling basin that covers much of the SE is our "breadbasket", this year the river stopped and more topsoil than normal blew away. As just one example of the crop damage, this year our grain harvest is down 62%. That equates to roughly 17M tons lost from the world's 3rd largest producer.
"Number two, global warming would open up vast new tracts of land in Siberia and Canada to farming. Look at any globe."
This demonstrates my point about westeners and their understanding of where a hamburger comes from. What do you suggest we eat while we wait for the mud to dry into arable land? The "real" problem is over population: AGW, peak oil, the sixth great extinction are mearly symptoms, why aggravate the symptoms and hasten our own extinction?
Prove it.
This is not the kind of thing that can be resolved by a slashdot post, you need to either STFU or spend time and look for yourself, politicians will tell you everything is either fine, or can be easily fixed if you vote them into power. Since a "one stop shops" for these kind of statistics dosen't exist outside of expensive think tank reports, all I can do is steer you to available evidence. As evidence I suggest you look at historical supply/demand ratios in the international grain, livestock, seafood and fruit markets, particularly the historical stocks/use ratio's as seen in the second graph in this disscussion on wheat, that ratio in particular is a measure of how long before the cupboard is empty of that particular comodity and there won't be anymore if we decided to eat our seed crop. (I chose wheat since it is often used as grain feed for livestock in overcrowded or winter padocks) Philosophically I can't "prove" anything about the "real world" and neither can you, in the interest of my own spare time (and because it's how science works), before I go digging for more sources I would like to see some contra evidence.
While on the subject of proof, I suggest you look at the philosophy of skeptisim and think of climate, fisheries and agriculture predictions/observations as the biosphere's medical diagnosis/symptoms, nobody can claim certainty but I reckon smokers are only fooling themselves.
"It [Kyoto] was basically a bill that punishes the first world for pollution, while the worst offenders get a free pass."
The way I see it, by refusing to sign "the worst offenders" have given themselves a "free pass" at the expense of everyone else.
First up, Kyoto was never intended to be a silver bullet, it has a use by date of 2012 and was intended to get everyone on board and "level the playing field". As a prototype GHG treaty it was eventually accepted by virtually all nations, the only two dissenters (that still matter) are Australia and the US.
Second, although China may surpass the US one day, (either in total or per capita output), currently the US consumes 25% of global fossil fuels and has 3% of global population and where I live (Australia) has a similar per capita ratio.
Third, the developed world is "developed" due largely to the advantage we have gained over the 20th centry by burning FF's and in doing so we have used up a large chunk of the climates finite ability to "cope" with the extra CO2 (by "cope" I mean provide a habitat able to support humans and thier civilizations indefinitely).
Fourth, China, India, ect, have not burnt FF's in large amounts until recently and understandably demand some form of compensation in any "first cut" treaty to account for the capacity the developed world has already used (ie: in their eyes, "leveling the playing field").
Fifth, The claims of the US & Oz governments that they "will meet their Kyoto obligations anyway" is creative accounting at best, but I prefer to call it a lie.
AGW is a global problem that urgently requires a global treaty, in much the same way as atmospheric N-tests did in the 60's & 70's (BTW: the scientists had a rough time back then also, eg: Marsden from CSIRO who found plutonium spread throughout the atmosphere). I don't pretend to have the political answers but we won't get an answer until all parties come to the table in good faith, since that is unlikely we are probably doomed to be remembered as the Nero generation, that is if there is anyone left to remember.
I wouldn't mind this (myopic/insightfull?) "ruin the economy" meme as much had the US & Oz used economic models that were anywhere near the strength of the much maligned climate models, instead they used classic Friedman models and the associated basic assumptions that resources are infinite and pollution is sombody else's problem.
Take a close look at this "coventional" wisdom (well "conventional" to >3% of mankind) that Kyoto would "ruin the economy", what it really boils down to is: "it would ruining the fossil fuel market". I can only assume it will do this in much the same way as the ozone treaty ruined the CFC market, lead controls have ruined the paint and gasoline markets, and the atmospheric N-Test ban ruined the US military.
Global treaties to ensure global corporations and nation states at least attempt to preserve "the commons" is not some half-arsed socialist plot, it's plain common sense not to shit in ones own nest.
"That's 928 peer-reviewed papers, zero dissent - and the agreement of every major scientific body [in the country]. on the planet. - There all fixed :)
And if you want to speak to the horse, err scientists, you can do it here in language that is understandable to the average high school student.
"They will adapt as our ancestors have before and our descendants will continue to do."
Because CO2 has a ~50yr time lag between release and full effect, "adapt or die" are the options we a choosing for our desendents who have no say in the matter and cannot undo what we have done. I don't see a lot of adapting going on, so I presume we have chosen "die".
The global harvest is declining, and it's only going to get worse. Since most westeners have never grown or slaughtered thier own food, the biggest problem they can imagine is adapting to rising sea levels.
In Japan you can by a house one room at a time, the rooms are placed on a large box metal base. There whole thing is built in a factory and fits together like lego on site, there are no traditional foundations, the base just sits ontop of the ground making the houses "earthquake proof". If you want an extra room you can just bolt one on.
Speaking of optimisim, I don't think OH&S would be impressed if "the sole foreman on site" was the only person on site.
Heh, we ran outta time for Stratford upon Avon and the Queen had booked St, Pauls for a birthday bash but we did see a naked cyclist casually ride by in the middle of Cambridge and the drive down the west coast of scotland blew me away. I was born near Manchester and emigrated to Oz in 1964, it's my first time back, we visited the history of my family name (we were the ruthless pricks who inhabited Ludlow and Wigmore castles). No offence but your takeaway sucks (what is the orange stuff on sandwiches and don't tell me it's cheese), the only decent food is breakfast in a B&B and lunch/dinner in a pub, so we met a shitload of locals many quite anebreated but all of them freindly enough.
BTW: Every where we went the drivers knew how to make eye contact when driving and I didn't see very many aggressive drivers, both can be a hassle here. Oh and if anyone reading this is going, DON'T pre-book your car, it costs a fortune to take it on the ferry to Ireland.
I see your living up to your username, good for you. Doesn't change the fact that hand guns are marketed as "self defense tools" to a demographic who are scared of their own shadow, and btw, it's an urban myth that guns make your dick look bigger.
"Suck it up"
Huh? Suck what up? Your hyperbole?
Who here belives Google Earth displays or even has access to anything other than what they are permitted to by the military? So why is an intelligence officer moaning about something he knows won't change?
If the "bad guys" belive the maps are up to date then they are the maps they will use. I think this is an attempt by the "good guys" to direct enemy mortar fire into an empty padock. Now since the proffesional bad guys aren't stupid, any doubt about the currency of the images reduces Google Earth to the informational status of an old street map.
"I gotta be honest, I'd feel safer walking through any working class town in the South than the equivalent in Britain."
Hmmmm, I recently went on a fly/drive holiday to Britain and Ireland during world cup season. My partner and I drove 3500 miles in 5 weeks and stayed in pubs and B&B's. The only "problem" I saw was a couple of kids trying to rip the door of a phone box late at night, I stuck my head out of the window of our room and told them to fuck off, they didn't even answer back, they just ran.
"I'm pretty sure that those present at the signing of the Magna Carta would not approve of this."
Good grief man, the first parliment was composed of money lenders that collectively were more powerfull than the royalty of the day, if they could understand this system they would love it!
"Like gun control, if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them"
I live in Australia, when I was a kid in the 60's there were plenty idiots/outlaws with guns posing as ordinary people, nowadays they are virtually extinct and most Ausssies like it that way.
Children rearing chickens & rabbits for food was quite common in the west up until the 60's.
Is it just me or does the idea of "big rabbits" remind anyone else of the goodies "transitorised carrot" episode. It was a spoof of clockwork orange with "Big Bunny" directing the evil from a moonbase.
Might be better as an introduction to the subject, it certainly captures the imagination. There was also a slashdot story about it a little while ago, a few students reported having seen it in lectures.
I think you may have missed the point....
"It's not a one-sided system. If the defense attorney wasn't utterly incompetent, the defendant wouldn't have lost the case."
The teacher in TFA shouldn't need a lawyer, any rational judge would be asking why the cops are wasting his time and who the fuck hired a wannabe Himmler as an investigator?
"...it seems like at any point in time people were certain that the end of the world was only a generation or two away."
Yes, there have always been doom-sayers who talk of the wrath of God and the day of judgement. However, for the last 50yrs or so we have had the potential to create our own apocolypse independently of any disgruntled God(s).
"I think it is about time everyone started to ignore anyone who claimed the world was about to end and listened to more rational voices."
What is "irrational" is having been taught to "duck and cover" when I was a kid in the 60's ( ie: a school desk is no match for an A bomb ). Your statement also implies Eienstien was irrational and should be ignored since he was amoungst the first to recognise we are no longer dependent on a vengefull God to wipe us all out. He was well aware that his science had assisted the less "rational" amoungst us to aquire the technology to create our own apocolypse, either deliberately or accidentally. Similarly "rational" but less famous people have spotted a few other problems since the 50's.
BTW: My money is on environmental apathy, but nukes might be used to speed things up a bit.
"Yeah... well... I come from the days when computers only ran at 1Mhz (Apple II and OSI) and we liked them! :-)"
:). I taught myself applesoft basic by programming Conway's game of life that I had read about in SA, where that lead distracted me from electonics for a couple more decades.
:)
There were no IC's in my electronics kit, but there was enough to build a "transistor radio", I turned into a teenager and didn't bother with electronics until my mid-twenties. I got hold of a second hand Apple 11, attached an audio cassett player, my monitor was "the" TV plugged in via the RF converter in "the" video recorder (luckily the wife liked reading and the kids were young
In case I decide to take it up in retirement, does anyone know a cheap way to make a 4-way mobile platform for an automotron?
I hate replying to my own post but I just wanted to mention that the colder minimums in the SE did severe damage to our fruit crops with unseasonal frost in Oct/Nov. I rent a unit by the bay and enjoy getting my "feet wet", but I don't want to contemplate wasting my retirement standing around all day in soviet style bread queues.
/rant_encore
It has been said that diffence between civilization and anarchy is mearly three days without food. The problem needs "fixing" while:
1. We still have a heathy global economy (well at least it's healthy for those nations that have an economy).
2. The symptoms are only starting to show.
I say "symptoms" because climate forecasting is more like a medical diagnosis, it's probalistic like the 1/20 chance a smoker has of dying early from the habit. Somking (away from others) is loading the dice against yourself in the same way fossil fuels are loading the dice for all of us, I myself am a smoker in both a personal and planetry sense and I know perfectly well that one of the "problems" I can "fix" by myself, and the other I can't.
OTOH: If AGW does get "fixed", I predict in the year 2100 a vocal minority will still be claiming, "it was just another Y2K scam".