Seems to me that you asserted that all climate models failed to accurately predict the change in climate we are now experiencing. Then again you WERE rebuffed in a particularly gruesome and thorough manner. So perhaps your present claim to have not made the assertion in question is just a strangely worded retraction of the assertion, rather than a lie, which it appears to be at first glance.
The truth remains — there have not been many climate-related predictions published, that came true in due time. In fact, I can't find even a single one such prediction, but there really ought to be many by now.
What about the predictions of climate denialists that nothing will happen if we megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere? Should we trust those predictions?
This is always a problem: incrementalist thinking, the idea that one can achieve the revolutionary through small intermediate steps with an evolutionary process.
There's nothing particularly revolutionary or even evolutionary about sending humans to Mars: there's robots already there, and robots can cater for any foreseeable need for a presence on the surface of Mars. If anything, humans are an evolutionary step backward: humans are ill adapted to Mars and our time and effort on the surface of Mars will be spent catering to our own survival rather than doing anything useful.
If you think like this, you should probably get the hell out of the way of those of us who don't. We'll come back for you. Some day. Maybe.
You do realised you aren't going to Mars? and that no amount of 'thinking big' will change that?
You aren't going to Mars.
It's conceivable that we might suppress our better judgement and send some humans one day, but the chances of it being you are about 1 in a billion.
I notice that several times in this thread people have merely asserted stuff without even providing a little support for their argument. F
I've noticed that several people here tend to repeatedly post the same assertions even when they've been rebutted in the past. That's you.
And everyone who has posted for any length of time has been corrected before. What's relevant about that observation to me in particular?
It's relevant because (a) generally when you make assertions on AGW in particular we recall how your assertions on this subject turned out to be bunk on previous occasions, thus we need more than a pinky swear to accept that the things you say are true now. And (b) When you've previously made a wrong assertion and then repeat that assertion having been corrected it sounds like you don't really believe it yourself.
Well they do get funding to build and launch satellites to track global warming. So they do have a vested interest in global warming being something important that needs to be tracked.:-)
So your claims of no warming for 20 years is based on no data ?
Look, I believe that climate change is occurring more quickly than in previous eras
Let me stop you there. Nobody cares what you believe. All that matters is what you can prove. Can you prove that there has been no warming for 20 years?
The main idea of mining the moon or asteroids is to use the product up there.
Exactly right. The purpose of mining operations in space is to produce raw materials to feed into OTHER operations in space. What do these other operations do?
Well they mine of course. Mining is the only profitable operation in space. So each mining operation will sell materials needed for their mining operations to other mining operations to fund the purchase of materials from other mining operations! Profit for everybody!
I meant the description: the folks in a country ruled by a formidable Imperialist Empire got up the courage to fight against them. The folks will ill-armed, untrained, and just country bumpkins, more or less. applied to the Iranians.
The cost of mitigating climate change are insignificant next to the costs of ignoring it.
That is your point of view. There is no consensus on this point of view. There possibly might be a majority, but there certainly isn't a consensus.
And where is the evidence to the contrary?
Let's put this in context:
In the 1990's climate deniers told us that the climate wasn't warming.
They were wrong.
Then they told us the warming was because of the sun.
They were wrong.
Then they told us the warming was due to gravitational lensing.
They were wrong.
Then they told us the warming was due to- hey look over there! It's a vast green conspiracy!
They were wrong.
Then they told us the slight dip in the rate of warming was magically a reset of the warming and that this disproved the laws of thermodynamics and model mumble mumble magic happens! Unicorns and Fairies!
They were wrong.
What are the chances that denialists are right now?
Not correct. What consensus does is serve to frame the idea of controversy. People claim that climate science is controversial: the fact that 97% of scientists (and more for scientists who are climatologists) agree on a particular climate view tells us a great deal about the nature of the controversy, i.e. the consensus view is actually about as controversial as the existence of owls. It might be that the existence of owls is not 100% agreed upon, however, it is really up to the people who say there are no owls to prove that owls don't in fact exist.
There is an enormous chasm between these two ideas.
Not so much.
Yes there is a broad concensus that we are changing the composition of our atmosphere and this should cause the planet to warm to some extent. *Alot* of sceptics agree with this. But there is no consensus on what the level of warming will be nor is there consensus on the idea that the changes are harmful/damaging to our interests or the planet or that an urgent mitigation based policy framework is needed. There is an enormous amount of disagreement here, scientific disagreement, as there should be because honest truth is we do not know what impacts are likely to be and there are plenty of competing points of view, in literature on this.
We have extensive analysis from one side and moaning, conspiracy theories and lies form the other. If there is uncertainty, this means deviation from the best known predictions of likely outcomes, which are the prediction produced by science. If there is deviation, it is just as likely to deviate in a way that is worse than the prediction as it is to be better than what was predicted. That is what uncertainty means.
So we have:
1. Scientists, who are giving predictions, along with working and evidence, and the broad concurrence of experts. These people have been (fairly) consistently right for 150 years or climate research.
2. Conspiracy theorists and bloggers who make contradictory, conflicting claims about why the scientists are wrong, but produce no evidence, no working and generally misrepresent the truth. These people have been consistently wrong from the start, claiming firstly that the climate wasn't changing (it is) , then claiming that is is changing but because of the sun, then onto somehtign, then back to the sun, now saying yes, we are causing it, but it will be good for us without providing a shred of evidence to support this assertion. Talk about your lack of trust.
3. Then there are the people claim there is uncertainty. Firstly, if there is uncertainty, then a worse outcome is as likely as a better one. Secondly, YOU don't get to tell us what we do and don't know.
The alternative is to say: yes, we know the climate change we caused is damaging the long term economic prospects/the environment but we shouldn't do anything about it. That is just dumb.
Interesting. I was under the impression that robotic mining of asteroids are still several orders of magnitude away from being profitable - but then I have never seen any detailed economic modelling on the proposal. Have you got access to this modelling?
Your argument assumes we already have nuclear energy, which, by and large, we do not.
1. This means we would have to build new power stations, which assumes centralised distribution, which means building those power stations somewhere near the existing coal fired stations - because that is the way the distribution network is designed. Coal fired stations are located near sources of coal - not on sites which might be good for nuclear reactors. E.g. near rivers.
2. This means continuing to maintain and upgrade the existing distribution network, which the public are unwilling to do, because they can generate their own power on their own roof, and don't see why they should subsidize industry by paying the bill for the centralised network.
3. Nuclear power is heavily IP bound, we would have to buy technology from, for example the US or other pre-existing user of nuclear power. Again, this looks to the public like money down the drain.
4. Depending on who you are, acquiring nuclear technology can make the legacy powers (e.g. the US, UK) nervous. Who needs those guys on your back?
5. Even if you have uranium (we have in my country) you still can't just feed it into your reactor. Many reactor designs require you to have the fuel rods made overseas. Again, this looks bad. Why are we adopting a source of power that makes us reliant on overseas companies?
If one of the newer designs was (a) ready to go and (b) commercially viable and (c) open source, so you could build it yourself (d) able to take locally sourced fuel so that you don't have to ship things high and low and (e) relatively foolproof, then in manys case nuclear might be viable.
But not everywhere. There is no way nuclear is suitable for Nigeria, for example. What happens when Boko Haram gets their hands on a nuclear power site? In many places, the key to energy generation is finding ways to distribute the generation so that it generated near the site of consumption. This way, you can have, for example, community owned generating facilities.
Compared to the primordial African savanna "Eden" we evolved to fit, most of the places where humans already live are unbelievably harsh.
No. No: they aren't. They are all well supplied with oxygen and reasonable atmospheric pressure, in all cases you can work outside without being bombarded with deadly radiation. There are no instances of humans choosing to live in places where the ground itself is so poisonous that exposure to it would make us sick.
None.
What's more, as a general rule, humans choose, where they can, to live in environments which are generally conducive to our well being. Nobody really chooses to live in a rat infested slum awash with sewage. That is the point: why don't humans live in antarctica, or one the sides of the himalayan mountains in the death zone, or in the simpson desert?
Because we don't want to. As nice as those places are to visit, and as beautiful as they are, nobody wants to actually live there.
This applies to Mars - and an order of magnitude more. Mars is about as pleasant and hospitable as outer space. Without the awesome views.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems to me that you asserted that all climate models failed to accurately predict the change in climate we are now experiencing. Then again you WERE rebuffed in a particularly gruesome and thorough manner. So perhaps your present claim to have not made the assertion in question is just a strangely worded retraction of the assertion, rather than a lie, which it appears to be at first glance.
So that's a no then? We shouldn't trust the assertions made by you and your fellow denialists?
The truth remains — there have not been many climate-related predictions published, that came true in due time. In fact, I can't find even a single one such prediction, but there really ought to be many by now.
What about the predictions of climate denialists that nothing will happen if we megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere? Should we trust those predictions?
We don't need a presence on Mars to reproduce. You might not have been able to reproduce but that is not the reason.
This is always a problem: incrementalist thinking, the idea that one can achieve the revolutionary through small intermediate steps with an evolutionary process.
There's nothing particularly revolutionary or even evolutionary about sending humans to Mars: there's robots already there, and robots can cater for any foreseeable need for a presence on the surface of Mars. If anything, humans are an evolutionary step backward: humans are ill adapted to Mars and our time and effort on the surface of Mars will be spent catering to our own survival rather than doing anything useful.
If you think like this, you should probably get the hell out of the way of those of us who don't. We'll come back for you. Some day. Maybe.
You do realised you aren't going to Mars? and that no amount of 'thinking big' will change that?
You aren't going to Mars.
It's conceivable that we might suppress our better judgement and send some humans one day, but the chances of it being you are about 1 in a billion.
Your behavior in this thread. We have empty assertions which are repeatedly asserted.
Empty?
Why should I believe they are empty?
Repeating unproductive and silly behavior is irrational.
You have, on various occasions, repeated claims that have already been refuted. Doesn't that exactly fit you own definition of irrationality?
What proof do you have that I'm not rational?
Why would I need evidence to believe my own assertions? You are being absurd
You have to show it happened first.
Why? Is it likely that I doubt my own memory?
I notice that several times in this thread people have merely asserted stuff without even providing a little support for their argument. F
I've noticed that several people here tend to repeatedly post the same assertions even when they've been rebutted in the past. That's you.
And everyone who has posted for any length of time has been corrected before. What's relevant about that observation to me in particular?
It's relevant because (a) generally when you make assertions on AGW in particular we recall how your assertions on this subject turned out to be bunk on previous occasions, thus we need more than a pinky swear to accept that the things you say are true now. And (b) When you've previously made a wrong assertion and then repeat that assertion having been corrected it sounds like you don't really believe it yourself.
So at least the body count will be kept down somewhat.
Well they do get funding to build and launch satellites to track global warming. So they do have a vested interest in global warming being something important that needs to be tracked. :-)
So your claims of no warming for 20 years is based on no data ?
Look, I believe that climate change is occurring more quickly than in previous eras
Let me stop you there. Nobody cares what you believe. All that matters is what you can prove. Can you prove that there has been no warming for 20 years?
Do you suffer from memory problems?
Limbaugh is a well known climate change denier. That makes him pro AGW.
You make a reasonable point - it makes just as much sense to send bullocks to Mars as it does humans.
This is the point you should rebut to support your assertion it's bullocks to go to Mars.
You make a reasonable point - it makes just as much to send bullocks to Mars as it does humans.
The main idea of mining the moon or asteroids is to use the product up there.
Exactly right. The purpose of mining operations in space is to produce raw materials to feed into OTHER operations in space. What do these other operations do?
Well they mine of course. Mining is the only profitable operation in space. So each mining operation will sell materials needed for their mining operations to other mining operations to fund the purchase of materials from other mining operations! Profit for everybody!
Who then, should pay for the damage done by fraudulent activities? Should the victims of fraud have to pay for the damage caused by fraudsters?
My bad, I wasn't very clear.
You're talking about Iran, right?
The cost of mitigating climate change are insignificant next to the costs of ignoring it.
That is your point of view. There is no consensus on this point of view. There possibly might be a majority, but there certainly isn't a consensus.
And where is the evidence to the contrary?
Let's put this in context:
In the 1990's climate deniers told us that the climate wasn't warming.
They were wrong.
Then they told us the warming was because of the sun.
They were wrong.
Then they told us the warming was due to gravitational lensing.
They were wrong.
Then they told us the warming was due to- hey look over there! It's a vast green conspiracy!
They were wrong.
Then they told us the slight dip in the rate of warming was magically a reset of the warming and that this disproved the laws of thermodynamics and model mumble mumble magic happens! Unicorns and Fairies!
They were wrong.
What are the chances that denialists are right now?
Consensus means nothing
Not correct. What consensus does is serve to frame the idea of controversy. People claim that climate science is controversial: the fact that 97% of scientists (and more for scientists who are climatologists) agree on a particular climate view tells us a great deal about the nature of the controversy, i.e. the consensus view is actually about as controversial as the existence of owls. It might be that the existence of owls is not 100% agreed upon, however, it is really up to the people who say there are no owls to prove that owls don't in fact exist.
There is an enormous chasm between these two ideas.
Not so much.
Yes there is a broad concensus that we are changing the composition of our atmosphere and this should cause the planet to warm to some extent. *Alot* of sceptics agree with this. But there is no consensus on what the level of warming will be nor is there consensus on the idea that the changes are harmful/damaging to our interests or the planet or that an urgent mitigation based policy framework is needed. There is an enormous amount of disagreement here, scientific disagreement, as there should be because honest truth is we do not know what impacts are likely to be and there are plenty of competing points of view, in literature on this.
We have extensive analysis from one side and moaning, conspiracy theories and lies form the other. If there is uncertainty, this means deviation from the best known predictions of likely outcomes, which are the prediction produced by science. If there is deviation, it is just as likely to deviate in a way that is worse than the prediction as it is to be better than what was predicted. That is what uncertainty means.
So we have:
1. Scientists, who are giving predictions, along with working and evidence, and the broad concurrence of experts. These people have been (fairly) consistently right for 150 years or climate research.
2. Conspiracy theorists and bloggers who make contradictory, conflicting claims about why the scientists are wrong, but produce no evidence, no working and generally misrepresent the truth. These people have been consistently wrong from the start, claiming firstly that the climate wasn't changing (it is) , then claiming that is is changing but because of the sun, then onto somehtign, then back to the sun, now saying yes, we are causing it, but it will be good for us without providing a shred of evidence to support this assertion. Talk about your lack of trust.
3. Then there are the people claim there is uncertainty. Firstly, if there is uncertainty, then a worse outcome is as likely as a better one. Secondly, YOU don't get to tell us what we do and don't know. The alternative is to say: yes, we know the climate change we caused is damaging the long term economic prospects/the environment but we shouldn't do anything about it. That is just dumb.
Interesting. I was under the impression that robotic mining of asteroids are still several orders of magnitude away from being profitable - but then I have never seen any detailed economic modelling on the proposal. Have you got access to this modelling?
1. This means we would have to build new power stations, which assumes centralised distribution, which means building those power stations somewhere near the existing coal fired stations - because that is the way the distribution network is designed. Coal fired stations are located near sources of coal - not on sites which might be good for nuclear reactors. E.g. near rivers.
2. This means continuing to maintain and upgrade the existing distribution network, which the public are unwilling to do, because they can generate their own power on their own roof, and don't see why they should subsidize industry by paying the bill for the centralised network.
3. Nuclear power is heavily IP bound, we would have to buy technology from, for example the US or other pre-existing user of nuclear power. Again, this looks to the public like money down the drain.
4. Depending on who you are, acquiring nuclear technology can make the legacy powers (e.g. the US, UK) nervous. Who needs those guys on your back?
5. Even if you have uranium (we have in my country) you still can't just feed it into your reactor. Many reactor designs require you to have the fuel rods made overseas. Again, this looks bad. Why are we adopting a source of power that makes us reliant on overseas companies?
If one of the newer designs was (a) ready to go and (b) commercially viable and (c) open source, so you could build it yourself (d) able to take locally sourced fuel so that you don't have to ship things high and low and (e) relatively foolproof, then in manys case nuclear might be viable.
But not everywhere. There is no way nuclear is suitable for Nigeria, for example. What happens when Boko Haram gets their hands on a nuclear power site? In many places, the key to energy generation is finding ways to distribute the generation so that it generated near the site of consumption. This way, you can have, for example, community owned generating facilities.
Compared to the primordial African savanna "Eden" we evolved to fit, most of the places where humans already live are unbelievably harsh.
No. No: they aren't. They are all well supplied with oxygen and reasonable atmospheric pressure, in all cases you can work outside without being bombarded with deadly radiation. There are no instances of humans choosing to live in places where the ground itself is so poisonous that exposure to it would make us sick.
None.
What's more, as a general rule, humans choose, where they can, to live in environments which are generally conducive to our well being. Nobody really chooses to live in a rat infested slum awash with sewage. That is the point: why don't humans live in antarctica, or one the sides of the himalayan mountains in the death zone, or in the simpson desert?
Because we don't want to. As nice as those places are to visit, and as beautiful as they are, nobody wants to actually live there.
This applies to Mars - and an order of magnitude more. Mars is about as pleasant and hospitable as outer space. Without the awesome views.