Yep. Game communities suck. From chess to starcraft, it doesn't matter. Anytime people can have near anonymity and little (if any) consequences for their actions, you're going to get a bunch of assholes who do nothing but wreck the gaming experience. Though predominantly these assholes are kids (teens-to-low twenties), there are plenty of more "mature" gamers who also behave this way.
I only play online games on occasion these days, because honestly I have better things to do than listen/read to some spoiled kid ranting and raging.
why are we looking Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and China as our models? What scientific advances have come out of those countries recently?
Not many, because they send their kids to US universities which get the credit. Look at the names on those research papers getting published. Last I checked, Yang, Matsumoto, and Konwa were not common last names in the US.
US universities still generate a disproportionate fraction of scientific research, and US companies generate a disproportionate fraction of technological innovation.
Of course they do. But look at the rosters. Do you think US universities and companies limit themselves to the US? On my own projects it's pretty common to have 50% or more of the team be from a foreign country. Both universities and companies pull the best they can the cheapest they can and take the credit where possible.
In this country, being able to entertain the masses pays much much better than being able to cure cancer. Being sociopathic and ruthless is rewarded much more than being a hard worker. Our culture is broken.
This results in people using less of the resource and finding alternatives.
What exactly are the alternatives to food and water?
Any such models that are built without the input of an economist should be automatically discarded as being total BS.
Hmm. No. The report isn't talking about iPads and BMWs. It's talking about basic necessities. Food, water, shelter. Once a significant portion of a population can no longer get these basic necessities, social order will begin to break down. That, in turn, increases prices which leads to more unrest. Eventually the whole thing collapses.
Civilization is a lot more robust than many people imagine.
No it isn't. For a civilization to thrive you need resources. You need the capability and energy to acquire and refine those resources. And you need to do it in a way that can be sustained, or at least have enough resources that you won't run out in a short period of time.
Take away easy and cheap energy and civilization as we know it would collapse. Take away easy access to water and arable land and civilization as we know it would collapse. Both of these are quite likely to happen to some degree over the next century or so.
Civilization is always 3 meals away from collapse.
Jared Diamond has covered these issues well (particularly in "Collapse").
Jared Diamond was an optimist.
I personally am pessimistic that we will be able to avoid collapse due to the political and economic power of the elite.
There is no way to avoid the upcoming collapse. There are too many people and organizations working (few knowingly, most ignorantly) to ensure a collapse happens. Humans are terrible at any sort of long term planning, and too many are more than happy to sacrifice long term sustainability for short term profits, consequences be damned.
Our way of life is unsustainable. We know this, but no one is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to change this. Within the next century, we're going to find this out the hard way.
You wouldn't even need a nuke. A 777 (depending on model) has a range up to 9000 miles and a cargo capacity of up to 400,000 pounds. That's enough to carry 20 MOAB type weapons (each MOAB has the explosive force of 11 tons of dynamite). Airburst that at low altitude over a major city and you're going to cause plenty of destruction. Or just launch them out of the cargo hold one at a time as you're flying.
The only real trick is getting into the airspace. You can find out the transponder ID and route for a legitimate flight and fake it. You'd only need to deviate during the last few minutes of the flight to carry out the plan. By the time someone realized something was wrong, it'd be too late to do anything about it.
The distributed, eventually-consistent blockchain anchored by mining works and is quite robust against attack. Nobody has yet successfully attacked the basic Bitcoin system and stolen money. So the low level technology appears to be secure.
There are a couple of unlikely scenarios where an attack could work, but newer coins also stop even those possibilities.
Irrevocable, remote, anonymous transactions are the con man's dream. Especially when they're assocated with a whole community of suckers who think anonymous anarchy is a good idea. The scam level in the Bitcoin world is huge. Over half the exchanges have gone under, and that was before Mt. Gox. Bitcoin-oriented "stocks" and "Ponzis" have an even worse record.
Poorly run operations fail. That shouldn't come as a surprise. And con men always prefer cash, which bitcoin basically acts like. When you buy something with bitcoin it's like wiring someone money. Once it's in their hands, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it if you get scammed. That's why for large transactions people will use a certified escrowing service.
Never send money (bitcoin or otherwise) to a party you do not know or trust.
Personal computers are not secure enough to store money. "Bitcoin wallet stealers" are a major problem. Many "online wallet" services turned out to be scams. Storing Bitcoins safely while still being able to use them is quite hard.
Personal computers aren't secure enough to store banking, credit card, taxes, or other financial information either. Yet we do anyway even though we're all one keylogger or screen scrapper away from having our identities and accounts sold to the highest bidder. You protect your offline wallet the same you you protect your other sensitive information: either print it out (see paper wallet) or keep your systems security up to date.
Never use an online wallet, and if you have no other choice but to use one then move money out of them quickly and keep balances small. Any such online services are completely unregulated. In fact, all online cryptocurrency services are unregulated so always treat them with caution. People familiar with cryptocurrencies already know this and act accordingly.
Volatility is far too high for Bitcoin to be a useful currency. Since last October, Bitcoin has gone from $100/BTC to $1100/BTC to $600/BTC. Daily variation often exceeds 10%. The companies that accept Bitcoin for real products have to reprice every few minutes. Bitcoin behaves like a pink sheet stock. Too many speculators, not enough real customers.
No, it behaves like an unregulated currency on an open market.
Something like US dollars are regulated and have a monetary policy through the Fed. When the economy goes screaming or slams on the brakes, the Fed can change policy and act accordingly to keep the dollar from becoming a roller coaster.
With something like bitcoin, there is no central authority. There is no monetary policy. There is no central bank to throw a cold bucket of rationality on the irrational. It is completely at the mercy of the market. There's nothing to slam on the brakes in either direction when things get crazy.
There are scaling problems. Currently, every user has to have a complete copy of the entire transaction journal back to the first Bitcoin, and has to keep up with all the transactions as they happen. The confirmation process has a 7 transaction per second limit. Confirmations take about half an hour before they can be trusted; longer during busy periods.
The newer crypto-currencies have significantly reduced the transaction confirmation times required. However, due to the nature of the system I've yet to see any way to get around requiring the copying of the transaction journal, at least with the way things are. IF online wallets could get regulated like banks, then only the online wallets would need it. However, sinc
If we start taking this sort of alarmist garbage seriously...
This resource has nothing to do with "alarmist garbage". Its simply a tool that you can use to see what different levels of sea level rise does to the the planet. For example, you can set the map to 500m of sea level rise, which is well beyond what is physically possible.
That being said, insurance companies are one of the larger consumers of climatological information. And yes, if your inundation rate has gone up ten fold as compared to what it was 30 years ago (REGARDLESS of the cause), then your insurance rates will go up.
The fact that the entire plant kingdom relies on CO2 rules it out as pollution for me. The Earth's whole ecosystem is devoted to processing CO2. It's probably the most benign thing we could possibly be emitting.
The carbon cycle is balanced. Disrupting the carbon cycle, as we are doing, unbalances the system. Claiming that adding Gt of sequestered carbon back into this system has no effect is idiotic. The carbon cycle can't handle it, hence the rise in atmospheric CO2.
As I said it's clear that will not happen. CO2 levels have risen heavily, temperatures is flat. It's clear that the levels of XO2 we are producing are not enough to cause a runaway effect.
Did you fail math? Your claim of "flat temperatures" is complete nonsense. Over the past 100 hears, CO2 has increased and temperatures have increased. I've no idea where your "flat temperatures" are coming from unless your cherry picking.
NOTHING is threatened by sea level rise of around a foot over 100 years.
I guess all those inundation maps showing greatly increased rates of flooding are not really threats. Someone call FEMA, we got a super genius here.
That is LOTS of time to adapt and shift.
Sure, if everyone were on the same page and was taking action. But when we have leaders who are legislating "this research doesn't exist because I say so" then 100 years becomes much much shorter.
We also can tell now the absurd predictions of 20 feet sea level rise are not going to happen either. Even the IPCC admits that now.
There is not now, or has ever been, a single shred of peer reviewed research that claims 20 feet of sea level rise in 100 years. It doesn't exist. It isn't there. The IPCC never said it. Climate scientists have never said it. Stop being an idiot and backing up your claims with bullshit. Read the research. Understand it. Then you'll be in a much better positiontion to make your case.
Why should we expend any effort to stop something that is not happening, when all that effort can go to fight real issues?
I really have no words for this. Only a complete fucking moron could look at the research and events that have been occurring and say that nothing is happening. Are you even paying attention?
That's the thing that tans my hide. People are expending so much effort to fight CO2 that real problems are utterly ignored.
The thing that tans my hide is when willfully ignorant idiots such as yourself make sweeping claims when every credible shred of scientific evidence shows the complete opposite. They do not understand, and don't want to understand the impacts subtle changes in climate can have on our civilization, let alone major ones. You're content just making shit up, putting blinders on, and pretending everything is just peachy. It's ignorant asses like you who get elected, piss in the eye of science, and delay taking responsible actions that could head off issues.
Not if it involves spending billions or trillions to simply reduce CO2 emissions, when it could have gone to medical or space research.
Where are you going to get the billions and trillions it will take to deal with a changed climate? Or are you one of those people who think a changed climate isn't going to happen/won't be a big deal?
There's no sign anything like a runaway greenhouse effect is going to happen. CO2 levels have continued to increase even as global average temperatures have hit a lull.
If you had any idea behind what you were talking about you'd realize how stupid this oft-repeated phrase is. Not only is it mathematically dishonest, it also ignores the fact that global temperatures include more than just atmospheric temperature. We have these great big heat sinks called oceans, and they haven't been in a lull of any kind, for example.
For a better explanation you could try actually reading the research.
In the simplified glass jar experiments that is not what happens, so pretty obviously the earth is lots more complex than a glass jar with CO2 inside.
Yes. It is. That's why we have scientists from multiple different branches of science contributing research to build ever more complex models of the climate.
The current rate of ocean level rise is less than foot over the next 100 years, not exactly a panic situation.
No. It isn't. Sea level rise has been accelerating over the past 100 years. It is both foolish and dishonest to extrapolate some static number and assume it will remain constant over the next 100 years when data clearly shows otherwise. Current research indicates a 2.5 to 3.5 foot increase.
You also show your ignorance by thinking 1 foot of sea level rise is no big deal. It is. A 1 foot rise is enough to significantly change inundation rates along many coastal areas, not to mention other negative effects. That's billions of dollars right there.
Lets get back to spending money on real issues instead of a bogeyman created to funnel large sums of government money in the hands of special interest groups or creating new things for financial moguls to get rich off of (looking at you carbon credits).
Out here in the real world wealth is created by the process of work and innovation among other things. Wealth is not this finite pool where if I have more then you have less.
What an idealistic little world YOU live in.
Out here in the real world, wealth is hoarded, scammed, and crushed from those who can't afford to defend themselves against well-funded corporate legal teams. The rich get richer. Everyone else gets the shaft.
The American^H^H^H^H^H^HCapitalist Dream is a lie. The statistics paint a pretty grim picture about our so-called "economic mobility". Sure it's there, but it's mostly in the downward direction.
You're right, wealth is not a finite pool. It's a seesaw with a endless buffet in the middle. The big fat asses on one end of the seesaw make sure that they continue to stuff their faces so more and more food comes to them while everyone else is held helpless at the other end watching the gluttony.
Yeah, that's nice and all for the driver, but even with today's new headlights, it's a nightmare for oncoming traffic, headlights are so much brighter these days it blinds you as an oncoming driver.. And it's great if you can see for 600meters, but most people don't watch where they're going anyway..
If your source is WUWT, you've already lost.A nd no, there is nothing malicious about that piece of code. This has been gone over multiple times on several different sites.
Quoting WUWT as a source in regards to climate science is like quoting the nutters on OverUnity in regards to energy research.
1) Stop insulting people. Maybe it is that the arguments where not convincing enough, or simply wrong.
I don't see how the argument can be any more clear or convincing. There's research going back almost 200 years on the topic of greenhouse gases and their impacts on climate. It's older than relativity.
2) The doomsday predictions that do not happen demolishes credibility
There are no "doomsday" predictions in any peer-reviewed publication. Things will get unpleasant if not prepared for. But there isn't one single scientist who says that this will be the end of the human race. If you want some scientific projections on the impacts of climate change, take a look at the latest IPCC report.
3) Revolutionary speech ("deniers"? "denial"? what scientific language is that?) does much more harm that help
But that's what they are. They're not skeptics, as real skeptics have real fact based arguments to counter prevailing theory. REAL facts, not garbage easily debunked by high school statistics.
What do you call someone who believes the Earth is only 6000 years old? What do you call someone who thinks ID is real science? What do you call people who think the Earth is flat? I would think denier is the least offensive term you can use.
4) Changing definitions and arguments do not help also: change means increase in extremes, but the original argument and studies used median temperatures? now in winter is climate change but then in summer it will be global warming again? the polar bears will go extinct in 2010, no, wait, in 2012, no, wait, in 2013, no, wait, in 2014... in the mean time, the climate scientists studying the phenomena got trapped in ice? The arctic disappears but the antarctic grows and the explanation is *global* warming?
Ignorance is not a counter argument to scientific results. The IPCC report can be quite enlightening in regards to climate changes and results. Yes, a warming world will actually end up increasing the Antarctic sea ice due to a combination of effects (increased fresh water runoff, changes in ocean heat transport, etc.). A naive person would equate the Arctic with the Antarctic. A SCIENTIST knows that they are different systems and should be treated accordingly.
5) Instead of name-calling and political agendas, the scientific argument must be addressed: How something with a (comparative) small influence of less than 0.01% of CO2 in atmosphere has such importance in models when something much more important (H2O as gas cause hothouse effect but as clouds increase albedo!) that is so complex that a really small variation in the model can cause huge changes in results gets no attention?
Again, stop using ignorance as an excuse. Back in the early 1800's Fourier (yes, that Fourier) established greenhouse theory. Since then, it has been studied and refined. There is a LOT of information on the subject of atmospheric composition and forcings, most of it well beyond your comprehension more than likely. A couple of google searches though should turn up enough on the subject to give you a general idea.
But to use an anology, think of the climate as two 1000 ton weights perfectly balanced on a seesaw. Add 1 gram to one side and what happens? The weights and seesaw represent the energy balance of the Earths climate system; on one side you have the incoming energy and on the other you have the outgoing energy. If you have more incoming than outgoing, you get a warmer planet. If you have more outgoing than incoming, you get a cooler planet. It doesn't matter how small the change is. If it is persistent, then the balance changes and climate along with it until it reaches a new equilibrium. Basic thermal dynamics.
why the uncertainty of the most important factor in climate (the amount of radiation in the sun) is not shown in uncertainty in the results?
Stop listening to political talking heads and people with no idea what they're talking about. Climate scientists don't attribute specific weather events to AGW. There are no papers called "Hurricane Katrina: Caused By Global Warming". Climate scientists look at trends, not specific (and impossible to predict) events.
You are correct. Trying to link ANY weather event to global warming is very very difficult and requires quite a bit of research and even then the error bars are likely to be quite large. Climate change deals with long term trends, not single events.
The analogy I like to use is Barry Bonds. He hit a lot of home runs both before and after his steroid use. The steroids arguably allowed him to hit more home runs. But if someone were to ask you which home runs were from the influence of steroids and which ones were just normal home runs, you'd be hard pressed to answer that question.
The same thing goes for climate change. There has ALWAYS been extremes. Climate change is like steroids; it influences how often and how extreme those events are. However, trying to attribute any particular event to climate change is like trying to establish which home runs were the result of steroids. It's a difficult case at best.
Actually it DOES NOT. When the evidence was corrected, it showed the medieval warm period and the roman warm period to both be warmer.
But remember, it's all how you pick and choose your data, except for one fact. History. When we know places like Greenland/Iceland were historically freer of ice, etc. Then we KNOW that in the past it was in fact warmer.
Not if you use debunked arguments and bad data to back up your claims.
The Medieval and Roman warm periods were regional anomalies. Many papers discuss this. Greenland was also not "freer of ice" than it is now. Many papers discuss this as well. There is no global evidence that the planet has been warmer than it is now within modern human history, or likely within the past few million years or so. In fact, the planet was in a cooling trend since the Holocene Optimum until recently (global temps now exceed that). And there are yet more papers discussing this too.
Oh I get it, Global warming is the energy that moves the weather. So if it gets hotter or colder this summer it is global warming. If it is warmer or colder this winter it is global warming. If there are more or fewer tornado's or stronger / weaker hurricanes. It is all global warming.
So all weather events are proof of global warming no matter what way they go. Great logic!
No, you don't get it. At all.
For the climate to remain within "norms", it must be at equilibrium. The amount of energy coming into the system must approximately equal the energy leaving the system. If more energy leaves than it receives, then the planet cools. If more energy is retained than leaves, the planet warms up.
In the case of GW, we have altered our planet over the past 100 years or so in a way that causes the planet to retain more heat. The system is no longer in equilibrium. We have a pretty good idea of what the general CLIMATE effects of this are and will be.
But you're talking about weather events. Climate looks at trends, not specific events. Without a huge amount of research, you can't point to any specific WEATHER event and say it was or wasn't caused by GW. The presence of GW only affects the increased or decreased likelihood of said events, not whether or not they occur.
What'r the chances of getting stuck in ice in Antarctica during the summer months of 2013-2014, when global warming is at it's peak (tongue in cheek) - not once, but TWICE? Imagine having to be carried by a helicopter over all that ice, just to set down on another ship that's stuck in the same ice.
The summer melt doesn't peak until late Feb, early March (equivalent to our July an August). Also, ice is ALWAYS a danger in arctic/antarctic regions, even in the summer. Changes in winds and surface currents can make open water clogged with ice pretty quickly.
On a side note, I live in Alabama (USA) and where it's generally been, for the past 8 years or more, 70+ degrees in January, it's 35 today.
On a side note, weather != climate and a single data point means absolutely nothing in a long term average. Up until today, the temperatures where I live have been about 5-10F above normal, but only an idiot would infer that to mean the whole planet is entering a runaway greenhouse effect.
Also, the state average high temperature for winter is in the 50's. So you're winters of "70+ degrees" aren't exactly normal.
I wonder if the last 8 years or so have been hotter due to the sun's cycle. Because supposedly it just ended (last summer was the coolest it's been in 8 or more years) and now it's cold as shit this year.
1. If you had done even the most basic research, you'd find out that solar variance does not appreciably effect long term temperature averages. So no, it's not due to the solar cycle. This cycle was, in fact, weaker than normal. 2. If you had done even the most basic research on the global temperature record, you'd see that the planet is in fact still quite warm compared to the 20th century average. Take a look at a temperature anomaly map. 3. If you had even the most basic research on climatology, you would know that a single event, season, or year is not climatologically significant. Climatology looks at data on decadal or greater scales.
Do more research. Get educated. Create stronger arguments.
Dr. Roy Spencer has as much credibility in regards to climate science as a prostitute preaching celibacy. If you're citing him as a source, your argument is already non-existent.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. Game communities suck. From chess to starcraft, it doesn't matter. Anytime people can have near anonymity and little (if any) consequences for their actions, you're going to get a bunch of assholes who do nothing but wreck the gaming experience. Though predominantly these assholes are kids (teens-to-low twenties), there are plenty of more "mature" gamers who also behave this way.
I only play online games on occasion these days, because honestly I have better things to do than listen/read to some spoiled kid ranting and raging.
why are we looking Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and China as our models? What scientific advances have come out of those countries recently?
Not many, because they send their kids to US universities which get the credit. Look at the names on those research papers getting published. Last I checked, Yang, Matsumoto, and Konwa were not common last names in the US.
US universities still generate a disproportionate fraction of scientific research, and US companies generate a disproportionate fraction of technological innovation.
Of course they do. But look at the rosters. Do you think US universities and companies limit themselves to the US? On my own projects it's pretty common to have 50% or more of the team be from a foreign country. Both universities and companies pull the best they can the cheapest they can and take the credit where possible.
In this country, being able to entertain the masses pays much much better than being able to cure cancer. Being sociopathic and ruthless is rewarded much more than being a hard worker. Our culture is broken.
This results in people using less of the resource and finding alternatives.
What exactly are the alternatives to food and water?
Any such models that are built without the input of an economist should be automatically discarded as being total BS.
Hmm. No. The report isn't talking about iPads and BMWs. It's talking about basic necessities. Food, water, shelter. Once a significant portion of a population can no longer get these basic necessities, social order will begin to break down. That, in turn, increases prices which leads to more unrest. Eventually the whole thing collapses.
Civilization is a lot more robust than many people imagine.
No it isn't. For a civilization to thrive you need resources. You need the capability and energy to acquire and refine those resources. And you need to do it in a way that can be sustained, or at least have enough resources that you won't run out in a short period of time.
Take away easy and cheap energy and civilization as we know it would collapse. Take away easy access to water and arable land and civilization as we know it would collapse. Both of these are quite likely to happen to some degree over the next century or so.
Civilization is always 3 meals away from collapse.
Jared Diamond has covered these issues well (particularly in "Collapse").
Jared Diamond was an optimist.
I personally am pessimistic that we will be able to avoid collapse due to the political and economic power of the elite.
There is no way to avoid the upcoming collapse. There are too many people and organizations working (few knowingly, most ignorantly) to ensure a collapse happens. Humans are terrible at any sort of long term planning, and too many are more than happy to sacrifice long term sustainability for short term profits, consequences be damned.
Our way of life is unsustainable. We know this, but no one is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to change this. Within the next century, we're going to find this out the hard way.
You wouldn't even need a nuke. A 777 (depending on model) has a range up to 9000 miles and a cargo capacity of up to 400,000 pounds. That's enough to carry 20 MOAB type weapons (each MOAB has the explosive force of 11 tons of dynamite). Airburst that at low altitude over a major city and you're going to cause plenty of destruction. Or just launch them out of the cargo hold one at a time as you're flying.
The only real trick is getting into the airspace. You can find out the transponder ID and route for a legitimate flight and fake it. You'd only need to deviate during the last few minutes of the flight to carry out the plan. By the time someone realized something was wrong, it'd be too late to do anything about it.
The distributed, eventually-consistent blockchain anchored by mining works and is quite robust against attack. Nobody has yet successfully attacked the basic Bitcoin system and stolen money. So the low level technology appears to be secure.
There are a couple of unlikely scenarios where an attack could work, but newer coins also stop even those possibilities.
Irrevocable, remote, anonymous transactions are the con man's dream. Especially when they're assocated with a whole community of suckers who think anonymous anarchy is a good idea. The scam level in the Bitcoin world is huge. Over half the exchanges have gone under, and that was before Mt. Gox. Bitcoin-oriented "stocks" and "Ponzis" have an even worse record.
Poorly run operations fail. That shouldn't come as a surprise. And con men always prefer cash, which bitcoin basically acts like. When you buy something with bitcoin it's like wiring someone money. Once it's in their hands, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it if you get scammed. That's why for large transactions people will use a certified escrowing service.
Never send money (bitcoin or otherwise) to a party you do not know or trust.
Personal computers are not secure enough to store money. "Bitcoin wallet stealers" are a major problem. Many "online wallet" services turned out to be scams. Storing Bitcoins safely while still being able to use them is quite hard.
Personal computers aren't secure enough to store banking, credit card, taxes, or other financial information either. Yet we do anyway even though we're all one keylogger or screen scrapper away from having our identities and accounts sold to the highest bidder. You protect your offline wallet the same you you protect your other sensitive information: either print it out (see paper wallet) or keep your systems security up to date.
Never use an online wallet, and if you have no other choice but to use one then move money out of them quickly and keep balances small. Any such online services are completely unregulated. In fact, all online cryptocurrency services are unregulated so always treat them with caution. People familiar with cryptocurrencies already know this and act accordingly.
Volatility is far too high for Bitcoin to be a useful currency. Since last October, Bitcoin has gone from $100/BTC to $1100/BTC to $600/BTC. Daily variation often exceeds 10%. The companies that accept Bitcoin for real products have to reprice every few minutes. Bitcoin behaves like a pink sheet stock. Too many speculators, not enough real customers.
No, it behaves like an unregulated currency on an open market.
Something like US dollars are regulated and have a monetary policy through the Fed. When the economy goes screaming or slams on the brakes, the Fed can change policy and act accordingly to keep the dollar from becoming a roller coaster.
With something like bitcoin, there is no central authority. There is no monetary policy. There is no central bank to throw a cold bucket of rationality on the irrational. It is completely at the mercy of the market. There's nothing to slam on the brakes in either direction when things get crazy.
There are scaling problems. Currently, every user has to have a complete copy of the entire transaction journal back to the first Bitcoin, and has to keep up with all the transactions as they happen. The confirmation process has a 7 transaction per second limit. Confirmations take about half an hour before they can be trusted; longer during busy periods.
The newer crypto-currencies have significantly reduced the transaction confirmation times required. However, due to the nature of the system I've yet to see any way to get around requiring the copying of the transaction journal, at least with the way things are. IF online wallets could get regulated like banks, then only the online wallets would need it. However, sinc
If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.
The person who wrote that line was either a certifiable genius or an authentic wacko. ;)
More seriously, this line/scene pretty much summarized the recession years of the 80's and is a pretty good summary of society in general.
If we start taking this sort of alarmist garbage seriously...
This resource has nothing to do with "alarmist garbage". Its simply a tool that you can use to see what different levels of sea level rise does to the the planet. For example, you can set the map to 500m of sea level rise, which is well beyond what is physically possible.
That being said, insurance companies are one of the larger consumers of climatological information. And yes, if your inundation rate has gone up ten fold as compared to what it was 30 years ago (REGARDLESS of the cause), then your insurance rates will go up.
The fact that the entire plant kingdom relies on CO2 rules it out as pollution for me. The Earth's whole ecosystem is devoted to processing CO2. It's probably the most benign thing we could possibly be emitting.
The carbon cycle is balanced. Disrupting the carbon cycle, as we are doing, unbalances the system. Claiming that adding Gt of sequestered carbon back into this system has no effect is idiotic. The carbon cycle can't handle it, hence the rise in atmospheric CO2.
As I said it's clear that will not happen. CO2 levels have risen heavily, temperatures is flat. It's clear that the levels of XO2 we are producing are not enough to cause a runaway effect.
Did you fail math? Your claim of "flat temperatures" is complete nonsense. Over the past 100 hears, CO2 has increased and temperatures have increased. I've no idea where your "flat temperatures" are coming from unless your cherry picking.
NOTHING is threatened by sea level rise of around a foot over 100 years.
I guess all those inundation maps showing greatly increased rates of flooding are not really threats. Someone call FEMA, we got a super genius here.
That is LOTS of time to adapt and shift.
Sure, if everyone were on the same page and was taking action. But when we have leaders who are legislating "this research doesn't exist because I say so" then 100 years becomes much much shorter.
We also can tell now the absurd predictions of 20 feet sea level rise are not going to happen either. Even the IPCC admits that now.
There is not now, or has ever been, a single shred of peer reviewed research that claims 20 feet of sea level rise in 100 years. It doesn't exist. It isn't there. The IPCC never said it. Climate scientists have never said it. Stop being an idiot and backing up your claims with bullshit. Read the research. Understand it. Then you'll be in a much better positiontion to make your case.
Why should we expend any effort to stop something that is not happening, when all that effort can go to fight real issues?
I really have no words for this. Only a complete fucking moron could look at the research and events that have been occurring and say that nothing is happening. Are you even paying attention?
That's the thing that tans my hide. People are expending so much effort to fight CO2 that real problems are utterly ignored.
The thing that tans my hide is when willfully ignorant idiots such as yourself make sweeping claims when every credible shred of scientific evidence shows the complete opposite. They do not understand, and don't want to understand the impacts subtle changes in climate can have on our civilization, let alone major ones. You're content just making shit up, putting blinders on, and pretending everything is just peachy. It's ignorant asses like you who get elected, piss in the eye of science, and delay taking responsible actions that could head off issues.
George Carlin was right.
Not if it involves spending billions or trillions to simply reduce CO2 emissions, when it could have gone to medical or space research.
Where are you going to get the billions and trillions it will take to deal with a changed climate? Or are you one of those people who think a changed climate isn't going to happen/won't be a big deal?
There's no sign anything like a runaway greenhouse effect is going to happen. CO2 levels have continued to increase even as global average temperatures have hit a lull.
If you had any idea behind what you were talking about you'd realize how stupid this oft-repeated phrase is. Not only is it mathematically dishonest, it also ignores the fact that global temperatures include more than just atmospheric temperature. We have these great big heat sinks called oceans, and they haven't been in a lull of any kind, for example.
For a better explanation you could try actually reading the research.
In the simplified glass jar experiments that is not what happens, so pretty obviously the earth is lots more complex than a glass jar with CO2 inside.
Yes. It is. That's why we have scientists from multiple different branches of science contributing research to build ever more complex models of the climate.
The current rate of ocean level rise is less than foot over the next 100 years, not exactly a panic situation.
No. It isn't. Sea level rise has been accelerating over the past 100 years. It is both foolish and dishonest to extrapolate some static number and assume it will remain constant over the next 100 years when data clearly shows otherwise. Current research indicates a 2.5 to 3.5 foot increase.
You also show your ignorance by thinking 1 foot of sea level rise is no big deal. It is. A 1 foot rise is enough to significantly change inundation rates along many coastal areas, not to mention other negative effects. That's billions of dollars right there.
Lets get back to spending money on real issues instead of a bogeyman created to funnel large sums of government money in the hands of special interest groups or creating new things for financial moguls to get rich off of (looking at you carbon credits).
Out here in the real world wealth is created by the process of work and innovation among other things. Wealth is not this finite pool where if I have more then you have less.
What an idealistic little world YOU live in.
Out here in the real world, wealth is hoarded, scammed, and crushed from those who can't afford to defend themselves against well-funded corporate legal teams. The rich get richer. Everyone else gets the shaft.
The American^H^H^H^H^H^HCapitalist Dream is a lie. The statistics paint a pretty grim picture about our so-called "economic mobility". Sure it's there, but it's mostly in the downward direction.
You're right, wealth is not a finite pool. It's a seesaw with a endless buffet in the middle. The big fat asses on one end of the seesaw make sure that they continue to stuff their faces so more and more food comes to them while everyone else is held helpless at the other end watching the gluttony.
Yeah, that's nice and all for the driver, but even with today's new headlights, it's a nightmare for oncoming traffic, headlights are so much brighter these days it blinds you as an oncoming driver..
And it's great if you can see for 600meters, but most people don't watch where they're going anyway..
Obligatory music reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
If your source is WUWT, you've already lost.A nd no, there is nothing malicious about that piece of code. This has been gone over multiple times on several different sites.
Quoting WUWT as a source in regards to climate science is like quoting the nutters on OverUnity in regards to energy research.
You can never take the ass out of Kansas.
1) Stop insulting people. Maybe it is that the arguments where not convincing enough, or simply wrong.
I don't see how the argument can be any more clear or convincing. There's research going back almost 200 years on the topic of greenhouse gases and their impacts on climate. It's older than relativity.
2) The doomsday predictions that do not happen demolishes credibility
There are no "doomsday" predictions in any peer-reviewed publication. Things will get unpleasant if not prepared for. But there isn't one single scientist who says that this will be the end of the human race. If you want some scientific projections on the impacts of climate change, take a look at the latest IPCC report.
3) Revolutionary speech ("deniers"? "denial"? what scientific language is that?) does much more harm that help
But that's what they are. They're not skeptics, as real skeptics have real fact based arguments to counter prevailing theory. REAL facts, not garbage easily debunked by high school statistics.
What do you call someone who believes the Earth is only 6000 years old? What do you call someone who thinks ID is real science? What do you call people who think the Earth is flat? I would think denier is the least offensive term you can use.
4) Changing definitions and arguments do not help also: change means increase in extremes, but the original argument and studies used median temperatures? now in winter is climate change but then in summer it will be global warming again? the polar bears will go extinct in 2010, no, wait, in 2012, no, wait, in 2013, no, wait, in 2014... in the mean time, the climate scientists studying the phenomena got trapped in ice? The arctic disappears but the antarctic grows and the explanation is *global* warming?
Ignorance is not a counter argument to scientific results. The IPCC report can be quite enlightening in regards to climate changes and results. Yes, a warming world will actually end up increasing the Antarctic sea ice due to a combination of effects (increased fresh water runoff, changes in ocean heat transport, etc.). A naive person would equate the Arctic with the Antarctic. A SCIENTIST knows that they are different systems and should be treated accordingly.
5) Instead of name-calling and political agendas, the scientific argument must be addressed: How something with a (comparative) small influence of less than 0.01% of CO2 in atmosphere has such importance in models when something much more important (H2O as gas cause hothouse effect but as clouds increase albedo!) that is so complex that a really small variation in the model can cause huge changes in results gets no attention?
Again, stop using ignorance as an excuse. Back in the early 1800's Fourier (yes, that Fourier) established greenhouse theory. Since then, it has been studied and refined. There is a LOT of information on the subject of atmospheric composition and forcings, most of it well beyond your comprehension more than likely. A couple of google searches though should turn up enough on the subject to give you a general idea.
But to use an anology, think of the climate as two 1000 ton weights perfectly balanced on a seesaw. Add 1 gram to one side and what happens? The weights and seesaw represent the energy balance of the Earths climate system; on one side you have the incoming energy and on the other you have the outgoing energy. If you have more incoming than outgoing, you get a warmer planet. If you have more outgoing than incoming, you get a cooler planet. It doesn't matter how small the change is. If it is persistent, then the balance changes and climate along with it until it reaches a new equilibrium. Basic thermal dynamics.
why the uncertainty of the most important factor in climate (the amount of radiation in the sun) is not shown in uncertainty in the results?
You truly are complet
Welcome to the downward spiral my friend. You can take a seat right behind the US.
Stop listening to political talking heads and people with no idea what they're talking about. Climate scientists don't attribute specific weather events to AGW. There are no papers called "Hurricane Katrina: Caused By Global Warming". Climate scientists look at trends, not specific (and impossible to predict) events.
You are correct. Trying to link ANY weather event to global warming is very very difficult and requires quite a bit of research and even then the error bars are likely to be quite large. Climate change deals with long term trends, not single events.
The analogy I like to use is Barry Bonds. He hit a lot of home runs both before and after his steroid use. The steroids arguably allowed him to hit more home runs. But if someone were to ask you which home runs were from the influence of steroids and which ones were just normal home runs, you'd be hard pressed to answer that question.
The same thing goes for climate change. There has ALWAYS been extremes. Climate change is like steroids; it influences how often and how extreme those events are. However, trying to attribute any particular event to climate change is like trying to establish which home runs were the result of steroids. It's a difficult case at best.
Actually it DOES NOT. When the evidence was corrected, it showed the medieval warm period and the roman warm period to both be warmer.
But remember, it's all how you pick and choose your data, except for one fact. History. When we know places like Greenland/Iceland were historically freer of ice, etc. Then we KNOW that in the past it was in fact warmer.
Not if you use debunked arguments and bad data to back up your claims.
The Medieval and Roman warm periods were regional anomalies. Many papers discuss this. Greenland was also not "freer of ice" than it is now. Many papers discuss this as well. There is no global evidence that the planet has been warmer than it is now within modern human history, or likely within the past few million years or so. In fact, the planet was in a cooling trend since the Holocene Optimum until recently (global temps now exceed that). And there are yet more papers discussing this too.
Oh I get it, Global warming is the energy that moves the weather. So if it gets hotter or colder this summer it is global warming. If it is warmer or colder this winter it is global warming. If there are more or fewer tornado's or stronger / weaker hurricanes. It is all global warming.
So all weather events are proof of global warming no matter what way they go. Great logic!
No, you don't get it. At all.
For the climate to remain within "norms", it must be at equilibrium. The amount of energy coming into the system must approximately equal the energy leaving the system. If more energy leaves than it receives, then the planet cools. If more energy is retained than leaves, the planet warms up.
In the case of GW, we have altered our planet over the past 100 years or so in a way that causes the planet to retain more heat. The system is no longer in equilibrium. We have a pretty good idea of what the general CLIMATE effects of this are and will be.
But you're talking about weather events. Climate looks at trends, not specific events. Without a huge amount of research, you can't point to any specific WEATHER event and say it was or wasn't caused by GW. The presence of GW only affects the increased or decreased likelihood of said events, not whether or not they occur.
What'r the chances of getting stuck in ice in Antarctica during the summer months of 2013-2014, when global warming is at it's peak (tongue in cheek) - not once, but TWICE? Imagine having to be carried by a helicopter over all that ice, just to set down on another ship that's stuck in the same ice.
The summer melt doesn't peak until late Feb, early March (equivalent to our July an August). Also, ice is ALWAYS a danger in arctic/antarctic regions, even in the summer. Changes in winds and surface currents can make open water clogged with ice pretty quickly.
On a side note, I live in Alabama (USA) and where it's generally been, for the past 8 years or more, 70+ degrees in January, it's 35 today.
On a side note, weather != climate and a single data point means absolutely nothing in a long term average. Up until today, the temperatures where I live have been about 5-10F above normal, but only an idiot would infer that to mean the whole planet is entering a runaway greenhouse effect.
Also, the state average high temperature for winter is in the 50's. So you're winters of "70+ degrees" aren't exactly normal.
I wonder if the last 8 years or so have been hotter due to the sun's cycle. Because supposedly it just ended (last summer was the coolest it's been in 8 or more years) and now it's cold as shit this year.
1. If you had done even the most basic research, you'd find out that solar variance does not appreciably effect long term temperature averages. So no, it's not due to the solar cycle. This cycle was, in fact, weaker than normal.
2. If you had done even the most basic research on the global temperature record, you'd see that the planet is in fact still quite warm compared to the 20th century average. Take a look at a temperature anomaly map.
3. If you had even the most basic research on climatology, you would know that a single event, season, or year is not climatologically significant. Climatology looks at data on decadal or greater scales.
Do more research. Get educated. Create stronger arguments.
Dr. Roy Spencer has as much credibility in regards to climate science as a prostitute preaching celibacy. If you're citing him as a source, your argument is already non-existent.
Yeah! And maybe I'll get a blowjob from Natalie Portman, while eating a nice bowl of hot buttered cheese grits.
In this scenario of yours, which one of you is eating grits?
More importantly, which one of you is petrified?