Well, of course the claim is absurd. The only thing that could destroy such a big area would be a dinosaur killer asteroid, which would, of course, cause mass extinction all over the planet, including possibly even H. sapiens.
But a large yield nuclear device detonated in France could make large areas of the country uninhabitable for quite a long time, as well, as spreading radioactive fallout for tens of thousands of square miles.
Now, of course, striking a NATO country would inevitably lead to retaliation. Both France and the US have nuclear arsenals, and while France's is relatively small, it is certainly enough to do some significant harm to Russia, and the US, of course, has more than enough firepower at its disposal to do some nasty harm. Naturally this would lead to a near-universal conflagration which would likely lead to major geopolitical instability.
Which is why, of course, neither Russia or the United States are going to be lobbing nukes at each other or at each other's allies, and why, even if Clinton were to institute a no-fly zone in Syria, and Russian or American jets got into a firefight, while it would certainly lead to some pretty angry outbursts, isn't going to see World War 3.
We've been down this road before. The West and Russia spent forty years staring each other down, with some pretty close near misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there was no WWIII. The idea that Russia, so much weaker in every respect than the USSR, represents that kind of threat is absurd. The USSR had some ability at force projection, whereas for Russia, Syria is just about the outer limit. Whether the Russians like it or not, the US has largely downgraded it to regional power, and its chief long-term concerns are now China.
You mean he didn't say he grabbed women's genitals? You mean he didn't praise Putin?
As Alec Baldwin's Trump said, "The media is biased against me because they report what I say and what I do."
The fact is that the only reason Trump is where he is is because of tens of millions of dollars of free advertising. Even now, as it becomes clearer and clearer his bid is doomed, you still see news outlets talking as if he had a hope in hell, invoking the silliness of the past, like "skewed polls" and legions of "shy Trump voters", trying to create the impression that he still represents a threat to Clinton.
Meanwhile, on the ground, he still doesn't have a ground game, less than two weeks before votes are cast, and Hillary is so confident that she's not even really battling him any more, and is turning her attention to taking Congress.
And let me guess, when the inevitable happens and he crashes and burns, you snivel and whine about how the "press is biased" or invoke some moronic claim of rigged elections.
Look up "Pan-Slavism". While its most pronounced iteration was in late-era Czarist Russia, the Communists quickly adopted it as an operating paradigm, and just considered any Slavic-speaking population anywhere in Eastern and Central Europe to be under its jurisdiction, and while modern Russia, largely due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, did lose control of many of its old Warsaw Pact "partners", it is doing everything it can to hang on to what's left, including invading two sovereign states to "protect" the Russian-speaking populations (sound familiar, eh, some things never change).
Russia has had the biggest baddest nuke before, but it still didn't give it military superiority.
The jump here was you invoking a talking point I suspect even you know moronic.
Do you seriously think plants can just magically absorb vast amounts of CO2? If you do, then you are an idiot. If you don't believe it, then why repeat a demonstrably ludicrous meme?
Water is beneficial to human life, therefore I urge you to tie rocks to your feet and jump in the deep end. By your logic, you'll become healthier by the second!
I mean really, are you that fucking stupid? Just because plants benefit from CO2 doesn't mean they have infinite capacity to absorb it, or that the other effects of higher CO2 concentrations won't undermine any good it might do to plants. Among the moron anti-AGW talking points out there, this must be the surest sign that the person saying it is a fucking simpering halfwit.
Future Macs will have no user interface at all. You will get a flat gray cube with an Apple logo on it that will have no interactive capability. However, you will be firmly nestled in the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion field, fully aware that, no matter how utterly worthless the overpriced cube may be, your status as a hipster is secure.
The American Midwest will have wetter winters and springs, but summertime temperatures will rise considerably, leading to drought like conditions which will harm many crops. These effects will be moderated towards the north end, but will also mean shifts northward of arable land. The problem being "northward" means Canada.
No, I never said rainforests would disappear. Some areas that receive lots of rainfall will continue to see lots of rainfall, and in fact will receive more. But other areas will become more drought prone, and parts of North America that are currently arable will be, or already are, in that zone.
And when the rain belts shift and the American midwest ceases to sustain all the plant life, you will be heavily reliant on foreign countries who will be the beneficiaries.
Is there some reason you think plants have infinite ability to absorb CO2? After all, you need water to survive, so by your twisted logic, if I shove your head into a swimming pool and keep it down for a few minutes, why, you'll be healthier than ever?
I'm assuming your just being a smart ass, because otherwise it's possible that you did indeed hold your head under water for too long.
The problem is the one way way large amounts of CO2 are removed from the atmosphere is via the oceans, and when oceans start absorbing higher concentrations of CO2 it leads to higher acidity, which is already having significantly detrimental effects on ocean ecosystems, and, coupled with warming oceans themselves, could lead to major collapses of fisheries that feed hundreds of millions of people.
It would be a lot easier to achieve if fossil fuel companies ceased to get the effective subsidies they receive. If carbon was priced to take into account the environmental and climate damage it does, these other technologies would become a lot more affordable.
Desalination may help with drinking water, but it would require such significant amounts of energy to produce water sufficient to replace potential losses of water for agriculture that it really isn't even under consideration (beyond which, large parts of Eurasia and North America's bread baskets are a helluva long way away from oceans).
If we have enough energy to use desalination for large scale agriculture, then we've solved the energy problem and don't even need oil any more.
Where is "here"? Many aquifers in North America are being tapped out, to the point where aquifers in southern California are producing increasingly saline concentrations. Major river systems are not infinite sources of water, and shifting rain belts means some river systems could be under threat over the next century or two. And let's not even talk about a major shift of the rain belts into more northerly latitudes, meaning the American Midwest, one of the grain baskets of the world, could suddenly find itself with a lot less water, and a lot more arable land becoming arid or semi-arid. That will compromise the United States' food security, and your solution is what? To bomb Canada and take its food supply?
No, "we're" not fine. Life on Earth can certainly weather it, but many organisms will not, and human civilization will certainly have massive problems as such high concentrations would have huge repurcussions for sea levels, rain belts, where arable land appears and where it disappears, potentially leaving hundreds of millions or even billions in a position where they have no good place to live and no food to eat.
400PPM was picked because models show that the climate and oceanic acidity levels will be altered in significant ways.
That's like saying there's no concentration of any particular gas that is "good" or "bad" for the atoms in your body. That is true, so far as it goes, but breath too much CO and you'll find out that while the atoms in your body aren't adversely affected, your body itself will be.
Uh no, AGW is a scientific and technical topic. That some people invent conspiracies or invoke magical thinking to wave away the evidence because they don't like what science has to say is irrelevant to climate change as a scientific and technical problem.
I'm going to be very clear here. There is no actual controversy about anthropomorphic climate change, and there hasn't been for a couple of decades now. The number of actual researchers who disagree about human-caused CO2 emissions altering climate are probably at the same ratio of biologists who deny evolution, geologists that deny a 4+ billion year old Earth and cosmologists who deny a 13.5 billion year old Universe. In other words, the scientific controversy does not exist in any meaningful way.
What politicians, corporate executives, religious leaders, or some guy who drives an SUV thinks about CO2's effects on climate are utterly irrelevant to the scientific question. They are relevant to how society responds to AGW, and that's where pseudo-skeptics strength is. They tell a message that's pleasing to peoples' ears, without ever having to justify themselves to the people whose fields of research they attack almost constantly.
So you see the biggest problem is that people live in flood areas, not that the petroleum industry effectively is the most subsidized industry on the planet, and is insulated against the significant costs the use of fossil fuels is producing? Oh no, but we must punish people for living near sea level.
The insurance industry isn't panicking, but it's building the effects into policies; whether it much more expensive flood insurance (if you can get it), or just general increases in premiums.
Just because it's not yet a panic-worthy problem, doesn't mean it isn't a serious problem, or that for some people it already is panic-worthy, or will be soon.
When the North American rain belt starts shifting several degrees latitude northward, I think you may find reason to be concerned.
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Well, of course the claim is absurd. The only thing that could destroy such a big area would be a dinosaur killer asteroid, which would, of course, cause mass extinction all over the planet, including possibly even H. sapiens.
But a large yield nuclear device detonated in France could make large areas of the country uninhabitable for quite a long time, as well, as spreading radioactive fallout for tens of thousands of square miles.
Now, of course, striking a NATO country would inevitably lead to retaliation. Both France and the US have nuclear arsenals, and while France's is relatively small, it is certainly enough to do some significant harm to Russia, and the US, of course, has more than enough firepower at its disposal to do some nasty harm. Naturally this would lead to a near-universal conflagration which would likely lead to major geopolitical instability.
Which is why, of course, neither Russia or the United States are going to be lobbing nukes at each other or at each other's allies, and why, even if Clinton were to institute a no-fly zone in Syria, and Russian or American jets got into a firefight, while it would certainly lead to some pretty angry outbursts, isn't going to see World War 3.
We've been down this road before. The West and Russia spent forty years staring each other down, with some pretty close near misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there was no WWIII. The idea that Russia, so much weaker in every respect than the USSR, represents that kind of threat is absurd. The USSR had some ability at force projection, whereas for Russia, Syria is just about the outer limit. Whether the Russians like it or not, the US has largely downgraded it to regional power, and its chief long-term concerns are now China.
You mean he didn't say he grabbed women's genitals? You mean he didn't praise Putin?
As Alec Baldwin's Trump said, "The media is biased against me because they report what I say and what I do."
The fact is that the only reason Trump is where he is is because of tens of millions of dollars of free advertising. Even now, as it becomes clearer and clearer his bid is doomed, you still see news outlets talking as if he had a hope in hell, invoking the silliness of the past, like "skewed polls" and legions of "shy Trump voters", trying to create the impression that he still represents a threat to Clinton.
Meanwhile, on the ground, he still doesn't have a ground game, less than two weeks before votes are cast, and Hillary is so confident that she's not even really battling him any more, and is turning her attention to taking Congress.
And let me guess, when the inevitable happens and he crashes and burns, you snivel and whine about how the "press is biased" or invoke some moronic claim of rigged elections.
No, it just made the AK-47 one of the most common assault weapons on the planet.
Look up "Pan-Slavism". While its most pronounced iteration was in late-era Czarist Russia, the Communists quickly adopted it as an operating paradigm, and just considered any Slavic-speaking population anywhere in Eastern and Central Europe to be under its jurisdiction, and while modern Russia, largely due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, did lose control of many of its old Warsaw Pact "partners", it is doing everything it can to hang on to what's left, including invading two sovereign states to "protect" the Russian-speaking populations (sound familiar, eh, some things never change).
Russia has had the biggest baddest nuke before, but it still didn't give it military superiority.
The development of the microcomputer and the Internet are both largely American and origin.
The jump here was you invoking a talking point I suspect even you know moronic.
Do you seriously think plants can just magically absorb vast amounts of CO2? If you do, then you are an idiot. If you don't believe it, then why repeat a demonstrably ludicrous meme?
Water is beneficial to human life, therefore I urge you to tie rocks to your feet and jump in the deep end. By your logic, you'll become healthier by the second!
I mean really, are you that fucking stupid? Just because plants benefit from CO2 doesn't mean they have infinite capacity to absorb it, or that the other effects of higher CO2 concentrations won't undermine any good it might do to plants. Among the moron anti-AGW talking points out there, this must be the surest sign that the person saying it is a fucking simpering halfwit.
The physical properties of CO2 have been known for over a century, confirmed countless times in various observations and experiments.
Or to put it another way, you're a fucking moron.
Future Macs will have no user interface at all. You will get a flat gray cube with an Apple logo on it that will have no interactive capability. However, you will be firmly nestled in the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion field, fully aware that, no matter how utterly worthless the overpriced cube may be, your status as a hipster is secure.
The American Midwest will have wetter winters and springs, but summertime temperatures will rise considerably, leading to drought like conditions which will harm many crops. These effects will be moderated towards the north end, but will also mean shifts northward of arable land. The problem being "northward" means Canada.
No, I never said rainforests would disappear. Some areas that receive lots of rainfall will continue to see lots of rainfall, and in fact will receive more. But other areas will become more drought prone, and parts of North America that are currently arable will be, or already are, in that zone.
It's you who has no idea how rainfall works.
And when the rain belts shift and the American midwest ceases to sustain all the plant life, you will be heavily reliant on foreign countries who will be the beneficiaries.
Is there some reason you think plants have infinite ability to absorb CO2? After all, you need water to survive, so by your twisted logic, if I shove your head into a swimming pool and keep it down for a few minutes, why, you'll be healthier than ever?
I'm assuming your just being a smart ass, because otherwise it's possible that you did indeed hold your head under water for too long.
The problem is the one way way large amounts of CO2 are removed from the atmosphere is via the oceans, and when oceans start absorbing higher concentrations of CO2 it leads to higher acidity, which is already having significantly detrimental effects on ocean ecosystems, and, coupled with warming oceans themselves, could lead to major collapses of fisheries that feed hundreds of millions of people.
It would be a lot easier to achieve if fossil fuel companies ceased to get the effective subsidies they receive. If carbon was priced to take into account the environmental and climate damage it does, these other technologies would become a lot more affordable.
Desalination may help with drinking water, but it would require such significant amounts of energy to produce water sufficient to replace potential losses of water for agriculture that it really isn't even under consideration (beyond which, large parts of Eurasia and North America's bread baskets are a helluva long way away from oceans).
If we have enough energy to use desalination for large scale agriculture, then we've solved the energy problem and don't even need oil any more.
Where is "here"? Many aquifers in North America are being tapped out, to the point where aquifers in southern California are producing increasingly saline concentrations. Major river systems are not infinite sources of water, and shifting rain belts means some river systems could be under threat over the next century or two. And let's not even talk about a major shift of the rain belts into more northerly latitudes, meaning the American Midwest, one of the grain baskets of the world, could suddenly find itself with a lot less water, and a lot more arable land becoming arid or semi-arid. That will compromise the United States' food security, and your solution is what? To bomb Canada and take its food supply?
No, "we're" not fine. Life on Earth can certainly weather it, but many organisms will not, and human civilization will certainly have massive problems as such high concentrations would have huge repurcussions for sea levels, rain belts, where arable land appears and where it disappears, potentially leaving hundreds of millions or even billions in a position where they have no good place to live and no food to eat.
400PPM was picked because models show that the climate and oceanic acidity levels will be altered in significant ways.
That's like saying there's no concentration of any particular gas that is "good" or "bad" for the atoms in your body. That is true, so far as it goes, but breath too much CO and you'll find out that while the atoms in your body aren't adversely affected, your body itself will be.
And the free market is wonderful, until someone suggests using the free market as a means of reducing CO2 emissions.
Uh no, AGW is a scientific and technical topic. That some people invent conspiracies or invoke magical thinking to wave away the evidence because they don't like what science has to say is irrelevant to climate change as a scientific and technical problem.
I'm going to be very clear here. There is no actual controversy about anthropomorphic climate change, and there hasn't been for a couple of decades now. The number of actual researchers who disagree about human-caused CO2 emissions altering climate are probably at the same ratio of biologists who deny evolution, geologists that deny a 4+ billion year old Earth and cosmologists who deny a 13.5 billion year old Universe. In other words, the scientific controversy does not exist in any meaningful way.
What politicians, corporate executives, religious leaders, or some guy who drives an SUV thinks about CO2's effects on climate are utterly irrelevant to the scientific question. They are relevant to how society responds to AGW, and that's where pseudo-skeptics strength is. They tell a message that's pleasing to peoples' ears, without ever having to justify themselves to the people whose fields of research they attack almost constantly.
Are you capable of thinking in anything approaching non-sequiturs?
Oh for fuck's sake. We can still maintain a good standard of living and wean ourselves off of oil.
So you see the biggest problem is that people live in flood areas, not that the petroleum industry effectively is the most subsidized industry on the planet, and is insulated against the significant costs the use of fossil fuels is producing? Oh no, but we must punish people for living near sea level.
The insurance industry isn't panicking, but it's building the effects into policies; whether it much more expensive flood insurance (if you can get it), or just general increases in premiums.
Just because it's not yet a panic-worthy problem, doesn't mean it isn't a serious problem, or that for some people it already is panic-worthy, or will be soon.
When the North American rain belt starts shifting several degrees latitude northward, I think you may find reason to be concerned.