But the argument can also be made that the consensus prior to global-warming was not there-is-no-warming, but rather global-cooling and trying to drive policy to prevent the coming ice age. These people have a poor track record with predictions, but always seem ready with recommendations for how to behave.I would suggest that the global warming crowd make a track of predictions for average surface, ocean and atmospheric temperatures for the next ten years.
Done. Check out the old IPCC reports. They go back over 10 years. They've actually been too conservative in their estimates (i.e., their most probable prediction turned out to be too low).
I find that you have not been paying attention to the discussion, or to the data that has been collected.
As for the Crichton quote... that's cute, but that's complete nonsense. What he is going for is "scientists were wrong before, so they are wrong now!". It's absolute bullshit that provides zero insight into the current problem. For this reason alone, I disregard everything that Crichton says about this problem. He doesn't understand how science works, and merely derails discussions about data.
I think it might even be that the amount of ice that sticks up out of the water is exactly proportional to the increase in volume that the water experiences as it solidifies - this would make sense, because the total weight of the ice (that is, both the part in the water and the part sticking up) should be exactly equal to the original weight of the water that became ice, but the volume is greater.
Your own sources tell you that the NW passage has never been open for commercial shipping. It has been traversed during summer times with expedition boats, but never as part of a commercial trading system.
Haven't you noticed that blaming a vast left-wing conspiracy hell-bent on preserving Slashdot group-think and suppressing intrepid conservative/right-wing opinions will net you an immediate +5 Insightful or Informative? It's the new Karma whoring.
I'd like to ask - does it matter? If you're looking for scapegoats, 188 out of 199 Republicans voted for it. 105 out of 236 Democrats voted for it. If you think that the guy whose name is on the bill is most responsible, think again. Names on bills are like a giant trading game, due to the publicity that can be garnered by being associated with the right one.
I have a question. What if the law is deemed constitutional, based on the interpretation that ex post facto refers specifically to laws designed to retroactively increase punishment?
The big, big, big issue here is that this law is fucking with the foundation of our legal system. It would be similar to people passing a constitutional amendment that makes the President King, or something similar. At that point, the SCOTUS has nothing to argue about anymore, except state a personal opinion that the amendment is hogwash.
Sometimes, some laws are so bad that they cannot be rectified by working within the system.
Corruption only becomes a concern to the public when it is backed by force, something which only the government can apply.
Not really. Corruption is essentially a hidden tax on all transactions, the cost of which is passed on to the end-user. Not to mention that it is the most inefficient and most easily abused tax system, with no benefits to the end-user.
Unless you meant that people only start to worry about corruption when it comes with force? At that point, we're talking about an uneducated population. I hope you're not referring to the US.
No, u. Seriously though. Try harder if you want me to believe you.
You've obviously never been around the large-scale ones in western Texas.
I can't help you if they build em bad in Texas. Maybe replace them with something more modern? EIther which way, your generalization is wrong.
Great Lakes, dammed lakes, etc.
Energy generated from flow of seawater due to tidal force hardly means that the turbine is located in a lake. As for the Great Lakes project, I couldn't find anything. I suspect it is more a single-direction turbine design, which takes advantage of river flow rather than tidal flow.
The earth regularly changes - when it moves smoothly, you don't notice too much (until you find something like this [exploratorium.edu], and you don't usually see the "day to day" effects because the soil and even some of the bedrock may slide along on top of the plate itself.
Are you seriously arguing that plate tectonics is the reason that tidal power generators are a bad idea? I think you might wanna bring that up with the city planners in Kyoto and San Francisco. I mean, they're building stuff right on a fault line. That can't be right, no? Either you're arguing a triviality (earth moves -> building bad), or you're vastly exaggerating the danger that plate tectonics pose to tidal power generators. In either case, your argument is irrelevant.
The "refuse plant matter" and "fecal matter" you refer to, however, normally make their way back into the food system as compost and manure (they're what makes farmers' fields steam in the morning during the pre-planting season).
Good point. A better example would be methane extraction from landfills.
However, you would get more energy back from wood chips if you simply would burn them, say in a stove or wood heater, rather than wasting time, effort, and chemicals trying to make ethanol from them.
Again, no argument from me here. I'd argue that there is nothing wrong with trying, but I wouldn't want to see this as policy.
I have to say, I've noticed that there is an overwhelming political bias on Slashdot, and that the inevitable result of not bowing down to the left-wing sacred cows is that the moderation system gets abused, with people modding "-1 Troll" simply because they disagree with what is being said, especially if it's phrased intelligently and gets in the way of their foaming-mouthed "Chimpy McHalliBusHitler" ranting.
Wow - what a sentence. Considering that you're currently sitting at +4 on the particular post I responded to, I'd say you're either lying, suffering from a fantastic case of confirmation bias or have a persecution complex. Looking further through your moderation in this thread, I'd say it's pretty lenient. The stuff that sits at -1 is flamebait of the purest form. Everything else is either untouched or modded up. Exactly what are you complaining about? That "Obamabots" and St. Barack gets you slapped with flamebait?
You know what's broken? The voters. If politicians would truly fear the voters' wrath come the next cycle, they'd vote exactly the way the public wants them to vote. The only conclusion I see is that politicians assume - correctly, might I add - that the voters won't care enough about this issue to vote them out, but will care enough to vote them out if anyone could point at this bill and say "this bill would have prevented that."
I don't think the concept of democracy itself is broken. I, as well, still believe that democracy is a superior form of government to all others available. But one thing I've realized is that democracy doesn't work for everybody. And I think that democracy doesn't work for a good chunk of the places that are supposed to practice democracy.
To answer 2.: the waste product of FBRs is Plutonium 239, which is one of the nastier radioactive wastes. The byproduct of standard nuclear reactors are shorter-lived and less toxic, such as caesium, technetium, strontium, etc.
I'm not impressed. Building new power plants is a proposition that a 6th grader could write. These politicians act like their geniuses when their train of thought appears to be "If people scream about problem X, then we fix problem X.".
And you know why that is? It's because on average, the population elects 6th graders to office that promise everything under the blue sky, rather than real leaders.
I hate to say this, but we're responsible for the people we elect.
Most Americans (particularly those in rural areas) have to commute to work, to buy groceries, etc, etc.
Most Americans drive to the grocery store that's a half mile away. Most Americans decided to live in exurbs BECAUSE gas was cheap. Mass transit is not an option because it is stupidly retarded. The US is in the mess it is in because it assumed that gas would never, ever, be expensive. Sorry, I don't feel bad when people who make bad decisions feel the pain that comes from making bad decisions.
And that's coming from someone who lives in California, which has arguably the most retarded infatuation with cars.
You actually watched Fox News? Not only that, but you thought that writing a letter would actually educate them?
I had a friend who worked at Fox News. They're in the business of providing entertainment to a conservative audience. Nothing else. Writing them a letter to complain about an inaccurate portrayal of a democratic candidate is like writing SNL to complain that their portrayal of Bush is inaccurate.
I'll ignore your patent flamebait and just stick to your incorrect statements.
PV cells are good not because they limit all impact on the environment, but because they reduce the one thing we can't clean up with any sort of ease: the air around us. As for the toxicity of solar energy, do you have any idea how toxic refineries are? Or coal power? PVs are no god-send, but they are better than oil and coal in that area.
Wind farms are neither disruptive nor noisy, provided you put them in the right place and build them right. Even older ones are silent when about half a mile away. Considering that they're built in the middle of nowhere, either on pastures, the ocean or mountain/hill passes, that's not an issue. How do I know? I bike past them about once a month. The real issue though is that when something does go wrong, it results in some spectacular failures.
Geothermal is limited in use. Duh. However, they are not any more unstable than other areas, unless you talk about geothermal energy extracted by digging a one-foot hole.
Tidal power is also limited. Duh. Just like geothermal, no one's advocating that it ought to replace all other energy. I'm wondering though - who is the idiot who put a tidal generator into a lake? And an earthquake that raises or lowers the ocean floor by more than a few feet is more than just "simple tectonic activity"... It's tectonic activity that will ruin the entire area.
Biomass energy is not generated from edible food. Or at least, those who suggest it ought to be shot (see corn ethanol). Biomass energy is generally generated by decomposition of fecal matter and refuse plant matter - think corn stalks. And I don't know anybody who creates animal feed from wood chips.... unless they're criminals.
I have to say, I've noticed that those who complain the most about being buried by unfair modding seem to be little more than barely literate trolls who communicate their lack of knowledge through caps, insults and repetitions of long-debunked myths. In other words, they are for whom moderation was introduced.
When the sky clouds over, are you going to sit in your own filth in the dark, like a Frenchman?
Actually, the Frenchmen sit in well-lit , all-electric houses and apartments, thanks to nuclear power.
Yeah, yeah, I know, you were going for the neo-con/french-hating funny mod. Just thought that I'd point out that in this case, there ought to be a +1, ironic mod, just for you.
If you ever do any consulting work, you'll realize that trust is the only currency you have. And honesty is paramount to get that. Also, remember that consultants don't have stakes in the political infighting - they can, and are expected to give an honest assessment of a situation.
This does not mean that you can just randomly insult people. Professionalism in consulting means understanding who needs to be told what, and who can be left out of the bloody details.
As for this particular analysis being "debunked" by the local manager - welcome to idiotville, population: local manager. No assessment will fix that. The assessment is intended for the people who said "We need an outside opinion", and it delivered on that.
The truth is, laws of physics have been refined - not changed. Quantum mechanics didn't change how the world operated, merely how the infinitesimally small did. Special relativity didn't change car technology - it changed how we viewed the cosmos.
People like you regard science as magic - a black box with arbitrary rules that they have no understanding of. Fortunately, that's not what science is, or how it operates. Which means that it is entirely possible to evaluate claims of "magic!", and toss them out.
I have a list of people I'm skeptical of. It is compiled by looking into statements that people make, and then creating a trend of how accurate these statements were.
I explained why Lomborg is on my list of people to be skeptical of. What is so difficult about this? Or are you one of those people who think that proven con men deserve a second look?
Real patriots understand why we must defend these rights, even at the cost of our lives -- because without them, we aren't the United States of America; we're just another transient tinpot dictatorship of no value and no lasting importance.
Thank you. It saddens me how often what makes the US great is sacrificed at the altar of "security".
Lomborg lectured in statistics, but has no degree in it. His background is political science.
Not to mention that his book is a textbook (harhar) study of how misleading statistics can be... one of the biggest blunders I remember is his assertion that deforestation was a myth, based on the statistic that surface areas covered by trees has increased over the last few decades. Meanwhile, he neglected to mention that the method by which tree acreage is calculated had changed dramatically during that time period (changing the numbers), and lumping tree farms together with old-growth forests to make a statement about forest health.
Lomborg is the last person to quote for an example of healthy skepticism. If anything, he's an example of who to be skeptical of.
Your exact numbers are off, but yes, there are gases that absorb more radiation. Congratulations, that wasn't the topic of discussion. Not to mention that water vapor hasn't changed much, and especially hasn't changed much due to human influence.
If you want to fix a problem, you might want to understand what the cause is.
Slashdot Mirror
Done. Check out the old IPCC reports. They go back over 10 years. They've actually been too conservative in their estimates (i.e., their most probable prediction turned out to be too low).
I find that you have not been paying attention to the discussion, or to the data that has been collected.
As for the Crichton quote... that's cute, but that's complete nonsense. What he is going for is "scientists were wrong before, so they are wrong now!". It's absolute bullshit that provides zero insight into the current problem. For this reason alone, I disregard everything that Crichton says about this problem. He doesn't understand how science works, and merely derails discussions about data.
100% right.
Your own sources tell you that the NW passage has never been open for commercial shipping. It has been traversed during summer times with expedition boats, but never as part of a commercial trading system.
Who exactly is "They"? I have never seen this comment outside of a newsrag or hearsay. Please source. Or go shove it.
Haven't you noticed that blaming a vast left-wing conspiracy hell-bent on preserving Slashdot group-think and suppressing intrepid conservative/right-wing opinions will net you an immediate +5 Insightful or Informative? It's the new Karma whoring.
I'd like to ask - does it matter? If you're looking for scapegoats, 188 out of 199 Republicans voted for it. 105 out of 236 Democrats voted for it. If you think that the guy whose name is on the bill is most responsible, think again. Names on bills are like a giant trading game, due to the publicity that can be garnered by being associated with the right one.
I have a question. What if the law is deemed constitutional, based on the interpretation that ex post facto refers specifically to laws designed to retroactively increase punishment?
The big, big, big issue here is that this law is fucking with the foundation of our legal system. It would be similar to people passing a constitutional amendment that makes the President King, or something similar. At that point, the SCOTUS has nothing to argue about anymore, except state a personal opinion that the amendment is hogwash.
Sometimes, some laws are so bad that they cannot be rectified by working within the system.
Not really. Corruption is essentially a hidden tax on all transactions, the cost of which is passed on to the end-user. Not to mention that it is the most inefficient and most easily abused tax system, with no benefits to the end-user.
Unless you meant that people only start to worry about corruption when it comes with force? At that point, we're talking about an uneducated population. I hope you're not referring to the US.
Sadly, it'll be d). I can't believe no one sees this. Or they see it and think it's ok.... not sure which bothers me more.
I'm glad to see that my rep (Mike Honda) voted against this crap. Shame that 108 democracts voted for this travesty.
No, u. Seriously though. Try harder if you want me to believe you.
I can't help you if they build em bad in Texas. Maybe replace them with something more modern? EIther which way, your generalization is wrong.
Energy generated from flow of seawater due to tidal force hardly means that the turbine is located in a lake. As for the Great Lakes project, I couldn't find anything. I suspect it is more a single-direction turbine design, which takes advantage of river flow rather than tidal flow.
Are you seriously arguing that plate tectonics is the reason that tidal power generators are a bad idea? I think you might wanna bring that up with the city planners in Kyoto and San Francisco. I mean, they're building stuff right on a fault line. That can't be right, no?
Either you're arguing a triviality (earth moves -> building bad), or you're vastly exaggerating the danger that plate tectonics pose to tidal power generators. In either case, your argument is irrelevant.
Good point. A better example would be methane extraction from landfills.
Again, no argument from me here. I'd argue that there is nothing wrong with trying, but I wouldn't want to see this as policy.
Wow - what a sentence. Considering that you're currently sitting at +4 on the particular post I responded to, I'd say you're either lying, suffering from a fantastic case of confirmation bias or have a persecution complex. Looking further through your moderation in this thread, I'd say it's pretty lenient. The stuff that sits at -1 is flamebait of the purest form. Everything else is either untouched or modded up. Exactly what are you complaining about? That "Obamabots" and St. Barack gets you slapped with flamebait?
Really? Seriously, up the meds.
You know what's broken? The voters. If politicians would truly fear the voters' wrath come the next cycle, they'd vote exactly the way the public wants them to vote. The only conclusion I see is that politicians assume - correctly, might I add - that the voters won't care enough about this issue to vote them out, but will care enough to vote them out if anyone could point at this bill and say "this bill would have prevented that."
I don't think the concept of democracy itself is broken. I, as well, still believe that democracy is a superior form of government to all others available. But one thing I've realized is that democracy doesn't work for everybody. And I think that democracy doesn't work for a good chunk of the places that are supposed to practice democracy.
To answer 2.: the waste product of FBRs is Plutonium 239, which is one of the nastier radioactive wastes. The byproduct of standard nuclear reactors are shorter-lived and less toxic, such as caesium, technetium, strontium, etc.
And you know why that is? It's because on average, the population elects 6th graders to office that promise everything under the blue sky, rather than real leaders.
I hate to say this, but we're responsible for the people we elect.
Most Americans drive to the grocery store that's a half mile away. Most Americans decided to live in exurbs BECAUSE gas was cheap. Mass transit is not an option because it is stupidly retarded. The US is in the mess it is in because it assumed that gas would never, ever, be expensive. Sorry, I don't feel bad when people who make bad decisions feel the pain that comes from making bad decisions.
And that's coming from someone who lives in California, which has arguably the most retarded infatuation with cars.
You actually watched Fox News? Not only that, but you thought that writing a letter would actually educate them?
I had a friend who worked at Fox News. They're in the business of providing entertainment to a conservative audience. Nothing else. Writing them a letter to complain about an inaccurate portrayal of a democratic candidate is like writing SNL to complain that their portrayal of Bush is inaccurate.
I'll ignore your patent flamebait and just stick to your incorrect statements.
PV cells are good not because they limit all impact on the environment, but because they reduce the one thing we can't clean up with any sort of ease: the air around us. As for the toxicity of solar energy, do you have any idea how toxic refineries are? Or coal power? PVs are no god-send, but they are better than oil and coal in that area.
Wind farms are neither disruptive nor noisy, provided you put them in the right place and build them right. Even older ones are silent when about half a mile away. Considering that they're built in the middle of nowhere, either on pastures, the ocean or mountain/hill passes, that's not an issue. How do I know? I bike past them about once a month. The real issue though is that when something does go wrong, it results in some spectacular failures.
Geothermal is limited in use. Duh. However, they are not any more unstable than other areas, unless you talk about geothermal energy extracted by digging a one-foot hole.
Tidal power is also limited. Duh. Just like geothermal, no one's advocating that it ought to replace all other energy. I'm wondering though - who is the idiot who put a tidal generator into a lake? And an earthquake that raises or lowers the ocean floor by more than a few feet is more than just "simple tectonic activity"... It's tectonic activity that will ruin the entire area.
Biomass energy is not generated from edible food. Or at least, those who suggest it ought to be shot (see corn ethanol). Biomass energy is generally generated by decomposition of fecal matter and refuse plant matter - think corn stalks. And I don't know anybody who creates animal feed from wood chips.... unless they're criminals.
I have to say, I've noticed that those who complain the most about being buried by unfair modding seem to be little more than barely literate trolls who communicate their lack of knowledge through caps, insults and repetitions of long-debunked myths. In other words, they are for whom moderation was introduced.
Actually, the Frenchmen sit in well-lit , all-electric houses and apartments, thanks to nuclear power.
Yeah, yeah, I know, you were going for the neo-con/french-hating funny mod. Just thought that I'd point out that in this case, there ought to be a +1, ironic mod, just for you.
If you ever do any consulting work, you'll realize that trust is the only currency you have. And honesty is paramount to get that. Also, remember that consultants don't have stakes in the political infighting - they can, and are expected to give an honest assessment of a situation.
This does not mean that you can just randomly insult people. Professionalism in consulting means understanding who needs to be told what, and who can be left out of the bloody details.
As for this particular analysis being "debunked" by the local manager - welcome to idiotville, population: local manager. No assessment will fix that. The assessment is intended for the people who said "We need an outside opinion", and it delivered on that.
The truth is, laws of physics have been refined - not changed. Quantum mechanics didn't change how the world operated, merely how the infinitesimally small did. Special relativity didn't change car technology - it changed how we viewed the cosmos.
People like you regard science as magic - a black box with arbitrary rules that they have no understanding of. Fortunately, that's not what science is, or how it operates. Which means that it is entirely possible to evaluate claims of "magic!", and toss them out.
I have a list of people I'm skeptical of. It is compiled by looking into statements that people make, and then creating a trend of how accurate these statements were.
I explained why Lomborg is on my list of people to be skeptical of. What is so difficult about this? Or are you one of those people who think that proven con men deserve a second look?
Thank you. It saddens me how often what makes the US great is sacrificed at the altar of "security".
Lomborg lectured in statistics, but has no degree in it. His background is political science.
Not to mention that his book is a textbook (harhar) study of how misleading statistics can be... one of the biggest blunders I remember is his assertion that deforestation was a myth, based on the statistic that surface areas covered by trees has increased over the last few decades. Meanwhile, he neglected to mention that the method by which tree acreage is calculated had changed dramatically during that time period (changing the numbers), and lumping tree farms together with old-growth forests to make a statement about forest health.
Lomborg is the last person to quote for an example of healthy skepticism. If anything, he's an example of who to be skeptical of.
Then read at -1. For the record, I do. And quite frankly, the ones sitting at -1 deserve their position in 99% of the cases.
The few that didn't I fix during metamoderation.
Your exact numbers are off, but yes, there are gases that absorb more radiation. Congratulations, that wasn't the topic of discussion. Not to mention that water vapor hasn't changed much, and especially hasn't changed much due to human influence.
If you want to fix a problem, you might want to understand what the cause is.
Asshole.