...The heat release from a burning PV panel is probably nothing like that of an asphalt shingle, but then again, asphalt shingles don't emit gallium arsenide or phosphorus in the smoke as they burn...
Nor do silicon photovoltaic panels. Gallium arsenide technology is not used in any terrestrial panels (it's far too expensive), and while silicon does use phosphorus as a n-type dopant, the word "dopant" means about one silicon atom in 10,000 is replaced by phosphrous-- you get more phosphorus in a single swallow of your favorite cola.
I am pretty sure my asphalt shingles won't short and catch fire if a branch, hail stone or chimney sweep manages to break one.
To the contrary: asphalt shingles are flammable, but glass isn't. Asphalt is MORE of a fire hazard than solar panels, not less.
On the other hand, does anybody use traditional asphalt shingles any more? I thought modern shingles were mostly fiberglass which were carefully crafted to look just like asphalt.
I don't pretend to like privacy violations any more than you do, but they do it b'cos they have to! Unlimited Muslim immigration to UK
The UK does not have "unlimited Muslim immigration." Where the heck did you get that from? They have immigration laws just like pretty much every other country.
Stranger in a Strange Land was, perhaps, groundbreaking for 1961 when it was written, but I'd say the "religion and sex" are quaint and tame fifty years later. What little sex there is, that is-- back in 1961, even hinting people were actually enjoying sex was apparently racy.
I suspect that it's the movie The Space Between Us that allowed this to get the green light for production-- Hollywood loves to latch on to an idea, once somebody else has broken the way.
Your nom de plume is well chosen, Obfuscant, since obfuscating seems to be what you are interested in doing. I'm not sure why. Is there some point in your deliberate obfuscation?
Correct. We have reasonable measurements.
The way science is done is that you propose a hypothesis, and compare it against observations. "I think that there's maybe some other factor causing temperature rise, I don't know what it is" is not science. If you want to attribute the temperature rise to another cause, identify that cause. If you can't reject the hypothesis because you didn't ever frame a hypothesis-- it really isn't science.
The fact that you seem to be missing is that we have good measurements.
We measure the input. If you are proposing that some other input is accounting for the temperature increase, you need to identify that input.
This is how science is actually done: propose a hypothesis, and then test it against observations. You think something else is causing the temperature rise? Propose a hypothesis. Exactly what is causing the temperature rise?
As for your other question, about paleoclimate: yes, indeed, there are people studying that. For paleoclimate, we don't have nearly as good measurements of input, and for that matter, dating is somewhat less exact as well. These are all proxy comparisons. Yes, you're right: that makes it harder. But just saying "the temperature has risen beforet" really isn't science. If you want it to be science, tell me what you are hypothesizing is the input factor that made it rise in the past, and tell me what measurements you have supporting that hypothesis.
I see claims for this on both sides of the argument. Where can I find temperature data output from a model in the past in comparison to actual temperature data as recorded since that model was run?
I've been graphing it myself. What you need is the climate sensitivity out of the model-- this will be in units of degrees C per doubling. The prediction is that the delta-T equals the sensitivity times the Log_(base2) of the carbon dioxide currently divided by the carbon dioxide at the reference year. You can find carbon dioxide levels in the Mauna Loa dataset, here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c... and you can find temperatures in whichever source you like, such as Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST), or the NASA GISS data. This site has list of different sources of data, with a link to the BEST: https://climatedataguide.ucar....
The older the prediction, the longer a run of years you can compare predictions to reality, of course. The 1979 National Academy of Sciences report "Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment" is a good place one; it has error bars on the prediction: 3 C, plus or minus 1.5 C (per doubling): https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12... The prediction hasn't actually changed much since then though, so that's a good one to pick in that it's representative of pretty much all the later models
Get California to spearhead a proposition to make volcanoes and wildfires caused by lightning strikes illegal. Surely that will reduce the production of greenhouse gasses.
I assume you're being sarcastic, but in case you are actually serious, I will point out that volcanos put out somewhat less than 1% of the greenhouse gasses as the amount we create by burning fossil fuels.
In the past, we've been adding more CO2, each year-on-year, than in each previous year. Now, we have three consecutive years where we are adding the same amount, not more than each previous year. Total atmospheric CO2 is still increasing, but the increase has stopped being a curve and is currently a straight line.
That may be true, but you sure can't see it in the data yet.
I trust the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements. I don't trust the estimates of how much fossil fuel was used worldwide, particularly since the main part of the proposed decrease is in Chinese emissions, of which the reference cited says "Chinese emissions were down 0.7 percent in 2015 and are projected to fall 0.5 percent in 2016, the researchers said, though noting that Chinese energy statistics have been plagued by inconsistencies."
The models are indeed failing. Just because the earth is warming don't mean the models are right.
The data is: 1. The Earth is warming 2. The warming rate fits the models to within the quoted error bars. 3. The warming rate does not fit the null-hypothesis ("anthropogenic gasses have no effect on global climate.")
This is how science is done: the null hypothesis is rejected. If you wish to say "the models aren't right", what you need to do is find a different model which fits the data, and is not already ruled out by other known facts (like, for example, if your model is "the sun is increasing in output," you need to explain why the satellite measurements of solar output aren't showing this purported increase.)
If you were really understanding of science you'd not make such a stupid statement
I have a pretty good understanding of science. This is the way science is done: sequentially improving models, and ruling out previous models when they are falsified by data. Right now, the consensus is that greenhouse gasses are causing warming. This consensus exists because the null hypothesis is strongly ruled out. The consensus will change if newer measurements rule out the current model, or if a new model is found that fits the data better.
But right now, the model we have seems to be pretty robust.
and if you were really that aware of GW concerns you'd know that models are being dismissed left and right.
Only by people who don't seem to know anything about either the models or about the data.
The models are all closed so you can't really inspect what they attribute to what.
Huh? The main global circulation models are all available. You can look them up on the internet. And even run them yourself, if you have access to a supercomputer-- dozens of universities do this.
Wow. I didn't think there was ANYONE downright fucking stupid enough to fall for Crooked Liar Hillary!'s (may she rest in peace - NOT!) "Look! RUSSIAN squirrel!!!" attempt at distracting voters.
Without weighing in on Hillary, I point out that the evidence that the hacking was from Russia was actually reasonably good.
(The evidence that it was Russian state actors, and not just individual Russian hackers (of which there are many) is less solid.)
You are mixing up two things. One is "is the science correct, and to what uncertainty?" The other is "what should we do about it, and what would this cost? These are completely different questions. The response "I think that it would cost too much to solve the problem, therefore I will assert that the science is inaccurate and the problem does not exist" is not a logical response.
No, I am not "mixing up two different things". I am posing two different concepts, the first is that we have no freaking clue what the climate will do over the next 1,000-2,000 years.
Yes, you've been asserting that. All I can derive from what you post, however, is that you're saying that you have no freaking clue what the climate will do. The fact that you don't understand climate has no particular bearing on whether other people understand it.
The second is that the solutions proposed are costly, including a cost in lives lost, across a wide variety of measures. To ask for that level of sacrifice
You have indeed asserted (without evidence) that every possible solution is costly and require "sacrifice", but you've given no indication that you've looked at every possible solution, nor done even a superficial analysis of cost.
In any case, however, how much the solution would cost has nothing to do with whether the basic science is understood..
... It may well be a hoax, there simply isn't enough 'there' there to say with certainty.
I have zero patience with people who try to score political points by claiming that it's all a conspiracy, and scientists are frauds. Science is not a hoax.
No, the warming following the last glaciation finished about ten thousand years ago, and the sea level rise attributable to that is pretty much done. Here's a good graph: cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png [antarcticglaciers.org]
That's one theory. There are others.
That wasn't a theory. That was data.
The causes of the quaternary ice age cycle over the last ~3 million years is know in general outline, although as you point out a lot of the details need to be worked out. However, data from hundreds of thousands of years ago is indirect and difficult to interpret. Today, on the other hand, we have very good data: we measure the input and the output. It's cute that you have your own theory that the Earth is warming due to the fact that we're still coming out of the Late Wisconsin glaciation, but there's not evidence whatsoever for that theory.
...Which I find interesting in that if the reasons why ice ages occur and why some are longer than others are so poorly understood, how can it be claimed that there is sufficient certainty in the claims of AGW proponents
First, despite Wikipedia saying that the causes of ice ages are not "fully" understood, that doesn't mean we know nothing at all about them. It is, however, indeed harder to study events that happened ten thousand to three million years ago, because we don't have good measurements during that period, so we have to estimate output and input and timing based on indirect ("proxy") measurements of things like pollen counts and oxygen isotope ratios. Today, on the other hand we have very good data and lots of it. It is much easier to look at today's climate in detail.
to make the kind of major societal/economic/industrial/diplomatic sacrifices that would be required across the board in order to achieve any even slightly-meaningful effect? >Before we start condemning those in poverty to further suffering and death (artificial energy scarcity/high prices are extremely regressive taxes that impact the poorest the most and the quickest)
You are mixing up two things. One is "is the science correct, and to what uncertainty?" The other is "what should we do about it, and what would this cost? These are completely different questions. The response "I think that it would cost too much to solve the problem, therefore I will assert that the science is inaccurate and the problem does not exist" is not a logical response.
The proposed solution "we should do nothing; we can simply adapt to the changes" is a valid proposal. The solution "it's too expensive, let's attack the science" is not.
Now: your statement that every possible approach to solving the problem would require "major societal/economic/industrial/diplomatic sacrifice" and would "condemn those in poverty to further suffering and death" is simply an assertion, and lacks even superficial analysis. What has happened, right now, is an asymmetric response: so far, the people politically on the left have been proposing possible solutions, while people politically on the right have been refusing to propose solutions or analyze them-- when the problem is discussed, their response has been overwhelming: "the problem doesn't exist and it's a hoax."
So, if you're not even willing to analyze the problem-- and your analysis lacks all numbers-- it's really hard to say that you can dismiss the solutions you haven't thought about or looked at.
Having studied Trump as a businessman, I strongly suspect he doesn't know which policies he'll propose - that will depend on what he hears from the experts he hires. In his long business career, he hired really smart people and trusted their judgement, rather than micro-managing, thinking he knew everything betterv than everyone else. His role was threefold a) the public face, drumming up publicity, b) negotiating major deals and c) overall leadership. He largely left the operational details to the very competent people he hired.
That works well in Business, but it's sure going to be a paradigm shift in Government
Actually, that was Ronald Reagan's governing method. He had little interest in the details of government, but was the public face, negotiating major deals, and overall leadership.
Regardless of whether you agree with Reagan's goals for the government, it seems to have been successful in that Reagan, to a large extent, accomplished what he did.
(Partly. Where this technique failed was in budget control: Reagan financed his presidency by a huge rise in deficit spending, despite promising in the campaign that he would balance the budget. Budget, apparently, is one thing where you can't just give the details over to others and tell then "spend what you need.")
Past catastrophic predictions of sea level rises have been false, as this one will be.
Well, except that statement is incorrect. Previous predictions of sea level rise-- read the IPCC reports for reference-- were for a "sea-level rise of 0.25 to 1 meter possible by the end of the next century"-- that means, by the year 2100. They didn't make predictions as near to the present as 2016.
Reference: here's the First IPCC (1990) report on effects of global warming: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication... (Oceans are chapter 6)
Yawn...the Earth has been warming since the last ice age. Guess what, we didn't pollute or cause the glaciers to melt either. Blame it on the dinosaurs that emitted carbon dioxide and methane from their gargantuan farts.
Well, the Earth is currently in a warming phase after the last ice age.
I will also point out that this is warming and sea-level rise occurring on the time scale of millennia, while the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is on the scale of centuries-- much much faster.
That means global average temperatures will continue to rise past the 2 degrees Celsius TFS mentions even if humans never existed
Again, no. We're already in the interglacial period; temperature wouldn't be likely to rise more.
and no matter what we do (unless we figure out how to make a P-U 238 Explosive Space Modulator and cause the Earth to disappear with an Earth-shattering Kaboom),
a strategy consisting mainly of adaptation (along with efficient but lower-impact CO2 and pollution controls) seems to be the logical strategy. We cannot stop global temperature rise, at the very best we might, maybe, be able to slow the rate of rise by a few tenths of a degree, but at huge costs in lives, suffering, opportunities, and wealth.
This is an assertion that is not particularly well grounded. I'm relatively techno-optimistic; I see no reason we can't switch to alternate energy sources and more efficient energy use. Most of the commentary I see on slashdot saying we can't consists of "if we do XXX with exactly the same technology we have right now, it would be expensive." Well, yes: so we need to work on better technology.
The level of technology pessimism I see on Slashdot astonishes me.
If we want to minimize the impact of humans on the Earth then the logical strategy is to concentrate on moving as much of those industries, activities, and resource-gathering activities which pollute or otherwise impact the Earths' environment to space as possible as quickly as possible...hopefully before limited Earth-bound resources become too scarce/expensive to accomplish it and condemn humans to extinction.
Interestingly, the main reason that developing industry in space will help the environment on Earth is that industry in space will necessarily be efficient and have complete recycling of waste products. Space industry won't emit gigatons of carbon dioxide because in space carbon dioxide is a resource to be used, not an effluent to be exhausted.
Slashdot Mirror
...The heat release from a burning PV panel is probably nothing like that of an asphalt shingle, but then again, asphalt shingles don't emit gallium arsenide or phosphorus in the smoke as they burn...
Nor do silicon photovoltaic panels. Gallium arsenide technology is not used in any terrestrial panels (it's far too expensive), and while silicon does use phosphorus as a n-type dopant, the word "dopant" means about one silicon atom in 10,000 is replaced by phosphrous-- you get more phosphorus in a single swallow of your favorite cola.
I am pretty sure my asphalt shingles won't short and catch fire if a branch, hail stone or chimney sweep manages to break one.
To the contrary: asphalt shingles are flammable, but glass isn't. Asphalt is MORE of a fire hazard than solar panels, not less.
On the other hand, does anybody use traditional asphalt shingles any more? I thought modern shingles were mostly fiberglass which were carefully crafted to look just like asphalt.
Nice. If "stripped down" means none of the useless bells and whistles, just simple functionality, I'm all for it.
The privacy part doesn't hurt, too.
I don't pretend to like privacy violations any more than you do, but they do it b'cos they have to! Unlimited Muslim immigration to UK
The UK does not have "unlimited Muslim immigration."
Where the heck did you get that from? They have immigration laws just like pretty much every other country.
I'm sorry but tolerating hate is not tolerance, it's cowardice
That's the paradox of tolerance.
Does he own a dictionary?
Stranger in a Strange Land was, perhaps, groundbreaking for 1961 when it was written, but I'd say the "religion and sex" are quaint and tame fifty years later. What little sex there is, that is-- back in 1961, even hinting people were actually enjoying sex was apparently racy.
I suspect that it's the movie The Space Between Us that allowed this to get the green light for production-- Hollywood loves to latch on to an idea, once somebody else has broken the way.
You're the one who chose the name obfuscant. It is appropriate. You are trying to deliberately obfuscate. I assume you like it.
Many sciences are observational. Despite that, they are still sciences.
Bye.
Your nom de plume is well chosen, Obfuscant, since obfuscating seems to be what you are interested in doing. I'm not sure why. Is there some point in your deliberate obfuscation?
Correct. We have reasonable measurements.
The way science is done is that you propose a hypothesis, and compare it against observations. "I think that there's maybe some other factor causing temperature rise, I don't know what it is" is not science. If you want to attribute the temperature rise to another cause, identify that cause. If you can't reject the hypothesis because you didn't ever frame a hypothesis-- it really isn't science.
The fact that you seem to be missing is that we have good measurements.
We measure the input. If you are proposing that some other input is accounting for the temperature increase, you need to identify that input .
This is how science is actually done: propose a hypothesis, and then test it against observations. You think something else is causing the temperature rise? Propose a hypothesis. Exactly what is causing the temperature rise?
As for your other question, about paleoclimate: yes, indeed, there are people studying that. For paleoclimate, we don't have nearly as good measurements of input, and for that matter, dating is somewhat less exact as well. These are all proxy comparisons. Yes, you're right: that makes it harder. But just saying "the temperature has risen beforet" really isn't science. If you want it to be science, tell me what you are hypothesizing is the input factor that made it rise in the past, and tell me what measurements you have supporting that hypothesis.
I see claims for this on both sides of the argument. Where can I find temperature data output from a model in the past in comparison to actual temperature data as recorded since that model was run?
I've been graphing it myself. What you need is the climate sensitivity out of the model-- this will be in units of degrees C per doubling. The prediction is that the delta-T equals the sensitivity times the Log_(base2) of the carbon dioxide currently divided by the carbon dioxide at the reference year. You can find carbon dioxide levels in the Mauna Loa dataset, here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c... and you can find temperatures in whichever source you like, such as Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST), or the NASA GISS data. This site has list of different sources of data, with a link to the BEST: https://climatedataguide.ucar....
The older the prediction, the longer a run of years you can compare predictions to reality, of course. The 1979 National Academy of Sciences report "Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment" is a good place one; it has error bars on the prediction: 3 C, plus or minus 1.5 C (per doubling): https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12... The prediction hasn't actually changed much since then though, so that's a good one to pick in that it's representative of pretty much all the later models
Get California to spearhead a proposition to make volcanoes and wildfires caused by lightning strikes illegal. Surely that will reduce the production of greenhouse gasses.
I assume you're being sarcastic, but in case you are actually serious, I will point out that volcanos put out somewhat less than 1% of the greenhouse gasses as the amount we create by burning fossil fuels.
In the past, we've been adding more CO2, each year-on-year, than in each previous year. Now, we have three consecutive years where we are adding the same amount, not more than each previous year. Total atmospheric CO2 is still increasing, but the increase has stopped being a curve and is currently a straight line.
That may be true, but you sure can't see it in the data yet.
I trust the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements. I don't trust the estimates of how much fossil fuel was used worldwide, particularly since the main part of the proposed decrease is in Chinese emissions, of which the reference cited says "Chinese emissions were down 0.7 percent in 2015 and are projected to fall 0.5 percent in 2016, the researchers said, though noting that Chinese energy statistics have been plagued by inconsistencies."
The models are indeed failing. Just because the earth is warming don't mean the models are right.
The data is:
1. The Earth is warming
2. The warming rate fits the models to within the quoted error bars.
3. The warming rate does not fit the null-hypothesis ("anthropogenic gasses have no effect on global climate.")
This is how science is done: the null hypothesis is rejected. If you wish to say "the models aren't right", what you need to do is find a different model which fits the data, and is not already ruled out by other known facts (like, for example, if your model is "the sun is increasing in output," you need to explain why the satellite measurements of solar output aren't showing this purported increase.)
If you were really understanding of science you'd not make such a stupid statement
I have a pretty good understanding of science. This is the way science is done: sequentially improving models, and ruling out previous models when they are falsified by data. Right now, the consensus is that greenhouse gasses are causing warming. This consensus exists because the null hypothesis is strongly ruled out. The consensus will change if newer measurements rule out the current model, or if a new model is found that fits the data better.
But right now, the model we have seems to be pretty robust.
and if you were really that aware of GW concerns you'd know that models are being dismissed left and right.
Only by people who don't seem to know anything about either the models or about the data.
The models are all closed so you can't really inspect what they attribute to what.
Huh? The main global circulation models are all available. You can look them up on the internet. And even run them yourself, if you have access to a supercomputer-- dozens of universities do this.
The models are not overpredicting warming; that's a denier talking point, but it is not based on actual data.
Right at the moment, the measured warming is very close to what the models predict; well within quoted error bars.
There are both stretching and bending modes. There are also a lot of rotational modes, but these tend to be longer wavelength.
It's too early to celebrate because the data really doesn't show this purported downturn yet. Here's the measured carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the last five years:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c...
And the full record:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c...
If there's a recent downturn, I can't see it.
(A different link graphing the same data: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/progr... )
Interesting.
As they say, everything is connected to everything else.
Wow. I didn't think there was ANYONE downright fucking stupid enough to fall for Crooked Liar Hillary!'s (may she rest in peace - NOT!) "Look! RUSSIAN squirrel!!!" attempt at distracting voters.
Without weighing in on Hillary, I point out that the evidence that the hacking was from Russia was actually reasonably good.
(The evidence that it was Russian state actors, and not just individual Russian hackers (of which there are many) is less solid.)
You are mixing up two things. One is "is the science correct, and to what uncertainty?" The other is "what should we do about it, and what would this cost? These are completely different questions. The response "I think that it would cost too much to solve the problem, therefore I will assert that the science is inaccurate and the problem does not exist" is not a logical response.
No, I am not "mixing up two different things". I am posing two different concepts, the first is that we have no freaking clue what the climate will do over the next 1,000-2,000 years.
Yes, you've been asserting that. All I can derive from what you post, however, is that you're saying that you have no freaking clue what the climate will do. The fact that you don't understand climate has no particular bearing on whether other people understand it.
The second is that the solutions proposed are costly, including a cost in lives lost, across a wide variety of measures. To ask for that level of sacrifice
You have indeed asserted (without evidence) that every possible solution is costly and require "sacrifice", but you've given no indication that you've looked at every possible solution, nor done even a superficial analysis of cost.
In any case, however, how much the solution would cost has nothing to do with whether the basic science is understood..
... It may well be a hoax, there simply isn't enough 'there' there to say with certainty.
I have zero patience with people who try to score political points by claiming that it's all a conspiracy, and scientists are frauds. Science is not a hoax.
No, the warming following the last glaciation finished about ten thousand years ago, and the sea level rise attributable to that is pretty much done. Here's a good graph: cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png [antarcticglaciers.org]
That's one theory. There are others.
That wasn't a theory. That was data.
The causes of the quaternary ice age cycle over the last ~3 million years is know in general outline, although as you point out a lot of the details need to be worked out. However, data from hundreds of thousands of years ago is indirect and difficult to interpret. Today, on the other hand, we have very good data: we measure the input and the output. It's cute that you have your own theory that the Earth is warming due to the fact that we're still coming out of the Late Wisconsin glaciation, but there's not evidence whatsoever for that theory.
...Which I find interesting in that if the reasons why ice ages occur and why some are longer than others are so poorly understood, how can it be claimed that there is sufficient certainty in the claims of AGW proponents
First, despite Wikipedia saying that the causes of ice ages are not "fully" understood, that doesn't mean we know nothing at all about them. It is, however, indeed harder to study events that happened ten thousand to three million years ago, because we don't have good measurements during that period, so we have to estimate output and input and timing based on indirect ("proxy") measurements of things like pollen counts and oxygen isotope ratios. Today, on the other hand we have very good data and lots of it. It is much easier to look at today's climate in detail.
to make the kind of major societal/economic/industrial/diplomatic sacrifices that would be required across the board in order to achieve any even slightly-meaningful effect? >Before we start condemning those in poverty to further suffering and death (artificial energy scarcity/high prices are extremely regressive taxes that impact the poorest the most and the quickest)
You are mixing up two things. One is "is the science correct, and to what uncertainty?" The other is "what should we do about it, and what would this cost? These are completely different questions. The response "I think that it would cost too much to solve the problem, therefore I will assert that the science is inaccurate and the problem does not exist" is not a logical response.
The proposed solution "we should do nothing; we can simply adapt to the changes" is a valid proposal. The solution "it's too expensive, let's attack the science" is not.
Now: your statement that every possible approach to solving the problem would require "major societal/economic/industrial/diplomatic sacrifice" and would "condemn those in poverty to further suffering and death" is simply an assertion, and lacks even superficial analysis. What has happened, right now, is an asymmetric response: so far, the people politically on the left have been proposing possible solutions, while people politically on the right have been refusing to propose solutions or analyze them-- when the problem is discussed, their response has been overwhelming: "the problem doesn't exist and it's a hoax."
So, if you're not even willing to analyze the problem-- and your analysis lacks all numbers-- it's really hard to say that you can dismiss the solutions you haven't thought about or looked at.
Having studied Trump as a businessman, I strongly suspect he doesn't know which policies he'll propose - that will depend on what he hears from the experts he hires. In his long business career, he hired really smart people and trusted their judgement, rather than micro-managing, thinking he knew everything betterv than everyone else. His role was threefold a) the public face, drumming up publicity, b) negotiating major deals and c) overall leadership. He largely left the operational details to the very competent people he hired.
That works well in Business, but it's sure going to be a paradigm shift in Government
Actually, that was Ronald Reagan's governing method. He had little interest in the details of government, but was the public face, negotiating major deals, and overall leadership.
Regardless of whether you agree with Reagan's goals for the government, it seems to have been successful in that Reagan, to a large extent, accomplished what he did.
(Partly. Where this technique failed was in budget control: Reagan financed his presidency by a huge rise in deficit spending, despite promising in the campaign that he would balance the budget. Budget, apparently, is one thing where you can't just give the details over to others and tell then "spend what you need.")
Past catastrophic predictions of sea level rises have been false, as this one will be.
Well, except that statement is incorrect. Previous predictions of sea level rise-- read the IPCC reports for reference-- were for a "sea-level rise of 0.25 to 1 meter possible by the end of the next century"-- that means, by the year 2100. They didn't make predictions as near to the present as 2016.
Reference: here's the First IPCC (1990) report on effects of global warming: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication... (Oceans are chapter 6)
and here's the most recent: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...
Yawn...the Earth has been warming since the last ice age. Guess what, we didn't pollute or cause the glaciers to melt either. Blame it on the dinosaurs that emitted carbon dioxide and methane from their gargantuan farts.
Well, the Earth is currently in a warming phase after the last ice age.
No, the warming following the last glaciation finished about ten thousand years ago, and the sea level rise attributable to that is pretty much done. Here's a good graph: cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png
I will also point out that this is warming and sea-level rise occurring on the time scale of millennia, while the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is on the scale of centuries-- much much faster.
That means global average temperatures will continue to rise past the 2 degrees Celsius TFS mentions even if humans never existed
Again, no. We're already in the interglacial period; temperature wouldn't be likely to rise more.
and no matter what we do (unless we figure out how to make a P-U 238 Explosive Space Modulator and cause the Earth to disappear with an Earth-shattering Kaboom),
Nice Duck Dodgers reference.
a strategy consisting mainly of adaptation (along with efficient but lower-impact CO2 and pollution controls) seems to be the logical strategy. We cannot stop global temperature rise, at the very best we might, maybe, be able to slow the rate of rise by a few tenths of a degree, but at huge costs in lives, suffering, opportunities, and wealth.
This is an assertion that is not particularly well grounded. I'm relatively techno-optimistic; I see no reason we can't switch to alternate energy sources and more efficient energy use. Most of the commentary I see on slashdot saying we can't consists of "if we do XXX with exactly the same technology we have right now, it would be expensive." Well, yes: so we need to work on better technology.
The level of technology pessimism I see on Slashdot astonishes me.
If we want to minimize the impact of humans on the Earth then the logical strategy is to concentrate on moving as much of those industries, activities, and resource-gathering activities which pollute or otherwise impact the Earths' environment to space as possible as quickly as possible...hopefully before limited Earth-bound resources become too scarce/expensive to accomplish it and condemn humans to extinction.
Interestingly, the main reason that developing industry in space will help the environment on Earth is that industry in space will necessarily be efficient and have complete recycling of waste products. Space industry won't emit gigatons of carbon dioxide because in space carbon dioxide is a resource to be used, not an effluent to be exhausted.