What is Your position on Climate Change?
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Bah! (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.
Re: (Score:3)
And even if the climate change - is that something created by humans or is it a natural cycle?
We do know that the climate has been a lot warmer, and it has been a lot colder. It won't stay the same all the time either - change is normal.
So why worry? I would be a lot more worried if it got colder than if it got warmer because colder would mean that the life-zone for humans would shrink.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
I find that hard to believe - now if you said "at no point in recorded history", I might admit you had a point. But I'm pretty sure that climate has changed faster in the past (going into and out of the interglacials, for example), and will do so in the future.
Are you saying that natural processes do not happen abruptly? I disagree - they can happen on all scales, from the slow process of erosion to the rather fast upthrusting of mountains - both of which can affect climate in unusual ways.
You worry if you must, but there's no reason to worry abut stuff you can't change - think about adaptation and how to make the change work for you.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you know that climate change in past times hasn't had this pace? The precision in geological layers is sketchy and you can't tell in reality.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
We worry because at no point in the history of the planet has the climate changed this quickly.
Not strictly true, but city-sized meteorites or Yellowstone-sized volcanos were involved in the past.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Informative)
I worry because I live in the Netherlands.
This means, for example, that I was born 7.5 meters below sea level, in a province that consists of land that used to be the bottom of a sea until we built a system of walls and pumps to make land.
85% of the Netherlands currently lies below sea level when there's a high tide. The intricate system of walls, bridges, canals, pumping stations and ground water level monitors are managing the water quite well right now, but if sea levels rise, the pressure exerted on those walls or dykes is going to increase exponentially.
There are some government plans to convert a strip of four kilometers of the North Sea into land so we can create an additional buffer of dykes, walls and hydraulic doors to manage that, but at the end of the day, if water levels keep rising, the cost-benefit analysis will show it might not make sense to sustain the country currently known as the Netherlands.
So whether climate change is man-made or due to increased solar activity, cosmic radiation, a natural cycle or whatever reason you can come up with, it is a tangible concern for me as a citizen of a coastal area.
I am quite sure the good people of Bangkok and Bangladesh agree with this point of view. As do the Venetians, to name a few.
Re: (Score:3)
Simple solution: Invade Belgium, take their land.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Informative)
the pressure exerted on those walls or dykes is going to increase exponentially.
No, pressure increases linearly with depth (pressure at depth = k * depth). Maybe you meant "force" instead of "pressure", but that increases only quadratically with sea level (integrate the linear pressure function over the entire surface of the dyke and you get a quadratic force function assuming a constant length dyke).
Re: (Score:3)
So what you're saying is we know it, because it fits with the assumption we're making?
Rather it seems the current assumptions about the effects of CO2 emissions are largely based on changes in climate that may or may not have any (significant) relation to said CO2 emissions.
The causation is in no way clear, but of course the models will show whatever you wan
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Informative)
You are mistaken. Simple physics (Beer-Lamberts Law, if you want to check on wikipedia) predict some of the warming, and the rest can be roughly inferred by a rather simplistic model. The complicated models are either to get more details or, more commonly, to try to model how exactly the earth will move towards a new steady state. After all, we are in for 100's of years of slow changes even if we suddenly stop all CO2-emition tomorrow.
Of course, in principle, we might be seeing something else that just happens to fit. Or Santa Claus might actually exists, and so on. But when you have a set of data, and a explanation based on solid physics which has convincingly predicted 30 years or more of data since its original publication, I think we can move to the "I know" phase. Just like "I know" there is no Santa Claus --- not absolutely, but beyond reasonable doubt.
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose that's possible if there are only two trees in your area and someone cuts them down to make toilet paper. However, generally speaking when you buy goods that are produced far away there is a lot of fuel burned just to move that stuff around.
Also, foods grown locally don't have to be engineered to endure time spent in transit after being picked before they are actually ripe or ready. For instance, we have a grapefruit tree in our back yard and the difference in taste is simply amazing.
Re: (Score:3)
Nah, MAFIAA, WalMart, etc are not picking fights with you, or anyone else for that matter. They are just trying to screw you. They really would be happier with you if you thought of it as them loving you. That is what they want to believe they are doing, and they would like you to clap your hands and believe that fairytale, too.
It would make for a more intelligent discussion if those who have not yet learned to tell the difference between rape and homicide would sit back with closed mouths and just listen
How about we start believing in Human Change? (Score:5, Insightful)
Climate change will always be a heated debate.
However, there is something that will always be true and can't be debated no matter what your position on climate change is: it's our duty as human beings to protect our environment and do anything and everything we can do to treat it with love, respect and to look after it. We only have one Earth. Let's look after it. Isn't that something every human being can agree on?
Moving to clearer energies shouldn't be because of climate change, because to make it about that would mean that once we reach some magical number that a report says that our environment is now "fixed" we'll go back to our destructive ways as humans and put the environment on the bottom of the priority list.
Looking after the environment from this day, to the end of the days of sunshine is the right thing to do by humans. We shouldn't need any other reason other then it being "the right thing to do" to look after this one rock we have. It's really as simple as that. Let's look after Earth.
Re:How about we start believing in Human Change? (Score:5, Funny)
Climate change will always be a heated debate.
Wors.t pun. EVER.
Re:How about we start believing in Human Change? (Score:5, Insightful)
it's our duty as human beings to protect our environment and do anything and everything
Anything and everything probably means we should do collective suicide. Don't get me wrong I do mean we have to manage our world in a sustainable way, but I'm not opposed to human civilization and it having a carbon footprint. I'm not going back to the age before refrigerators, freezers, washing machine, dishwasher, microwave, computers, TV, radio, stereo, cell phones and as much electric light as I want even if the farm my great-grandparents had produced a much smaller footprint.
I also don't regret visiting three other continents and more than a dozen countries, no matter the carbon footprint of flying, or for that matter all the other vast improvements in transportation and not being stuck in the same old town most of your life. I don't support excessive consumption but I'm also glad I don't have to wear my clothes until they are literally falling apart, just until they're well worn and getting ugly.
Long story short, I like modern civilization. I know we might have to give up some excesses but for the most part I'd just like us to redirect our technological progress towards finding more effective ways to maintain the way we live rather than push the limits of how much energy we can burn. But I'm not ready to deeply cut back on my standard of living and when push comes to shove, so is very few others either.
Re:How about we start believing in Human Change? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not true of the majority of human beings, just a minority of psychopaths who by that kind of conditioning are also drawn to power. They love to promote that Hobbesian view because that's how their operating, but even monkeys in well-known lab experiments are more, well, "humane".
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Not true. Any neuro-scientist or evolutionary biologist will disprove that statement in a heartbeat. We are not necessarily wired to be evil. You should read "Wij zijn ons Brein" by Dick Swaab, or "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.
There are numerous examples of Altruism being an evolutionary stable strategy, and hence altruism and empathy are wired into us since the dawn of time.
There are some humans who tend to suffer from neurological damage, hormonal imbalance or other issues that cause them to act o
Re:How about we start believing in Human Change? (Score:4, Interesting)
Greetings, fellow sentient primate!
I'm simply too tired to feel afraid of anything anymore.
Or maybe you grew up.Happens to the best of us. :)
I do my best to protect the environment, but that's basically all I can do... no need to panic about things that are beyond my capability to change.
Do what you can, when you can. That's the most that can be expected of anyone.
Not all cultures on earth treat (or more importantly) have treated the earth as just another asset to exploit to the best of our abilities, but sadly as a result, our culture is in the large majority now which promotes the idea of "men above all else", and humans not being subject to or part of the ecosystem just like the birds and the bees. "Ishmael" by Dan Quinn (yeah I know, I keep mentioning that book) has an extremely valid explanation of "how things came to be this way", better than anything else I've read.
Read it, but be warned, it may change the way you view our culture *forever*.
Indeed. A few years ago, I met an incredibly wise man in Thailand. He was not a monk. He was a fruit-seller. He told me the best decision he'd ever made in his life was to quit his job as a factory foreman and to take up selling fruit from a bicycle-cart on the streets of Bangkok. As he put it (paraphrased), "I only make about half as much money now, but now I am doing honourable work, providing something to people that they enjoy and that is good for them. I have friends all over the city now. I don't have a job that makes me sometimes do bad things to people anymore. I get good exercise and sunshine and fresh air. I get to have lunch with my wife [who ran a noodle stand on Sukhumvit Soi 77] at least 3 days a week. I get to see my children when they finish school for the day. I have time again to visit the temple and to think about my life and how to make merit for all the beings in the world."
Thanks for the link. Looks like some interesting reading.
moderately skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I'm convinced that the bad aspects of climate change are played up, and the benefits arbitrarily dismissed.
However, it DOES seem to be occurring, and we should be concerned, and we need to further our understanding of climate science. Lastly... computer models of partially understood chaotic systems are worthless.
Re:moderately skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Climate Change is happening, but it's greatly exaggerated; and similarly, humans are contributing to it, but our contributions are greatly exaggerated.
I think this is a dangerous position, precisely because it sounds so reasonable. "The truth should be somewhere in-between Al Gore and the Koch brothers." Who could disagree?
But there's no reason that the truth should lie in the middle of these two extremes. Just because the two sides are equally loud doesn't mean they're equally right.
It's easy to dismiss the dire warnings of scientists as "greatly exaggerated", but much harder to justify this.
Lastly... computer models of partially understood chaotic systems are worthless.
Day-to-day weather phenomena are chaotic. Multi-year trends in global temperatures are not.
Re:moderately skeptical (Score:5, Interesting)
Multi-year trends in global temperatures are not.
Prove it.
Please, please show proof that any model with 10+ year response times is demonstrably valid.
The problem is that we only have ~100 years of good data and ~200 years of fair data and very poor data prior to that
The fundamental problem that I (as a person with a good knowledge of statistics) have is that all the data pre-processing (a.k.a. faking) that goes on gives unreasonably low estimates of the variance (or standard deviations or confidence intervals).
A good scientist should define a clear model and use all of the raw data to validate the model. Then and only then can the model be used to extrapolate - say to the future or to the causes of climate change.
Re:moderately skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that we only have ~100 years of good data
Wrong. What rock have you been living under? We have far more good data than that. Tree rings, lake sediments, and glacial cores give us several thousand years of good data. Glacial cores are good for several hundred thousand years. We also know much of the climate for millions of years. We are especially interested in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a time when the Earth warmed significantly, for comparison with today's conditions. PETM occurred about 55 million years ago, yet we know of it.
But I know that denying that we have good data is a staple of the denier's play book. If you had checked, you would have quickly learned how wrong that suggestion is.
Re: (Score:3)
Do "Tree rings, lake sediments, and glacial cores" really give you _good_ data? Is it accurate to tenths or hundredths of a degree C? I don't see how this could possibly be the case, but I remain open to explanations.
Honestly, I will remain a skeptic until I see a well written treatment of the uncertainties involved and how big the real error bars are on the predictions. The only write-up I've seen to date gave the IPCC 100 year warming prediction a +-10 degrees C uncertainty. That makes the prediction wort
Re:moderately skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
If by "good", you mean accurate, reliable, consistent, and relevant, not subject to too much uncertainty, then yes, tree rings do give good data. Where did you get the idea that an accuracy of 1/100 or 1/10 degree C is somehow necessary to make predictions with some degree of confidence? Is that how you are defining "good"? Why not demand an accuracy of 1/1000 degree C, or even more? Do you see that you can make any data fail to meet this definition of good? You must accept reasonable limits, or you will throw out all your data and cannot do any science at all.
Point you to a write-up on the uncertainties? Go take Statistics 101, and learn what a confidence interval is. We want to know is what the climate is doing, not waste time explaining basic statistics or math or all the other material every college student should know.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Bad fail here tree ring data is good only for showing how well a tree grew not temperature trees respond to more rain far more than the do to temperature lake sediments are just as useless for divining the temps and the glacial cores that are crowed about (btw they stopped crowing about those in 2009) show a distinct lag of CO2 BEHIND temps anywhere from 800-1200 years behind. get the real facts not just those regurgitated my the media (you know the media the ones that belived Al Gore when he said that the
Re: (Score:3)
you can't use data from the previous ones to predict it
What kind of weak assertion is that? You might as well say science doesn't work, as say something like that. Very convenient for deniers, Creationists, and other anti-intellectual ilk. Thinking doesn't work! Data is useless! Current conditions are so exceptional they're off the scale and science can't handle it! Doubt is our product.
Of course we can use past data to predict the future! And of course conditions never repeat exactly. We can handle that. We have to. More properly, we use past data
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, the world was quite different during the PETM. Continental drift alone made for considerable differences, in ocean currents, and in the absence of ice sheets. But as a guide for what may happen in the immediate future, PETM is valuable even though many of the details were different.
So how are changes that happened in millions of years will help us predict what will happen what will happen in the "immediate future"? These are completely different timescales.
Yes, we can, and should try to build models to predict climate change. And a fundamental part in model building is to focus on the important aspects of data, and leave out the irrelevant and the noise. In this case, what happened 50 million years ago is completely irrelevant. Trying to make our models fit multiple different geologic
Re: (Score:3)
As of late we've had some luck with the sun, but that can't be expected to hold out indefinitely so that people can emit even more greenhouse gasses.
We have also had the unexpectedly positive side-effect of increased global air travel in the form of tenuous high altitude clouds which serve to reflect a not insubstantial amount of thermal radiation back into space. If in weren't for those clouds, it would probably be a degree or two warmer *now*.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think you understand the reason why "Do we influence the climate?" is a political one. The Republicans are very closely tied to oil interests where the Democrats are not as closely tied. The Republicans fear they will lose out on the question "Should we try to neutralize our impact on the climate"? Conservatives should say "yes". After all it was conservatives who created the Environment Protection Agency (Nixon) and until the neo-conservatives rose to power in the late 90s, conservatives were a
Re: (Score:3)
Carbon dioxide is not "poison",
It's not just Carbon dioxide, it's mercury, lead, coke sludge, and a host of other dangerous and toxic chemicals. It's not just the congress critters either, most of the Republican candidates for the nomination are promising to destroy the EPA. Frankly, carbon dioxide is merely the least harmful pollutant in the bunch.
Attacking one group or political party isn't going to fix anything.
Really? We shouldn't criticize a political party based on their actions?
Re: (Score:3)
Actually the thermal output of human activities is so small compared to solar input that you can basically ignore it. It could increase by a factor of 100 and still wouldn't cause the surface of the Earth to reach the boiling point.
Missing Option: (Score:3, Insightful)
Agnostic.
I don't know either way.
My beliefs (Score:4, Insightful)
* It's real.
* Enough of it is caused by humans to call it our fault.
* Even for the parts that aren't our fault, we should still be trying to do something about it.
* But we won't, because it's more convenient to stick our heads in the sand.
* So it's going to happen.
* Therefore we should start looking past prevention: How do we adapt to the world that's coming? How should we prepare?
Re:My beliefs (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in the Netherlands we have been preparing for the effects of global warming for a few years now. As you know most of our country is below sea level and we have to protect it with dykes and other technical marvels. The rising sea levels are not such a big problem, but we have three big rivers that will carry a lot more water in the coming years. Every spring the water level will increase drastically because the snow in the Alps melts. We have to make sure all that water doesn't pose a danger to people living near the rivers. So among other things we make big basins in which water can be temporarily stored until the flow in the river decreases laterf the year.
Re:My beliefs (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not some climate model. It has been measured directly (it's just 1 parameter) that the flowrates of the rivers through the Netherlands are going through higher peak flowrates in spring than in the last couple of centuries.
So, we know that the climate is changing all over the world. And we know that upstream from the rivers in the Netherlands, somehow there is more rain/snow than normal (also climate change). The logical conclusion is that this is part of the climate change.
The only question that remains is who is to blame.
I'm a believer myself. I haven't seen the models, but it seems to make a lot of sense. And I think that if we can change the entire surface of the earth, then we can probably change its atmosphere as well. I think we are a more likely suspect than the sun.
Re: (Score:3)
Hows there more snow if it's warmer?
I'm fairly certain AC is just trolling, but for the benefit of everyone else:
First of all, for snow, it doesn't matter if it's -5 C or -1 C, it's enough to be below 0 C. So as long as effect of shorter winter is less than effect of increased snowfall, there will be more snow.
Second, there's going to be more rainwater overall, which has to go through the same river, so the "buffers" that normally can hold the water so it flows slower will be more full throughout the year. So less of the spring flood will be
Re: (Score:3)
As they say, "God created the world, but the Dutch created Holland".
Naaa... God created earth in 6 days, everything else is made in China! :)
Re: (Score:3)
* It's real.
Of course it's real. We know there have been ice ages and hot ages. It would be silly to think that climate doesn't change.
* Enough of it is caused by humans to call it our fault.
Climate change happens naturally too. We know we are due (or even overdue) for a change, but we didn't keep accurate records last time around, so we don't know for sure what is natural and consequently, what is abnormal. It may well be that a warming period is natural before an ice age.
* Even for the parts that aren't our fault, we should still be trying to do something about it.
In other words, we should be deliberately changing the climate? To what? How?
* But we won't, because it's more convenient to stick our heads in the sand.
When we were last o
Re:My beliefs (Score:5, Insightful)
but we didn't keep accurate records last time around, so we don't know for sure what is natural and consequently, what is abnormal.
Geologists disagree. Geological records don't track day to day weather, but they are quite accurate when you're looking at climate.
In other words, we should be deliberately changing the climate? To what? How?
We should resist going over a tipping point at least until we understand what we're doing. Some of the factors are natural, but there are several big ones (particularly greenhouse gas emissions) that we have the technological ability to control. The political will to do so is another matter.
We're going to run out of gas, then out of food, then have a population crash through war and starvation.
Between geothermal, solar, wind, coal, and nuclear we have plenty of energy to run mechanized farming to support 10B people, easily. Worst case, nuclear alone can supply all the energy we need for the rest of human civilization, but it freaks people out so we won't use that option as long as coal is available. Global warming is only one of a dozen reasons coal is a terrible energy source, but we have enough to last 100+ years. Best case, solar technology will really take off in the next decade or two.
Energy will not be the limiting factor. The big threat to the food supply is global warming, which will ruin quite a bit of our current farmland.
The fact that it might be a few degrees hotter will be trivia at best, relative to our other problems.
No one cares that it gets a few degrees hotter. That heat is mostly at night, and the distribution puts it mostly in the arctic. Locally you won't see any huge changes in your daytime highs.
The problems are much bigger: many areas will get severely too much rainfall; subtropical deserts will get dryer and grow; we get more heat waves, droughts, floods; it reduces our fresh water supply; and much more.
So, we should change the climate the way we want it to be, but since nobody cares enough to do so, we should prepare for the way we are changing the climate?
Yes, we SHOULD change the climate the way we want it to be (or more accurately, stop changing the climate in ways that we will regret). But if we lack the will to do so, we need to start coming up with Plan B.
Re: (Score:3)
If it was just a little warmer it'd be fine, but it's more complicated than that.
First, you're also getting more cloud cover. The reduced sunlight affects growing more than the temperature does.
Second, it might work out OK for northern Canada, but there are only 12 people living there. Northern Siberia has a few more, but still, it's not the seat of humanity. The subtropics have LOTS of people, and they're going to be seeing a lot less rainfall and a lot more desert. That's where the problem is.
Re: (Score:3)
1) Fair enough - the general consensus is that GW grows the Sahara, but it's far from universal.
2) Deserts aren't created by heat - they're created by drought. The effects of GW vary greatly by region. Generally it results in "more extreme" weather. While some areas will get more rain, the models predict less in the area of the Sahara.
Religion (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny that when it comes to religion or global warming or whatever the term of the day for the effects of increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere is, many people switch off their brains and shout or do the most outrageous things.
Re: 'Belief' in Science (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe we should seek efficiency and reduced pollution. Beyond that, I don't care. Let the planet change, and humanity adapt.
Scientists Vote Sceptic (Score:5, Insightful)
Climate change is a very well understood phenomenon with good cross-supported models and data which repeated shows there is a global temperature increase. But that all being said, there is no room in science for complacency. If someone came to me tomorrow and said "I have contradicting data," I would respond "great, show me!"
Saying you "believe it" is bad science. It is a belief. It isn't evidence or data based. Saying you're sceptical but the evidence up to this point shows X, Y, and Z keeps you a neutral observer which is an important position within the field.
Re:Scientists Vote Sceptic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
most people are not scientists, i voted believe it because a lot of people that i consider to be a lot smarter than me have stated that it's true. neutral observers only count when money isn't involved.
Don't ever, ever, ever say something must be true because someone(s) smarter than me said it must be true. If they smart people can't convince you by presenting their methods, data, and conclusions, then they're not that smart and don't really understand what they are trying to say.
Well, that also depends greatly on *you*. Are you a physicist? No? Well, then you have no way of really appreciating their elaborate research and evidence. And if a climate scientist thinks you're an uneducated bigot, they very correctly choose to concentrate on their research instead of trying to convince you. Actually, even if they don't think that, they make that choice. A great researcher is not often a great educator, and the few who are educate people in universities. Scientists are not politicians.
Re: (Score:3)
My, you are a quite piece of work, aren't you?
Re:Scientists Vote Sceptic (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a scientist but I voted "Know It (and can prove it)". Then again, I am a geologist (that tends to take things literally), and the poll said nothing about time scales or suspected causes. Climate change happens, and there is enough data in the geologic record to show that is a factual statement.
There is no scientific shame in saying that you agree with a hypothesis or theory if there is a sufficient amount of data behind it. Now, what a scientist shouldn't do, is dismiss other data that seem contradictory. You can (and should!) still be of the "great, show me!" camp even if you have sided with a model. Things can get ugly when scientists entrench themselves.
It is also important not to confuse facts and theories. The observations and measurements that are used to indicate climate is changing, are facts. These facts must then be rolled into a hypothesis for explanation. The debate about the causes and significance of those changes are debates about hypotheses. Even if you don't agree that scientists should choose definitive sides when it comes to hypotheses, with there should certainly be no shame in acknowledging the facts of the matter.
As a geologist, not "believing" in climate change would mean I have ignored the facts (observations, measurements) within my field, which, to me, is more scientifically damning. I am not going to sit in the neutral grey, but I will keep my mind open about things. What we scientists really need is a new word other than "belief" to express agreement with data & hypotheses.
Re: (Score:3)
Climate scientists might vote sceptic. Personnally, as a scholar, i voted "believe it". Because you could show me the best proof ever, I won't be able to recognize it. So at this point, I need to rely on someone else expertise. And then that's a belief.
No option for "Leave Me the Hell Alone" (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks, the climate is changing. Bang, period, end of sentence. We know this because the climate has always been in a state of flux ever since the Earth first formed. In some places it's growing warmer: in other places it's growing colder. In other places the temperature is remaining constant but rainfall is increasing, in other places the desert is encroaching, and so forth. The word "climate" covers a lot of ground, a lot more than just global temperatures. Focusing on just one number (temperature) and then reducing it to meaninglessness by trying to average it out over the whole world (as if that number means something) is not exactly wisdom, you know?
Yes, I believe in anthropogenic climate change. We're part of the system. It's crazy to believe that we have no possible impact on our global climate. We can argue over how much impact we have, but it's definitely nonzero.
And yet, the instant I say that I'm skeptical of the apocalyptic forecasts and I doubt the predictive ability of the computer models used, and that rather than spend trillions of dollars on efforts to turn back the clock on a climate that's going to change on us anyway even if we succeed in undoing our changes I'd rather see us spend trillions of dollars adjusting humanity to the new climate realities --
In that instant I get shouted down and denounced as a denialist, as being in obdurate denial of "the science," as being in league with Bjorn Lomborg, as...
This has happened to me enough times that my new attitude on climate change is this: believe what you want but leave me the hell alone.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Those meanies, arguing passionately on an issue that only affects the future of the human race. I hope they apologized for making you feel sad.
Re: (Score:3)
AGW (Score:4, Insightful)
Up front I'll say that I believe in GW and most likely AGW.
But what gets me about some people with the opposing view is their belief (in case they are wrong) is that anything that is manmade can be reversed. When I hear that I want to smack them around the head with a very dense fruit cake and tell them
"Here - lets see you reduce this cake to its raw ingredients".
missing option (Score:4)
"Skeptic, but believe we need to take action now."
consensus! consensus! consensus! (Score:3, Insightful)
the earth is the center of the universe, the debate is over, there is consensus.
there are some scary similarities between the people crying consensus and the 16th century catholic church.
No Comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually there aren't any similarities.
Galileo confronted the powerful with a novel line of hard facts and was subsequently arrested.
Deniers comfort the powerful by repeating the exact same lines of debunked bullshit to the credulous Fox News demographic and are made fabulously wealthy by fossil fuel executives.
Re:No Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Galileo was arrested and silenced. Global warming deniers not only walk free but are given prime time cable news coverage. There is zero similarity. Deniers aren't being silenced at all but are having their voices amplified and over represented in the media.
Who Cares if Humans Caused It? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's our problem, whether we caused it or not.
I'm so sick of the argument over whether humans contribute to global warming. Who cares? The finger pointing gets us nowhere. IF global warming is a problem for our future humans are the only ones who might be able to do something about it.
Human Scale (Score:5, Informative)
I think a major part of the problem is that people don't have a sense of scale. When it comes to something the size of the whole planet, I totally understand that people have difficulty wrapping their head around it. Add the complexity of climate on top of that, and you get a a lot of confusion.
One thing that I think really put things into perspective for me was Tom Murphy's Do The Math [ucsd.edu] blog. In his most recent post he lays things out (to explain why bio-fuels are a scam) in terms of power consumption:
Photosynthesis for all life on the planet: 80TW
Human power consumption: 13TW
Food eaten by humans: 0.5TW
Those numbers are not so different. In terms of power, humans are on the same scale as all plant life on earth. Mankind is a major player in planetary affairs. Given these numbers I would not be surprised at all to find that we have a huge impact on the planet.
Weird language choice (Score:3)
Why the word believe in a poll of science for an option that indicates acceptance of current theory? Belief is for religious discussions for it implies faith. I don't have faith in science, I know science, and science is about exploring and explaining, not converting the unwashed.
The only constant is change..... (Score:3)
Yet, we are the stewards of this planet and taking reasonable steps toward producing cleaner energy and reducing waste and pollution are good things. But we need to be especially vigilant and resist those who would hijack a good idea to create chaos and crisis so they can demand greater control over our shrinking freedoms.
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if you *do* have tenure, you could make a huge reputation for yourself and could get a job anywhere you wanted if you could prove that climate change was false. And if you can't get a grant from one of the government sources, there are plenty of fossil fuel industry and conservative think tanks that would gladly fund your research.
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Looking only at the funding on one side of the issue does nothing but support your own bias. Lying liars are everywhere where there is money. If you don't look at both sides, you will be taken for everything you have and more.
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:5, Insightful)
Money is everywhere, but lets be perfectly frank. The 95-98% of climate and related field scientists in the world that have looked at the evidence see clear evidence of man assisting in the climate change happening. These scientists had job and made livings prior to this whole issue coming up, and have not become rich via the government grants that have been passed out to determine what's going on. Any real scientist here can tell you that research like this is not the way to become a millionaire. If no one had ever brought up climate change, these people would still have jobs , and be making a living that's quite probably on par with the one they have now.
On the other side, you have an industry that has for it's entire existence made a profit off of it's ability to pour as much pollution into the environment as it possible can to make the most profit it possibly can. It has lobbied consistently to be allowed to do so, placing their profit over the health, well-being, and very lives of people. They've been using the same misinformation tactics that Big Tobacco did for decades, costing the lives of millions upon millions around the world.. for profit.
So yes, the "follow the money" meme is a very valid point, and both sides do need to be looked at through it. What you fail to realize is, most people have already done that. They aren't fooled by the conservative, anti-government, anti-society talking point that somehow these researchers are getting rich, just as they aren't fooled by any suggestion that Big Oil gives a fucking shit about anything other than profit. Any person with common sense can see which one of these groups is lacking integrity in it's arguments, and yes, it is entirely about money.
I admit i do have a bias. I think anyone who lets people die so they can make a buck should be the next person on the gurney for a lethal injection.
Re: (Score:3)
As much as I am a left winger who doesn't believe that Corporations are People, to name an example, your notion of what Big Oil does is a bit skewed.
Both Shell and Statoil (the latter being the Norwegian Government's oil company) are doing tons of research into other forms of energy than just oil. Statoil is using a part of its profits to make the statement by the Norwegian government to be 100% CO2 neutral as a country by 2020 come true.
What I think is horrible in this discussion is that both "sides" of th
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, I bet you there's a lot of scientists who are millionaires. Take, for instance, my wife's adviser - he's pretty well paid (it's a public institution, so every researcher's salary is published, and his was somewhere i
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:4, Interesting)
Funnily enough I saw a story once about an oil company and a conservative think tank sponsoring research by a professor into climate change. I think it was mentioned on the Daily Show, but I don't remember the professor or University involved.
You would, as Jon Stewart pointed out, expect a certain outcome if you adhere to the money dictates research philosophy. What's funny is that this research report showed that climate change is real, and on top of it, it is influenced by us.
So the Money argument isn't waterproof.
Re: (Score:3)
The money argument isn't as simple as you think. When proper research threatens your profits, you can do two things about it: 1) try to disprove proper research with crap research 2) use crap research to confuse the public into thinking that proper research is inconclusive.
Option 1 is out of the question because average lifetime of crap research paper in actual expert community is a few months tops. People who understand the problem will find holes and made-up shit in the paper really quickly. Keep writing
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. If global temperatures ever do start to fall consistently, then climatologists will acknowledge it. Localised changes in weather that result in temperature drops can be explained by (A)GW, though, and sometimes this is counterintuitive when you look out the window. February in the UK was really, really cold - one of the coldest Februaries on record. My mum tutted about "global warming nonsense", just seconds before the weather forecaster said "but globally, this February is one of the warmest on record". If global warming causes the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation to shut down due to glacial runoff, then northern Europe will enter a localised ice age. The rest of the world will still get warmer, though, and I don't want the UK to be covered in ice (even though that would increase the Earth's albedo and help contribute to cooling).
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you ever stop to consider that maybe climate change is happening and the reason why you can't prove to anyone that it's not happening, is because it is happening? I mean it's really hard to find proof that gravity doesn't exist for reasons that should be obvious.
Climate change isn't a simple process so that means that some places get warmer and some place get cooler, for example because of changes to ocean currents and wind patterns. Overall it's been consistently getting warmer for over half a century. Earthquakes and volcanoes are unrelated to climate change and I don't recall ever hearing anyone say they were linked. Floods and droughts, however, will both increase again because some areas will get more rain and some less, and some will get the same amount over time but will get shorter periods with more rain. This again is dictated by the effects on the local climate, dry areas tend to get dryer and wet areas tend to get wetter because warmer air carries more moisture with it. Dry areas are those where the air picks up the moisture and wet areas are where the moisture gets released.
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a data collector, I get paid a set salary regardless of the outcome. I calibrate the instruments, install, and maintain them. And then send the data to different groups for processing. There are other companies doing the same job that I do. There are people who watch Fox News a lot that I work for, who would love to prove it wrong. If anything, you would think that there would be lots of money in it for us to 'create' data showing it wasn't happening. Yet, we are honest to a fault, and there is plenty of evidence around the world and from airborne sensors.
I would also worry about the corruption of money on the Green side, but I haven't seen it yet. We would be willing to come up with a solution that would help change the emissions of CO2 (Although I worry a lot more about the 'other' pollutants), that everyone could agree upon. The right would get to start new businesses, and get money to allow existing ones to transition to cleaner power. Plus, they would get cleaner air and send fewer dollars to OPEC, and other foreign countries. The Left would get a lot more alternative energy, more 'green' jobs, and cleaner air. Hopefully we would fight fewer wars over oil and have fewer oil spills as well.
The problem is real, and we should be able to work on a good solution that the vast majority of Americans would be happy with.
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=299#
Re:Understand academics and money (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, what the fuck is going on with /. recently? We just got rid of the fucktard creationists 2-3 years ago and now we have infestations of fucktard global warming denialists and even worse the libertardians. Is it a case of one step forward, two steps back?
However, it seems we're stuck with the profanitarians. Now, I'm no prude and I am not actually offended by profanity as such. Indeed, I have been known to drop the f-bomb every so often - occasionally, there's really no suitable alternative - but peppering one's speech with such language really demonstrates an apalling lack of imagination. Sometimes I think that those who write like that only do so because it's as close as they will ever get to a fuck.
Re:global warming denialist==fucktard creationist (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
You are so very right.
Look no further than to this loser, for a perfect example of an inarticulate motherfucker who uses profanity as a crutch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM [youtube.com]
Re:global warming denialist==fucktard creationist (Score:4, Insightful)
They're the same set of people. The anarcho-libertarians have long ago convinced themselves that the government must always be evil. The government is the only organization with sufficient power to ameliorate global warming, which would be a good thing. But since the government must be evil, then either global warming doesn't exist or it is a good thing.
Essentially, their brains are broken. They have this one idea (government == bad) that defines them, and they can't shake it. Important note: as with all crazy extremists, this isn't all libertarians, just the vocal ones that go about mindlessly claiming that we should shut down half the government and trust in the All Mighty Free Market (PBUH) to protect us. Unfortunately, libertarians of this sort have basically taken over.
Re: (Score:3)
True, one government probably can't do it. But if the US and EU teamed up on it, that would probably be enough. Yes, China is a major polluter, but that's because they're manufacturing stuff for us. If both the US and EU passed laws saying that we will not import goods from factories that don't meet certain requirements, that would go a long way. And as an added benefit, it would help bring jobs back home by reducing China's cost advantage.
Re:global warming denialist==fucktard creationist (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I much preferred this place when it consisted only of people with the same opinion, all busily agreeing with each other about their shared rightness.
Back then, we imagined that group-think was a bad thing.
But now it is positively a virtue! Down with the denialists, the libertardians, the thought criminals, the creationists! Let us be rid of them all! Let us return to the peaceful conformity of agreement about almost everything. Let our minds be troubled only by the most banal and pointless arguments about technology and games. For our freedom must include freedom from dissidents; and therefore, the one freedom we cannot allow is the freedom to dissent.
Re: (Score:3)
Let us return to the peaceful conformity of agreement about almost everything. Let our minds be troubled only by the most banal and pointless arguments about technology and games.
I miss those days. :-(
Re:global warming denialist==fucktard creationist (Score:5, Insightful)
You say you are a skeptic. What studies are you skeptical off, and what studies do you think provide sufficient evidence? You claim scientific fraud. Is that the whole field, or particular papers? What are you skeptical off exactly?
In other words: if you're skeptical about methods, that's fine. Point to the papers that are flawed, and point to conclusions that are drawn from these. If you're just skeptical about conclusions, without knowing anything about how these conclusions came to be, you're simply in denial. Maybe you're the exception, but most self-proclaimed skeptics are simply in denial. They don't know enough about the subject matter to be a skeptic.
Re: (Score:3)
You're just nitpicking the phrasing. Yes, 'save the planet' translates to 'ensure the planet can continue to sustain human life without global catastrophe.' I don't see any Gaia theorists around here, so I don't know who you think you're refuting. You're just being pedantic for the sake of being disagreeable.
Re:hypocricy (Score:5, Interesting)
"The mosquito knows full well, small as he is
he's a beast of prey.
But after all
he only takes his bellyful,
he doesn't put my blood in the bank."
-DH Lawrence
Re: (Score:3)
Of course nature will find a balance. Every dynamic system does. The question is: will we be still in it?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:There's been Global Warming since the Ice Age (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, Big Green is bigger than Big Oil!*
*Please pretend math doesn't exist
Re:A minor bit is due to man (Score:4)
Most climate change is seasonal.
Climate is not the same thing as weather. Weather changes seasonally. Climate averages those seasonal changes out.
The difference is "It will rain on Thursday, but be sunny on Friday" versus "average rainfall for 2010 was 100 cm".
Re:CowboyNeal (Score:5, Funny)
FTFY - CowboyNeal never should have been fed those beans.
Climate Change Denialism is a Hoax (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to be Fair and Balanced about your poll options, you also need that one (in addition to the CowboyNeal, of course.)
If climate change is real, and serious, then Congress need to do something serious in response, even though it has a big impact on businesses such as oil, coal, automobiles, and other heavy manufacturing, and on consumerism in general.
The Republican Party Machine has been pushing Climate Change Denialism for years. It fits nicely with Evolution Denialism, but the purposes are different - evolution is yet another hook for getting the religious conservatives to believe they should be political conservatives (instead of being liberals, which their religion teaches them), and denying evolution keeps people in the habit of disbelieving science, but climate change denialism is a core message for the Republicans' corporate sponsors, who don't want Congress interfering with their business.
Re: (Score:3)
Unless that new volcano is on the scale of a supervolcano eruption like Yellowstone it won't put out enough pollutants to do squat. After all the two largest eruptions of the 20th Century, Novarupta in 1912 and Pinatubo in 1991 only caused 2 or 3 years of slight cooling. As you say it depends on the magnitude of the eruption and if the volcano is big enough to do as you say it will lead to the downfall of human civilization.
Re:Real? Maybe. But probably not AGW (Score:4, Interesting)
The issue isn't the temperature it's how much and how quickly. An increase of 2 degrees over the course of a millions years isn't that big of a deal species will adapt or die out. But when that same 2 degree change happens over the course of a lifetime species don't have time to adapt and you run the risk of severely damaging biodiversity in a way that might now recover any time soon.
If this were happening naturally there would be an argument for letting it be, but it's not natural, we're causing it and as such there's no guarantee that there will be any sort of check to keep us from wiping out all life on the planet the way that bacteria do in a test tube.
Re: (Score:3)
1. Most of the ice is on land, not floating. The arctic and antarctic ice has land under it.
2. Larger, not healthier. Current forests, what of them still exists, are equally dense, just the plants are individually smaller. This makes no difference in the proliferation of wildfires.
3. You must have misplaced some decimals to come to the conclusion that natural CO2 sources outweigh humans.
4. Or the arctic and antarctic landmasses where somewhere else in the past. Specifically, they were previously where e
Re: (Score:3)
To be fair, most of the mass of ice in the arctic is located on Greenland. There is lots of ice spread around the arctic but most of it is less than 5 meters thick. The ice sheet on Greenland averages more than 2 km thick.
Re: (Score:3)
Wow, you're almost a parody of yourself.
Denialist meme no 23 (Score:3)
Ah yes the one false newspaper article that lead to that fuss in the 70's did get a lot of publicity didnt it, Lets not let the facts (that no such thing was postualted by science) get in the way of an irrational scepticism.
Re: (Score:3)
GLOBAL COOLING!
Oh stop! From 1965 to 1979 there were over 6 times as many peer reviewed papers on global warming than on global cooling (44/7). That a couple of the cooling papers got some publicity in Time and Newsweek is the only reason you heard about them.